Right, it's business or bullshit quiz time with entrepreneur, mental, and investor, John Stapleton, in the hot seat.
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Now we're going to do our favourite part of the game, it's called business or bullshit.
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Bob, as we like to call it.
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Okay.
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And we're going to read out some terms and you have to tell us whether you think it is business or bullshit.
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And you can talk about it if you want to talk about it, or, you know, we just move on.
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D, please cue the music.
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Uh, are we ready?
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Let's begin.
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Office nap pods.
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What is an office nap pod?
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Well, I think they're a fantastic idea, personally.
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Um, apparently there are, you have a little pod in the office where people can go and nap for a good 20 minutes.
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Team building exercises.
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Oh yeah, no question.
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That's that's great.
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That's good.
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Uh, business.
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I mean, I mean, lots of talk about it.
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You got to get right.
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But yeah, the concept definitely flexible working.
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Yeah, I like that.
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Thanks for working.
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But what does it mean?
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You know, I mean, flexible working is a throwaway term.
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And then you find it means all sorts of stuff that I actually don't think it means at all.
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But thanks for working.
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Yeah, which which bit which bit should it mean?
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Well, I, I think, you know, it's all it's still about performance.
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It's still about delivery.
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It's still about making things happen.
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Right.
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And if you can demonstrate you can do that.
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better or certainly as good as you need by coming into work or working nine to five.
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And, you know, people have all sorts of commitments.
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I think if people feel happy, they can keep up with their other commitments, family commitments, travel commitments, all the things you want to do and still contribute.
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Performance wise, it's just as good, if not better, to everything they need to in terms of achieving their goals in their role, I'm all for it.
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Very good.
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Paradigm shift.
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Hmm.
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I'm not sure.
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I think it's a concept that's thrown around a lot.
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Paradigm shift.
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You know, suddenly all your woes are going to be solved.
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And you don't have to deal with those problems.
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No, the world is about dealing with problems, and you just gotta face up to them.
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I think, you can try to say paradigm shifts, it's gonna be sometimes evasive and avoidable.
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Is that a long way of saying bullshit?
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Yes, I think he's saying bullshit.
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No, no, he's coming to his conclusion through logical breakdown.
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Yeah, bullshit.
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Okay, bullshit.
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Very good.
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Hot desking.
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No, it's fine.
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Hot Desk is good.
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Welcome to be.
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I think people like that sense of location, I guess.
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But, but that's kind of like you have your desk and you have your, you know, your spouse's photograph and you have your pot of plant Bullshit.
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No, sorry.
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You, you gotta focus on what you have to do, which is your, your laptop on your phone and sit in Starbucks.
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Crack on.
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Crack on.
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Pivoting.
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Okay, I'm between two minds on this because I think it's an overused term.
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So there's a lot of bullshit talked about pivoting, but I think coming through what we've just come through in terms of uncertainty and particularly lockdown and COVID allowed people to pivot in a really meaningful way.
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Yeah.
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Uh, so, and it's part of business.
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Yeah.
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I, I, I think sometimes it's bit, it's a bit of a get out.
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I'm, but a pivot means you just screwed up, uh, by the way, that's wrong.
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As long as you've learned from it and you're gonna do something better.
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So let's leave it on the, on the, on the business side.
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Business side of the fence.
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Okay.
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Uh, business plans.
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Yeah.
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Crucial business plan.
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You don't have a plan.
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How are we ever gonna actually implement anything?
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Diversity quotas?
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No, don't.
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That's bullshit.
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Blue sky thinking.
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Yeah.
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So long as it's done slightly.
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Contradictory.
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As long as it's done with your feet on the ground.
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Blue sky thinking is so important.
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I think it's really, it's all it's business.
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It's really important to carve out time to just do thinking.
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But with your feet on the ground, so practical blue sky thinking.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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It's got to be relevant to your business, to your challenge, to the opportunity that you're trying to seize.
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But what I'm trying to say is we're so focused on performance and doing things that we fill up our daily lives and time with doing things.
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We don't give ourselves that 20 percent of blue sky thinking time.
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Which, if we did, would be revolutionary.
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Yeah, yeah, just a step back from it.
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So, on balance, it's business.
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Very good.
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LinkedIn.
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Yeah, I like LinkedIn.
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You like a bit of LinkedIn, yeah.
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I hate every other social media platform with a vengeance, but I like LinkedIn.
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Ballpark figures.
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I think when you're getting, yeah, no, that's fine.
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I think you have to have ballpark figures to start a conversation and then you can suck into the detail.
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So, ballpark figures, okay.
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MBAs.
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Here.
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I always almost did an M B A once.
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Did you?
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So glad I did.
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Yeah.
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. Bullshit.
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Bullshit.
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I did go to business school and I did study business.
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I didn't do an M B A, I did an M B ss.
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So, uh, I, I'm qualified to tell you how much bullshit MBAs are on in office fitness classes.
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Oh, complete bullshit.
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Low hanging fruit.
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I think that's another way of determining what your priorities are, what you're going to do first, because it's the obvious thing for you to cover, so that's fine.
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Wheel houses.
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I don't know what it means, so it's bullshit.
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Very good.
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Mandatory office birthday cakes.
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Complete bullshit.
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And, and, and, do they do them the same in Ireland?
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We've worked out that everywhere else in the world, the birthday boy or girl...
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Get cakes for the rest of the office.
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In the UK, you have to buy cakes for the rest of the office.
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What do they do in Ireland?
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I've no idea what they do in Ireland.
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Uh, but in Germany, uh, yeah.
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Oh yeah, let's do Germany.
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Oh yeah, it's all about, yeah, it's all about, uh, it's important to recognize everybody's, uh, Birthday.
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Yeah, which is fine.
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Hi, birthday, good.
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Or, or, let's go to the pub afterwards for a quick drink and celebrate, right?
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Uh, universal basic income.
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Uh, too many words.
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Bullshit.
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Uh, what does that mean?
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Everybody gets a, um, a basic income, whether you work or not.
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Oh, right.
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Bullshit.
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Meeting agendas.
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Uh, absolutely critical.
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Otherwise a meeting is not a meeting without an agenda.
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Getting a bunch of people together to talk about something?
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Meeting agenda?
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Is a chat.
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Is a chat?
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Yeah, that's fine too.
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You can use that without a meeting.
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Not only do you have a meeting agenda, but you have a pre read for people to think about the agenda and come prepared and contribute and go then.
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And implement.
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So, meeting agenda's great.
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It is nice when people prepare.
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So there we have it.
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Brilliant.
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You scored, uh, 376 points.
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Out of 1, 025.
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Uh, you thought you did very, very well.
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A big thank you to John for joining us this week and we'll be back next Tuesday with a brand new episode.
