Latest / MaxValue Podcast / Leading People, Reading Culture, Building Value Ft. Mike Roe

Transcript

Leading People, Reading Culture, Building Value Ft. Mike Roe · MaxValue Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Since your career path isn't just a straight line here, you went from commanding a fairly major uh police force uh to running a software company, how did that happen?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was a leadership mentoring company.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: We'd always had a diagnostic tool, an early version of which I used when I amalgamated Bristol and Please, and then we became a consultancy with a cool tool.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then about eight years ago we actually realized we were a software.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that makes leadership require that trusted group which can be vulnerable?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: So why is leadership so important?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Probably a bunch of people that we've got to work with to make stuff happen.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And life is much better and happier if we're aligned around a set of happens.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I passionately believe that you know long-term success requires leaders to do four things actually, create the purpose and direction, secondly, align people around that, thirdly, motivate people, and fourthly, create a culture of leadership.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, work people and it takes a lot of courage to open yourself up and think maybe I'm not always right on everything.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Life business is still a human interaction, it's still an emotional game.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Here is the threat, here is the opportunity.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now go work with that.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is all about how can we quickly spot the opportunities to improve our performance.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Max Value, the show for business owners and their trusted advisors who are on a mission to maximize their value with business valuation, exit planning, strategy, and maybe even getting a finger on the pulse of your business culture.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Ben Town, and today we're joined by Mike Rowe of Ten Cents.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: He's the CEO over there.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's a UK-based SaaS company which helps organizations take a real finger on the pulse of their teams using structured sense making and leadership science.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: And before that, he was a chief superintendent in Bristol for the police department there, commanding over 1,500 officers.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, Mike, welcome.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Ben.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Very pleased to be here.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for asking me.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Happy to have you.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And as as we see in the background, it's it's morning my time here in in uh PST, and it's uh nighttime uh where where you are in uh dark all day, and the weather is horrendous.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, so it looks the same all day long, but it's no no problem.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Happy to have you here virtually.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh is there anything I should have added to your uh to your bio there?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, that's fine.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, okay, good.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of, since your career path isn't just a straight line here, you went from commanding a fairly major uh police force uh to running a software company.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: How did that how did that happen?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Take us through the history of that.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I don't think anybody saw that coming, least of all, least of all me.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: But um, so I guess the abridged version, Ben, is I was a failed banker.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh having previously not got many exams at school, I joined the bank uh because my mum said that'd be a good idea.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I survived for a year in the Midland Bank, and I guess two things happened out of that.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: One is I met my wife, and secondly, I decided banking wasn't for me.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, anyway, my father had been a police officer, and I came home one day and he said, uh, oh, we're recruiting at the moment.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, I've just had another day of high-powered banking, uh, which I hate.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, get me a form.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so the next thing I knew, I found I was in the police service.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I spent nearly 30 years, uh, most of that as a detective.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: But as you rightly said, for the last seven years, uh, was a privilege to command Bristol in the UK, and it was during that period that I uh met the founder of what was then a company called Footdown.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Footdown was a leadership and mentoring company, and I found myself being a member, and it was the first time in my career there was a place that I could go and have the kind of conversations you can't have anywhere else, a place where you could go and be truly vulnerable and learn and be inspired from people who weren't working in the industry that I was working in, i.e., policing.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it wasn't long after joining that um a business developed out of that mentoring group, which meant that the founder, the guy that was running that business, uh, went off to be the CEO of a new company.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so he asked me if I would uh jump from my cozy public sector pension, as we call it over here in the UK, and go and run the organization.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so, without boring your listeners, you know, it at that point it was a leadership mentoring company.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: We'd always had a diagnostic tool, uh, an early version of which I used when I amalgamated Bristol in the police, and then we became a consultancy with a cool tool.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then about eight years ago, we actually realized we were a software company, and that the passion of inspiring leaders and organizations to be the best they could be hadn't changed.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we realized our contribution was in build was in deploying the diagnostic to do the heavy lifting for organizations.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: That that's a brief version of how I how I came from a cop to be a software guru, not good, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a especially the way the way you're able to uh tell the story.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it does draw the through line between policing, which doesn't sound at all the same as doing leadership software, essentially.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: But it but truly it is, you know, through the through that uh evolution of mentoring to then really taking taking some of those same insights and making a one-to-many type of type of product so you can actually expand your reach as a coach, as a you know, as a mentor, as a leader.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so that's very cool.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, go ahead.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean you're just stimulating the thought.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, one of the things that when you look back, it was how do you get your your arms around 1500 people, multiple sites, different functions?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do you tap into what's really going on?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that when I used to leave my headquarters, did I go left or did I go right?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, did I go over there because there was something not working as well and I needed to go and check it out, or do I go over there because someone's doing some great work and I need to go and thank them?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you're you're your musings, your stimulate that I guess all the things I've done have always been connected by building, trying to build high-performing teams, try to solve problems, and try to deliver either a great customer experience or community experience.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the connection I think uh between them.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's an interesting thing.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: The uh the concept of community and customer being in the case of uh the police department, the same.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Your customer is the community, literally.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then when when we talk about having a a community for you know for say my business, I mean those are the customers.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I I have seen actually there's there have there's been a a little bit of a trend to talking about your customer set as a as a community, part of you know the XYZ firm's community.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really really interesting.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in a certain way, we're bringing a lot of how we interact as people with in our personal lives to our business life.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think at least certain aspects of that make it really uh really more dynamic and and more uh more strong, and you know, a lot of the relationships more sticky, which is you know what you need to do uh to have a good good strong business.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, values, it's values, culture, and leadership.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, those are the things that connect for me that that's it, right?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And well, and think about it.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's what we do in our in our personal lives as well as our business life.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it all makes sense to me.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when when we're talking about uh being a leader of professionals, and you know, as as as you've been in multiple uh multiple facets of life, and they need a you know, in the in you've been a coach, you've been a mentor, uh, and you've been literally that that leader uh multiple different different times.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's really important to have the trusted advisor group, right?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: So what what what is it that makes leadership require that trusted group where you can be vulnerable?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: And why is leadership so lonely?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I have my answer, obviously.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I think the first thing to say is that um leadership is a continual kind of I hate this phrase on it, a continual journey.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, every day is a school day, and I think the moment that you think you've cracked it is probably the moment when you are most vulnerable, and people, if they really, you know, would really tell you the truth, would would would tell you.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I I don't think we ever we ever get there, I don't think we're ever done.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so if you are a leader, I mean I I think over the years, I look back now and I go, there's absolutely no no no doubt about I'd be a much better leader now, given what I've done in the last 20 years than what I did in the first 20 years when you're making it up and and all the rest of it.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think whether you're an accountancy firm, a public sector organization, a FTSE, whatever you are, actually they're all connected by we get up every day with a purpose.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably a bunch of people that we've got to work with to make stuff happen, and life is much better and happier if we're aligned, aligned around a set of values.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, you know, what the great leaders do is they are both curious and prepared to be vulnerable.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we can all think of leaders around the world in high-profile roles that aren't either of those because it's my way or the highway, or they are too scared to admit that actually somebody else might have a better idea, and and so they behave in a way that you know might give short-term success for an organization.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I passionately believe that you know, long-term success requires leaders to do to do four things actually.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've always followed a bit of a mantra of four things.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, create the purpose and direction.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: What's the vision?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, align people around that, and that's easier said than done.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, motivate people, and fourthly, create a culture of leadership because you can't be there all the time.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in my old world, you know, I'd lie awake at night sometimes thinking, you know, what mayhem and crisis is happening on the streets now, you know.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, now I worry about whether there's a software outage or, you know, whatever.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: But but you take my point that that, you know, so it's not complicated on one level, but actually being persistent and doing these simple things well all the time is is tough.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so come back to your point, which is when we don't have anybody we can sound off with, truly sound off with, then life's tough.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't for many, many, many years.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, at all.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't really till I left the police service and became a coach that I realized what I'd been missing.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, joining a mentoring group, as I said, that was the first time I realized.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I've still been running that group now, 25 years on.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, yesterday, we yesterday we had our meeting.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you imagine, you know, you've got 12 CEOs and entrepreneurs sat around the table, all sharing their stuff in an environment where you can say what needs to be said, and it's it's uh it's very humbling, uh, but it's very powerful.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think the you know, we we we say things like you you need to be willing to be vulnerable and and you need a place to do that, uh, that that's safe.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that all sounds very can sound very squishy and you know, vi vibe-oriented, uh, etc.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, I mean we're we're people, and it takes a lot of a lot of courage to open yourself up and and think maybe I'm not always right on on everything, uh, particularly when the way you do things, and I see this with small businesses all the time.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, the way you do things works, or at least has worked.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so trying to trying to say, well, we're we're doing fine, and then opening yourself up to criticism, that that feels very weird.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh and and it does take a lot of uh courage to get you know, kind of get over the hump of okay, may be good or not, maybe it's not perfect, maybe we can do better.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's try it.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think for me, I mean, I don't think anywhere I've worked where I thought, right, I am right on top of this business, this agenda, I know everything.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and and so therefore, most people know more than you, and I think the leader's job is to tap into that.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I really interesting.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yesterday we had a speaker come to talk to us, and it this will not resonate in in the US, I know, but it was a guy called Will Carlin.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And Will Carlin was the captain of England rugby team at 22 years of age.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you imagine being made the CEO of a company at 22 years of age where all the other players are you know big experienced BZ.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm using that just as a metaphor, for you have to you have to deal with that in a very different way.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so we all know there are quite a lot of different leadership styles, and there is no wrong style, there is just a wrong time to use it, and so we as leaders, you know, I've got six people now.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have as much grief and trouble you know leading six people with all their needs and all the rest of it than you know, 1500.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't I don't think the agenda changes, it's a mindset thing, and I think if we think we know it all, there's a good chance we're gonna disempower and disengage the people who are looking at us going, you muppet.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely a a definitely something where you could employ situational leadership, something where if you're only bringing a hammer to the job, then you everything looks like a nail.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, make sure you have a full toolkit.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's also sorry, it's a true way.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's we're talking about it's not about soft fluffy, you know, and sometimes there are situations where we as a leader have got to make decisions, yeah.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, there is something called perching.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: We use this phrase perching.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if if this podcast allows time, but Dr.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Mike Carter, who built the Ten Cents product, talked about perching, and so he uses the analogy of birds.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so what birds do, and you know, you go, you know, birds fly.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: What happens to them if they don't perch?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we know what happens, they'd fall out of the sky and die.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is with executives or teams, and so the the metaphor is you know, the bird perches, it has a little look around for signs of danger, takes on a bit of nourishment, bit of fornication if the time of year is right, and goes again, and goes again.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you use that metaphor for us as leaders and teams, and teams don't always do that, they haven't got time to work on it because they're always working in it.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that pause, are we in the right direction?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are we together here?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: What am I missing?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I think organizations can't afford not to do.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's definitely a sense of uh of rest that can come with that perching idea.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and you know, when when birds do it, they the you know, you get see them on a uh a telephone wire or whatnot.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's really the only the the birds on the outside, yeah, at the ends of the line that are really being more active looking out for danger, and the ones on the inside are able to uh to rest their rest themselves a little bit a little bit better.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: I have no idea how that actually plays in, but it's it it's got to be in the metaphor somewhere.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's also about renewal.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what you're talking about, and that's quite interesting, isn't it?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: You look after each other.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it we're in a world now where a bit of kindness and a bit of support for each other wouldn't go amiss.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, right, absolutely.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not it is not just charity.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, look, there's times that I that I'm tired, and I, you know, uh actually, you know, later today uh get to take off on a uh on a two-day away with my uh with my wife, and I just need it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the the team is is looking out, you know, to make sure that the everything is taken care of.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a at least it's enlightened self-interest at worst, right?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um you gotta have somebody watching your back.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: So when when people think of a you know a software company, and and by the way, I love the fact that you guys have gone from a kind of a a one-to-one-to-one, one-to-few type of coaching service to being a software company where you can touch a lot of people in a very leveraged way.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's kind of the dream in a certain sense.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you can take what you do and and multiply it out by uh you know a million times.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but when people hear software company, they think of you know venture capital and you know the the ping pong table in the office and you know, puffer vests and all that stuff.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but you're you guys aren't really the same.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you guys are you know a small business with you know, yeah, some uh uh angel uh capital uh in in the company, but when you're talking about running a you know a small agile you know SaaS company, I mean what's what's your experience of that?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's a book.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not a SaaS company, just to be clear, not not yet.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we are still uh yeah, we provide software to organizations uh that enables the leadership to know to really know what's going on in their business.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a warning system.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think but to directly answer your question without going into the spiel about where we are, uh I mean, yeah, you you just don't know what you're getting into uh when you start.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things that as we've really learned on the way is the the positioning of your product as a small company is really important.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we were deliberately a piece of disruptive technology brought about when the CEOs and entrepreneurs we were working with were becoming increasingly frustrated with the big four.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we found ourselves with this kind of product, early version, which essentially was tapping into the sentiment of an organization to help leaders work out what the big issues were, to a more discrete position in where leaders were going, the world's changed.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: The 30 graduates with clipboards is uh is under threat.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and what Mike and I realized is we had something that could seriously disrupt that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: That we could do the discovery period in minutes.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: We could tap into across an organization.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: What's the story here?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: What's what do I do next?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And because that's the science of sense making which underpins it.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: So one thing we've always struggled with, you know, in the early days was how do you position a piece of disruptive technology?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, how do you get it to market when organizations don't really know they're looking for it?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you might be in competition with McKinsey's or the Boston Consulting Group.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, or you might be in competition with HRDs who have an engagement survey, and and and if you can't get in front of them, don't understand that actually what Tencents is is something very different from an engagement survey.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if that makes sense.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody, I want to take a second here to share something about who we are and why we make this show.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: You're probably here because either you or a client of yours is thinking about buying or selling a business, bringing in investment, or planning an eventual exit.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that is why we call this show Max Value.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: We provide you with information and insights about how to maximize the value of your business.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Our team at Town Advisory guides business owners through the crucial, often once in a lifetime opportunity to exit their business.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: We use our trademarked exit builder program to help business owners prepare early, protect the value they've built, and obtain maximum value through an exit.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the secret is, our clients define what value means to them.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Taking the right steps now can make all the difference in creating a successful outcome for yourself, your family, and your work team.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you think you're ready for the next step in understanding and increasing the value of your business, make a comment, send me a message on LinkedIn, or send me an email.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: All those links are in the show notes.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's the next layer.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's the evolution of a uh engagement survey, essentially.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, hey, let's let's get into it.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're you were talking earlier about getting your hands around, getting your arms around your uh your team.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, immediately I, you know, I I went my brain thought of you know giving 1,500 hugs uh out there individually.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but that just because that's that's a silly thing to think of.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: But instead of doing that, and how long and how much HR issue that would cause, you uh you guys have a tool that helps you with quote unquote sense making.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: What what is sense making?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: How is this all delivered?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you're many hopeful many of your listeners might might remember in search of excellence Peters and was it Peters and Waterman or those I think it was in search of excellence, and whoever the one of the guys would used to say that you go into an organization and you'd walk into the kitchen area or a room in the mirror, and within a couple of minutes, you'd kind of be able to get a sense of the organization.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in many ways, what we've sought to do is to replicate that few minutes across an organization because we know now with the way that organizations operate, hybrid work in, etc.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: etc., that the water cooler moments have all but disappeared.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we were about.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: We were about what would be the fewest number of questions we could ask across an organization segmented by function, geography, hierarchy, if you like, getting into those small bits of the organization.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: That when you bring all those answers collectively together would give the CEO, the C-suite, an incredible insight into what was really going on in his or her business.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we call that organizational experience data.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: People are very familiar with EX, employee engagement, a kind of more deeper dive annual or twice-a-year survey.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: CX customer data.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're OX.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll often say we don't care about the people.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: We do.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: We care about what they know is happening.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so hence, you know, we believe our own PR.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: We think we'd have uh helped avoid the Volkswagen moment.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: You've got Challenger, you've got Boeing, you've got lots of really high-profile um examples of where organizations go go wrong.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the people knew there are there are weak signals that if you can tap into, we'll will help you.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, we work with an accountancy firm now who are into their fourth year of working with us where their CTO said, you now predict our profitability in two months' time.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the power of the of the data.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: But, and the but is to go back to what we were talking about 10 minutes ago, it still requires active leadership.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: It still requires leaders to look at the data and go, ah, what's this telling me?
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: What don't I know about this team, this division, this country?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And to get curious.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because what we're not about doing, or although we will provide suggestions in our reporting about what they is they've got to go and get their hands dirty, they've got to go and find out what is happening in Ben's team.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: How can we support Ben?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then that's so that's what that that's what we're about.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're a warning system helping leaders stay ahead of the game, whether you're an accountancy firm or whatever else.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's really interesting.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a bit of a shout out here, if that's right, to Zayn Stevens.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, you know, Zayn.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know Zane, yeah.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Zane's just run a pilot with his organization, and I was talking to him about how we started life with 360 clue cards and a big board, and all the C-suite would play all these clues, and I'd go around and I spent my life sort of sorting out cards, and the idea is we'd get to the big three issues.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, fast forward, and it is where it is today.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it was him that coined the phrase.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you've gone from the view of the few to the truth of the many, and I thought Zane was absolutely incredible because he nailed it, because you can have the C-suite in the room, and they're all talking about their issues, and of course, what I know now, 10 years on, is that whatever they think often bears no reality to what the people on the ground are experiencing, and so we have to tease out those gaps because that's where the performance improvement lies.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, perception is reality.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: The people over there in Europe or the UL, whatever, what they're what they're what they're experiencing, what they're per what they perceive to be experiencing is reality.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, that's us.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we do.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and that it makes makes a makes a ton of sense because you know, I I I don't know necessarily what, and we're a small team, even.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't know, I don't know what everybody on my team is doing, you know, every minute of every day, that's for sure.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and what they do uh every minute of every day is what our customers experience as you know the reality of of my firm.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh whereas uh you'd multiply that out with by a couple of zeros and and you just you know multiply that problem.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean well it's only a problem if you if you don't have the insight, right?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you have the insight, then it becomes a leveraging of of what you what you would do to have happen.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it becomes even more critical when organizations go through change or transformation or acquisition.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I there is a a CEO who I will I will connect to because I think he'd be fantastic on this podcast.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Who's used who's used Ten Cents in four companies, but the very first company he used it in was in preparation for an IPO.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it was okay, I am gonna get my organization sorted.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not all the technical stuff, which was brilliant, you know, it's a manufacturing organization, but I am gonna make sure that the people, the culture, the leadership is right.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, if we're gonna do a successful IPO, that's the stuff that's got to work, and of course, we know from private equity and from mergers and all the rest of it, all the due diligence is done on the financials.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I spoke to a guy once private equity guy, he says, Yeah, we do all this due diligence on the numbers, the money.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, these were his words.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: He said, We then find we've bought a basket case.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um and of course, you know, we believe that we have something that would uh avoid them buying the basket case.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now you you mentioned something interesting, kind of on the uh on the number side of it, if you if you will.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: You said that you one of your clients who's used you uh sounded like a CPA firm, had used you for a uh number of years, four years, and at this point could correlate the results from uh the the feedback, the sense making in Ten Sense, to their profitability or their you know their expected profitability.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder if especially given that longitudinal data, you could actually have a you know figure out a good correlation between you know if if this metric moves by this amount, then you know there there is some, you know, with a lot of dirt in the data too, but there is some correlation.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, if you're going the right direction, you're going in the right direction.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: And this this one is the strong measure for that.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Or I think it would be a really interesting white paper that you guys could probably put out.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you need uh, yeah, so I I'm you know, I'm not gonna make that as a massive proclamation at the CTO.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, I know.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, you know, you could do it with two flip charts, but I've got absolutely no doubt that if I showed you the results, let's say, of a key part of the business, and just for your listeners' benefit or viewers' benefit, we have a dashboard that shows where people think the performance energy is being expended, the motivation of people, which is a reflection of leadership, team attributes, do we have the skills to deliver, and culture climate.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, without going into too much detail, I if I could I could if I could show you those lenses in a team that's not that's poorly, you know, visually is poor, if its performance is currently good or okay, I can absolutely assure you it's only going one way.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it may not have started to impact on the numbers, but why wouldn't you get ahead of that?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because these people here are screaming, they're going, We we can't keep doing this, and we ain't gonna keep doing this.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or equally, could show you one where the kite marks are brilliant and the report is brilliant, and they're doing that.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we need to replicate that.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: A, we need to thank her or him, but we need to find out what are they doing.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's yeah, and and the customer of which I speak, you know, they were able to do some data correlation to be able to make that case.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: But no, you're right, but but I I would argue, you know, you can do it now by just by eyeballing it.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that well, that is funny.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in in one sense, the uh the human eyeball is actually a really great pattern recognizer, right?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, from a data analytics perspective, I very, very often say, hey, let's just let's just put this in a chart back up and and look at the thing, uh, because you you you get the right answer, even if it's not a precise answer.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not never you know, there's no decimal points, you know, that that come out of you know, eyeballing something.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, you you know oftentimes, uh and it's not that's not you know a an ironclad promise or anything, but you definitely can get an idea most of the time.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and and let's not get carried away.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: The data is not the panacea.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: We want to augment decision making, not replace it.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, life and business is still a human interaction, it's still an emotional game.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I can look Bentown in the eye, I can, you know, data will only take me so far, but but my contention is it will help reduce the equivocality that leaders face on a daily basis and go, look, it's over there.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Here is the threat, here is the opportunity.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now go work with that.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now you have some information to to to you're not going into battle unarmed, right?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: You you have uh you have you have some information, and that's that's so critical.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and how is Tencent?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: How is your sense making different than you know some of the more traditional things, you know, uh uh employee uh engagement, you know, 360 reviews, individual hugs, whatever it is.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, 360 reviews are essentially around the individual, uh, and that's not our game.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we are similar to engagement surveys in so much as we ask questions of everybody in the organization, but as I said earlier, we are a frequent pulse asking different questions to extract different outcomes.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: We are, if you like, like an MRI on a monthly basis.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: And sense making, and why the other reason why we're different is sense making is a science that's been around for a long time.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was developed in the late 60s by Karl Weich in the US.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: And without again going into you know massive detail, for people like me, it is how do we pick up the cues and signals from around us every day, which we do, we receive them.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: How can we create meaning and understanding around that so that we can make decisions take action?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so what Mike Carter, who's our chief scientist, did is Mike is an exponent of sense making, and he is the one that's built our diagnostic.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so he brought utility to sense making by building the diagnostic, and we worked very closely with for quite some time with a university, the University of Bath over here in the UK, where they helped us with the efficacy of our approach and the and and the validity of our questions.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the other reason why we're different from an engagement survey is we are deliberately about plausibility, not precision.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if you go back to my example of, for instance, the Boston Consulting Group and 30 graduates, we are we are going in and we're in very quick time getting a sense of what is going on here so that the leaders can focus their effort where it's where it's most needed.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the difference, and then we provide a regular pulse because the world changes so quickly.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: I like that very much.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and the emphasis being on, you know, I like to say accuracy versus precision.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Plausibility versus precision, and we and you compromise, you know, you you gain speed and non-disruption by not doing you know a great long, you know, uh questionnaire or whatever it might be.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the clever, I gotta tell you, the clever bit is the connection of the 16 questions.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: That is the clever bit.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how he did that, I don't know how they did that, but I'm the guy that goes out and shows the results when people do demos and pilots.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't think anybody has ever gone.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's not our company.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, for sure.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, the being that it there's this uh this underpinning for the the theory of the tool, and then the tool itself that actually brings that theory into something actionable, how would you use, how could you use uh the sense-making tool by 10 cents to for a business leader to actually increase their value and you know, you know, based on you know the the kind of the purpose of this podcast, bring it to a saleable, transferable, very, very valuable position.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean that in essence is why we're in existence.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so on the one level, if you're a warning system, there's a kind of negative connotation, which is we'll stop you know falling off a cliff or that problem becoming more acute, which is going to impact on your bottom line.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I think any organization, whether you are successful or building or developer or how it is all about how can we quickly spot the opportunities to improve our performance.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, most of that is done through leadership, and in and in many ways, we are we are a diagnostic that's not for the faint-hearted.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was on a call this morning with a global global retail firm, and what we're able to do is if you can imagine they've got about 50 managers.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if you just look at the art, so we provide various reporting and graphical representations, but what my CTO has really has done brilliantly cleverly is this just a rag system, red, amber, green.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so the CEO could look at that and go, there's my uh oh.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was wondering, uh what system?
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: A rag system.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, red, red, yellow, green, just to everybody else.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I think everybody universally will know if you're all red, uh uh.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, you can eat you very quickly spot there are four managers for whom their 10 cent scores are all in the red.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I would argue go there, sort that, you'll improve performance.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Down here, the the top four greens, actually, what are they doing?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: We need to learn, and if we can champion that and replicate that, we'll increase performance.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I've got a bunch of recommendations over the years of people that said, you know, there was there was an accountancy firm that was at 25 million, couldn't couldn't seem to be able to get it, you know, and the and the managing partner said, You helped us get to 30 million, yeah.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, sometimes it's a bit difficult to actually put precise numbers on it, but I'm pretty confident that um, you know, over the years, um we have either helped things get worse, but we've found the opportunities to improve performance, mostly through leaders being even more aligned and getting best value out of their people.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hey, look, leadership looks really easy when everything is going great.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: It it it looks really easy, and you know, I've I've and I've seen your uh your your sense making tool, and it looks very simple.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, as we know, it takes a lot of insight and work and effort to make things look simple, you know, just like the uh as you were mentioned, the captain of the uh the rugby team.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that that is in particular in sports, because there's so much emphasis on actual performance, uh personal performance, that happens all the time, right?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: You have you have somebody come in who's very young.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm I'm a big hockey fan myself.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we see that all the time where you know a teenager comes into a team and takes over the team because they're just that that talented and that hardworking.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's frankly not it's not easy, but it's not that simple in business either.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just work really hard and become a good leader.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: Not not that these these folks in sports are doing exactly that either.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: They're they have their own challenge.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a different situation for sure, but we just need to be working and leading on so many different fronts that it's really, really hard.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you have a small group of people, you can, you know, uh give at least the metaphorical hugs to six people or whatever and have you know have the connection.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: But when it's six hundred or six thousand or you know, on and on and on, there's just no way.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so you need to have the ability to you know put your finger on the pulse.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I agree.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean that that's it for the uh for the the hard questions, if you will.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: Not not that these are hard.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, I know you can talk about this for forever.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, on on to a little bit about Mike.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, tell me something that's not on your LinkedIn or on your website profile.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, crikey.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, I pretty much spent most of my life playing sport.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: That is the thing that meant I failed.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody told me at school it was better to do double German than play football for the school team, you know.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: So um that was uh that that was a bit of a bit of a bit of a chat.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: So sports always dominating my life, and in many ways, and again, your US listeners, they all struggle with this, but cricket is my thing.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so you know, I have spent my life playing cricket, but I've learned more about you know, as a captain or as a leader, messing up in a sporting environment and then taking that back into the workplace than probably the other way around.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I think the other thing I'd probably say, which is which is not on my LinkedIn profile, but I guess we all have moments in our leadership lives that define us.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and for me, it's probably 1999, 2000 in Bristol, cracker cane hit the streets of Bristol.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um your president goes on about what's going on over there quite a lot, and I and I had I had this.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if but it was um it was coming from Jamaica then actually.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Cracker cane had swallowers on flights.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was a humanitarian disaster in many ways, but what happened was long story cut short, it got you know, got it landed in Bristol and crime went through the roof.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're trying to tackle that.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is a little bit about short long-term problems, and businesses are saying.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to tackle the causes of a crack cocaine epidemic and the consequences of it, yet, government are interested in a set of measures and targets like acquisitive crime.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course, I've now got people that are now chaotic drug misusers who have got a 300 pound a day habit.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, just ask yourself.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: How much crime do you have to commit to get 300 pound cash a day?
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: A lot is the answer.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean the the the story is that, yeah, I don't know if you know our political system, but you know, we have cabinet members in the government, and the home secretary at that time was a guy called David Blunkett.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um some of your listeners may know.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's a blind, a blind uh politician and very well respected.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: But at that time, he couldn't understand why an idiot like me was presiding over such a surging crime in Bristol and um and wanted me sacked.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: But this so of course it created a lot of pressure at the time, but you know who your friends are, and the chief constable was massively supportive.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, shout out to Steve Pilkington who put me there and when when it all got tough, stuck by me.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we got through it.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that same home secretary came down not long after that, I'll never forget it, with his dog, and he was there, he talked to me, he said, My heart goes out to you.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: You have an impossible job.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to say, you weren't saying that 12 months ago when you when you wanted me sacked, but thank you, Mr.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: Blunkett.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: Wise words, but yeah, there you go.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you're you're right, is probably the only thing you can say in that instance.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: You're right.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's the politics of it, you know, you're in public public service, but but what you build up, you build up a sense of resilience.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: And go back full circle to your question about at that time I didn't have my group.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: If I'd had my group, well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you what did happen.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: When I did join the group, I was member number seven, and I'm sitting around the table for the first time meeting my new friends, and then they're all from the private sector, and I'm moaning.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm moaning about the home office and targets, and you know, why we're not just and they said, interesting.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: The difference between you and us, I'll never ever forget this, is they said, you don't lose your car keys.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: And what they meant, yeah.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: What they meant was working in the public sector, okay, there may not be the massive rewards in terms of salary, blah blah blah, but it is fairly stable employment, i.e., they don't take away your car and your benefits if you're not hitting your targets.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't hit our targets, you know, our board are already finding our replacement.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't know about it.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: Two quarters, that's the rule.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Two quarters.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there you go.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so a bit glib, but the point is made is that you know, sometimes we uh just got to get on with it.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: And um there's a lot more similar about leadership in in multiple different disciplines than there is difference in in how leadership works, partly because we're people and people work the same, you know, whether that we're talking about policing or in the boardroom or you know, on the line or whatever.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I was I always asked this what what are you reading?
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, I'll tell you what I'm reading.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm reading a book called Embracing Uncertainty.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds good.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's written by um a lady called Margaret Heffernan, who is actually American.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Margaret lives actually.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, America does some good things, you know.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: We don't hold that against her.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: She's a nice lady, she lives in the village next to me.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: She used to be, she's a I and definitely look her up, Margaret Heffernan.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: She is an author, entrepreneur, and she has written.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me, the seminal book she she she's written is Willful Blindness.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that book is full of uh evidence and insights about where leaders, senior leaders and organizations were willfully blind.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the other book she uh has written recently is a book called Uncharted, and you would think she'd written it post-COVID, but she wrote it the year before COVID, and it was prescient.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and so all of her books are absolute massive lessons for leaders, whether it's oh, sorry, and I should say embracing uncertainty, which I've only just started, what she's what she's writing about in there is that the only way, or not the only way, we need to get creativity and innovation back into our way we we run our businesses, and the and we can draw on lessons from from the from artists, from musicians, from people who are who've met who spend their life engaged in creative, innovative activity.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: We have to take some of that learning, and as leaders, we need to be able to apply some of that for us to be able to embrace and deal with the uncertainty that is now going to be the norm.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: I can't disagree with any of that.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: That that all sounds pretty good.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: That I will check out.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I won't anticipate in that question.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: I figure it's enough of a softball that I can just go ahead and bring it on people.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and you know, I I haven't so far run across, I think I've run across one person who says I don't really read, you know, except for but it turned out that they you know did read you know trade journals and you know uh tech technical stuff and as needed, but not not so much for you know uh uh fun or personal development.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: But almost everybody I've talked to so far has really had a had an interest in in improving themselves through you know the medium of of reading, or like in my case a lot, you know, through audiobook, but same thing to a large extent.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: So very cool.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's all right.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you want to be found, where can people find you?
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they can easily find me on my LinkedIn profile, really, which I'm sure we could put up on here.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, that's probably the best place to find me, or you know, on my email address, which is mike row at tencents.ai, which is which is pretty easy.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or they could find me through you, Ben.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure that would be okay as well.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: But that but don't put a W in row, that'll be all I'd say.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you'll never find me.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you get the dirty jobs guy at that point, right?
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh not not the right micro.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um all right.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, night has fallen uh where you are.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and uh I think uh the curtain is drawing on this episode.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you very much for joining us, and it's been been a great conversation.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for inviting me, Ben.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: Cheers.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's a wrap.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: You've been listening to Max Value Podcast.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: And if this episode provided any interesting information, hit that subscribe button, smash like, and drop a comment below.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Ben Candle Account Advisory, and I'll catch you next time.