Jonny and Matt discuss their 5 leadership principles from lessons learnt from a 20+ year consultancy of over 1,000 clients. These include operational rigor, commercial alignment, and the power of a coaching culture in business leadership. They discuss how leaders can maintain discipline and effectiveness amidst the monotony of routine tasks, while also fostering a strong coaching culture that nurtures growth. Drawing on insights from their Roots and Shoots white paper and Patrick Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, they explore how aligning key functions across sales, marketing, HR, and finance can drive success.

Hello, and welcome to the growth workshop podcast

Jonny, hi.

Great to see you again, how are you doing?

Ah, very good.

Thank you, Matt.

Lovely to see you again.

We've rolled on a bit, bit more time since our last conversation, which is great.

Doing very well.

Thank you.

How are you?

Good.

Yeah, very well.

Thanks.

So what's been happening in your week this week?

I do like this part of our conversation.

It actually gives me a great opportunity to reflect on some of the things

that's been going on with our clients just in the world in general as well.

I had a fantastic trip to Toronto, where we've worked with one of our

longstanding clients for many years.

Really interesting, about sort of leadership focusing on some key leadership

principles and people really recognizing the value of developing others.

And also developing themselves.

So that was a great takeaway.

Come back over the red eye flight landed bit of jet lag, but now I'm glad that

we're coming up towards the weekend.

What about you, Matt?

Yeah nice, get that, that jet lag coming the other

way is horrible, isn't it?

Yeah, for me, I had another fun packed week working with a lot of clients.

It's been fantastic being back face to face.

I know we've been living in the virtual world for so long and

actually just getting back in front of people and in those sort

of workshops it's really engaging.

It's been really enjoyable.

So yeah had I had a really interesting conversation actually, again, on the

leadership piece with a with a client and they've got all the sort of right ideas.

It's just how to put that into practice.

And sometimes it's all balancing the process with the people.

And I know we're going to talk a bit about that later today,

but just really interesting.

They're like, we've got all this in place, but why are we struggling to.

Are we struggling to get it moving?

Yeah, I did some prep work with another colleague on how we're going to help

them in in tackling that challenge.

So it's great.

So in terms of today's conversation, Jonny, I think, the topic for

today is what are the 5 principles of successful leadership?

And I think it's, yeah, this is a really interesting topic to dive into.

I'm sure people listening will have their own perspectives, maybe even have

their own principles as that they've delivered in different organizations

that they've worked in the past.

But, obviously we take these principles or we created these principles

based on the thousand clients that we've worked with, all that SBR have

worked with over the years and many of those on leadership programs.

So it's great for us to bring that.

That insight and that experience to the table and share that with

everyone on the podcast today.

So what I thought might be good is if we just highlight what those principles

are, and then we can dive into it.

And as usual great to get your perspective, and we can have a

bit of a conversation about it.

Yeah.

And Matt, is it fair to say that these principles are from, our

understanding over the last sort of 20 years, the thousand clients

or so that we've worked with?

And, there are many principles out there, which is the debate

that we're stoking here.

And these are just some of the principles that we've created, the five that we

have concluded in most recent times that are valuable for that leadership role.

So I think that's really critical that we want people to also

critically analyze these principles and think about their own.

Yeah, indeed.

As ever, this is our sort of perspective and our opinion.

And I think we've got that experience to leverage on, but it's not always right.

And there's probably hundreds of principles out there that that are

appropriate in different settings.

Just to run through those five principles before we get into into

The meat of the conversation today.

So our first one being leadership is everything and making sure that you're

recruiting the right people and how you recruiting the right people into

leadership data is the second looking at people versus metrics of balancing,

having good analysis, good data that you can analyze and understand and

identify trends within, but also balancing that with the individuals.

Operational rigor, how you create consistency and effective habits in, in

leadership commercial alignment, that client centric approach, making sure

everyone's going in the same direction.

I think it's really important.

And then finally, to wrap them all up is that underlying coaching culture.

So providing the team with a real track to run on, having a supportive

view of leadership and focusing more on the carrot than the stick.

So Jonny, I think those are the five that we've come up with, I'd love to

get your thoughts Jonny on the first principle that leadership is everything.

What's that mean to you?

Yeah.

And, great question.

Really like this first principle and these principles are

definitely universal, not uniform.

So when we have a look at that, I recently delivered a keynote at

a global leadership conference to one of our longstanding clients.

The client is in and around 100 million EBITDA number just to give you an idea

around about 75 leaders across the globe.

And this principle is what I shared to them in that 25 minutes.

And I aligned a narrative.

Now, I know it's contentious talking about politics.

So please do forgive me.

But the the crucial part here is that when we're thinking about leadership,

who are you recruiting into that role?

And do they have the capacity and the capability to be successful?

Also thinking about that ability to role model and I made an

alignment towards Boris Johnson.

Now, if you think about Boris Johnson 2016, the best sales

professional in the whole of the United Kingdom, what did he do?

He sold the dream.

He took us on a journey, helped us think about Brexit then continued

to become the prime minister.

And again, sold the dream about how great of a leader he would be.

We all bought into that.

Let's not talk about the pandemic.

My point being is that not all great salespeople are great leaders.

So the first principle is that leadership is everything, but making sure you've got

the right leader in the right position.

And recently, as I stated in Toronto, they have this kind of have Actually gone

out and not bought product specialists.

They've brought leadership specialism in and that has been a profound

change in terms of their performance.

So that is leadership is everything is principle one.

Great.

And you really you really took a risk there going down the Boris Johnson

route, Jonny I implore your bravery.

I could see the, the comments going wild and hear the clicks of people

clicking off, please don't leave us.

We promise that's the last bit of political garbage that we

that we attend to spend today.

So Jonny, the next piece or the next principle is data

and people versus metrics.

And I think it's, this is a really interesting topic of how

to find the right balance between.

The people and focusing on the individuals in the team, and then

what the numbers are telling you.

And I think that, there's a starting point here.

I know we talked about, we've talked about this previously balancing what data

you're capturing, why you're capturing it, but more importantly, how you're

using it, what you're looking for.

What's your perspective when it comes to data?

What would you say is the most important aspect of that in terms of finding

the right balance between focusing on individuals and then focusing

on what the data is telling you.

And yeah, and the reason for us together, probably

selecting this as a principle is that, first of all, do you have data?

Do you have quantitative data that can give you some insight?

And we live in the world of, overindulgence in information,

that information needs to be valid.

So let's check the validity of that and then let's set up

the appropriate dashboards.

A colleague of ours this week, we were building out a maturity model, which

highlighted the right appropriate dashboards at the appropriate level.

So within that, what you've got then is the metrics that you're currently

tracking inputs and those outputs.

That is just one story.

That's the important part of what we're saying here is people versus metrics.

Once you look at the metrics, then what you want to be able to do is overlay

the people, the quantitative, the qualitative stuff that you can see, right?

And that is where I see time and time again at the moment, Matt.

And I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I'm super passionate about this is that people look at a dashboard,

they make a judgment, they go and then try and change the course.

Okay.

So question is how often are you spending shadowing, spending time observing,

looking at the right behaviors and measuring against competency framework

time and time again, at the moment I'm hearing Oh, I don't have time,

I would imagine if you overlaid some of the data metrics that you've

got to some of the observations, you'd have a fantastic story.

So that principle is all about balancing the difference between spending time with

the people, but also using data that is valid, what's your thoughts on that, Matt,

and what's your view on the principle?

Yeah, I think you said it there Jonny, is balance.

It's about balance, and it's about looking at the right things.

I've been in.

I'm sure we've all been in those sorts of pipeline reviews where someone turns up.

We're looking at high level, top level numbers, and we work a lot with

organizations to focus on the inputs as opposed to the outputs as those

really critically leading indicators in sales and effective sales.

And so often you walk into and as a lead, you walk into a, an exec briefing and

maybe get a bit of a kicking on pipeline or a kicking on on closed sales and that

then when leaving the room that sort of carried with you and that, that can

guide the way that you then behave with the team is that why are we not there?

And it just, it doesn't foster a productive conversation, in my opinion.

And I think it's just, how do we, again, to your point, take the right

metrics, look at them in the right way.

Coach the team on how to understand them and how to adapt their own, their

own well, their ability to talk to those numbers, but also what they do

that impacts those numbers and start to create that across the different

layers within the organization.

I think that's key.

And then, like you said how often, how much time are they spending shadowing?

How much time they're spending actually in one-to-one coaching sessions, or how

much time are they spending in an Excel spreadsheet and using that as a, a big

sort of dirty stick to beat people with.

Yeah, I think that's that's fantastic.

It's so integral.

So, leading on from that into our next one, which is operational rigor.

And this sort of talks to those sort of consistency in the habits.

And this is probably where it's really most important to balance

those sort of metrics and people.

And this talk, this principle talks to how operationally and as a leader, you

are maintaining the right cadence with your team, but you're maintaining the

right consistency and habit in the way that you coach, in the way that you

deliver in the way that you operationally run your team, how often are you

reviewing key metrics with your team?

What are you, how are you using that to then guide the team forward?

It's interesting.

I am in a previous life.

I picked up the nickname, Matt Best Efficiency.

I had you to my focus on operational rigor.

So it's something that's very close to my heart.

What does it mean to you, Jonny?

Oh my gosh, you shouldn't have told me that.

That is, that's sticking.

That is, that's going to go across our global consultancy team very quickly.

Great thing about teams is you can just pump it in there.

News to all.

Awesome, Matt.

Thank you for raising this point and working with you.

You have a fantastic approach towards the operational side of things.

The job that you do, but not only that you support clients

with the account management and the customer success process.

So I can see that within you as a consultant, what operational rigor

means to me, quite simple is about discipline and you've got to be aware.

If you're a middle manager or a leader that some of the

work that we do is monotonous.

So be conscious around how you did, deal with monotony because, every day.

Every week, every month, it's the same thing.

Check the stats, check your people, check your process, use your

tools and technology to help you.

And every single week, what we want to be able to see is that

you're doing your one to ones.

You're doing your activities and it should be all about inputs, drive the outputs.

And importantly, if your operational rigor is successful, your employee net

promoter score should be fantastic.

Attrition in terms of the people being regrettable should reduce

and ultimately productivity, i.

e.

revenue should improve those three clear metrics should be the basis of all of that

great operational rigor and discipline.

What about you, Matt?

Best Efficiency?

You're not going to live that one down.

I would agree, Jonny, I think going back to the appreciating understanding

that there is some repetition in the role, especially in that middle

management role within a business, I think the interesting thing here

is, as you said, is balancing that.

I think the important thing to say here as well, though, is that whilst,

you might have some repetition coaching, your team and having really

great people conversations should feel it should feel really engaging.

If you really if that's something that you want to do, as part of the,

as a leader it's a fundamental skill.

And it's something you can continue to hone.

And I think as ever with.

With the sort of monotonous tasks, it's always challenging yourself to

think about how you can make those more efficient, how you can automate.

But at the same time, realizing to your point that it is an ongoing

recurring thing and you can't leave it alone for three months, expect

to come back and it's still working.

And Matt, just conscious around it, because

you're absolutely right.

And thank you for keeping me in check because obviously I've got

to be in my bonnet about that.

And I've used maybe some of those particular words.

We work in, we live in the world of growth.

Okay, so you're thinking about if targets are being set for businesses for 2024

at the moment, they're likely to be an elevation of growth targets increase, but

we know that comes with that is some of the key principles like operational rigor.

If the target's going to increase in a business by 10 percent each year,

what, why is operational rigor so important for you to continue to hit

those 10 percent growth goals each year?

Yeah.

That's a question we should be asking all of our clients, is is,

what why do we think that's important?

And it's about effectiveness, isn't it?

And discipline, like you said, understanding the process,

understanding what it takes.

So then being able to map what that looks like and then stay accountable to it.

And that needs, and that requires discipline, it requires the right habits

and it requires for a lot of practitioners on the ground, the support of their leader

and being able to execute against that.

So moving on to our fourth principle and looking at commercial alignment.

And this is you've got a lovely quote that you shared with me previously.

I'd like you to share again about rowing in the same direction.

And I think, as part of a part of commercial alignment and a client

centric organization, and we've at SBR here, we've recently published a or

coauthored a white paper around a client centric approach and everyone in the

business guided towards the same outcome.

I had a similar conversation with a leader in a customer success.

Function of a managed services client just earlier this week,

who reiterated to his team that.

Customer success is all about joints is a responsibility of the entire business

to make our customers successful.

And that really aligns to that same, we talk about here commercial

alignment, which is understanding the need for everyone to have that sort

of commit to look at things through a commercial lens, but it really

starts with that client centricity.

So yeah, Jonny share with us that quote that you shared with me just before our

recording here today, would you, and then I'd love to hear your perspective

and your take on a commercial alignment.

Yeah, I think that's a great point.

And I think the white paper you're talking about is the Roots and

Shoots paper, if I'm not mistaken.

Something actually that we work with a great marketing partner.

And funnily enough, when we're talking about the alignment between sales

and marketing, the first instance, they're hugely passionate about that

is that everyone owns the number.

So how do you drive the awareness of marketing, producing the number as,

as well as sales, rather than this sort of finger pointing emotion.

I think for the last 10 years, that's been been thought of but but

businesses have tried to deal with that, with the evolution of CROs.

But I guess what we're talking about here is commercial alignment.

How do we align all key functions together?

And the quote that you talked about there is actually from one of my favorite books.

And if you've never read it or ever been on a training course, it's

called, it's from Patrick Lencioni the five dysfunctions of a team.

And this was also shared in the keynote as I was talking about before.

So I shared to the audience, if you could get all the people in an organization

rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry in any market

against any competition at any time.

As I said, that was by Patrick Lencioni.

That's a pretty profound, pretty punchy statement.

What's your thoughts on that, Matt?

I 100 percent support that.

I've been in business and actually it's one of those things I think where, and

this isn't, universally true by any means but the examples I've seen of

where this where that really comes true is you look at those sort of challenger

startup markets and there's a team of a dozen people and they are, they

are all rowing in the same direction.

They are all 100 percent focused on the goal.

As that business grows and develops, things start to creak.

And you get this.

My priority is going, you're going left and you're telling me and you're

telling me your priority is going right.

And we get that sort of We start to veer off down different down different

sort of streams that lead off the river.

It's a terrible analogy, but, to try and extend the rowing analogy there.

But I think the interesting thing is how to exactly as Patrick

says, how do you maintain that?

And how, but more importantly, how do you maintain that as your business grows?

And I think, as you said, in the Roots and Shoots paper that we've co authored with

our with one of our marketing partners.

It talks to the marketing and sales collaboration.

But for me, it's also really important as you go into when you look at the sales,

account management, customer success to operations alignment, and how those parts

of the business work together as well.

Yeah.

And not just to stop there, but HR and finance, right?

If finance don't buy into the comp plans, if HR don't buy into the competency

frameworks, my gosh, what do we get is, oh, just a tick box exercise or

no, why are we paying sales that much?

Funny enough, if we pay them in the right behaviors, then ultimately we might get

towards that 10 percent growth that we were speaking about on operational rigor.

Yeah.

Commercial alignment, it's a great topic at the moment.

It is a hard bit of graft.

And also it's going to require a whole bunch of things, but that

alignment, I do truly feel can make that marginal gain improvement to

enable you to reach your goals.

Yeah.

And Jonny, I'd argue it's more than a marginal gain.

I think it's a significant gain, and a significant improvement looking

your business top down and bottom up.

Thank you.

And then our last principle of coaching culture.

And this for me is what sort of wraps around all of the four

principles, but indeed any principle that you adopt in leadership.

And that's really talking to, how to develop a rich coaching culture, a culture

of support, providing a clear track to run on, for your team, aligning to those, that

data principle that we mentioned earlier is it really clear what your team needs?

How are you supporting your teams?

Jonny, you mentioned spending sufficient time with the team in shadowing in

coaching, one to ones so important.

And just having that culture of support.

Rather, and I differentiate this.

We think about management versus leadership, and management is we've

all seen those those little cartoons on LinkedIn where the managers, shouting

and pushing everyone up the hill first and the leaders at the top of the

hill, dragging everyone up after them.

And I think that's a really important thing to think about when we think about

that coaching culture, you want to be able to sit down with your leader and

have a conversation, be a bit vulnerable, ask for support and for help without the

fear of being berated or the fear of, yeah, the fact that you maybe have failed

or not done as well in something that means that your managers or your leader

is going to look at you differently and not support you in the way you need it.

I think that for me is \really what a coaching culture is trying, is

encouraging and enabling your leaders to have really effective, coaching

conversations with their team to act as a coach and into a mentor, but not as

a manager, going down a list of tasks.

Have you done this?

Have you done this?

Have you done this, right onto the next one?

We know that's not effective.

What?

What does it?

What does it scream out for you?

Jonny, coaching culture?

I love your analogy of the sort of that

trek or that mountain approach.

It actually made me think back as you're talking there to some of

the occasions that I've had as a, a direct report to some of the leaders

that I've had or been fortunate or unfortunate enough to work with.

And also from our position of seeing it what happens with our clients.

The point being here is I see this coaching culture principle

is again, a universal principle, but it wraps around the other four

principles we've spoken about today.

When I talk about wraparound is that we're really focusing on if that is a really

great culture within your organization, that not only is the sales coaching the

sales, but marketing is coaching sales.

Sales is coaching marketing.

Marketing is coaching finance.

Now we're starting to align the commercial piece, operational

rigor, going to have a culture talks about it's living and breathing.

It's in your ecosystem.

Therefore operationally, it will be living and breathing

in the processes that you do.

The important part is that when we're thinking about coaching culture,

there's lots of data to suggest that, you need to coach people between three

to five hours per person per month.

Yeah, that's optimum, but for every single business, you

might need to just do one hour.

Really quality hour, or maybe it's eight hours.

It really does depend on the business and what are the the lag indicators

suggesting, because all of that input is gonna drive the output.

I guess lastly from a coaching culture is that I talk about

the wraparound or the barrier.

Fundamentally, a great culture will make sure that you drive

to succeed your strategy now.

If you have a really stinky culture and you're less likely to achieve that

strategy and the overall outcomes, and that will only be, at detriment

of your own goals and what you want to achieve as a, an individual contributor,

sales manager or professional.

So I would say that's the piece there, man.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I like your phraseology there as well.

Stinky culture.

We've all seen those sort of stinky cultures and the impact that it has.

And yeah, I think really important in culture, starts at the top, but

actually has to exist everywhere.

And it's interesting, Jonny, you talk about the three to five hours and it might

only be one, I've worked with teams where they're doing six hours, but those six

hours have been soaked, have been poor.

And actually it doesn't give you the results that you want.

Three effective hours is better than 10 ineffective hours.

So again, just thinking about how you're delivering that in

your business as well, and what you're supporting and reinforcing.

And Matt just to add on that, and again, When we're talking to

leaders, which we do week in week out, and we deliver the course we do at SBR, I

typically ask a question that I don't want a response from people, but just to think

about is that, as a leader, or when you think about your leader, are you looking

forward to having that session with them.

And the question I asked there is that they normally go, and what that does

is then it asks the question is that, are you having a great relationship

with the person that's leading you?

So you get to think, Oh, is that valuable?

Equally?

Most leaders are then looking down and think about their team and go crikey,

the sessions that I'm doing probably they aren't adding as much impact.

I don't set a purpose so that coaching culture isn't being laid out.

It's a tick box exercise for many, and actually many don't even tick the box.

They actually delete the one to one in the diary because they don't feel confident

or capable of delivering a great session.

I'll get off my soapbox, but I'm hugely passionate about these five principles.

I think it would add value to both individuals and businesses achieving.

Absolutely, Jonny.

And, thank you to to you and thank you to everyone who joined us today.

I'm certain that you may have your own perspective, right?

You may have your own principles that you follow within your business, but

hopefully what we've done today is share five really great foundational

principles to successful leadership alongside some really great examples

of how they've of how they can impact your business and how they can help

you in being successful as a leader.

So with that, I'd encourage you to think about these and how you can incorporate

some of this into your own leadership culture into your own organization.

And so we very much look forward to seeing you on the next podcast and Jonny,

thanks so much again for your insight and contribution in the podcast today.

Awesome.

Thanks Matt.

Cheers now.

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