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The Team Manager's Responsibility
Episode 7519th February 2024 • The Unified Team • Rob McPhillips
00:00:00 01:07:43

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Shownotes

You're in charge of a team...

How do you spend your time?


Are you a Leader or a Manager?


What's your key responsibilities?


How do you create a culture that performs?


These were some of the topics we discussed. The panel was...


Matthew Ward

Muhammad Mehmood

Johan Meyer

and me, Rob McPhillips.

Transcripts

Matthew:

I'm Matthew Ward.

Matthew:

I'm from Canada.

Matthew:

I'm retired for a number of years and I'm doing this now.

Muhammad:

I'm Mohammed Mahmood.

Muhammad:

I am an expert, if I may say, because I have a good experience

Muhammad:

in hospitality and SaaS business.

Muhammad:

So I'm now Doing business consultancy, helping startups

Muhammad:

mostly to kick off the ground.

Muhammad:

And I'm also now being active on this platform for the

Muhammad:

past three and a half months.

Muhammad:

And I've met great people like yourself now, Matthew, Rob and Johan.

Muhammad:

And we, I think we're collectively, we're gradually growing and

Muhammad:

learning from each other on

Rob:

a daily basis.

Johan:

My focus at the moment is an organization called Stuck to

Johan:

Unstuck and the focus is really on working with people in the workplace.

Johan:

Who are struggling or frustrated and want to move forward, not necessarily

Johan:

getting the right support or the right guidance or training that they

Johan:

need and on an individual basis, identifying how do we help these guys

Johan:

move forward and gain the competencies they require to do what they want to do.

Rob:

I'll just explain a little bit of my thinking, my rationale

Rob:

of why I chose you all to be in the group and what I was thinking.

Rob:

Matthew and I had a wonderful conversation where he shaped

Rob:

my thinking on the difference between leadership and management.

Rob:

And I really wanted to get him and Mohamed together to clarify that idea

Rob:

of leadership management and how can we have a working framework that is useful.

Rob:

Mohamed and I, in our conversation, we touched on the limits of what is a leader

Rob:

and then where do those responsibilities then end with the teamwork.

Rob:

There's lots of talk about the leader's responsibility.

Rob:

If the team is not responsive to that leader, then that can be the constraint.

Rob:

Johan works on the other side of leadership in helping people navigate

Rob:

their careers in being recognized and being able to communicate better

Rob:

and being able to be recognized by leadership and move in their career.

Rob:

So I thought he would have an interesting view and some

Rob:

contributions on the other side.

Rob:

A hazy idea but I'm hoping through the conversation that

Rob:

we'll be able to clarify it.

Rob:

Basically the outline is where does the leader or the manager's responsibility

Rob:

end and the team members begin?

Rob:

So where's that delineation?

Muhammad:

If I add as a starters, I believe that both leaders

Muhammad:

and managers role are to a certain extent interchangeable.

Muhammad:

That's one.

Muhammad:

Secondly, I believe that both these roles are actually responsibilities.

Muhammad:

So to me, if I just zoom out from my personal angle, I see this

Muhammad:

as not a title, but individual responsibility of managing and leading.

Muhammad:

And they are both the foundations.

Muhammad:

I like to call the analogy of a skyscraper, like it's both of them are

Muhammad:

required for the solid foundations.

Muhammad:

It's not either you are a manager or a leader, or you could be both.

Muhammad:

Could be a manager and a good leader or vice versa.

Muhammad:

So I have a very open view on it.

Muhammad:

I don't like to glorify the leadership title, which we see a

Muhammad:

lot in our lovely LinkedIn platform.

Muhammad:

And I believe that managers can also be leaders, but so is the leader for me,

Muhammad:

who is actually leading from the front, who is setting some examples for others

Muhammad:

to follow, who could ignite passion.

Muhammad:

And equally so can also manage people on an individual level.

Muhammad:

So what is that management looks like?

Muhammad:

It's the day to day stuff.

Muhammad:

I want a holiday, I need a break.

Muhammad:

I can't work on that particular schedule, et cetera.

Muhammad:

So that's the nitty gritty side of things.

Muhammad:

The mostly the administrative part.

Muhammad:

And that's how I see the manager or the management looks after that.

Muhammad:

And if I wear the hat of a leader now, and I want, for example, Johan to.

Muhammad:

Stopped coming by car because I want him to be more eco

Muhammad:

friendly and, cycling to work.

Muhammad:

I should be doing that first, setting that example, and then ask or request

Muhammad:

him to do so this is my kind of initial comment on both leaders and managers.

Muhammad:

Sorry, Johan, you were on my screen, so I just picked you.

Johan:

I'll tell you what, from where we started going to town.

Johan:

We see quite a number of cyclists because they've actually made it possible.

Johan:

It simulates somewhat what in the Netherlands.

Johan:

I'd assume, with the dedicated biking passes, a lot of cyclists,

Johan:

but still it's 20 where we are 25 K's into town, 25 K's back.

Johan:

And I say, you really have to want to do it in order to get there.

Johan:

Cause it can be a challenge.

Johan:

Touching on to what you're saying.

Johan:

Through my whole career, I was fortunate or cursed to be either

Johan:

in senior management or executive positions until I got fed up with it.

Johan:

And I realized that where I really enjoyed what I did is working with high

Johan:

potential individuals who were just not able to live up to their potential

Johan:

and helping them just find that spot.

Johan:

And that's why I had to change my profession into now and to really

Johan:

build something significant around it.

Johan:

But what I've always struggled with is this differentiation

Johan:

between leadership and management.

Johan:

Because they are management tasks.

Johan:

What you referred to it's part of managerial duties to ensure that

Johan:

people are, doing what they're supposed to do and to grant leave

Johan:

and to provide support and so forth.

Johan:

And then there's leadership components that come to that, et cetera, the

Johan:

stuff that we're all familiar with.

Johan:

And, from my experience, both being All across the hierarchy.

Johan:

I cannot recall being myself in a position or any of the people that reported into

Johan:

me, those I reported into or colleagues I worked with, where you did not have

Johan:

a continuous combination of the two.

Johan:

You may have the designation of Manager X, but in order to have success in

Johan:

that position, you also have to be what is defined as a leader, and execute

Johan:

leadership competencies because otherwise you really are just ticking boxes.

Johan:

I've never seen that to be just a requirement.

Johan:

So it's an interesting.

Johan:

I see so many different options around what these two different things

Johan:

should be and how they work together.

Johan:

And I'm very curious.

Matthew:

It'd be fair to say I have a different view of it.

Matthew:

Let's talk about management first.

Matthew:

Let's start there.

Matthew:

So all organizations need some form of management and management

Matthew:

provides a structure and it provides areas of responsibility.

Matthew:

It's a conduit for communication and managers typically are the people that

Matthew:

oversee tasks and having tasks started.

Matthew:

Continued and finished, goals met sales quotas filled, whatever the case may be.

Matthew:

So those are generally speaking the job of managers and managers can

Matthew:

accomplish that in many different ways depending on their Their areas of

Matthew:

responsibility and their personalities and their style and how they operate.

Matthew:

And so to me, a lot of that style is confused with leadership.

Matthew:

So it's for me that the issue there that people have is with style.

Matthew:

As for the organization as a whole, I believe it's driven by its culture.

Matthew:

And manage one of a manager's responsibilities is to be a monitor of and

Matthew:

a carrier of the flag for the culture, but they don't set the culture because culture

Matthew:

should be a large, big unifying idea.

Matthew:

And you can have 5 different departments with 5 different

Matthew:

managers setting their own cultures.

Matthew:

Their job is to carry the one flag for the unifying culture.

Matthew:

And if you do it right, it's your culture that runs the company.

Matthew:

And all the managers do is make sure that's happening.

Matthew:

Where does the culture come from?

Matthew:

The culture is set by, generally speaking, by that large, big vision, that big idea.

Matthew:

And who sets the big idea?

Matthew:

That's the leader's job.

Matthew:

The leader provides the big idea.

Matthew:

The leader provides the umbrella under which everybody works, we'll say.

Matthew:

The leader provides.

Matthew:

The journey, the desk, the destination and the managers provide maintenance,

Matthew:

support and influence for that idea.

Matthew:

And the people who work in the departments in management or under

Matthew:

management under the different levels.

Matthew:

And that would include sub managers and whatever.

Matthew:

They are the followers.

Matthew:

They follow the idea.

Matthew:

And those are the three ways I would describe it.

Matthew:

And it's often, and it does often get confused.

Matthew:

But what people always leave out is this idea of the vision.

Matthew:

The idea that I'm going to take all of us from here to there.

Matthew:

And you can't have two people doing that.

Matthew:

You can't have three visions or seven visions or 11 D leaders

Matthew:

all with their own visions.

Matthew:

There's got to be one person or at least one small group,

Matthew:

but generally it's a person.

Matthew:

It's a person who hasn't, and the go to example is Steve jobs, right?

Matthew:

He's the go to example.

Matthew:

He had the vision, he provided the culture and he was an absolute dick.

Matthew:

As anyone who knows the story knows, he was an unpleasant human being,

Matthew:

but it didn't matter because he had managers who did all that stuff.

Matthew:

He could sit above it and be the crap ass that he was, but his vision was so

Matthew:

spectacular that it pulled everyone along.

Matthew:

He was the leader.

Matthew:

His managers weren't.

Matthew:

So that's the way I would explain it.

Johan:

If I can ask, maybe just to clarify from my perspective, what you're saying

Johan:

is so you've got defined responsibilities.

Johan:

So you've got a leader, and he creates the vision.

Johan:

And that has got a specific set of competence around it.

Johan:

And then they've got the managers in the various different structures

Johan:

and organization and they execute on this vision on behalf and

Johan:

under the guidance of the lead.

Johan:

Is that correct?

Matthew:

Yeah that's the way I would say it.

Matthew:

I guess execute would be a word but, they carry the flag, they

Matthew:

carry the flag for the thing and they all have to be dialed in.

Matthew:

And they're the ones that transfer that energy to the people below them.

Matthew:

You go to the weddings and they have all those, that stack of the champagne cups

Matthew:

and they pour the champagne on the top.

Matthew:

That's how it's to me.

Matthew:

That's ideally.

Matthew:

That's how it's supposed to work.

Matthew:

All the champagne flows down.

Matthew:

Does it work that way?

Matthew:

Not very often.

Matthew:

That's the challenge, right?

Matthew:

To me, that is the ideals.

Matthew:

That's the ideal in any event.

Muhammad:

Matt, if I can comment here.

Muhammad:

First of all, yes, I.

Muhammad:

Have the same idea of the vision, and leader dictates that or share the

Muhammad:

vision and inspires people because I'm probably the, one of those who carries

Muhammad:

this flag of servant leadership a lot.

Muhammad:

So that's set aside for a second, but you've said there's the manager.

Muhammad:

So it could be, let's say in an org, you've got one leader.

Muhammad:

So we forget him for a second because he's laid down the vision and he's bought these

Muhammad:

five managers into that vision, right?

Muhammad:

Now these managers now have to go ahead and expand that

Muhammad:

vision further down the chain.

Muhammad:

So isn't it that manager now becoming a leader for its own

Muhammad:

small sub team, sharing that vision downward so people buy into that.

Muhammad:

So isn't he's now, this person is now stepping into the role of being

Muhammad:

a leader, but not the manager now.

Muhammad:

Cause manager is okay, let's do this one, two, three, four, five.

Muhammad:

We have to do it.

Muhammad:

Let's go.

Muhammad:

Let's do it.

Muhammad:

In ideal scenario, then he or she should be selling this vision.

Muhammad:

So the people of this sub team to buy in from them.

Muhammad:

To go towards that common goal.

Matthew:

My comment would be that depends on the structure of the organization.

Matthew:

As a historical example I submit Napoleon, great leader, but many of his marshals

Matthew:

Were leaders in their own right, and they could be leaders in their own right,

Matthew:

because he carved his army into army core, and they were wholly independent,

Matthew:

and they carried his vision, but since they operated independent of the whole.

Matthew:

most of the time.

Matthew:

They developed their own leadership qualities and history remembers

Matthew:

a guy like Marshall Ney as a leader in his own right as well.

Matthew:

So I think it depends a lot on your structure, but if you have a more

Matthew:

closed structure, which is more typical of the corporate structure, then it's

Matthew:

like too many cooks spoil the broth.

Matthew:

Too many leaders is problematic.

Matthew:

I would say, and that's not to say that they don't pop up.

Matthew:

And develop, because you can get leaders pop out of a situation,

Matthew:

take control of a situation.

Matthew:

They're the right person at the right time at the right place.

Matthew:

There's a situation.

Matthew:

They recognize it, they seize it.

Matthew:

They show people a way out of it.

Matthew:

They are in that moment, leaders, but they are not the leader.

Matthew:

And that leadership doesn't stay with them.

Matthew:

It, they're only the leader in that moment.

Matthew:

Once the crisis passes or the whatever and the organization

Matthew:

continues it's usual path.

Matthew:

They go back to being the very good managers that they were.

Matthew:

And another issue just while I'm on it.

Matthew:

Another issue is I have and you mentioned it, the leadership is

Matthew:

just a word being thrown around all over the place these days.

Matthew:

And it, it bothers me because it degrades managers.

Matthew:

It's as if managers aren't good enough.

Matthew:

You got to be a leader.

Matthew:

No, damn, you don't have to be a leader.

Matthew:

You can be a crackerjack manager.

Matthew:

You can be a very great manager.

Matthew:

And when Rob and I spoke about this before, I used the

Matthew:

example of the Henry Ford.

Matthew:

Now, Henry Ford there's an argument to be made that he was a leader,

Matthew:

but Henry Ford II was not by any stretch of the imagination.

Matthew:

No one would call Henry Ford II a leader.

Matthew:

And yet he was a crackerjack manager.

Matthew:

He, he built the company from when his father passed it to him.

Matthew:

Now he did.

Matthew:

do the Edsel, but he was a very good manager.

Matthew:

And you look across corporate America today and then a lot of

Matthew:

other smaller orgs private and not, and public, there's all kinds of

Matthew:

people whose names you don't know.

Matthew:

Tens and tens of thousands of them who are CEOs and they're

Matthew:

absolutely fantastic at what they do.

Matthew:

And if you're in certain industries like accounting, God help you if

Matthew:

you're a leader in accounting or banking, because They're supposed

Matthew:

to keep a low profile, right?

Matthew:

That's the way the industry is.

Matthew:

And yet the CEOs of a lot, the CEO of a large corporation accounting corporation

Matthew:

is damn good at what he or she does.

Matthew:

They're the best in the business.

Matthew:

But they're not leaders, right?

Matthew:

They're just very good managers, and it's okay to be an exceptional manager.

Matthew:

And if there's one problem in business today, is there's a crisis in management.

Matthew:

And the crisis is that we're not developing, and haven't been for a

Matthew:

while, a lot of good middle management.

Matthew:

And there's a lot of reasons for that, and that's a subject for another day.

Matthew:

But it drives me nuts when I see everybody wants to be a leader, nobody wants to be

Matthew:

a manager, when managers are so necessary, important, and in such short supply.

Matthew:

It's way better to try to be a great manager than a great leader,

Matthew:

because the world is your oyster.

Matthew:

There just aren't enough great managers.

Matthew:

Rant over.

Rob:

Thank you.

Rob:

Thank you for that, Matthew.

Rob:

I see what you're saying in terms of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk as well is another

Rob:

one that they had a very clear vision that he drove people that they left one

Rob:

person in charge of an area and they were accountable and responsible for it.

Rob:

They let went, left them to do their own things.

Rob:

So in that sense, they were leading their own team, leading their own project.

Rob:

But I think when you look at a lot of organizations, there may be 100,

Rob:

150 years since the visionaries gone.

Rob:

So if you look at Ford it's many years since Henry Ford's gone.

Rob:

So that kind of leader who stands for something, who leads with

Rob:

a vision often they've gone.

Rob:

You then have managers managing the culture.

Rob:

And what you've got is people who often are focused on next quarter's

Rob:

earnings, it's about share price.

Rob:

I think that when there is a lack of leadership, what you

Rob:

then have is as it filters down.

Rob:

You then have, because there's a lack of clear vision or purpose or defined

Rob:

goals and vision from the organization, the, there becomes a power vacuum

Rob:

that you create silos and you create department heads who then have power

Rob:

struggles for their own personal visions.

Rob:

And I think that's where we then get divided culture.

Rob:

I see the ideal of the wedding shoots coming out.

Rob:

When you've got strong leadership, then the leader at the top is like

Rob:

the juice if you have a cordial.

Rob:

There's a juice and as it filters down, it's going to become diluted.

Rob:

So when you have a leader that isn't as strong as Steve Jobs who isn't as clear,

Rob:

is that where the culture then becomes a problem when you have division and silos?

Rob:

So I'd just like to chuck that in for discussion.

Matthew:

Yeah, the the it does happen that the vision survives the

Matthew:

visionary, and a good vision will.

Matthew:

But boy, that's a big question, Rob, because the the fracturing

Matthew:

of the vision or the, boy, it gets into so many issues here.

Matthew:

One is the loss of the vision or the dilution of it.

Matthew:

You also get into this idea of managers and management and just human beings

Matthew:

being human beings and carving out their own fiefdoms and having their

Matthew:

own personal relationship issues.

Matthew:

And that all stuff happens.

Matthew:

And then there's another issue that has to do with, in the last, I don't know, 20

Matthew:

or 30 years, this slavery to the quarterly report and the share price kind of makes

Matthew:

a vision pointless because why have one?

Matthew:

All you're trying to do is drive a share price, right?

Matthew:

Man, that's a big subject.

Matthew:

That's a big subject.

Muhammad:

It is indeed a very big subject because Rob, you just

Muhammad:

ignited a debate here on this.

Muhammad:

Here I fully resonate what Matthew is saying, and Rob, to your point, I can give

Muhammad:

you a small example how this vision could be converted into toxicity because there's

Muhammad:

a vacuum created, some poor decisions.

Muhammad:

You've got teams who are based in like different regions, so let's say, for

Muhammad:

example, Perspective, for argument's sake, a UK based team, a German based team,

Muhammad:

a US based team, a Canada based team.

Muhammad:

Everyone then creates their own vision on kind of direction.

Muhammad:

And what happens is that because the leader was either a poor leader or a weak

Muhammad:

leader or in corporate terms was voted out by the board and it was a vacuum.

Muhammad:

What happened afterwards that company just lost his share price and it just

Muhammad:

literally collapsed due to one bad decision made right at the top from

Muhammad:

where the supposedly the vision should have originated and it creates obviously

Muhammad:

toxicity, which is another big topic to discuss, but that's how I see it.

Muhammad:

So again, going back to this point, like everything starts from the very top.

Muhammad:

This is what I believe that anything that happens at the top has a

Muhammad:

massive impact going down the chain.

Muhammad:

And as we say that managers are either great managers or poor manager,

Muhammad:

likewise, it is also to be a bad leader.

Muhammad:

But to me, then I take an extra step here.

Muhammad:

And I have been saying this quite out loud on LinkedIn as

Muhammad:

well on various, posts as well.

Muhammad:

Whenever there's a talk about bad leadership, I don't class

Muhammad:

that person to be a leader then.

Muhammad:

Because if the leader is making these bad decisions, it means that he or she

Muhammad:

is not even sold into their own vision.

Muhammad:

I'm not saying they're flawless, but that's how I take it, that

Muhammad:

you cannot be a bad leader.

Muhammad:

You are either a leader or you are not.

Rob:

Just to clarify as in if you're a bad leader, no one follows,

Rob:

therefore you're not a leader.

Rob:

Is that

Muhammad:

really what you are saying?

Muhammad:

Exactly.

Muhammad:

Because you lose respect.

Muhammad:

That's how I see it because obviously I have some experiences,

Muhammad:

and some people in my experience like lost their moral authority.

Muhammad:

In the business, because you don't follow a bad example.

Muhammad:

Oh, yeah.

Muhammad:

A

Matthew:

leader assumes followers.

Matthew:

Lead is the root of leader.

Matthew:

What are you leading?

Matthew:

Are you leading sheep, toasters, or people?

Matthew:

And if you don't have people following you, you are no leader, right?

Matthew:

You're just in Mohammed's case, you're just a really bad manager, right?

Matthew:

There's

Johan:

other ways for that kind of structure to manifest.

Johan:

We all hope that it's the romantic notion of somebody with a grand

Johan:

vision and others who are inspired and enthusiastic about that vision and

Johan:

they follow voluntarily and because they think they can contribute, but

Johan:

then the reality in business is also there could be somebody at the top.

Johan:

To find them as you will move simply through influence and fear rule the

Johan:

roost and people still do what they're supposed to do, and you get results.

Johan:

This is a very interesting conversation.

Johan:

And I find myself thinking something that I've been thinking for a while.

Johan:

And that is, could be sometimes caught up too much in contextual definitions.

Johan:

What I mean by that is I really like what Matthew says in terms of there is

Johan:

a person who takes the responsibility or the ownership to create the vision

Johan:

and then you can get competing visions, others in the environment who says,

Johan:

No, I don't agree, and they influence the board, they influence others, and

Johan:

they try to get their agenda pushed.

Johan:

That does not diminish leadership.

Johan:

That just means there's a couple of guys who's fighting for the same position,

Johan:

and it's trying to take that lead point.

Johan:

So the way I work with guys is to try and get them out of the thinking just

Johan:

practical context, if you will, between the definition of a leader and the

Johan:

competencies required to act as a leader.

Johan:

So organizationally.

Johan:

It is defined that there is a head working organization where there were two heads,

Johan:

two CEOs, and they worked well together.

Johan:

But my understanding is typically that's not something that works.

Johan:

Because the chairman is already a pain in the butt and, then the

Johan:

CEO needs to manage the board and executives and everybody else.

Johan:

So once you take the lead, it's your job, get the job done and

Johan:

see where you want to take us.

Johan:

Just on the point of vision, vision can endure, vision can also change.

Johan:

If you take Apple as an example.

Johan:

I don't think for a moment Tim Cook has changed the broad vision of

Johan:

Apple, but the way he approaches that vision has been more to be different

Johan:

than what Steve Jobs has been doing.

Johan:

Jobs has always been innovation, kicking the bucket down the way, and

Johan:

Tim has been more about, getting it sustainably done, making sure that it

Johan:

can endure over a long period of time.

Johan:

If you have different people in an organization, your example

Johan:

earlier, you have different small teams, but at some point within

Johan:

a team, a job needs to get done.

Johan:

And the person who takes responsibility for that team, that component of the broad

Johan:

organizational structure, they've got a contribution that they need to deliver.

Johan:

And in some, at some point during the work that they do, they need

Johan:

to display leadership competencies.

Johan:

And at other points in the job they do, they need to display manager competencies.

Johan:

A problem arises.

Johan:

You can't then go to your checklist and say, okay, what do I do?

Johan:

At least you're an airline pilot and they have to do that.

Johan:

But for the most part, for the work that we do, you don't have

Johan:

a checklist you can go and check.

Johan:

You have to check with the team, guys, we've got a problem.

Johan:

How do we've got to accomplish this.

Johan:

We're not going to get there from here.

Johan:

How do we think about this?

Johan:

That displays leadership competencies.

Johan:

And then once that is evaluated, some solutions, and then the

Johan:

management competencies come back.

Johan:

All right, now do we need to execute?

Johan:

What do we need to do?

Johan:

What do we need to plan?

Johan:

What resources do we require?

Johan:

Who is, etcetera.

Johan:

And you guys all familiar with both sides of that point.

Johan:

I'm of the opinion to summarize this, that there is definitely a case within

Johan:

a broader organizational structure to define a leader and what they need to do.

Johan:

And everybody else who follows that leader willingly.

Johan:

All through a bit of encouragement.

Johan:

But within everybody's job that they do, there is a requirement to at some

Johan:

stage exhibit leadership competencies and also management competencies.

Johan:

I don't think that only goes for managers, even the guys that are

Johan:

working in the teams, they also need to manage themselves, manage the work

Johan:

they do, manage the quality that they deliver, manage how they interact

Johan:

and engage with those around them and with, those that they report to,

Johan:

regardless of how we define them.

Johan:

So it's the application of the competency, I think, within the broader

Johan:

structure, as long as it complements the vision and not is not opposed.

Johan:

That's where I think that's where the challenge really comes in.

Muhammad:

Some valid points.

Muhammad:

I agree because for instance there was a situation where one of my staff member

Muhammad:

she stood up and said can I lead this team now in mean to, can I manage this team?

Muhammad:

There was a difference because there was some tasks needed to be done or a project

Muhammad:

needed to be handled and she wanted to just leave that project, lead the team.

Muhammad:

But she also already had a manager on sitting on top of her.

Muhammad:

So this is where I still stand on my point of view is that it's a mixture of both.

Muhammad:

Even today, it was a bit controversial, but I posted about like introverts,

Muhammad:

can leaders could be great managers, I still believe as you said it's more

Muhammad:

like how you implement and execute your your skills or abilities to handle that

Muhammad:

kind of scenario, which is building up.

Muhammad:

Another small example I can give is that in one of my previous ventures,

Muhammad:

I stepped out from the operations and then when I had to get back into

Muhammad:

it, I walked into one of my units.

Muhammad:

In that particular unit, I had about 117 people employed on my payroll and

Muhammad:

on the shift I found them, 43 of them, and I fired 39 of them on the spot.

Muhammad:

I wasn't the manager.

Muhammad:

I wouldn't class myself as a leader because I was the MD of the business,

Muhammad:

but I had to walk in and execute that.

Muhammad:

And then what I did was I took on this responsibility.

Muhammad:

So I went into the production line myself because I knew somebody

Muhammad:

has to step up by doing this.

Muhammad:

Obviously there was some other guys were called in to to work.

Muhammad:

And I led this unit for at least three and a half weeks.

Muhammad:

So leading from the front, then training these people.

Muhammad:

So I was juggling the roles, being a manager.

Muhammad:

Because I was doing scheduling, I was ensuring that, the deliveries are on

Muhammad:

time and whatever agreements we have, we are adhering to those clauses.

Muhammad:

And equally, I was trying to lead the team out of that kind of adversity, if

Muhammad:

you like, because obviously they, so this is where, I started to believe in that.

Muhammad:

Okay.

Muhammad:

I can swap roles.

Muhammad:

I can be a leader at one point.

Muhammad:

I could be handling the tough board who is hungry for my neck.

Muhammad:

And I can also sit with my people.

Muhammad:

I can connect with them on an individual level.

Muhammad:

And to me another important factor in that leadership capacity or a

Muhammad:

managerial capacity, just like it's combination is that even if I'm

Muhammad:

sitting, so let's say I'm an MD and I've got 400 odd people on my payroll.

Muhammad:

The best thing when I, what I learned was that I could recognize each and

Muhammad:

every single team member, regardless of which department they are.

Muhammad:

I could remember their first name at least.

Muhammad:

Okay.

Muhammad:

I'm very poor in remembering the last names, but at least

Muhammad:

I knew, okay, this is Rob.

Muhammad:

This is Jessica.

Muhammad:

This is Chrissy.

Muhammad:

So this made me more connected with them.

Muhammad:

I wasn't their manager and maybe I wasn't the leader either because they

Muhammad:

hardly saw me on a day to day basis.

Muhammad:

So this is what I expect from leaders, that if you want to sell the

Muhammad:

vision, don't sell in the boardroom, sell to the public downwards.

Muhammad:

And on one of my last consultancy venture, this is where I walked out of

Muhammad:

the contract because I believe that the company's culture is not being how I

Muhammad:

look at it is like an iceberg, right?

Muhammad:

Saying something that visible, something that invisible.

Muhammad:

And I spent way too much of time.

Muhammad:

on the ground, connecting with people, understanding actually, what's going

Muhammad:

on and what could be done because we had to implement some operational

Muhammad:

efficiencies and I couldn't do it unless I understood the root cause.

Muhammad:

So I found that and I presented to, the guys who hired me and I discussed

Muhammad:

with them and I realized that they are just talking about numbers because

Muhammad:

for them, everything is a number game, but this is not how I see leadership.

Muhammad:

Leadership is that when you stand up for your people, you take the hate, even

Muhammad:

if it means sacrificing your own job.

Muhammad:

So that's to me a leadership.

Muhammad:

I rest my case.

Matthew:

Yeah, but that could also be a great manager.

Matthew:

And I would expect in my company, I expected my managers to do just that.

Matthew:

I expected them to do that.

Matthew:

I expected them to defend their turf and defend their people and to be that

Matthew:

wall between them and all the adversity above, I expected them to do that.

Matthew:

But I didn't consider them all leaders because they did that, even though

Matthew:

eventually one or two turned out to be good leaders in their own right.

Matthew:

But that, these are part of things that all managers should have in them.

Matthew:

Don't you think?

Muhammad:

Yeah they should have it, but I think if we now let's zoom

Muhammad:

back into, if I may clause this as.

Muhammad:

More sort of ground reality here, right?

Muhammad:

In practical terms, people are afraid to lose their jobs.

Muhammad:

People are afraid of many other things.

Muhammad:

People are very much afraid to put the neck on the line and where you

Muhammad:

expect these managers to take the hit.

Muhammad:

Defend the turf, as you mentioned, but that can be done as a leader, too.

Muhammad:

So you're also defending and protecting your own people, right?

Muhammad:

So it's not about who is managing, it's also actually who is giving

Muhammad:

them the protection of the psychological safety, the culture.

Muhammad:

element comes in, who is more better connected with the people on the ground.

Muhammad:

I don't have to be classed as a manager or a leader.

Muhammad:

I could be a team member who is probably, understand people's emotions.

Muhammad:

I can talk to my team members and I can maybe also encourage them to do better

Muhammad:

or do certain things in a different way.

Muhammad:

So then which role I am in.

Muhammad:

I'm not the manager.

Muhammad:

I'm not the leader, but I have a huge influence on my team.

Muhammad:

I'll

Johan:

tell you what, if I can quickly just chime in here.

Johan:

As interesting as the discussion is, as valuable as it will be to ensure that one

Johan:

runs this through to a proper theoretical end, the consequence, and this touches

Johan:

to something that Matthew raised earlier, is that it's one of the elements, at

Johan:

least in my mind, that is causing a challenge for junior and middle, and I'd

Johan:

suggest even senior managers these days.

Johan:

If you look at the literature out there the last 10 years, and I'm talking Books,

Johan:

written to LinkedIn, texting, anything in between blogs, videos, there are

Johan:

so many different opinions about how should a leader be defined, how should

Johan:

management be, et cetera, et cetera.

Johan:

And what it causes practically is on the ground.

Johan:

And I say this because, it's an end of two.

Johan:

I've worked with two guys in middle management positions

Johan:

recently, but I also recall.

Johan:

My managers that used to report in to me in various different

Johan:

organizations, they come to me and say, okay, so what do I need to do now?

Johan:

Where should I focus?

Johan:

So in a reporting structure, that's different because, we

Johan:

know exactly what we need to do.

Johan:

But now two guys come to me and say, I need help.

Johan:

I'm confused.

Johan:

I don't know whether I should spend more time on training and educating people as

Johan:

leaders should do and creating the vision for them and helping them through their

Johan:

career inspiration, or should I spend more time on making sure the team accomplishes

Johan:

the goals that we have to do in order to further the organization's objective?

Johan:

And I, my question then is always are you confused?

Johan:

What are you getting paid for?

Johan:

And there's two things that I think are critically.

Johan:

I think the one is that I don't think managers as a whole and I'm talking

Johan:

management as a position, not management as a competency, management as a position.

Johan:

I don't think there's enough support for those guys in terms of learning really how

Johan:

to be skillful at what they do and apply a host on different skills in order to

Johan:

move their team and organization forward.

Johan:

And secondly, this is not A little bit of my side, but I also don't think there's

Johan:

enough support for those in the teams to be able to equip themselves and get to

Johan:

the right level of competency that they can effectively support their manager

Johan:

and actually do what they need to do.

Johan:

The one guy I spoke with, I said, okay, show me what your

Johan:

diary looks like for a week.

Johan:

And I kid you not, four hours out of every day, four hours out of an eight

Johan:

hour day, and that excludes lunch and such, he spent in one on one engagements.

Johan:

With various different members of the team.

Johan:

So he said, what do you actually talk about?

Johan:

Yeah, that came to about 20 percent of the time.

Johan:

They actually spoke about the work they were doing.

Johan:

The other 80 percent was all about, what are you working on?

Johan:

What are your personal goals?

Johan:

Because that is what they, what he was informed from.

Johan:

I'm sure a well intentioned person that, that's how you need to engage.

Johan:

Because that's how you build that unity.

Johan:

That's about that team, et cetera.

Johan:

And that's all true.

Johan:

The problem is that the real focus?

Johan:

I'm not for a moment suggesting that they should neglect them.

Johan:

I just want to be clear on that.

Johan:

But where's the balance point?

Johan:

And how do we make sure that the managers who are out there, millions and millions

Johan:

of them who are trying to do a damn good job, that they are sure they can focus

Johan:

on the right things and they've got the right support, the right structures

Johan:

in order to achieve the results that they want to and need to achieve.

Johan:

I think, Matthew, I'm tying into the point you raised earlier, but I also

Johan:

have seen, that managers as a whole, they want to, but they're struggling and I'm

Johan:

not sure that they have enough support to really effectively move forward.

Matthew:

I think that's why there is this crisis in middle and you added

Matthew:

junior and it has seeped upwards as well.

Matthew:

It used to be if you could make it through middle management,

Matthew:

it was like a test of strength.

Matthew:

You could survive middle management, then you were going

Matthew:

to be okay and upper management.

Matthew:

But that's less and less true because middle management

Matthew:

has been a mess for decades.

Matthew:

And it's been a mess for decades, I think.

Matthew:

And I'm just riffing on some of your thoughts here, and I think it's because

Matthew:

of all the confusion that has been injected into that middle management

Matthew:

role now and your example of your friend or coworker you were talking about.

Matthew:

He had to ask what the hell am I supposed to do, I've got 40 hours worth of stuff.

Matthew:

Everyone's asking me to do in a day, I'm spending four hours a day on

Matthew:

pep talks because someone told me there's only so many hours in a day.

Matthew:

And what's my role.

Matthew:

And am I supposed to be that empathetic educational friend,

Matthew:

or am I supposed to be that hard driving get to get the work done.

Matthew:

Am I supposed to be what am I supposed to do here.

Matthew:

If you look through the enough LinkedIn posts, there there's, my

Matthew:

God, there's 500 things that a middle manager is supposed to do in a day.

Matthew:

And touchy feely stuff and hard ass stuff and don't do this and do that and do that.

Matthew:

Is it a wonder why middle management is such a mess, right?

Matthew:

Because we've turned it into, we've held the business folks were

Matthew:

working for profit based companies.

Matthew:

You got to turn a profit man, and we've just turned them into babysitting

Matthew:

clinics in a lot of cases, like we got to turn a profit here people.

Matthew:

That's why we're here.

Matthew:

If we don't turn a profit, we're all out.

Matthew:

And then you got to go work for the bad guy down the street.

Matthew:

So let's all get along.

Matthew:

Let's work together.

Matthew:

Let's, let's not be idiots about it.

Matthew:

But boy, you just listening to your talk there I've never been in the corporate

Matthew:

world, but I'll bet you that's just.

Matthew:

Horrible, horrible in a large corporate setting, and

Johan:

it is indeed the kind of my experience and it's

Johan:

a very limited experience.

Johan:

I don't suggest that I'm speaking for everybody in all cultures

Johan:

and all periods of the world.

Johan:

But I've seen a limited number of people who've actually been able to and

Johan:

that's it's through good mentorship.

Johan:

Actually, I've never seen somebody really just get to it by themselves.

Johan:

Through good mentorship, being able to identify.

Johan:

Okay, this is how we need to move forward.

Johan:

And then they thrive and then they go.

Johan:

But from colleagues and guys that I've just connected with awesome questions

Johan:

from a research perspective or in bigger companies, I'm talking 20,

Johan:

30, 000 employees across the world.

Johan:

They've got these defined structures and I'm sure again, intentioned

Johan:

HR and support and et cetera.

Johan:

And for the most part.

Johan:

They are following the advice of well respected people out there who promote

Johan:

new methodologies, new ways of thinking, ways to really just not thrive even, but

Johan:

survive in, in this modern business world.

Johan:

That's just GPT calls it every day.

Johan:

And.

Johan:

And it's challenging.

Johan:

And I think so.

Johan:

I want to ask Rob a question quickly.

Johan:

I'm just thinking about it now, but Rob, your specialization

Johan:

is relationships, right?

Johan:

And how much have you seen that the potentially a reduction in the

Johan:

capability of forming effective relationships, both in the corporate

Johan:

environment, as well as then You know, personally outside, how much

Johan:

has that affected people's capability?

Johan:

What stuff are we talking about?

Rob:

Just to go back a moment between the lines of, so I'm listening and I'm not

Rob:

an expert on leadership, but I understand people and I understand relationships.

Rob:

And from that context, I look at leadership.

Rob:

So I'm look intellectually and how it impacts people.

Rob:

And what I see is the lines are blurred because I think what we're

Rob:

doing in leadership, how we're distinguishing leadership is in taking

Rob:

people from confusion to clarity.

Rob:

And when you talk about the big organizations, there's a lot of confusion

Rob:

because there is a lack of clear vision and because there's too many people

Rob:

that I think the amount of people that we're dealing with is something that

Rob:

challenges are biological capabilities.

Rob:

When you look at Dunbar's numbers.

Rob:

People have a limit of 150 people that they can maintain any kind of

Rob:

relationship, 1500 that they're aware of.

Rob:

And when you're talking about 20, 30, 000 pound, 30, 000 people organizations, it's

Rob:

something we're biologically incapable of.

Rob:

So I think when you look, when you bring that back down to relationships.

Rob:

If you go back to the Industrial Revolution, it separated the way that

Rob:

you earn your money from your home life.

Rob:

So there's that separation, which is inherently stressful because we're

Rob:

working and we're living in cities, which we're not designed for when

Rob:

we haven't evolved that capability.

Rob:

So it's inherently stressful.

Rob:

You go into London and nobody looks at each other on the

Rob:

train because it's overwhelming.

Rob:

We know from environmental psychology that the more crowded you are, the

Rob:

more stressed people are, the more aggression that people have, the

Rob:

more hostility that people have.

Rob:

So all of this is impacting relationships.

Rob:

It comes at a time when our relationship models haven't changed.

Rob:

You can tell me if I'm answering your question right, but what I see is we've,

Rob:

we don't have a relationship model and whether you're managing or whether you're

Rob:

leading, you are reliant on relationships.

Rob:

The culture is, yeah, it's set by the vision, but ultimately it's

Rob:

the purity of it is the levels of interactions between people.

Rob:

And when people don't know, so when you create these organizations that

Rob:

create these silos and there's power vacuums, and there's all this kind

Rob:

of toxicity that comes, which I think is inherent in a bigger organization,

Rob:

is then you have you've created the dynamics where relationships lack

Rob:

trust, they lack safety people are stressed, everyone's out for themselves.

Rob:

So if you look at what comes to mind is the alpha myth, like the whole

Rob:

alpha male role model, which I think a lot of old leadership came from.

Rob:

If you're not a good leader, it's because you're not an alpha male.

Rob:

And actually the whole alpha male.

Rob:

study, I'm not sure if you're aware, but it was they took wolves in captivity.

Rob:

And the author of the book, he wrote it in the 70s and someone

Rob:

prominent in the White House pushed that myth, which popularized it.

Rob:

And everyone got involved in, yeah, you got to be an alpha male.

Rob:

And the authors spent 20 years trying to retract that saying it's not right.

Rob:

The research was flawed because wolves live in family units.

Rob:

The pack is the family unit.

Rob:

They don't fight.

Rob:

When one is old enough, they'll leave the pack and make their own pack.

Rob:

And what they'd done is they put all these strange wolves together in captivity.

Rob:

So naturally, there was no bond.

Rob:

They all were all fighting for dominance, power, creates access to resources.

Rob:

So in the same way that captivity creates unnatural behavior, our

Rob:

organizations create unnatural behavior.

Rob:

And so we're asking managers or leaders to manage cultures to create

Rob:

cultures that aren't toxic, to create get people to follow our agendas,

Rob:

to pursue a purpose and a goal.

Rob:

And yet managers don't know, they don't have a working knowledge of relationships.

Rob:

And this is what I'm trying to do is put like standard operating procedures so that

Rob:

people know what is a good relationship.

Rob:

How do you create what drives a relationship?

Rob:

How do you deal with conflict?

Rob:

But there is very little information on that out there.

Rob:

And so we're asking leaders, as well as being technical experts to be people

Rob:

experts and that's a lot to to cover.

Rob:

So I'm not sure if that answers exactly your question, but

Rob:

there's some more to think about.

Johan:

The content I sometimes think about is that fundamentally, if you

Johan:

think about the modern workplace, whether you've got a team of five people or

Johan:

whether there's 20, 000 people in the environment it doesn't really differ.

Johan:

Conceptually that much from the villages, you know that humans lived in 10, 000

Johan:

years ago when they started farming, when they started grouping together,

Johan:

there's still some sort of a hierarchy.

Johan:

There's still somebody who takes accountability to, to distribute

Johan:

resources to ensure that people are safe, health, security, negotiate with

Johan:

neighboring but it just it's actually, and that constructs that exist.

Johan:

That's the business involved, and if people got it right, I don't know,

Johan:

but, people got it right in terms of relationships and how they interact,

Johan:

engage, promote, and work with each other.

Johan:

over a period of a couple of millennia what has caused us to

Johan:

lose that, if I could suggest that capability where we are now.

Rob:

I think that what Richard Branson and the Steve Jobs and a

Rob:

lot of leaders have intuitively known is they've kept units small.

Rob:

And so they've kept them, so they are tribes and, but the human construct

Rob:

of how we operate is based on tribes.

Rob:

So we tend to be tribal, and this is why silos become quite natural,

Rob:

because the silos of today are like the village tribes, where there

Rob:

was a tension between them before.

Rob:

Yeah so while they're like that, but I think what can happen is a

Rob:

lot of big organizations trying to get too many people together without

Rob:

considering those human constraints.

Johan:

I wanted to just ask, based on what Rob was saying, I see from

Johan:

the information, like a little bit of reading on your profile.

Johan:

But you indicated you had 72 locations across the country for the company

Johan:

that you bought or something like that.

Johan:

That must have been quite a challenging environment to ensure that you can manage

Johan:

and lead that the way that you want it to.

Johan:

Which of these principles worked and which that you find within your

Johan:

environment to, to not be so successful.

Matthew:

It's pretty much the way I outlined it on the top.

Matthew:

We had 72 stores and they were spread out about 2, 500

Matthew:

kilometers between the furthest.

Matthew:

And they were in three national cultures and two different languages.

Matthew:

And so the challenges were enormous and they had to be solved.

Matthew:

And the way I The way we solved it was through this idea of having a unified

Matthew:

culture and then having the middle managers be the shepherds of the culture.

Matthew:

And then the individual store managers be the executors of the culture.

Matthew:

And we just depended a lot.

Matthew:

On the culture, doing the work, and if we put the culture in right, then

Matthew:

people would always know what they were supposed to do when they were supposed to

Matthew:

do it, how they were supposed to do it.

Matthew:

And the general idea would be there and it would just managers

Matthew:

would just have to do the details.

Matthew:

Make the schedule and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Matthew:

And they would more become conduits of communication than drivers of

Matthew:

things because it was the culture.

Matthew:

And that was very hard to do.

Matthew:

And we weren't always successful, but that was the goal.

Matthew:

And we gave the each store as much autonomy as we could we used to think

Matthew:

of ourselves as privateers and Navy privateers where we were all, we're all

Matthew:

going in the same direction, but everybody was getting there on their own boat,

Matthew:

and And like I said, that worked for us.

Matthew:

It helped us build when you're trying to when you're building

Matthew:

a new location, and you have to install a new culture from scratch.

Matthew:

That's a very hard thing to do.

Matthew:

And we did that in various different ways, but when it worked great.

Matthew:

And then once we went to a new city, say, and we then we'd spider out in a city.

Matthew:

We'd have a location in Quebec city say, and if we could get that

Matthew:

one up and running properly, then you just clone people off of it.

Matthew:

Who have bought in and then eventually you have what do we

Matthew:

have 5 or 6 stores in that area?

Matthew:

And then that was enough to clone up a manager, an area

Matthew:

supervisor who came up who already.

Matthew:

Was carrying the flag, and that's the kind of way we did it.

Matthew:

We were very deliberate about how we expanded.

Matthew:

We established a beachhead, expanded out, and we did that because of the culture.

Matthew:

We were very culture driven.

Matthew:

We let the culture do all the work for us once we got it established.

Matthew:

Much harder than it sounds.

Johan:

Sorry, one follow up question, if you don't mind, then it's also, it's

Johan:

really just because the word culture is sometimes one that even has more

Johan:

different definitions than leadership and management for your organization.

Johan:

The culture, how would you have to find what is included?

Johan:

How would you define the culture?

Johan:

From a, it's called an operating system perspective, if you will.

Matthew:

The definition I use for culture is the shared ideas and

Matthew:

experience ideas and experiences of a.

Matthew:

People in a group that, that, that is the culture, their

Matthew:

shared ideas and experiences.

Matthew:

And if you do nothing, if you do nothing, and I know this from opening new stores,

Matthew:

if you do nothing there's a culture.

Matthew:

Any group, five people waiting at a bus stop have a culture.

Matthew:

It's the waiting at a bus stop culture.

Matthew:

And if you think about it, you've waited at a bus stop, you know what

Matthew:

to do and what not to do, right?

Matthew:

You know how to behave in the waiting for the bus.

Matthew:

Everybody does.

Matthew:

That's the culture talking to you.

Matthew:

And there's always a culture and all you're trying to do

Matthew:

is influence and shape it.

Matthew:

You can't create it.

Matthew:

It's already there.

Matthew:

You're trying to influence it and shape it.

Matthew:

And so that's what we tried to do was influence it and shape it.

Matthew:

How do you do that?

Matthew:

You do that through your management upwards by example.

Matthew:

And you do that by symbols.

Matthew:

You do it by routines.

Matthew:

You do it by tradition.

Matthew:

You do it a multitude of different ways.

Matthew:

And if you get it right it, it looks after itself.

Matthew:

It's just like that bus stop.

Matthew:

You don't have to keep telling people over and over how to wait for a bus.

Matthew:

Everybody just intuitively knows.

Matthew:

And if you can get that, get there, then the culture runs the store, right?

Matthew:

The people themselves are their own referees, right?

Matthew:

They know what to do and what not to do.

Matthew:

That's the way we approached it.

Matthew:

As I say, it was very hard.

Matthew:

It took a lot of work, took a long time to develop, and we weren't

Matthew:

always successful because as Rob will knows full well, people are complex.

Matthew:

Humans are complex.

Matthew:

Relationships are complex and he's made some really good points, which I

Matthew:

jotted down here about the institutions and the shape of institutions and our

Matthew:

human struggle with them and whatever.

Matthew:

And, as he was outlining those things, I was thinking back

Matthew:

to some of my experiences and that, yeah, damn, that's true.

Matthew:

That's very true.

Matthew:

People do struggle with new organizations and the shapes of artificially

Matthew:

shaped communities and things.

Matthew:

And I saw that every day.

Matthew:

So it's a very hard thing to do, but it's very worth it when you can do it.

Rob:

I like to look at a natural analogy and for culture we have a

Rob:

natural analogy of gut bacteria.

Rob:

And so there's a constant battle between negative bacteria and positive bacteria.

Rob:

And it's which outweighs.

Rob:

And so there's and also if you look at, I love to read stuff from

Rob:

anthropologists and they look at a culture and there's a logic to every culture.

Rob:

So it's one theory is that Egypt was the biggest, earliest

Rob:

civilization because of the Nile.

Rob:

And so there's a reason.

Rob:

And if we look at, When you mention queuing it is wherever English

Rob:

Western cultures, wherever there is a, we just naturally form queues,

Rob:

but I know that there's other cultures where they don't queue.

Rob:

And it's where like we go to another culture and they're like, excuse

Rob:

me, can you just get in line?

Rob:

I was here first.

Rob:

There's a logic.

Rob:

And I think.

Rob:

When you, what you've done is be very deliberate and you had a perspective

Rob:

and a way of this is what works.

Rob:

And I think that part of that is part of the leader's job is to strongly

Rob:

formulate a perspective so that culture then guides the people who come

Rob:

later because and what's critically.

Rob:

important is the leader starts, but going back to a point made

Rob:

earlier, if no one follows the leader, it doesn't create a culture.

Rob:

And it's the second and the third and the fourth, which I think is what you

Rob:

were talking about in the way that you built up your culture, Matthew.

Rob:

So there's a lot Involved in that culture and it's a constant battle

Rob:

to keep the culture positive.

Muhammad:

Can I just throw in a comment and a follow up question

Muhammad:

here then, because we're on the topic of culture isn't a culture

Muhammad:

based on the human connections.

Muhammad:

There has to be a a group right beat on a bus stop beat in a office space.

Muhammad:

How do you guys see culture developing in this.

Muhammad:

new work from home and hybrid environment, where the majority of the

Muhammad:

businesses now are entirely remote.

Muhammad:

I personally am involved in some startups or some businesses.

Muhammad:

They don't have any physical one location because they're

Muhammad:

all scattered across the globe.

Muhammad:

So how do you see culture forming in that particular environment?

Matthew:

Myself I'm withholding judgment because it's very early

Matthew:

in the game and it's going to take a while for this to wash out.

Matthew:

But my hunch is, and I'm, I'd be curious to know how Rob thinks about this.

Matthew:

My hunch is that it's going to be very damaging to the ability for human beings.

Matthew:

To form the kinds of relationships, the shared experiences and ideas that cultures

Matthew:

really require to be strong and good.

Matthew:

And like I said, it's going to be a while before we can know.

Matthew:

Whether this sort of thing is true or not it's very early in the game, but

Matthew:

my, I suspect, and I'm really curious to know what Rob thinks about this,

Matthew:

but I suspect that remote work is very alien to the human experience.

Matthew:

And it's, and it's going to be challenging for the traditional ways we build and form

Matthew:

relationships, the types of relationships we have and the kinds of cultures that

Matthew:

come out of those shared relationships.

Matthew:

My personal short answer is, I don't know, but those are the

Matthew:

kinds of things I'm watching.

Matthew:

How say you Rob?

Rob:

So I think there's a direct analogy.

Rob:

And that analogy is relationships and dating.

Rob:

So we live in a time where there are more single people saying that they

Rob:

can't find anyone when we have access to more single people than ever before.

Rob:

It's never been easier to meet another partner.

Rob:

And yet.

Rob:

What's happened is dating apps have changed everything and people, so

Rob:

then people always find a reason for their anxiety and fear and they

Rob:

say you can't have relationships now because all people want sex and

Rob:

they can just get that on an app and nobody wants a relationship anymore.

Rob:

Nobody wants to put in the effort.

Rob:

And I remember Helen Fisher being asked by this, and she's an anthropologist

Rob:

and a neurobiologist, I think and she said, no, actually, relationships

Rob:

are something that people need.

Rob:

People have three drives, and they have a sex drive to get

Rob:

out there and meet people.

Rob:

They have a romantic drive to focus on one.

Rob:

And then they have a deep companionate drive that they want someone to be

Rob:

with, someone to share their life with.

Rob:

Those drives don't change, but what changes is the way

Rob:

that they get fulfilled.

Rob:

And so I think you see a lot of toxicity in dating because that what

Rob:

happens is we don't talk directly.

Rob:

The communication, and this is something that we talked about, Johan,

Rob:

in our talk, is you talked about how there's a separation in culture

Rob:

of communicating less directly.

Rob:

What happens in dating is there is much more ghosting.

Rob:

There is much more kinds of behavior that are demeaning to people, that we treat

Rob:

people as commodities rather than people.

Rob:

And so what I can see is people will want to work I, and I think.

Rob:

I see the industrial revolution, and we've talked about this Matthew, the industrial

Rob:

revolution changed the way people were.

Rob:

It created this artificial world.

Rob:

Now, I think we're in a second revolution where we're living a digital life.

Rob:

And that digital life means that we now have to recreate what were real.

Rob:

In person relationships, we need to create them digitally.

Rob:

So none of us have ever met in person, but yet we're able to relate.

Rob:

And so it's a different type of connection.

Rob:

So my guess Is that you're going to have a lot more toxicity in corporations

Rob:

because it's going to be easier.

Rob:

And this is what you said, Johan.

Rob:

So you may have some insight on this is it's going to be easier to ghost people.

Rob:

It's going to be easier to avoid conflict.

Rob:

It's going to be easier to hide resentments, and there's going to be a

Rob:

lot more silent conflict and resistance.

Rob:

But overall, I think somehow we'll work it out because I think in talking to a couple

Rob:

of people about, like Sandy yesterday and there's another one coming up with

Rob:

Wandemar is in talking about Gen Z.

Rob:

This is the generation that have grown up in social media.

Rob:

They communicate through social media, so I think eventually will,

Rob:

it will become natural, but I think there's a good few decades where

Rob:

we're going to have to work out.

Rob:

And I think that's where we're going to have a refined sense

Rob:

of Emotional intelligence and much better communication.

Rob:

I think Johan, you might have some insights as well.

Johan:

It's a fascinating subject.

Johan:

And there's a gentleman called, I'm going to absolutely butcher his name.

Johan:

And I apologize, Gleb Tepsesky.

Johan:

New York Times calls him The Office Whisperer, and his focus has been on

Johan:

helping large organizations mitigate risk and impact relating to remote

Johan:

and hybrid remote work environments.

Johan:

And he's had some very interesting insights about the structure.

Johan:

One of the things that I've read, it's also been thought that stuck

Johan:

in my mind is context matters.

Johan:

So when we talk Potentially, and I'm just sharing opinion.

Johan:

This is not based in any kind of own research or direct experience.

Johan:

But I would suggest that if we're talking about intimate relations, I'm not talking

Johan:

about, sex and love, but, me and my wife, or a person with whom you are connected

Johan:

on a romantic level that requires A very specific level of engagement

Johan:

and a long term I suggest there's a reason for it because, you require that

Johan:

physical presence and that contact.

Johan:

We're in a work environment, if it's a long term, there's people still who work

Johan:

20, a corporation, if they don't meet any of their colleagues directly, you never

Johan:

built that, that close understanding and Close engagement that you probably will.

Johan:

If it's that we used to do, when we had to be in office every day and

Johan:

go back home, there's a different level of camaraderie, different level

Johan:

of interaction that happens there.

Johan:

The thing that I've been worrying about, though, is I think what

Johan:

many guys are worried about is not necessarily again, this is just

Johan:

me trying to Connect the dots.

Johan:

It's not necessarily the capability of people to work remotely when it's

Johan:

needed and their ability to perform.

Johan:

The studies that have been done seem to indicate that when people are working

Johan:

remotely, they seem to be more productive.

Johan:

They seem to be more engaged.

Johan:

They seem to have more joy and final meaning.

Johan:

Now again, the stuff is, it's people providing feedback and there's all

Johan:

kinds of biases that one needs to take into account and you need to normalize

Johan:

the data and find some way to make it credible in an objective manner.

Johan:

But overall, it seems to be the trends that come out.

Johan:

Now, if you do that in the work environment and you can do that for

Johan:

people, if you're worried about how individuals are going to perform, then I

Johan:

suggest the real challenge here is that organizations are worried, comes back

Johan:

to the point we discussed earlier, that it's the people who manage those remote

Johan:

teams who might lack the capability, and Matthew, this is where you helped me

Johan:

finalize the puzzle in my mind, help to effectively build culture within the team

Johan:

and for the organization, it still works.

Johan:

And that's what I suspect the big challenge might be because for

Johan:

the definition that we've put together on it earlier, that really

Johan:

just encapsulates everything.

Johan:

So here's the hypothesis.

Johan:

If you have.

Johan:

the right culture within that team.

Johan:

So their ideas and experiences are shared and they execute and

Johan:

think intuitively in the same way.

Johan:

Then it should lead that the execution, the way that they

Johan:

deliver should be sufficient, and be able to take things forward.

Johan:

That culture needs to be managed.

Johan:

By the person who manages that team and environment.

Johan:

And if that person has the right capabilities to do then potentially

Johan:

the concern around will people perform can we be effective is removed.

Johan:

So I think the challenge that they're trying to answer is we don't know

Johan:

what culture is going to exist.

Johan:

We are unable to manage it.

Johan:

We don't know the people whom we trust to manage it actually have the capability.

Johan:

And what they don't say is we don't know how to help them.

Johan:

Yeah, the other thing is, if we look at what's happening in the world right

Johan:

now, most big companies and even the smaller companies, even the ones like

Johan:

Cape Town, they all bring people back.

Johan:

And if I look at what traffic looks like at seven o'clock in

Johan:

the morning, it looks like pre COVID, there's no differentiation.

Johan:

Everybody's back in the office.

Johan:

Here and there, there are remote workers re fully remote work.

Johan:

I read this the other day from an HR staff, fully remote work

Johan:

is actually disappearing rapidly.

Johan:

Not completely disappearing, but it's reducing rapidly.

Johan:

Because it's not necessary anymore.

Johan:

Companies don't believe they have to subscribe to it.

Johan:

Will it become the paradigm somewhere in the future?

Johan:

I don't think there's any argument against that.

Johan:

I think undoubtedly, but it probably won't happen in the next two years, maybe not

Johan:

even the next five years until Rob, and I think you raise a good point there.

Johan:

The guys who are currently your teens and early twenties, once they start moving

Johan:

into those higher management executive positions and big corporations, and

Johan:

they bring, everybody else who's been 20 years, they haven't been born yet even,

Johan:

but it's that generation of culture that they Being brought up with that may change

Johan:

the dynamic for the struggles that we, and I consider myself at all time here,

Johan:

we used to go to the office, clocking in at eight, clocking out at five, to me,

Johan:

it's, I still feel sometimes that I'm not getting in a full day, despite the fact

Johan:

that I clocked out from 14 hour days, looking for my other office, I'm not in

Johan:

the office, so there's that, I'm still getting used to it five years later.

Johan:

So I think we need to adapt at some point.

Johan:

Yeah,

Muhammad:

It's interesting.

Muhammad:

And I just want to share something because working from home or remote working,

Muhammad:

I'm not passing any judgment on this.

Muhammad:

I have my opinion, but I still won't pass the judgment here

Muhammad:

in one of my last venture.

Muhammad:

So I had a set of people who were, and this is by the

Muhammad:

way, guys, pre COVID, right?

Muhammad:

So there were situations before as well, when we had people, in different regions.

Muhammad:

Yeah.

Muhammad:

I had a team of about 11 in Sofia, in Bulgaria, I've got four people who

Muhammad:

were based out of England, and about seven were based out of Bratislava.

Muhammad:

And everyone had their own tasks, things are very smooth, etc.

Muhammad:

Until the point I realized that there is a bit of a tension building

Muhammad:

up or the ghosting, or, people are just keeping inside them.

Muhammad:

And somehow, I came to know about certain things or some

Muhammad:

gossips that move around, right?

Muhammad:

So Mohammed's team is doing that, or, Mark's team is doing that.

Muhammad:

And I've talked to myself that I have to step in and sort this out.

Muhammad:

I won't be sitting with them and, telling them what to do.

Muhammad:

I'm just going to bring them under one roof.

Muhammad:

And that's what I did.

Muhammad:

I arranged everyone to fly into England.

Muhammad:

I rented a big house there in close to Coventry.

Muhammad:

And I brought them everyone in.

Muhammad:

Everyone had their own room.

Muhammad:

Everyone had a space to work.

Muhammad:

I didn't say anything.

Muhammad:

I just left them at their own disposal.

Muhammad:

Everyone was doing tasks and everything.

Muhammad:

And I told them that they're going to be staying here for a month.

Muhammad:

So they had time to prepare their meal together.

Muhammad:

They had time to, share laundry, doing laundries together etc.

Muhammad:

Believe me, in three weeks time, When I walked, obviously I was going

Muhammad:

there on a daily basis, but I felt the warmth, the tolerance that has

Muhammad:

built up before Yohan and Muhammad doesn't want to speak to each other.

Muhammad:

But now they're having a laugh.

Muhammad:

They're having a pint of beer sitting in the garden and having a fag with me.

Muhammad:

And this is how I managed to overcome.

Muhammad:

So the human connection still for me on a personal level is so crucial here.

Muhammad:

As I said, I'm not passing judgment.

Muhammad:

What Matthew said, like it's going to take some time to understand, but that's

Muhammad:

what practical application brought results and immediate, within a month job

Rob:

done.

Rob:

I think that could be the way of the moving forward, because I look at

Rob:

a lot of entrepreneurs what they'll do is they'll be in programs and

Rob:

they'll be in like 90 day retreats.

Rob:

And so they get together, they get a clear vision and then

Rob:

they go away and then they go.

Rob:

And I think that would probably work with the idea of projects

Rob:

and sprints and things that.

Rob:

People have a, like they come together, they get the sense of purpose, the

Rob:

camaraderie and then they go away and then they have a chance to come back at it.

Rob:

Before we go I'm just interested, Mohamed, Matthew's shared his model,

Rob:

but you also were responsible for building a sizable organization.

Rob:

In terms of culture, how did you manage, or did you have a difference

Rob:

in order to compare and contrast with Matthew's Methodology.

Muhammad:

No, I would say it's very similar to what Matthew described

Muhammad:

and that's exactly how I did.

Muhammad:

The very first unit obviously was a.

Muhammad:

Test and trial and learning for me as well.

Muhammad:

Hiring people.

Muhammad:

And of course we made a lot of mistakes.

Muhammad:

We have made some terrible hiring.

Muhammad:

I'm using the word terrible, reflection did some bad call outs, but two and a

Muhammad:

half years later, we were in a position to understand, okay, what works and

Muhammad:

what doesn't, when we should hire.

Muhammad:

And, obviously there was a vision, obviously from day

Muhammad:

one, we wanted to capture it.

Muhammad:

London and then expand, outwards shop two when we open, it was a lot better.

Muhammad:

I wouldn't say it was easier as I'm sure Matthew would second that, but

Muhammad:

there were different challenges, not what we had experienced before.

Muhammad:

And I think in my person, when we reached the number 26th or 7th,

Muhammad:

that's where we thought that, okay, you know what, we've mastered it.

Muhammad:

Now we're just replicating.

Muhammad:

So we had a few office managers who, joined us as supervisors.

Muhammad:

Now they've moved up the rank and they understand the culture.

Muhammad:

They know the mission, they know what to drive and they become

Muhammad:

good training managers, et cetera.

Muhammad:

So in my experience in that org, at the point of exit, I knew there was a very

Muhammad:

solid foundation and it won't collapse because If I get out, things shouldn't

Muhammad:

crumble because that's not what the new investors have, bought the business for.

Muhammad:

And I was very certain that it will work and it worked.

Muhammad:

And again, we had to establish processes, procedures the SOPs, as you like.

Muhammad:

And what I also felt useful and beneficial is.

Muhammad:

documentation, obviously, first two, three, so we know what the documents

Muhammad:

are, what you need to do, why you need to add everything, but then we quickly

Muhammad:

realized that even back in the days when we used to have cash transactions, right?

Muhammad:

Cards were marginal, but every night, I used to drive around my shops

Muhammad:

and just collecting cash, with the hope that I don't get mugged, on my

Muhammad:

way to the car that's how it was.

Muhammad:

Then I realized, no, I can do better.

Muhammad:

So that's when the documentation comes, okay, what's the cash handling procedure,

Muhammad:

how is it, was it like a check and balance on the safety deposit safes, which you put

Muhammad:

in installed, obviously made a mistake.

Muhammad:

Like we put a bit lighter one, they got.

Muhammad:

stolen, we then had to put something different.

Muhammad:

And for instance, Rob and I had to countersign the amount which

Muhammad:

is being deposited in the safe, so it's all about learning as you grow.

Muhammad:

And then after a certain time, it was culturally acceptable, right?

Muhammad:

That I can be checked on my way out.

Muhammad:

So it became a kind of a norm.

Muhammad:

So people would not say, even one day, I got stopped by my own employee because

Muhammad:

she was just following the rules.

Muhammad:

I said, Nope, sir.

Muhammad:

I need to check your bag.

Muhammad:

And I was like, okay, there you go.

Muhammad:

I felt very happy inside.

Muhammad:

Well done.

Muhammad:

The manager, who was running that shop that well done.

Muhammad:

So you train your people very well.

Muhammad:

So yeah.

Muhammad:

But Rob said completely, in alignment with him, it's, it takes years

Muhammad:

of efforts to build a culture.

Muhammad:

It takes one bad decision or a bad leader, so to speak, to destroy everything.

Rob:

I'm conscious that we're coming up to time.

Rob:

So I'm just thinking if we maybe take a minute each to share.

Rob:

The idea of this is we got some great brains here.

Rob:

And just being able to share ideas and perspectives and differences

Rob:

hopefully helps us refine our thinking.

Rob:

I'll go first, for me what it's done, it's really clarified in that the lines between

Rob:

leader and manager are quite blurry.

Rob:

And I think.

Rob:

We need to manage where there's clarity and we need to lead

Rob:

where there is confusion.

Rob:

And that is really the role that we need to be able to, whichever role it is,

Rob:

whether manager, leader is the awareness of what is needed from the group.

Matthew:

I zeroed in on Johan's when he was talking about I mentioned it

Matthew:

before talking about this manager he was talking to that was just

Matthew:

overwhelmed with direction or lack of it.

Matthew:

And I got thinking about this idea of management clutter and how much

Matthew:

of it is piling up and how much we're asking managers to do and

Matthew:

how much they can physically or emotionally or psychologically do.

Matthew:

And I thought that was a tremendous comment and right at the end there,

Matthew:

Muhammad got talking about how he ran his stores and be his fellow store person.

Matthew:

I would have probably talked another 2 hours with Mohammed on how you run

Matthew:

stores because I love that stuff.

Matthew:

But anyway, thanks guys.

Matthew:

I really appreciate it tremendously.

Muhammad:

What I'm taking away from this conversation is actually it reinforces the

Muhammad:

point of a very weak middle management.

Muhammad:

I know the discomfort between leaders and managers.

Muhammad:

I think that's probably it's still in the kind of a very blurry as Rob you described

Muhammad:

it, but it reinforces that we still need to do a lot more on the middle tier.

Muhammad:

I came across a post today as well about this.

Muhammad:

So there are people who are now reflecting this, and I think there's

Muhammad:

probably more needs to be done.

Muhammad:

And this is our job to raise awareness and at least in our control, what

Muhammad:

we have our own organization, we should do a better job.

Johan:

My real single thought I take from this is just being able

Johan:

to finalize that earlier that sort of puzzle that I've been grounded.

Johan:

So I realized that managers are under a lot of pressure.

Johan:

I don't know if I said it in the chat as well, a lot of pressure.

Johan:

I don't think they have enough support.

Johan:

And one of the things I've been trying to figure out is.

Johan:

Should one focus on a single item to start building that competency, and that could

Johan:

then lead potentially to other things.

Johan:

And there's two things that I did not count enough.

Johan:

One, the one is the impact of a sensible Culture within that team.

Johan:

And then the thing that I really have not given enough thought is how important

Johan:

relationships between the people in a team is to actually stabilize and then

Johan:

enforce and evolve that culture into something that creates not drives.

Johan:

Not managers, but creates the results almost accidentally, but that might be

Johan:

too much of an even romanticized hope.

Johan:

An ideal situation potentially where you have.

Johan:

Where the environment, the relationships, the way that people interact, the

Johan:

way they get supported, encouraged, the leadership that they get just

Johan:

infuses the right culture into, what they do and how they operate,

Johan:

which then drives the appropriate.

Johan:

Outcome for that team and that organization, those two components.

Johan:

I continuously misappreciate, just want to appreciate just how valuable that

Rob:

Thank you.

Rob:

Thank you, everyone.

Rob:

It's been fascinating again.

Rob:

All three of you have wonderful content thought provoking ideas,

Rob:

and it's been a pleasure to be able to pick everyone's brains and to

Rob:

refine my thinking and understanding.

Rob:

So thank you all for being a part of it and for sharing your wisdom

Rob:

so openly and so generously.

Rob:

Thank you.

Rob:

Thanks Rob.

Rob:

Great

Johan:

pleasure.

Johan:

Thank you for having us.

Johan:

Thanks Gents.

Johan:

Cheers.

Johan:

Best

Muhammad:

bye guys.

Muhammad:

Thank you.

Muhammad:

Cheers.

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