Latest / Sales Trajectory Podcast / Breaking the Growth Ceiling: Leadership Lessons from a combined 60+ Years of Experience with John Matthews and Jason Howes

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Breaking the Growth Ceiling: Leadership Lessons from a combined 60+ Years of Experience with John Matthews and Jason Howes · Sales Trajectory Podcast

• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Sales Trajectory Podcast, where innovation meets execution in sales.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Jason Howes, your host, a 35-year sales veteran and lifelong student of the game.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is for leaders and sales professionals with a growth mindset.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: You'll hear real sales stories about new products, motivating teams to prospect, and boost productivity.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: We dive deep into sales process, cutting edge tech, and recruiting top sales performers.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get started.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: John has played a significant role in shaping leadership capability and professional coaching practice since the late 90s.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: His work specializes in leadership presence and high performance team collaboration.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: With a strong focus on supporting women in leadership and senior leaders navigating complexity and transition, John's mission is to create meaningful impact at both a personal and organizational level.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: John, welcome to the show.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Chase.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Good to be here.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's great to catch up with you, John.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's fantastic to have leaders on the show who have so much experience and knowledge to share.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: For us, it's about trying to provide the best value for the podcast listeners.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's that's my goal too, to make this worthwhile for everybody.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And what's happening right now for for you and your world, John?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Give us a bit of a rundown on uh where you're at at the moment, what's been happening?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I got back from China, and that's been a powerful experience because of where they're at.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: They work very hard, they're very curious, they're interested in coaching how to unlock the potential of their people.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm running retreats with my lovely wife in different parts of the world.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: That is a more integrated approach to leadership and also rejuvenating people's energy.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about energy, Jace.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you don't have the energy, it doesn't work.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm exploring some new areas in terms of this is supposed to be these next two years, age of disclosure, whether it's UFOs or Epstein files, there's a lot coming out and the world is in a stage of flux, might be a way to put it.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that requires uh a certain thing.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: When I transitioned from my last national sales role and midlife crisis and, you know, looking to start my business.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very grateful for John for bringing me into the coaching and leadership arena.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that I love and I'm very grateful for.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, John, what I'd love to know.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to us about your story, because it's very interesting.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not over yet, Chase.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you're talking about midlife crisis.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: That that's what brought me to Australia initially back in in 96.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I had just gone through, I was 43 at the time, but uh it was a a time of transition for me.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'd been working as a senior manager for a publishing company and a national speaker, traveling all over the world, actually basically working with um teachers, because I have background in education, but I was on the road too much.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: I had spent uh I had reached the Marriott Platinum level, a hundred days on the road in one year, you know.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd done a lot of travel.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'd been successful.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had the uh American dream, the big house in the suburbs, two cars, and uh I wasn't happy.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Life was miserable.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it was that's what initially brought me to Australia to start a new life.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: What uh my story was, you know, when I was younger, I was a good Catholic boy.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be a missionary and wanted to, you know, help people know the good news.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought you had to be a Roman Catholic or you weren't gonna go to heaven.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So my uh my dad, who was Protestant, uh helped me understand that's not the case.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: It got me interested in human potential and bringing out the best, and people used to like to live read about the lives of the saints and how they could billocate and who is it that uh, you know, they could fly and do all these crazy, wild, supernatural things.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I I when I came to Australia, I did start uh actually uh working as a coach because I had a background in psychology business, and uh I believed in the potential human beings.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I started uh a colleague of mine after working for a woman that uh trained me, Dr.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Cynthia Thoreau, back in '96.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Worked for her for four years and then uh started my own institute with a colleague.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that grew over I just retired after 25 years of that.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's publicly listed now.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's trained thousands of executive coaches and leaders in this in the Asia Pacific area, U.S.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: as well, U.S.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: and uh uh UK.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now my journey is I'm in my third act, as I like to put it, where I'm collaborating with colleagues and getting involved in interesting uh retreats and other types of training in terms of quantum consciousness might be one.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you a little bit more about that later.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great story, John.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, as you said, still still growing, and uh and I love that about you.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: You're always um moving through the different transitions and embracing the change.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh where did you grow up with New York City and the inner Delhi back back uh back in the day, we're all crazy people.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was like the Seinfeld show, you know, all the crazy people that they're real.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that's where I learned how to relate to people, all types of people.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I learned that from especially from my dad, where you could get a cranky customer coming in the door, and by the time they're walking out, they're laughing and that sort of thing.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one of my superpowers that being able to change someone's state where they're in a negative state.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, that that was my experience growing up in New York.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's excellent.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And look, I've got some really good questions for you today and discussion points because for me, I love leadership.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's such an undervalued area for growth opportunity from my experience.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh most of us uh are good at our what we do, good at our craft, and then we get moved into a leadership role.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And some of the stats I've seen is I think like one out of ten people are suitable for a management role and and leadership.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: So unfortunately, yeah, there are a lot of people are potentially in the wrong role, which is a key area we do a lot of work in with our sales coaching.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: John, okay, what's your thoughts on this one here?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for me, again, it's about sharing the value for our listeners is you talk about leadership evolution.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: What does that actually mean what does that actually mean in practice for senior leaders today?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the point you were just making, Jason, about uh a lot of people find themselves in leadership roles and they're that's not you know, it's the Marshall Goldsmith quote, you know, that what got you here isn't gonna get you there.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people get put in leadership roles because they're good at doing the job.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're really good at execution, and now they've gotta, when they're in a leadership role, they've gotta shift f what I described from first gear to second gear and third gear.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people get stuck in third.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So first gear is I'm doing it myself, I'm working hard, I'm the owner operator, I come up with the ideas, uh, I get shit done, right?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I'm and I do it better than anybody else.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Second gear is I got other people working for me now, uh, but uh I just still have to, you know, it's I call it we discuss, I still decide, you know, that I can't really trust them yet to do it themselves.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: As the company gets bigger, I've I evolved to third gear.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, there's a lot of talk about collaboration, you know, that collab being a collaborative leader has you gotta involve people in the decisions.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: But uh people get stuck in that third gear.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: We discuss, we decide.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like when we own a car, who puts the petrol in, who k who pays for the reg show?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, there's lack of responsibility.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth gear is where coaching comes in.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth gear, you're kicking into we discuss, you decide, because you now have enough experience.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I trust you enough to be able to leverage further.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And where you ultimately want to wind up is fifth gear, where you're doing it, you're doing the work so that I'm looking at my exit strategy or I'm doing more strategic thinking rather than always having to have my finger in the pie.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I I have enough people around me that I've leveraged myself where, like myself, I was able to sell the company and uh consult back to it.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting story.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: I love the gears because I I quite often use that as well.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I'm I'm the lucky owner and proud owner of a an American Indian scout.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I one of my th one of my thoughts was um how many gears do you have?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and the Indian's got six gears, and I always look at it, you know, the torque in the low gears.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: You can do 80 K's in first gear, right?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: But it's intense, man.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Then you get to second, and then and then but when you when you hit that sort of fourth gear, you start to free up that sort of engine, it starts to run and fifth and then sixth, and you're cruising, man, you're on the highway.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say there's a lot of people that are still in first gear, or maybe they've made it to second gear, but they haven't discovered the other gears yet.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what leadership is about, learning how to leverage what you know and what you're capable of doing.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: One interesting thing I look at is um some people are never gonna get out of a particular gear, and and and I think it's it's really important for you know business owners and CEOs to realise that not everyone is suited for management and leadership.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a real concern these days because in my experience from a sales perspective, you can only coach and lead to your own personal ability yourself.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if you've only been taught or trained to a particular level, well then when you're coaching your team, well they're aren't they only gonna be able to get to they're only going to be able to get to the same level as well.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell Or they leave or they go somewhere else.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important for leaders to keep on evolving.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I mean by evolutionary leadership is that uh if you if you're either going to be green and growing or ripe and rotting, right?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you gotta keep evolving.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: How important is leadership presence when times are tough?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: And where do leaders often misunderstand it, John?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell A lot of leaders uh when times are tough go into their own shell, you know, and they try to figure it out for themselves.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh when times are tough, people do feel isolated.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the worst thing you can do.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's the worst thing you leadership presence is being do the walk arounds.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've just coaching someone yesterday about this.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to have all the answers, you know.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the it's being present and saying, well, I don't I don't know what what next year, you know, what the what what the economy's gonna do.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: But what I do know, and you give them, you tell them, I do know that this is what we're gonna do.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's being uh leadership presence is being with others even when you don't you can't reassure what the future's gonna be.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: But you you say, go with me on this, based on our track record, which has to be based on trust.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't built that trust with your people, then it's gonna be a lot harder, especially in Australia.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I can speak from my own experience of of running a a national sales team and and I look back and I see things that that I think w I did quite well.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: But there's also a lot of areas where I look back and I'm like, you know, I c I could have done better.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you're talking about myself personally, uh when times are tough, I know, you know, we I was quite fortunate.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we we grew three and a half times, you know, when I was at my last business over 13 years.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: But as as that growth got, as the percentage of the growth sort of tightened, it the questions were being asked, well, where do we go to now?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the part where it's that pivotal moment where you're like, you know, you you you look to the team and you try and bring in their thoughts and but if you go to your team and they're sort of there's nothing there and then you're sort of holding the can, I think that's when when times are tough.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I I would admit that I went into my bubble a little bit as well.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: I know, particularly when I was doing, you know, if I had all juggling a lot of balls, onboarding new people, traveling, you know, doing major price updates, which is where a lot of people really struggle from.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's easy to go into your bubble.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for me, I always like to know what was happening in teams' environment, their life, you know.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: I knew their families, I knew their kids, I knew what they were up to, and I knew what was important for them.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a big part that I think a lot of leaders, yeah, don't put enough value on the time spent emotionally or or physically being, you know, with those people.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know why your people come to work and you're just so task-focused, you're gonna be in trouble if you don't have a a relationship with them.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be best friends, but you gotta know.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: What's the saying that uh people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where you get that discretionary effort from people.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we're in an age of what's called adaptive leadership.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: No one has the answers.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like technical problems we flip a switch and everything's solved.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like no one has the answers, and you need the collective intelligence of your people to uh come up with s solutions as well.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell To three decades of coaching leaders, John.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: What patterns do what patterns do you consistently see when leaders hit a growth ceiling?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Well, for one pattern is uh that uh a lot of very smart, successful people don't know what to do when they reach a grow growth ceiling.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's that it's like they've never had any obstacles because if you the market was right and they were flush, so uh they're uh they they're uh they they just kinda they try I call it the strategy of the dolphin.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: So dolphin, you know, you get a shark.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: So sharks can be very successful, but when they come into an obstacle, they're gonna come up against it like this, right?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if uh if you're a dolphin, you see that obstacle, you you gotta say, how is this an opportunity?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So they ask different questions so they can jump over the obstacle, get around it, they're more creative.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: So some people when they reach a growth seating ceiling, they they get more creative in terms of finding solutions to uh issues.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to think of the story about some of the challenges.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Stephen Jobs, some of the challenges that he faced in his career.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to Radio Shack trying to sell, you know, the the computer components.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: That every time he hit an obstacle, it became an opportunity to think laterally and go at it in a different way.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's a number of I think the biggest growth ceiling right now is when people find they're in unprecedented moments where the competition has increased from you the overseas.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can go through the list of challenges that people face, but the major difference is the shift in mindset.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't if you keep doing doing what you've always done, you're always gonna get what you always got.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not about working harder and faster necessarily.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's learning how to think more creatively and uh experiment many times too.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: I like what you said about creativity and and I think it's important because what w what I'm seeing right now, we we talk with a lot of leaders and we talk with a lot of sales professionals.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone is juggling a lot of balls at the moment.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would be fair to say that most people are probably taking on about one one and a half roles or one and a half times what they should be normally doing as far as their normal job requirements.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's, you know, when you when everyone's under pressure, when you it's like always use it, like you know, you're filling a glass of water and it's just pouring out everywhere over the side.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you're struggling and you're overloading your team, well then they're not gonna have that creative mindset or that growth mindset because they're going to be pushing back.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been there.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've got so much going on that you're like, I cannot physically handle anything more, right?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: So and I I would be fair to say it's it's tough.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, even if you think of technology, I mean, you know, what's the worst thing when something goes wrong with technology?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Some people just go, Oh, you know, everything's just going against me.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I can't think about it.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Even though the lights are on, there's nobody home.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's where I'm over years when when the market got tough, I pushed harder.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: I had I got together with a team and I'm like, okay, what can we do that's different?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we would take the chances and I'd say to people, you know, let's give it a go.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, well, what happens if it doesn't work?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, we're soon going to find out.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: But if we don't try, well then we you never know.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: You have to give yourself, you know, there's a process you go through.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: So when things initially change, you you go through the oh shit stage, you know, oh shit, you know, what's happening now?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there's shock, right?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you go, that's your initial reaction many way and many times.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing to it's interesting how many times if you give get away from it, you know, go for a run, take a shower, you're using theta brainwave patterns, you come at it the next day or the next couple of days.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it has to go through a uh uh a gestation period where your your brain is still working on it, but not consciously.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you begin to generate solutions.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't happen in the oh shit stage.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta realize, okay, I can't figure this out right now, uh, and think of it as a game or puzzle.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then you begin to generate possibilities and experiment, right?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: As you said.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a lot of the work I do is working with the with the leader's mindset.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you if you have uh if you have a uh a reptilian type of mindset or the shark, you because you that's what got you to where you are so far.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to be able to jump over or around or through obstacles.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell How do leaders create leverage without lowering standards of losing control, John.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they they have to it's it's much like the gears we talked about before.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: You uh you begin to look at the people around you and look at the ones that have potential.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, basically, when I started the institute, my own company, I couldn't tolerate there there was in the U.S., if you hit with electric trains, there used to be the third rail.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you touch the third rail, you're dead, right?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: So there's some third rail principles that I kept in mind.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I had someone that worked for me and I found out I was all the directors were gone for a week.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: She was absolutely brilliant.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: But uh one of my colleagues called up and said, Hey, John, you gotta know that she's bad mouthing.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: She's there, she's saying no one knows anything around here.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one that's really running the show.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I sacked her the next day.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, there's certain behaviors I'm not gonna tolerate.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess one thing is I I I don't tolerate that type of behavior.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've got some no no-go things.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Mediocre, I better be careful what I say here.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm not the government, so I can't afford to support mediocre workers.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's about setting a standard of excellence and finding out who can run with you, who can run with you.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: So what's what's your pace, what's your standard of excellence?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I being a talent scout in many ways.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then you leverage those people.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: The biggest mistake a lot of leaders make is they give the cranky wheels attention and can't afford that.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's better to change with a different person than to change the person.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you think so many managers avoid coaching even when they know it matters?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know how to, basically.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like they they they think about how they got to where they were, and it was either through the school of hard knocks.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I know I work with one building company, the CEO, it was uh originally a family-owned business.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, when I made a mistake, my father would throw bricks at me.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that's the school literally of hard knocks.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, although some people have played sports, they never think of making the connection of how do you how do you coach, how do you coach to create a a championship team, which is different than a team of champions, you know.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know how to do it, though they don't transfer those skills into the workplace.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a story there.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: My uh my uncle Robbie uh rest in peace, Robbie.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: He's a he was a he was a great man.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And when I went to his funeral, there was a guy there that he worked with, and I said, Um, how did you know Robbie?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, I used to work with him.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Oh, great.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And he go, I said, what was he like to work with?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, he threw a bloody hammer at me one day.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked at him and I said, Did you deserve it?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Yes.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I went, Well, there you go.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm thinking to myself, well, this guy's turned up to his funeral, right?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, obviously, you know he meant enough to do that, right?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean he's thrown a hammer at him.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you talk about the school of hard knocks.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not recommending just to clear this up that anybody throws it.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not recommending no responsibility here.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: But again, I mean, I think a lot of people are not comfortable having those hard discussions, and we find that in sales.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have to be uh and I've been there, I remember it, and particularly if you get a type of person that is, you know, I I look back to the uh this one guy shouldn't have hired him, and I did, you know, mistake.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Learned.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then but again, I mean he he was awkward to have a discussion with, you know.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that's that's that's the part.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I think uh you're right, I think a lot of people don't coach because they don't how know how to, or they or they don't know what to coach about.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we've find that when when I'm working with clients, it's like, well, you know, the manager, you know, well, where's their pipeline at?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Who's what are the opportunities in there and how are you trying to get them moving?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, if that manager hasn't been taught how to train and coach properly and be a professional sales leader, well then they're ain't going to be able to coach to that level.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean what does effective coaching actually look like at the executive level that you're operating in well at the most of the people I coach are from large banks, law firms.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm coaching politicians, I've coached judges.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So at the very senior level, well I I'll tell you that one of the challenges with judges is that you can't like if you've got a a fellow judge, they have this term first among equals.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you've got a fellow judge and he or she is having boozy lunches and not carrying their weight, you can't sack them.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: They've got to go, they've got to go to uh the government and it's it's very difficult, let's put it that way.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I did uh I've done training with uh very senior people on how to confront people that are not doing their jobs.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know that's that's a that's a really big change challenge even at the very senior level.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: That um the way I put it, I've never sacked anyone.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: They've sacked themselves because they weren't doing their job correctly.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's very important.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people are talking about psychological safety nowadays, which is misinterpreted is that that you're well, you're making me feel psychologically unsafe because you're telling me I'm not doing my job right.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's called accountability.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: So accountability is a challenge even at the very senior levels of organizations.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: With women in particular there's uh the challenge of the old boys' club, you know, and and as women reach a certain level of development, they've got to earn or own their power.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you got it's coaching them not to become one of them because there are senior women that become as bad, they make it as hard as as the men on younger women.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not becoming one of them.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's becoming one with them, but not one of them and owning your power as a powerful female.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Which a lot Yeah go ahead.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: Look I mean I've I know some amazing um female leaders that and I mean when I'm hiring for salespeople it's like for me I just go looking for the best person.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think um yeah there's certain roles that we recruit for like uh specification or architecture and design I mean and it really niches into that sort of design aspect and I think that's why it's it's a you know you do f tend to find a lot of ladies in those roles which I take my hat off to them because it's a it's a really challenging role to do.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: John, just a quick one.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: What for our listeners here, what are the warning sides that someone isn't ready for leadership even if they want it?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well you have to take out what I call high risk monkey insurance.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a book called The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey and that is how long can I give you responsibility with your team to do this job?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as I start seeing symptoms it's usually either I'm I'm hearing complaints about the way you're working with your teams or from customers or I start to hear some complaints.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: You start missing deadlines in terms of projects that you're working on.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're either telling me it's all good or why it's not your fault that you're not able to meet those.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I get a lot of excuses.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Those are some of the indicators you and there's some people that if you do talk to them, you realize you got to help them along you got to go through first gear, second gear, third gear a little bit more closely and say, let's see how you go on this particular project and I want to meet with you every day, you know, and find out how it's going.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it depends on how often you you meet with them too but you don't let them go too long and then they come back with the with a dead monkey right to say look this thing I'm not going to meet the project deadline.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well that that's as much your fault as their fault.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: What's the saying setups how did you set yourself up by not monitoring them more closely?
• 26:11
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