We explore the balance between a manager’s tasks vs their relationships. We discuss the bias towards productivity that often overshadows the need for genuine interpersonal connections. Our guest Mike Hohnen, with extensive experience in management roles highlights how to manage emotional engagement for effective leadership, and tips to foster true employee engagement. Listeners will gain insights into creating a more balanced and engaging work environment that values both productivity and strong relationships.

Hello, and welcome to the growth workshop podcast with

myself, Matt best and my colleague and partner in crime

Jonny Adams. Great to see Jonny, as always.

Hey guys, lovely to see you. Thanks so much, Matt.

So today, we're joined by Mike Hohnen, who is an

exec coach and a successful executive working in the

hospitality sector, with a focus on supporting services

businesses to drive the right culture and focus on client

service. So, Mike, it's fantastic to have you on the

podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to Jonny

and I today.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's a

pleasure to see you again.

So I guess, as is customary on our podcasts, we'd

like to kick things off with a bit of something interesting

that's happened in your past week. So it might maybe come to

you first is what's been going on in your week that you could

share with our audience maybe provide a bit of inspiration?

Well, I have an impression that I'm going to be

the odd fish out here. But that's fine.

Why? Why do you feel like you might be the odd one

out?

Well, I'll tell you, I'll try and illustrate

this for you in with a little anecdote, which is, which would

get us going in that sense. The couple of weeks ago, I got a

request for a Zoom meeting over my calendar system, somebody

who'd found me on LinkedIn, and then I sort of as we all do,

went down and checked out. So who is this person? And why did

I wonder why they want to talk to me, and it turned out to be

the CEO of a rather large software development company

with a very sort of high profile background and top management

team high profile background, and, and so I was thinking,

Well, why why on earth have they found on to be this? It's a

world I don't understand. I took the meeting, of course, and I

wanted it to be polite, but I prepared a sort of little

speech, you know, it's very kind of you to contact me, thank you

very much. I don't want to waste your time. And so when once I

got going on that he stopped me and said, You know, I've

researched you certainly have researched you and I understand

what it is you're doing same game, do you realize that I'm a

humanist, you know, I'm not I'm not actually madly interested in

the business side of things. It's the people side, I'm a

people sides person. And that's the only thing that drives me

the rest, I don't care what it says, I want you to come and

talk to our people, and try and explain that there is another

perspective on the world, which is not the one that we that we

sort of generally normally have, and you have a different

perspective on the world. And I really like you to, to elaborate

on that. So I ended up spending an afternoon with them over in

Nice, and it was great fun. We had a really good time.

We do tend to talk a lot about obviously about the

business side. And it all comes back to sort of growth. But I

think Mike, what you've just shared there is exactly the

point of this, right? That there's the people side of

things and how important that is. And that's great, Mike,

there's quite a high level of maturity in terms of from a from

a leadership perspective that a leader is willing to say, look,

that's exactly what I need. I know, I'm not sort of going to

step out of the numbers for a minute and go back to the root

of my business that might be the people. So yeah, absolutely.

Looking forward to digging into into that with you a little bit

more today. I mean, Jonny, how do you follow that?

I feel that it's actually going to possibly align

to what my nose loads about. And he's clearly an expert. So I was

in Porto in Portugal, for a few days recently, it was an amazing

trip, I if you've ever been great. If not, then as long as

you can drink wine, then you're completely qualified to go, we

stayed at a five star hotel, and it was pretty special. We

overlook Porto city. And I'm reflecting on what Mike said

something that sort of struck me we all sort of said would you

pay for this hotel, if you knew it was the star rating it was

because the point being is actually the quality of service

wasn't up to the level, it was actually below par. And I said

to my wife, I perceive this as a four star hotel. And in fact,

you know, limited urgency and really different types of

services that we were getting provided during breakfast time.

Just simple stuff. Like how attentive a staff member should

be possibly a five star hotel hotel, when you kind of get it a

four star hotel or a three star hotel. But this was a five star

hotel. So I think it looked like the hotel was living off the

back of the view over Porto versus actually training and

supporting their people. And the sad thing is that when we were

checking out that this other couple were pretty much berating

and challenging the staff member at the reception because the

quality of service wasn't up to standard. And my colleague also

who traveled with us said, I'm very keen to write a review. So

it was just two people independently. So there was

something going wrong there, Mike, that I'm looking forward

to unpacking? Because if they got it right, I actually think

the experience would have gone up by a huge amount. And we

would have left with us feeling like wow, so I don't know. I

just thought I'd throw that out there. That's what I've been up

to.

Mike, I can see you're sort of chomping at the

bit now.

I mean, it's just a classic story there. I mean,

there are so many examples like that out there and they will

it's unbelievable. What really gets me is you know, it's not

rocket science. We know exactly what it takes. It's not it's not

a big mystery. It's a lot of hard work, but there is a way to

solve that.

You know, and any requests you might was we all

said, you know, how much would you pay for this? We wouldn't

have paid as much as when we went on to booking.com and

looked at the cost. And all of us went, Oh, what's that really

the cost of the, you know, like, wow, so yeah, it wasn't aligned,

the value was not aligned to the investment, Matt, what's been

going up in your world?

I often share sort of experiences with family and that

I've had with family and I was lucky enough to have my, my

parents over visiting recently. So I think something that I've

really taken away and then over the last couple of weeks

probably is just that we will talk about sort of work life

balance, and as it exists, how important it is. But actually,

outside of all of those discussions, it was just

reconnecting with family and reconnecting with people that

you love, and then trying to find that you're trying to find

that balance. But I think the most interesting thing is how

that's provided motivation in other areas. So for example, I

went on a jog on the weekend, it's been a long time since I

have, it was just sort of, I felt like it had been inspired

by just sort of reconnecting with other parts of my life. And

it's given me more drive then in a sort of in a work and business

and a business growth context. So it's just just being able to

be conscious of how these things all intertwine and connect with

one another, I think is really, really important. So that's my

reflection. But, uh, Mike, I think, you know, that example

that you gave is just demonstration of your sort of

credibility in this space, and what people really look for when

they when they want to embark on a conversation with you, or they

hire you to provide services. I mean, tell us just a little bit

about your journey so far. How have you come to be where you

are today?

Yeah, as you can see, with my gray hairs, it's

been a it's a long way. Long story, we'll try and keep it

short. I just want to interject something there. But and because

it gets me every time I hear it. How is it we've come to get to

this spot where we talk about work life balance. I mean, it's

rubbish is from my perspective is rubbish. Because it implies

that work is not life. And fun. I don't think any of us three

would would sign up for that. I think we all three probably work

bloody hard. And we love what we do. And it's a very important

part of our life. It's a different kind of balance. And

it's it's, it's it's a it's a funny way of reinforcing

something that I think is completely skewed. In his

thinking we all do. I know that I'm I hear it the whole time.

But every time I hear it, I try and shoot it down.

But what's the answer there, Mike? And I know,

I know, we're sort of moving on. But that's an interesting

perspective. So is there something that we can do about

the language that we use? Or is there something that we can do

from a corporate perspective? Have you got an idea?

Well you know, I mean, everything is a question

of how we use words and how we frame things at the end of the

day, that's the first first step. And so when we frame it

that way, we're already sort of built an image around it. But

what we're looking at is polarity between work and

leisure. And what constitutes a really nice life is to maximize

both. That's a good life, if you if you see what I mean, it's not

doing more of one and less of the other, it's maximizing both.

If we can maximize both of those two, then we actually thrive.

And so we have to find out what that is for us, and in what way

we do it. But it's not like that work life balance. For me.

That's, that's the short version.

Here's something you said that we've got to work out

what works for us. And it's this for the concept that it's

individual, and everybody's is going to be slightly different

and is going to look ever so slightly different. And I think

in sort of corporate culture, sometimes it's about this is

what the business is does defines as good work life

balance, I'm going to use that term again. But does that apply

to everybody? Absolutely not, it can't possibly apply to

everybody says understanding individual situations and

providing that sort of autonomy may be controlled, like but it's

just even that mindful, being mindful about it as an

individual and having conversations about it with your

organization or your business and sort of working out how that

works best for you. And, and actually, I'm fascinated in how

that works. And coming from having started my career in in

support. And we're going to talk about service today. Actually,

sometimes that's really hard to find in a situation where the

reality is somebody needs to be standing behind a desk for a

period of time somebody needs to be on the other end of the phone

to speak to a customer for a period of time as shift or

whatever that looks like. So how does that work? And coming from

the hospitality space, you know, like you said, I mean that

industry works incredibly hard, sometimes some very long shifts,

sometimes a very antisocial hours as a lot of other other

sort of jobs careers in an industry is do how does how do

you find that sweet spot in a environment like that?

That's a hopeless question. In a sense, Matt,

because that is exactly what you started answering it becomes a

very individual choice it's it's it's finding one's own sweet as

you said, your own sweet spot. What is it that actually

stimulates me and I think the three of us would probably not

enjoy not working or or having a completely we wouldn't thrive

with that. And so each of us has to find out that but with all

polarities and polarity is a fascinating subject but we're

all polarities have this thing that we they always driven.

There's something we want to achieve. We want to achieve the

good life which is trying to balance this polarity, but

there's always a fear of some thing going wrong that will

drive us to over emphasize one polarity over the other. So

before we get down there, but the other classic polarity is

leadership versus management. And so we have this fear that

we're not in control that we're not going to be successful that

we're not going to manage the business that we're not going to

all the rest of it. And so we push our foot down on the pedal

called management and we push it hard because we think that as

long as I keep pushing that pedal, and I'm sure it would be

doing right, and the reality is, and it comes at the cost of the

leadership aspect, and then that deteriorates. And then you get

the downside of both polarities. And it's a little bit the same

thing. So we in consulting businesses, and what we do, we

all wake up in the morning in the morning and think, oh, when

are we going to get the next client? And are we are we being

successful? And I'm doing well? Are we working hard enough. And

so we push the bloody pedal, which is called work. And we

forget to balance it the other pedal, which is the leisure

part. And in that sense, we do ourselves a disfavor because

that means at the end of the day, we're not at our best

anymore. So one has to find out. So what are the what has to try

and identify and actually be really conscious of the fact

that you said the running. So one of the things that I could

that I could actually see on a to do list or put in my calendar

or say these when I do these things, I'm on the other

polarity, I'm actually reinforcing that polarity and

not working on the other one that way. And then you need to

sort of think a little bit about what are the warning signs? When

do I know that I'm actually only focused on my work side? What

are the What wife doesn't speak to me anymore?

Oh my gosh. I love that. I love this point. It is

in our world business development. And when you're, as

you alluded to earlier, you took a call because you're a good

guy, and you wanted to basically let that person down gently and

professionally. But in fact, actually you supported them. So

better business development there, we typically see a boom

and bust or a feast and famine approach. And what we see is,

you know, lots of work, loads of work, loads of activity, and

then all of a sudden, you know, this roller coaster motion where

Oh, no, and then you hit the bottom trough, and you go, Ah, I

need to do it. That's fine. But what about our record episodes

in my own life over the last 10 years, where I haven't been able

to see what's going to approach and I think about a bit about

mental health. And I think about the polarities between leisure

and work. And when I've worked too much, and I haven't done

enough decompressing, I actually got to a point of being so

compressed that that I wasn't feeling great, but I couldn't

see it coming. So to your point, I love the idea around writing

something down or observing but sometimes you're so in it, and

being driven so hard by management that you just get to

a point and it all breaks apart. I don't know. Any thoughts on

that there, Mike at all.

You said the word mental health and well, I think

this is this is this is something we don't like to talk

about. It's a little bit taboo. It's, it's incredibly important

of years ago, I had, I was also working like crazy. And I was I

was really I was actually really enjoying myself, but I was on an

aeroplane three times that we're going somewhere. And it was it

just went on and on and that sense. And one morning, I was

walking, I was preparing to walk into a client workshop, and my

brain shut off. And I can't really explain what happened,

everything just went fuzzy and wobbly. And I was disoriented.

And I it was it was I wouldn't wish that on anybody. And the

short story is I spent a year trying to getting out of that.

Because once you've you've done that you and that's the sort of

let this be a warning to anybody when you start. And I started.

It took me it took me a year to get around. And during that

first period, it was so bad I couldn't cross the street on my

own because my brain was not capable of calculating, you

know, the cars coming or not? Are they faster? Is it Is there

a space, it's actually a piece of complicated arithmetic our

brain performs, and mine wouldn't just wouldn't do it, it

would just can't do that. And so one really has to, and that was

the lesson for me. What are the warning signs? What was it that

you know, that started telling you? What body pains or

headaches or whatever, that you were pressing this pedal a

little bit hard and too hard. And I think that is so

important, because once it hits you, then it's no joke anymore.

I mean, anybody who's been there will will know what I'm talking

about. It's and I don't wish that for anybody. It's really,

really tough.

I resonate, you know, and you had your own

episodes. And you know, I had to turn around to my dad and say is

this what it's like? And I tried to clarify like where I'm at.

And I remember laying on the sofa not being able to move

which felt like for three weeks because I couldn't cook I didn't

know how to do that anymore. And you know, but now the the

ownership actually comes back to me and my friends like Matt,

you're a massive friend in this circumstances and support my

family. But knowing those signs now is really vital. And I know

we've sort of deviated away from topic.

I think this is a really important part of

conversation though, isn't it around that culture and actually

there's a just picking up on that point that you and the term

or the word polarity and I think it's being able to see both

Those signs, as you said, and Jonny, you just said, they're

being able to identify what's going on in each of those

different worlds and using basic tools such as to do this just to

keep ourselves honest, because it's really hard. And again, it

goes back to, we talked about at the top that everyone's

circumstances different. Everyone's polarity is

different. So everybody's perspective and wants to do this

will, will look different. One thing you mentioned, Mike, as

you were talking about that was this sort of role of leadership

and leadership versus management. And if we think

about that, in the context of employees and supporting your

employees, I'm curious, is that where you're you were heading

with that comment around leadership versus management? Or

are you approaching that from a different perspective?

This is where I become a broken record player,

you know, because Jonny described a hotel visit that

wasn't extremely successful. So coming back to the sort of

overall framework here, everybody wants customer

loyalty, everybody drives for the it's super interested in

their NPS score, and all of this good stuff, but few people

actually really take the time to reflect on the fact. So in the

services industry, I don't know anything about production, but

in the services industry is what is the primary driver of NPS,

it's employee engagement, employee engagement drives your

NPS, because there is no loyalty in basic satisfaction, just

delivering the right product at the right specification at the

right price exactly as on spec and all the rest of it, that

gives you three 3.5. It's on a scale of one to five, it's a

3.5. It's okay. And there's no loyalty in that. So we tend to

over focus on this product specification and improving the

product. But we forget that in order to get from basic

satisfaction, to fantastic loyalty and enthusiasm, it

requires employee engagement. And then we need to ask us and

when we look at the engagement figures, we all know them from

Gallup, and all the rest of we know them from all the

companies, it's a huge headache across the board. In general

terms, most basic engagement levels are very low. So I think

you can can sardines and Portugal, and not be

particularly engaged in your job. But in the services

industry, that from the customer perspective, there is a world of

difference between being served by somebody who has a job and

somebody who's actually engaged. It's just too different. It's

just two different worlds. There's no comparison. So we

don't spend enough time asking ourselves, so what is it? How do

we actually get to that point? What is it that drives that

engagement? How do we get to there, and then we get back to

my story about the polarities, because if you think about it,

there is a polarity, which we could call tasks versus

relationships, the to do list all the things we want to do,

versus spending time building relationships with people

connecting all that stuff. And if we lift that polarity, 500

feet up, essentially, that polarity is also called

management versus leadership. The key problem that that we've

that we face out there is that the system has a bias towards

task orientation, the whole system that we all sort of

subscribe to, in the sense that we all live in these pyramids,

there's somebody on top of us, and once on somebody below us.

And whoever's on top of us, whatever level we are on, has a

certain tendency to exercise a pressure on us downward towards

us, which is, we could You could wrap it up in all sorts of fancy

paper, but it's called more productivity, we want to we want

to see more output for less input, you know, please turn it

up, which is basically a task orientation. And then there's a

pressure from below us, the people who are below us, they

also think they have a different pressure, they're exercising a

pressure towards us for a better relationship, they want more

attention, they want to be seen, they want us to be involved.

They want an emotional connection with us one way or

the other. And, and they try and drive that the problem is that

when we then look at our calendar, and all the stuff and

the to do list, what do we give the priority? Well, because the

guy upstairs, you know, he has, he can be nasty, or she. So we

keep on then value, picking the task versus the relationship

problem or the relationship thing that we could be doing.

Having that conversation with that person going for a walk

with somebody who we know is in trouble with whatever they are

doing. And so in that sense, there's already the set. It's

built in, in the way we think about what do we value in work?

What do I as a manager value in the next level below me, I level

somebody who gets their stuff done, you know, who delivers on

time and all that stuff. And so in that sense, this is it has

this lopsidedness and the other thing that's built into that

cake is that when we recruit, who do we recruit, what is the

kind of personality that we prefer? Well, in my world,

hospitality world, who is the the young, bright waiter who

gets promoted to assistant shift manager or something team

leader, whatever? Well, instead waiter who's really well

organized and who gets stuff done and who ticks off the boxes

and hands up in the evening was very, who's in fact really task

oriented? And who gets promoted assistant manager? Well, it's

the team leader who's really tasked Yeah, okay. And so

suddenly, you see that there is a trace all the way through the

system, where everybody who gets promoted to the next level gets

promoted primarily because of that task capabilities, they are

really good at getting things done. And I get go crazy in the

hospitality business when I see this because it's supposed to be

in people. And somehow we get lost in that. But it gets worse.

Because if you then think about it, when we are pressured, when

we're under stress, when the heat is turned up, then we all

have a tendency to gravitate towards what we feel comfortable

doing. And so if you've structured your system with

people who are most comfortable doing tasks, then the more the

heat gets turned up, the more they will take refuge in the

tasks instead of getting out of that bloody office and facing

the problem. Which is having that conversation with that

person helping that person grow through the next level, or

whatever it is.

This is it, though, Mike, this is exactly it. And

Jonny, you and I talked about this a lot about and actually we

talk about it through the lens of like middle managers who

often get stuck. And as you talk about that pyramid structure,

some of the most of us susceptible in this to this

challenge. I mean, if you're a middle manager listening to

this, you might be kind of nodding along as we are like,

What do you say to those individuals might like how can

they help themselves in this in this situation? Because we can't

all go to our boss's boss's boss's boss and say you're

running your business completely wrong, you need to focus on it.

So how can a middle manager listening to this podcast help

themselves?

So first of all, you have to break the waterfall,

as I call it, you have to even if your boss does this, you have

to stop doing it. And that's a fundamental mentality, and you

need to make up your mind that you want to do that. And then

when I coach people around this, then this Oh, they always

present this to me as a problem. This is a problem. How do I

solve this because my boss is pressurizing me, and this is

what they want. And I know I should be paying more attention

to taking care of the people. But I mean, I still have to

deliver it. So I have to say to them, it's not a problem, it's a

polarity, you need to get better at managing that polarity. And

you have to see it as a polarity and not as a problem. Because

there's a problem. It's not solvable, you're always this is

good, this is gonna this is it's there every bloody day, day in

and day out, you're faced with this. And so it's not a problem

to be solved. It's a polarity to be managed understanding, when

do you do what? When do you put your foot down and resist and

when do you insist on taking time to do something else or

whatever it is, but you need to do that. And if you do that, you

will also see how much more successful you end up being

because you get a completely different output from the next

level below you. So they support you. But you have to have the

guts to actually believe that.

Mic drop. Jonny I can see you've got...

What you shared there, it is something that we

can all resonate with. And we will have the ability to I can

see the pictures being formed as you're describing them. So thank

you for doing that. And as we spoke about earlier, the

importance of that. And Matt, I really enjoyed your

questionnaire, and I assume a lot of nodding and smiling

because it's just so so relatable. I guess the question

for me is just going a bit back towards what you said about MPLS

versus, you know, employee satisfaction as well. If you're

looking at a business and you're leading a team, what are some of

the three or three things that you could deploy that would

drive employee satisfaction up knowing that you're probably

measured of MBAs, but actually, you know, the input is good

employee satisfaction. So what are like three things that you

know of that could work in in the service industry is not a

problem, because they could be transferable to other

industries, but any off the top of your head that you could

deploy as a manager.

The first thing is, don't ever think in employee

satisfaction. employee satisfaction is not an

interesting concept in this in this, this context, because I

can easily have people who are satisfied with their jobs, but

not being particularly engaged, I got that that doesn't help me.

So I can provide really nice jobs, a decent salaries, work

conditions, I can do all of that stuff. And I can tick off all

the little boxes over on the management side and see I'm

doing that really well. And I will get employees satisfaction,

but I don't get any engagement. And so if we go back to the

first thing, the NPS if we stand and analyze, so what is it that

drives what is it that moves the needle in NPS from being

reasonably satisfied to being a key promoter in that sense? It's

not the product. It's not the basic spec because we're already

we're already established. If you deliver on spec, you get a

3.5. So what is it that needs to be added to your delivery, your

way of doing it in order to move the needle? It's an emotional

component. It's an emotional component in the sense Somebody,

there's somebody in that team, that service team that managed

to connect with you in some way that touches you, that makes you

feel seen that makes you valued as a Work customer solves the

problem for your little dog, or sort of whatever it is that they

do they do something that from the trigger something in you in

your field, it's a feeling they trigger in you where you feel,

wow, that was really sweet. Okay. So what does it take to

move the needle, from basic employee satisfaction to

engagement, it's exactly the same mechanism, I can get decent

reasonable employee satisfaction, if I tick off all

the boxes reasonable, I deliver on spec, I do what I'm supposed

to do. But if I want to move the needle, I have to make sure that

that employee feels an emotional connection with this job. And

with me, and the tons of research to support this, that

relationship that we're talking about is with your immediate

boss, we join companies and we leave managers, it's the

relationship with your immediate supervisor, which determines 90%

of your mental health at work. And so it's that relationship.

And it's, it's a relationship, it's not a it's not a to do list

thing. It's a relationship. So you need to start thinking about

so what is it that constitutes a relationship? When does

something become a relationship? When do I start thinking, this

mad guy that contacted contact me, he is actually an

interesting and fun guy? Well, he started taking an interest in

me, he asked me questions, or what do you do Mike and tell me

a little bit more. And John said you were doing some. And so when

we take an interest in somebody else, it becomes the first step

in our lives. So think of anybody that has become a decent

relationship. It starts off with a conversation where that other

person's actually shows interest in you were pretty primitive.

I think this is so helpful, just to try and get

some some of these amazing tips out. And I can hear already a

few that I'm thinking of is when you structure a business, you

need to think about what type of person you're gonna be

recruiting, you know, task oriented versus relationship

oriented. And thinking, actually, to your point, you

know, what do you wrap around that to keep people and retain

people, you know, that relationship opportunity to

create space for people to build relationships? Is there anything

else that you would say for when managed, but what not managers,

but when anyone is building relationships, from the tear to

a tear, is there anything that they should be doing any ideas,

you know, you meetings, how they should structure meetings, one

to one, how they should stretch that, and things like that, Mike

would be helpful.

You just need to learn one thing, they need to

say to themselves, every time they go into a meeting, or a

group or whatever it is the going connection, before

content, that's the mantra connection before content, don't

barge into a meeting. So this is what we need to do. And this is

how we're going to do it. Whether it's with a group, or

whether it's one to one or wherever is take the time to

connect, I see managers who get it, and I see managers who don't

get it. And the managers that get it, they they follow this

base. I don't know if you've come across it. But there's

something called a team high performance model, which is a

lovely drink suscipit model, it's a lovely model, which

basically states that, you know, you start off with why, who,

what, and then you get to how, and then you start building the

action plan and all the rest of it. But the foundational piece

that needs to be put into place in all these situations is the

why the who and the what, when we do something, when we

engagement when we do something, we want to understand why we're

doing it. It's a key driver. I mean, even Nietzsche talked

about this, you can resist you know, whatever it was, he just

said you can you can bear any pain as long as you know why.

And so taking the time to make to make that that clear, what

what is the purpose of whatever it is we're trying to do. And

then what I think is, is completely neglected the whole

way around is this concept of social contracting. So whenever

we get together with other people we need to as managers,

we need to scan this room and say, These people here in the

room today, do they know each other already? Okay, well, then

that's one thing, no, this job here, he's actually new to the

crop. Okay. That means it's going to take us 10 minutes

later, but we now need to make sure we bring into we bring Joe

into this conversation, bringing up today introduce him. So we

spend some time massaging that. And if I sometimes I've been

working with a top management team for a hotel and we're

planning an opening one of them come together as a new group.

And then I can spend the whole weekend on that, because I get

them to do what I call life maps. I get them to share where

they're coming from, what they're doing and what way they

experiences and all of that. And once I've got that in place,

then the rest of the work just goes it just flies because

there's no resistance. No guardedness, no, all of that's

gone. Let's just say and sort of camaraderie and trust and an

openness.

It reminds me of a conversation Jonny, we had with

a recent guests on the podcast, who talked about an experience

when they had with their, with their peer group of leaders and

their direct leader, rather these very senior team. And

they'd spent that weekend together. And they'd spent that

quality time together. And they weren't talking about work, they

were just engaging with each other. They were building

rapport, they were building relationships, and had the

energy that she felt she got from that experience was just

was just so big, you know, the drive and the motivation that

that created for her. And then as an expert, as the expert

leader that she is she's translating that into how does

she make this? How does she create that same experience for

her own team and her own direct reports? But, and the why is

it's such an interesting point to start, because it sounds so

obvious. You know, we've all had experiences of businesses where

it's just Oh, no, no, no, we're gonna keep that just inside that

jacket, we're not going to tell them exactly what we need to do.

Because they don't need to know that that's not all.

They don't know it. The leaders don't know it

themselves. And they're just running around doing things

without any vision, purpose mission together, that's tying

them all into one, you know, direction, I think we will

listen to someone else. Matt recently is like, what, why do

armies March? That's a great question. And even someone who

was in the army didn't know the answer, but it shows conformity,

right, it shows that you're all in one direction that you're all

marching in that direction in unity.

And I think, Jonny, I want to follow up on something

that you were asking, so what does one do. And I think the

other thing that we don't really understand enough in depth is

how important the sense of belonging is to our engagement,

feeling that you are part of the team feeling that you belong,

feeling that that you are accepted by the others is such a

strong driver in our own engagement. And it's, it's

really interesting, the sciences say that when you when you scan

people's brain, and you and you see what happens to their brain,

if they experience physical pain, in one part of the brain

lights up. And it's the same part of the brain that lights up

when people feel they don't belong. It's bloody painful to

not belong. But we take shortcuts like that the whole

time, and don't ensure that we talk about diversity.

Visually it's diverse. But actually, are we

encouraging the discussion?

For me this leadership aspect is the thing

of trying to keep together what is by nature inclined to

separate those and split up and separate those, there's a

constant piece of work that needs to be done. And it didn't

never stops, you have to do it every day, you have to keep it

together. As as a group keep this the sense of we ask

something together. The sort of the conclusion for me after

having been in this game ourselves. For many, many years,

I spent the first 20 years actively running hospitality

stuff in all sorts of shapes and forms. And as a top manager, and

then the last since 2001. I've been doing what I do now, this

consulting, and I can just see that the more and more that I

work on this, the more and more my business tends to gravitate

towards this relationship stuff, trying to help people understand

how they do that. And also, I think it's very important. We

have this sort of, we have a fatalistic approach to work

relationships, you know, it's a bad team. It's, it's an

irritating guy. I wasn't lucky. Thank God, I can work a little

bit more with the other group, oh, take responsibility for your

relationships. Ask yourself, what is my role in this

relationship actually not being ideal? What could I change? Is

there a different approach from me that would give a different

response from them? Because it doesn't, it's not, it's not

helpful not to have those strong relationships.

You can talk about families are businesses and

whatever businesses or family, whatever about all of that,

right, because some of that is just smoke and mirrors, and

frankly, garbage, some of that is actually meaningful. But I

think the what you've just shared there is about your own

perception. It's like, okay, you can't change your family. So you

can't change your family, you could change your friends, but

you still need to get on with your fat. Well, some people

might argue, don't, you still need to get on it. So you got to

work at that relationship. So it's exactly that it's take

responsibility, don't just throw it away, because you can't be

bothered, the importance of having to work at it and see it

as something that you need to work on. But then see the output

that working on it will drive for you and for your business. I

think that's such an important thing to do. I'm sure a lot of

people on this podcast might be thinking or not thinking, but

mad.

It's not on my Outlook to do lists that part. I

can't see it anywhere.

There we go. And that is it. Right. That's the final

statement. But it's not on my Outlook to do lists that can't

see it anywhere. So if there is a lesson to I mean, there's a

lot of lessons in this market. Thank you so much for taking the

time to talk to Johnny and I today some really fantastic

insight. And really, really appreciate your sharing. I know

our audience will love and love having listened to this podcast.

So thank you for joining us, and I look forward to seeing more of

your video. He's online or maybe in the not too distant future

maybe seeing you stand up in front of a live audience so

thanks again Mike.

Thank you both, it's been, I've had fun and I

really appreciate you accepting my rants.