Stories are inspiring and they can teach us lessons about what works.
But they also have their limitations. Stories have specific characters and are bound within a context. Someone in a different situation with a different style might not be able to replicate that.
Maths is the language of purity.
An equation abstracts what is universally true. As soon as it doesn't work in a given context, it is no longer true. So an equation can give us a frame of knowledge that empowers everyone.
In this episode we set out to try to identify what are the universal elements of a team that any leader could use as a guide.
The idea of the podcast is that somewhere in the mix of what we all
Rob:get to bring and in our interactions and our friction between us, we can
Rob:come up with a more refined idea and perspective than we had at the beginning.
Rob:So the frame for today's discussion is what would be
Rob:the ideal equation for a team?
Rob:I remember John Gottman relationship researcher talked about how
Rob:different him and his wife were.
Rob:And his idea of relationship research was to boil down relationships
Rob:to a differential equation.
Rob:And his wife had a deep therapeutic background.
Rob:So actually he did about.
Rob:25 years of research, which was pure maths didn't try and make anyone's relationship
Rob:better, just studied relationships.
Rob:And it was only when they combined that they came up with a shared
Rob:house model and they actually started publishing the books and they actually
Rob:started doing therapy themselves.
Rob:It made me think that a lot of people have a strong preference
Rob:between maths and English.
Rob:I think maths and English are different languages.
Rob:What people, who struggle with maths is they don't understand
Rob:it's a distinct language.
Rob:When we tell stories like a iconic story or something that happened
Rob:and we learn from that story, then we're talking in English.
Rob:Maths is the quickest, most direct, most pure way of describing what
Rob:happens and what needs to be in place.
Rob:What I come up with is something like a clear strategy, capacity, the skills
Rob:of the team to be able to do what they're up being asked to do the flow of
Rob:communication and the unity of the team.
Rob:Our mission for this hour is to try to add embellish and to come up with.
Rob:A kind of frame that we can agree that any team could use as a
Rob:basic framework to build upon.
Rob:When we're looking at a perfect team, I think sport is very clear cut.
Rob:If you're playing football it's how many goals have gone in the
Rob:net, how many you defended is quite clear cut what a team is.
Rob:Building on that communication in a business team is like passing the ball.
Rob:What we want is to be able to move the ball.
Rob:Move whatever resources we need to the point that they can have most impact.
Matthew:I'll start this way because I suspect I'm less analytical.
Matthew:about this than others.
Matthew:In my experience, when we were building teams or in our case stores,
Matthew:I always started with the culture.
Matthew:I had a culture and I looked for people that would fit that culture.
Matthew:After that people would find their own way to fit into it because
Matthew:If they fit the culture, then the culture will make room for them.
Matthew:And you didn't have to go out in a specific, in my case, anyway, you didn't
Matthew:have to go out and specifically recruit the ideal person because the ideal person
Matthew:is a person that fits the culture, right?
Matthew:And the culture will police itself.
Matthew:I always found.
Matthew:So I started with the culture.
Matthew:I look for people that fit the culture.
Matthew:And then the culture looked after them, found them places.
Rob:You started a chain of 72 stores.
Rob:So each of them had a team.
Matthew:Correct.
Matthew:And I would call that a team.
Matthew:Some other businesses, they'd be departments or projects,
Matthew:but in my case, it was a well defined box with people in it.
Rob:Over the first three to five stores was where you built.
Rob:The winning culture that the culture that was going to, you wanted to create a
Rob:template for it probably took about that
Matthew:long to develop.
Matthew:I was very young.
Matthew:I was 24 when I started and I thought I knew everything of course, but it took
Matthew:me a couple of years to figure out.
Matthew:I knew nothing.
Matthew:And so it was a learning process as we went along and we slowly cobbled
Matthew:together something that worked.
Matthew:And then the Project from there on in was to as I said, find people that fit it.
Matthew:And then as you went store to store, you had to replicate it,
Matthew:which was the real challenge.
Rob:What were the things that were you were looking when you went
Rob:to try and replicate a culture.
Rob:What was, what were you looking to replicate?
Rob:Where did you start?
Matthew:Two answers to that.
Matthew:The first answer is if you're doing another store locally, so you've
Matthew:got stores in Toronto, you're going to add another local store.
Matthew:The ideal way to do that is just to take people out of the existing system as
Matthew:managers and leaders and put them in with the new people and they will show the way.
Matthew:Because they will carry the flag, right?
Matthew:It becomes more difficult if you're trying to build a store in Rimouski, Quebec,
Matthew:which is about a thousand kilometers away, and an entirely different language
Matthew:and an entirely different culture, right?
Matthew:It's French there.
Matthew:This is where we had real difficulties, because we
Matthew:couldn't really transfer people.
Matthew:And we found what worked over time was to have a lot of what they call symbols
Matthew:and totems and ideas and sayings and it's just repetition and it's just trying
Matthew:to build that feeling, that culture from the ground up, which is very hard.
Matthew:It's very hard because cultures always exist.
Matthew:Like when you go in there with a brand new set of people, there's already a culture.
Matthew:Every group has its own culture, right?
Matthew:It's the culture of new people at a business, right?
Matthew:It has a culture.
Matthew:And so that was the real challenge.
Matthew:And we weren't always successful at it to be honest.
Matthew:It was very hard, but the things that helped us was symbols, totems.
Matthew:Sayings, heavy management it was really important to have middle
Matthew:management that was bought in that, that knew and understood the
Matthew:culture and could carry it in there.
Matthew:It took a lot of time and effort.
Matthew:I must say,
Michalina:I think we're already starting to look at things
Michalina:that are close to my heart.
Michalina:Rob, you really want to have a formula and an ideal, world in
Michalina:which things will just work.
Michalina:And I can already see that we are only starting a conversation, but we already
Michalina:talking about the context and culture.
Michalina:And purpose.
Michalina:And what Matthew started talking about is that purpose and culture and being
Michalina:able to have that driven by the right leadership and the right elements and
Michalina:salient characteristics of what he wanted, what was the purpose of his business.
Michalina:You, Rob started talking to Tony about sports context, straight into
Michalina:context and purpose and culture and things you can't really unify
Michalina:and separate from everything else.
Michalina:And I think for me, there's a number of layers that we can say,
Michalina:Oh, these things could be fantastic ingredients to build the right team.
Michalina:But my immediate question is the right team for whom to do what?
Michalina:in what setting.
Michalina:So that's to start with.
Michalina:And this could be anything culture characteristics, leadership.
Michalina:This could be people's capabilities, experiences, and
Michalina:skill sets that they employed for.
Michalina:But then in reality, wherever you look, there is always a changeable
Michalina:context where people come and go.
Michalina:Leaders come and go, middle managers come and go you inherit parts of the
Michalina:teams or they are dismantled if we took at if we look at technology context at
Michalina:the moment in any technology business, they are bought and sold all the time.
Michalina:Teams are bought together.
Michalina:for a purpose, for a reason, for a goal, and then dismantled afterwards.
Michalina:You've got people from the global village working together.
Michalina:It's no longer about looking for people who fit.
Michalina:This is very much about diversity of thought and diversity of experiences.
Michalina:How can you put this into unified, lovely, clinical environment?
Michalina:I don't know.
Michalina:So here's my challenge to you, Rob.
Michalina:How would you do this?
Michalina:I just fundamentally disagree with the perfect
Rob:formula.
Rob:It's not so much that you're fitting people into a perfect formula,
Rob:but you're understanding all the lowest factors that you've got.
Rob:And then you're, putting the model together of what's universal.
Rob:So for example, Google's project Aristotle, which was about.
Rob:It's about how we interact.
Rob:It's not about who we interact, but what, so they talked about
Rob:the main factor was psychological safety and it's about people.
Rob:Being able to all feel that they can contribute and share.
Rob:So it's those things rather than a formula for a specific team.
Rob:It's what are the ingredients that create the culture, and all the other
Rob:context so that teams do thrive.
Saieed:I obviously admire Matthew's story and obviously being that young
Saieed:to be able to do what he did and be able to see culture as something
Saieed:significant back then was in itself like an innovation because we've still got
Saieed:organizations and individuals who don't understand culture as it is nowadays.
Saieed:The only sort of thing I mildly disagree with is the ability of being
Saieed:able to think how you could replicate.
Saieed:a certain culture or fit in people to a culture because what we're
Saieed:finding nowadays, which is more relevant to the times now, is there
Saieed:shouldn't really be a culture zone.
Saieed:There shouldn't really be a fit.
Saieed:And this is what I try to get in with organizations to say is like
Saieed:your recruitment process shouldn't really focus on if a candidate is
Saieed:the right fit if they will feel good in a role that you've already set.
Saieed:The boundaries from a cultural aspect, whereas what you should be really
Saieed:thinking is will that individual be celebrated and valued and appreciated
Saieed:based on their diversity and based on what they can bring and add to the culture,
Saieed:rather than saying this is our cultural framework, and this is our boundaries.
Saieed:And if you fit, then fine, you come in, if you don't fit, then I'm sorry, you go.
Saieed:This is what I fundamentally disagree with because culture is
Saieed:such a massive, comprehensive topic.
Saieed:Like Michalina said, you really can't give certain context to it because it really
Saieed:does depend on the industry the company.
Saieed:What you're trying to do, product service, how you even define teams, how you define
Saieed:success, how you define productivity.
Saieed:So when you set an equation for say, an effective or productive team, my question,
Saieed:my first question would be, how would you define effectiveness and productivity?
Saieed:Before we get to the main question.
Saieed:So that's all I wanted to add.
Michalina:I think, Saeed, this is very valuable what you've said, but just
Michalina:going back to what Matthew mentioned, I think it's still relevant actually.
Michalina:This is about company purpose and values.
Michalina:So regardless of where you're from and what you bring in, yes, absolutely,
Michalina:you should have that inclusion dance where you should bring your whole
Michalina:self to work, you should be able to contribute and your contribution
Michalina:should be valued and celebrated.
Michalina:But actually there are certain principles that if we agree to come along and
Michalina:be a team, we should be adhering to.
Michalina:This could be integrity.
Michalina:This could be respect.
Michalina:This could be.
Michalina:Performance, this could be whatever it is that you want as a company value and
Michalina:purpose, but it should still be there.
Michalina:So it's absolutely still relevant that those things haven't changed.
Michalina:We just call them slightly differently.
Saieed:Yeah, no, I agree.
Saieed:I normally bring that under the value umbrella and say
Saieed:what are your core values?
Saieed:What is the mission and vision?
Saieed:One of the things I see as well is how companies.
Saieed:To have their own set of core values and try to instill that into their
Saieed:People whereas what I often encourage companies to do is Engage stakeholders
Saieed:engage everyone in that process because teams could have different core values.
Saieed:It's not necessarily we've got core values sitting at the top and then everyone
Saieed:has to follow that it's Your team could value certain things over other things.
Saieed:So while she say there's integrity, honesty, respect, transparency, that
Saieed:sort of thing, that's quite a common theme, but I tried to drill that
Saieed:a bit further and then I use that to intercross between those values
Saieed:and the culture that's prevalent.
Saieed:So that's why I meant it's not necessarily just.
Saieed:Diversity inclusion, because that's a whole different ballgame, but it's
Saieed:more to say culture is just such a massive subject that we don't really
Saieed:truly understand it because now we're mixing in values into it as well.
Saieed:What differentiates between what values are, what core values are,
Saieed:versus what is class as a culture or a cultural initiative or event.
Saieed:Versus what the processes are that are aligning to certain
Saieed:values, if that makes sense.
Saieed:Who makes that differentiation?
Saieed:How do you make that visible is what I'm trying to say.
Matthew:Tony, this would be really fascinating from a team sport
Matthew:perspective, because a it's a high pressure situation and people
Matthew:absolutely do have to work as a team.
Matthew:There's no two ways about it.
Matthew:It's win or lose every single, every week.
Matthew:So I'm curious to note Tony, how you look at this idea of culture or if
Matthew:you folks over in your world ever
Tony:did at all.
Tony:Yeah, very much and I think it's important that, in a discussion about
Tony:culture, we almost have an agreement about what we mean by the word culture,
Tony:because if we could be all talking about four, five completely different
Tony:ideas of what culture means or says.
Tony:I look at it this way.
Tony:The game doesn't discriminate.
Tony:The sports game says you need to score one more goal than the opposition.
Tony:There's no argument.
Tony:And the coach or the manager of the team may have been engaged because his
Tony:methodology, his playing style fits the iconic brand of the organization.
Tony:So they want a coach that plays a ticki tacka football, like Barcelona,
Tony:it's embedded in the culture of that organization over many years.
Tony:And others just ignore it altogether.
Tony:They just want someone that's going to come in and get results.
Tony:And he's got a proven track record of doing that.
Tony:So regardless of how the individual that comes in approaches.
Tony:That the demands of the game haven't changed.
Tony:So if I think about that from the hairdressing business, for
Tony:example, what I love about your story is that the culture.
Tony:revealed itself through the practice of cutting hair in multiple different
Tony:parts of the country, let's say.
Tony:It evolved in all these different pockets of activity.
Tony:As you were revealing for yourself, the principles that you thought
Tony:were important, they reveal themselves and you would have.
Tony:found and learned and all sorts of things like that.
Tony:If I cut right back to Rob's first question and tie it back, a team is
Tony:more than one person pursuing one of these externally driven objectives.
Tony:So the demand of the game is to win.
Tony:The demand of the business is to make profit.
Tony:And there's a set of principles that enable us to work together
Tony:in the best possible way.
Tony:It doesn't need to be more complex than that because culture is complex.
Tony:What tends to happen is people go this is the culture that we want.
Tony:We've got to really understand between us what that means, but they say that
Tony:and they put that front and center before they've brought the people together to
Tony:start finding out actually how are we going to work together here, because
Tony:only then will we actually reveal what are the ideals for these people?
Tony:They've all got different wants, they've all got different needs that need to be
Tony:met, they've all got different values, different learned behaviors and beliefs
Tony:and all these multi complex things.
Tony:Same with football, I've got a group of footballers, some are
Tony:really excited by the prospect of, playing in front of 50, 000 people.
Tony:And anything's possible.
Tony:I might score the goal that wins us the cup final, the person standing next
Tony:to them in the lineup before the game kicks off is absolutely terrified of
Tony:making a mistake, yet they still have to function because the game demands
Tony:that they perform at the same level.
Tony:And I think with all of those individual complexities, whatever
Tony:the equation we come up with.
Tony:How do we capture all of the unique individuality of everybody
Tony:that's involved and as a manager?
Tony:Navigate that towards a cultural ideal, or, we want to win.
Tony:Yes, that the game demands that we do that.
Tony:But let's, how do we agree on the intention of how we're going to do it?
Tony:For me, I like to think about aligned intention as the first port of call.
Tony:If I can get Three people aligned to the same intention, and they can then
Tony:start to understand other people well enough to say, okay, I can work with you.
Tony:Let's, do we agree?
Tony:Let's try and do this.
Tony:You can slowly build what may end up being, in retrospect, the culture
Tony:It is very complex, but as complex as it is, the demand doesn't change
Tony:and people have to participate within a team and pursue that objective.
Tony:And there's only one winner.
Tony:Everybody else fails to varying degrees in the pursuit of that.
Tony:So we could be here for days.
Tony:Couldn't we talking about this
Rob:stuff?
Rob:We could.
Rob:In terms of football, some football clubs have a strong identity.
Rob:So Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham, their fans won't
Rob:tolerate anything less.
Rob:When you get someone like Blackburn or Leicester, when they won the
Rob:Premier League I don't think the fans were too worried about the culture.
Rob:They just wanted the success.
Rob:What you've talked about is the goal.
Rob:So for me, in my analytical way is the goal is part of the equation.
Rob:The culture is part of the equation, dropping aside the equation so that we
Rob:can talk, my background is relationships I got into teams when I realized
Rob:that a great relationship is a team.
Rob:It doesn't matter if it's a couple or a multinational organization.
Rob:A team is combined and it's united by its purpose.
Rob:And I think it's the purpose of why we congregate together
Rob:that gives us our, the meaning.
Rob:Then it's about people being able to be included and accepting
Rob:diverse perspectives But it's about how we go about that.
Rob:It's about meaning that everyone has a voice.
Rob:Everyone is accepted everyone is able to contribute and then it's
Rob:about Communication and somewhere someone has to lead that change.
Rob:For me, a leader is someone who can listen to everyone taking all
Rob:the stakeholders perspectives, and they're able to articulate
Rob:something that people resonate with.
Rob:A key element of culture and teams begin with a leader because there has
Rob:to be someone who starts the fires every morning, someone who starts
Rob:the discussion, someone who has the spark, the intent, the vision.
Rob:So maybe that's a place to look.
Tony:Yeah let me pose this, Rob, because that's prompted at the thought,
Tony:I do a lot of work with a high level.
Tony:Football manager.
Tony:We're thinking partners in a way.
Tony:And this is a question I posed to the group.
Tony:Let's assume that, we take over a new team in whatever sector that we're in.
Tony:And the assumption is that nobody's being who they really are.
Tony:They're all being who they think they need to be in, in order to fit in
Tony:order to Do what they think should.
Tony:They're externally driven.
Tony:They're behaving in a socially desirable way, but it's not their true intent.
Tony:Their true intent is to serve their own purpose and their own needs.
Tony:Let's say there's ten people, they're all independently ambitious.
Tony:And they've come together to meet somebody else's objectives, an organization's
Tony:objectives or a team's objectives.
Tony:I suppose the question that I'm interested in discussing is, let's assume
Tony:that's the case that the independent ambition is always one step away from
Tony:negatively impacting the group's collective objective.
Tony:I almost think that's the challenge that leaders face.
Tony:How do we, get close enough to the individuals to reveal for us and
Tony:for them these things that have got the potential to derail what the
Tony:group needs to do to be successful.
Tony:So I'm interested in what the group's perspectives are on that.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:So what I understood is, you've got a group of people that they're have
Rob:all, they've all got divided goals.
Rob:They've all got their own agendas.
Rob:And what you're asking is how does the leader identify all those
Rob:different agendas and stop that from derailing the core purpose?
Rob:, Tony: yeah.
Rob:How do we integrate, how do we serve everybody's needs in
Rob:delivering the group's objectives?
Rob:I think the
Matthew:answer to that is that back to culture, if you have a culture with
Matthew:an idea that's bigger than the people themselves, then they can buy into that.
Matthew:And we talk about a place like Premier League football team with it, with
Matthew:a culture and it, and, I've never done it, but surely it's, it doesn't,
Matthew:it's, take an enormous amount of effort for people to understand the
Matthew:idea of Manchester United, right?
Matthew:That idea is clear to anyone who joins the team and it's an idea that's
Matthew:bigger than them when they join.
Matthew:Hopefully, sometimes it isn't.
Matthew:And so everyone's got at least that in common.
Matthew:And it's as long as that idea, stepping away from Premier League football
Matthew:into the mundane world of business, as long as there's an idea that's bigger
Matthew:than them, and they can buy into, then it's less likely you'll have problems
Matthew:with individual ambition, because there's always an individual ambition
Matthew:And ambition isn't just making a bunch of money and ambition is having
Matthew:the schedule you like, or the lunch hour you like, or there's a hundred
Matthew:different ways that ambition manifests.
Matthew:But all that can be melded together as long as everyone can buy in to this
Matthew:one large idea that's bigger than them.
Matthew:And I think looking back in, in history.
Matthew:This was the magic of the great leaders.
Matthew:They could take people to places.
Matthew:They didn't know they wanted.
Matthew:They wanted to go.
Matthew:They had big ideas.
Matthew:They had, that were bigger than the people and you look at, something
Matthew:like an an army, a military army.
Matthew:Here's a place of high discipline.
Matthew:Nobody has any say.
Matthew:You do what you're told.
Matthew:There's no freedom at all.
Matthew:And yet, throughout history, millions have been pe people have marched to and fro,
Matthew:dying for ideas so much bigger than them.
Matthew:So that, that big idea, Is really critical in it, and a big idea is relative to a
Matthew:premier football league team as it is to just a small retail store, right?
Matthew:There's still a big idea.
Michalina:I couldn't agree with this more Matthew it's about that purpose
Michalina:and the shared purpose that you buy into and then you individually decide
Michalina:this works for me and so I will work for this thing, not just myself.
Michalina:And I think, Tony, I'm thinking about your context of high performers,
Michalina:high achievers, highly ambitious people coming together to do
Michalina:something together and how do you.
Michalina:How do you almost tamper that to be able to have that bigger
Michalina:culture, bigger purpose?
Michalina:I think there is an element of psychometrics that we can now leverage
Michalina:and really look at what are people's talents and strengths and personalities
Michalina:and preferences and how to harness that power of each individual to, to get them
Michalina:to then work for your shared purpose.
Michalina:You've got people, there are so many psychometrics, but you've got people who
Michalina:are goals and achievements orientated.
Michalina:Give them the task that fit with your purpose and your goals that
Michalina:will help you harness that passion and that drive and that ambition and
Michalina:determination to achieve those goals.
Michalina:Then you've got people who are peoples and feelings orientated and
Michalina:they will do whatever it takes so others around them feel included.
Michalina:And feel comfortable and they'll show empathy and care and all the things
Michalina:that we could call a glue in a team.
Michalina:So there you go, Rob.
Michalina:Here's one for you.
Michalina:You can note this down.
Michalina:There's one for your equation.
Michalina:But then you've got people who have absolutely data, process, clarity.
Michalina:There are Rob's out there who wants equality.
Michalina:They want equation and they want maths and they want everything crystal clear.
Michalina:Those people are needed to give them the tasks that fit with that shared purpose.
Michalina:So each of them is ambitious in a different way, harness
Michalina:their powers and talents for their greater good, if you like.
Michalina:And then they will be happy, everyone in a different way, but ultimately happy
Michalina:or fulfilled or included and cared for.
Michalina:That would be my view.
Michalina:Has I got you thinking?
Michalina:Sorry, have I got you thinking
Tony:there?
Tony:I do a lot of work in psychometrics.
Tony:I look at individuals and try and divide them up into many
Tony:component parts as possible.
Tony:So psychometrics would be one, basic needs would be another, how are they motivated?
Tony:What their goals are how are they are they naturally independently driven or are
Tony:they more socially oriented, for example.
Tony:Do they love to win or do they hate to lose?
Tony:That's a massive question.
Tony:I'll ask groups all the time and I'd ask you guys, have you thought about it?
Tony:Do you love to win or do you hate to lose?
Tony:Because depending on your, your outlook has a big saying.
Tony:How my approach as a coach or as a manager of the team, and I'm using myself as an
Tony:example, highly optimistic, big picture.
Tony:Anything's possible.
Tony:If I'm with the group, that's the opposite, who are very
Tony:reserved and very risk averse.
Tony:I'm the further I go down the path of shining a light on this great vision
Tony:that I've got the further away they.
Tony:They become so, I do agree Michalina that those individual understanding them and
Tony:applying an approach that affords them that the opportunity to express themselves
Tony:independently, I think is very important.
Saieed:I like to take it a step further and I know we don't always have the
Saieed:right environment or the time to do it, but I always say If the individual
Saieed:doesn't understand themselves, how are you going to understand them?
Saieed:So it's like that my philosophy has always been, and this is again because
Saieed:of my personal experience, how I learned the hard way and was forced to
Saieed:go on to a journey of self discovery.
Saieed:Of sorts, it's can you take another person on that journey or can you
Saieed:guide them throughout that journey?
Saieed:And if you can, and you can help them understand themselves, you've got a half
Saieed:decent chance of understanding them.
Saieed:It's easy to say, let's find out what motivates someone.
Saieed:But if that motivation is right, it's done in the right mindset.
Saieed:Is it sustainable?
Saieed:Is it short term?
Saieed:Is it long term?
Saieed:Everything comes into effect.
Saieed:So the way, if I have a, say an individual coaching client, for example the reason
Saieed:I mentioned well being, self awareness, self care and all those aspects is because
Saieed:I want to take them, I want to guide them through this journey of self discovery
Saieed:to truly try and understand what their values are, because often you find what
Saieed:they think their values are and what their true values are very different.
Saieed:Being able to understand their values after a certain amount of time.
Saieed:patience, kindness, everything else that's involved that helps you clear their lens
Saieed:and their perspective on how they see it.
Saieed:And that could really help with that question, Tony, of do you
Saieed:love to win or do you hate to lose?
Saieed:Because that is a great indicator of that.
Saieed:And once they get to that point, then it's all about alignment for me.
Saieed:So that means.
Saieed:We've got this vision.
Saieed:We've got this purpose that's already predefined.
Saieed:There's two ways I see organizations, for example, do this.
Saieed:Some are very adamant to only hire the right talent because they think that if
Saieed:I'm not going to hire the right people or the right talent, and this is the
Saieed:equivalent to football teams, Tony, which I'm not going to name names.
Saieed:You just go out and buy the most expensive players they can find because they feel
Saieed:that put them together on everything else.
Saieed:will sort itself out, which is often not the case.
Saieed:And then you've got other organizations who say higher on skills, attitude,
Saieed:competencies, that sort of thing.
Saieed:I'm not going to argue for and against, but I'm saying depending
Saieed:on what your vision and purpose is, you have to see which one's
Saieed:a better fit for your situation.
Saieed:But regardless of which one you choose.
Saieed:You have to break down those walls.
Saieed:You have to be able to get people to see themselves in a new light to be
Saieed:able to then fully understand them.
Saieed:And then once you've done that, you have a better idea of how you can align the
Saieed:vision, the purpose, the goals to what their true values and motivations are.
Saieed:And that necessitates the right culture.
Saieed:So again, culture comes into the mix.
Saieed:So for me, it breaks it down into stuff like culture, expectations,
Saieed:communication, empowerment, and then leading that by example, because
Saieed:despite your best intentions, if you're not leading by example,
Saieed:you're going to lose it very soon.
Saieed:So that's my two cents or
Rob:two pennies.
Rob:I think you've raised a really important point., what we think will make us happy
Rob:is not the thing that will make us happy.
Rob:I learned this back when I was studying happiness.
Rob:Part of it is that we've got a flawed idea.
Rob:And then in working with conflict, what I learned was, so say you've got a couple.
Rob:And they're both, one wants this, and they go almost everything's right, if
Rob:they would just do this, and then the other one's trying almost everything,
Rob:if they would just do this, and they're both pulling each other, and
Rob:they end up pulling each other apart.
Rob:And what their conflict is based on is not actually themselves.
Rob:It's a lot of their conflict is based on the assumptions that someone else has
Rob:given them somewhere that they've learned that they've misinterpreted or some dogma
Rob:that they've been given by someone else.
Rob:When you actually boil down and you look for a conflict, what actually
Rob:happens is you've got two points, but it actually becomes a triangle
Rob:because the thing that they really thought that they wanted wasn't.
Rob:There was a deeper need.
Rob:People basically are looking for just a few things.
Rob:Some highly ambitious normally means they want status, they want
Rob:respect, they want recognition.
Rob:And it's something like that.
Rob:And we fixate on one way of getting it.
Rob:And through the process of trying to achieve it.
Rob:You refine your idea.
Rob:In the beginning we meet with a purpose, but I think that purpose gets shaped
Rob:by the people and in the same way the culture gets shaped by the people.
Rob:It is alignment, it's the ability to have those discussions and, as it
Rob:says, people often aren't aware of, what drives them and what they really
Rob:value, until they meet enough friction so that they become aware of it.
Michalina:Very interesting what you've just said.
Michalina:Rob, and I'm reflecting on this.
Michalina:What comes to me is the size of the team that I would add to this conversation.
Michalina:What you've just mentioned is very much around two people, three people,
Michalina:four people, small team, where you can go this deep and you can
Michalina:analyze the values, the behaviors the beliefs the context, the cultural
Michalina:conditioning, economical conditioning and everything else that comes into it.
Michalina:And then if we scale that up into teams of 10 and 20 or 200, that's impossible.
Michalina:You need to know what you're there for, what are your objectives and
Michalina:crack on and what are the general rules so we don't kill each other.
Michalina:And we somehow police that what's right and what's wrong and when
Michalina:are you in and when are you out.
Michalina:So I think size of the team comes into play here for me.
Rob:When I think of someone who led a change, I think of martin luther
Rob:king, He led a change of a huge amount of people and I think it was because
Rob:his work forced him to listen to so many disparate people, who all felt
Rob:there was like a general zeitgeist.
Rob:And I think when Matthew's talking about great leaders through
Rob:history, what they had picked up on is like a general zeitgeist, a
Rob:general feeling that they tap into.
Rob:Martin Luther King had been talking in many small groups of, about
Rob:a dream and his, I have a dream speech was completely unprompted.
Rob:It was someone yelled to him Martin tell them about the dream.
Rob:And he launched into this, but he'd obviously built up through
Rob:years of talking and listening.
Rob:And as you piece together all those different bits, you get those things like
Rob:people at their core want the same thing.
Rob:They want to be happy.
Rob:They want to belong.
Rob:They want to be valued.
Rob:They want some status.
Rob:They want respect.
Rob:They want to feel important.
Rob:They want to feel that they're contributing.
Rob:So all of those things, there's, they're fairly human, fairly common human.
Rob:Dynamics and when we can like a visionary is someone who can articulate a way
Rob:of okay, this as this group, these are our significant problems as a group.
Rob:This is the common thread.
Rob:This is the common solution.
Rob:So I think in that sense, we can, we can't do it as specifically.
Rob:But someone can identify a problem.
Rob:And a vision for a solution.
Rob:And I think that's what Steve Jobs did.
Rob:Steve Jobs was able to somehow say, this is what we want.
Rob:Let's make it simple.
Rob:Let's make something that everyone's going to love.
Rob:Steve Jobs
Matthew:had an idea, he had a really big idea that people bought into before
Matthew:they bought into the actual gadgets.
Matthew:His idea was freedom.
Matthew:He believed that technology would free people, it would be the
Matthew:ultimate freedom, individuals.
Matthew:And this is what he was selling.
Matthew:And these iPhones and other gadgets were just tools to get people there.
Matthew:So again, we come to this idea of the idea.
Matthew:And in, in the sense of Jobs or King, they were big ideas as Michalina says.
Matthew:You get down in a group of 5, 10, 15, 20 people.
Matthew:It's still the idea.
Matthew:And I think the word she used was purpose, right?
Matthew:There still has to be an idea, a purpose, an overarching purpose.
Matthew:Umbrella under which everyone can get under
Michalina:and we're very firmly in the zone of massive changes to, in societies
Michalina:changes to our ways of thinking and we can look at how communism ended.
Michalina:We can look at how apartheid ended.
Michalina:We can look at all the historical changes and I always believe that we don't look.
Michalina:We tend to look back often enough to learn from those things to then
Michalina:utilize them and bring them forward.
Michalina:We tend to just reinvent things rather than look back and learn.
Michalina:We tend to forget that we've got people who are a lot older
Michalina:than us who have the wisdom and experience and they've done it all.
Michalina:And we just disregard all of that and we think that technology and
Michalina:new discoveries will help us.
Michalina:And then we say that we just need to fail more often and celebrate that.
Michalina:Pop style psychology, but that's the other side.
Michalina:What I want to say is that if we bring all those visions and societal changes
Michalina:back to reality of a corporate world, we've got one large business with
Michalina:different business units in a different services, different product, different
Michalina:functions, and they all compete.
Michalina:And they have microcultures and they all have VPs and managing directors
Michalina:wanting different things and pursuing different agendas within the business.
Michalina:And then you've got hundreds of people just going in for all
Michalina:sorts of reasons to do the jobs.
Michalina:Some of them buy into purpose, some of them just want a
Michalina:pay at the end of the month.
Michalina:They want to do 9 to 5, feel good about what they've produced, close
Michalina:the day and be with their families.
Michalina:So it's a bit about Back to the motivations and what encourages to
Michalina:do certain things But I still think that when it comes to bigger teams,
Michalina:there is no place for such in depth Individuality and if you do go for your
Michalina:life unconscious, you don't really know who you are You're just a collection of
Michalina:beliefs you've acquired for your life.
Michalina:That I'm afraid is your problem That is your responsibility to dig deep,
Michalina:analyze all of this, raise your own awareness and decide whether or not
Michalina:you want to do something about it.
Michalina:That is not a business's problem.
Michalina:That is not the company's problem or a leadership problem.
Michalina:A leadership problem for a leader who deals with a team, These are different
Michalina:problems to your own responsibility, your own self discovery and everything else.
Michalina:And if you are misaligned to your point, Said, if you're not doing
Michalina:the right thing that you should be doing, that is your responsibility.
Michalina:You can earn money somewhere else.
Michalina:Just go and find a place where you will feel that belonging, where you
Michalina:will buy into that shared purpose.
Michalina:And I think we don't talk about this offer enough.
Michalina:We tend to think nowadays that.
Michalina:We choose the company for great money and great benefits, great working conditions.
Michalina:We all want to be working hybrid or just be at home.
Michalina:And then we go, Oh, but my values are not aligned.
Michalina:You've chosen the job for a paycheck.
Michalina:So what did you expect?
Michalina:So I think there is a bit about your own personal responsibility and bringing
Michalina:this down to e things start with you.
Michalina:If you live unconsciously for your life, that is your
Michalina:responsibility, not corporate, not leadership, not company values.
Michalina:So yeah, sorry.
Michalina:Just a bit of a rant there.
Michalina:Saieed you're laughing.
Michalina:Go for it.
Saieed:I completely understand what you mean, and you're right when it
Saieed:comes because a business is there to be a business, basically, it's
Saieed:not, you're not there for therapy.
Saieed:So I can understand that.
Saieed:But when you take it to a leadership position, and this is my own personal
Saieed:thinking and my personal belief system, I often see a leadership
Saieed:position as a privileged one, instead of a title and position.
Saieed:I don't know whether it's not so much, it's your responsibility.
Saieed:It's more what can I do as a leader to develop you and create a
Saieed:future leader, if that makes sense.
Saieed:So as part of that, I have to try and look at taking people on
Saieed:that journey of self discovery.
Saieed:Regardless of it being the right opportunity or the right setting or the
Saieed:right person, I'm still going to give it a shot because I think it's worth it.
Saieed:Because I think that's, and that's because someone took a shot on
Saieed:me when I needed it the most.
Saieed:And for that reason, it's instilled in me that I can make people,
Saieed:if I can, okay, let's, we're not going to get into the whole, if
Saieed:you can change people discussion.
Saieed:But if I can provide or guide or coach or consult or catalyze.
Saieed:Someone to take him on that journey, then, by all means, I'm very happy to do that.
Saieed:But I do agree with you, Michelino, when it comes to a large team
Saieed:size, you don't have the time.
Saieed:And that's why I said it really depends on if you do have the time and the setting.
Saieed:To be able to do that because of large organization, you just don't have the
Saieed:time to be able to do that with everyone.
Saieed:So I think you have these certain knobs that I like to see when it
Saieed:comes to expectation, empowerment, and then it's like you turn it either
Saieed:down or you turn it up depending on the setting that you're in.
Saieed:To suit the environment.
Saieed:As much as you can, but the intent and willingness to be able to do that.
Saieed:I tried to think a bit differently.
Saieed:So it transcends the it's your responsibility.
Saieed:That's your problem.
Saieed:Go and figure yourself out.
Saieed:And this is my, sort of me with my recovery hat, accountability coach
Saieed:hat talking to say some people just need that push and they need
Saieed:to be able to test because they can't figure it out by themselves.
Saieed:They need someone to help them with that.
Saieed:But the willingness needs to be there.
Michalina:I love that.
Michalina:I love what you've just said.
Michalina:And I think these are two different conversations.
Michalina:One is the personal responsibility and the other is creating a culture that
Michalina:allows you to enable you to do things.
Michalina:But it's not a leader's responsibility to be a coach mentor and a
Michalina:therapist when it's needed and a business mind and everything else.
Michalina:Yes, leadership is situational and you.
Michalina:You've got leaders who are this way inclined and those who are not
Michalina:and they're expert in other areas.
Michalina:Let's not glorify that role either that we need to make sure that we play to our
Michalina:strengths, whether we are leaders or not.
Michalina:But I think there is a piece around organizations being equipped to
Michalina:signpost you to employee assistance.
Michalina:Program to all sorts of insurances and support and network and experts of being
Michalina:made available to you when you need those.
Michalina:And yes, sometimes there are those moments when someone just has the right
Michalina:conversation at the right time and that changes your life, but still your
Michalina:responsibility to do something about it.
Michalina:So I would split those two as to what is the good leadership.
Michalina:About really, and we could spend hours and hours talking about this and understanding
Michalina:back to context and everything else, but also personal responsibility.
Matthew:In the words of the great American philosopher,
Matthew:Facebook it's complicated.
Michalina:Correct.
Michalina:I actually studied philosophy.
Michalina:I love that.
Michalina:I love that joke here.
Rob:I'll just
Tony:pick up on it.
Tony:Said on the, I think when there's the perception that nobody's got any time
Tony:because we're busy, these things are the first things that get pushed away.
Tony:People talk about soft skills or they're labeled as soft skills.
Tony:They're actually the first things that get avoided because they're
Tony:actually difficult to deal with.
Tony:Having difficult conversations is challenging for people.
Tony:It needs training.
Tony:It's trainable, quite easily trainable to help people get.
Tony:Better quickly.
Tony:I'm not trying to teach anyone how to do their jobs here, but I think when
Tony:people use the objection that we just don't have time to do this is the time
Tony:when they need to start doing it the most and to find little pockets of
Tony:meaningful time each week, to have a different set of conversations than
Tony:the typical conversations that are being had around the square tables
Tony:that are held every day and every week in these big complex organizations.
Tony:I think there is a way to help, equip many more managers.
Tony:And leaders, and you can cross over the whole leader management debate, is
Tony:fine to have a conversation about that, but you can equip people really simply.
Tony:Going deep with everyone and taking them all on a personal journey clearly
Tony:is not possible, but taking the masses on a more educated and, fulfilling
Tony:journey, that's going to help them reveal a little bit more about themselves.
Tony:Is massively achievable and it doesn't take a lot of time to do it.
Tony:I think the upside.
Tony:I was thinking of it this way.
Tony:If I'm, if I take my management style into every situation and expect everyone
Tony:to respond in the same way, which is what happens in football all the time.
Tony:They go and hire a manager that failed last week and got sacked.
Tony:They'll hire him in a new job this week.
Tony:He'll bring exactly the same approach into the new role.
Tony:And let's just see which way the wind's blowing.
Tony:And sometimes they'll get fortune will favor them, and other times not.
Tony:And that's not to discredit anybody.
Tony:It happens a lot.
Tony:I think to, for me to expect as a manager that everybody must just
Tony:follow the way that I do things.
Tony:And this is the way I lead you, you follow me.
Tony:I think there's a big piece of work that we can do to change that dynamic.
Tony:Because the small adjustments that I make towards these people that I'm.
Tony:Responsible for helping or supporting or leading or managing, might be a
Tony:little bit uncomfortable for me to step outside of who I am just for a minute,
Tony:but it might be a game changer for you.
Tony:It might change your world just to know that actually that little just
Tony:that one shift that you made the way you approach me differently.
Tony:It's just set my world on fire.
Tony:I'm now, wow, this guy understands me.
Tony:He's he heard me.
Tony:He sees me whatever it might be.
Tony:I think there's no shortcuts.
Tony:I think leadership's a practice and you have to be immersed in it all
Tony:the time and make tons of mistakes.
Tony:But there are shortcuts, I think, to help more people in big,
Tony:complex, dynamic organizations have better conversations and beat.
Tony:Very quickly, better equipped to navigate these really complex situations that
Tony:they find themselves in without it.
Tony:Wow.
Tony:It's difficult, right?
Tony:It's, young managers who step up from being a high performer
Tony:is suddenly managing with.
Tony:ill equipped to manage the dynamics of the team.
Tony:I just feel for them.
Tony:It's a tough gig.
Michalina:And Tony, I couldn't agree with you more on this.
Michalina:I've spent 10 years dealing with the dark side of people, dealing with all
Michalina:the problems the wellbeing problems the sicknesses, the absences, the
Michalina:performance improvement side of things, the grievances, conflict, mediations,
Michalina:employment tribunals, all that kind of.
Michalina:Stuff that we don't really want to talk about and absolutely in every single
Michalina:case, in every single situation, you could trace it back to leadership capability.
Michalina:You can trace it back to managers conversations, the right conversations
Michalina:at the right time, and you can trace it back to an employee being.
Michalina:entitled to certain things being done for them and then taking responsibility or
Michalina:not taking responsibility for the actions.
Michalina:You can literally trace every single problem back to those moments and
Michalina:I've seen this time and time again.
Michalina:And would you say about feeling sorry for managers?
Michalina:Absolutely.
Michalina:This is such a.
Michalina:Ungrateful job when you step into that arena and suddenly you have to
Michalina:be everyone you have to be a business analyst and a business head and you have
Michalina:to be great with people and you have to be great with numbers and you have to
Michalina:Somehow be a time magician to squeeze all of that in and look like you're
Michalina:not tired And doing the right thing at the right time and spot someone whose
Michalina:life is about to change, that is hard.
Michalina:And I think there is a lot around that capability and support, but when you say
Michalina:that you can help on a bigger scale, yes and no, yes, you can have coaches on hand,
Michalina:you can have training campaigns in place, but at the end of the day, it's about
Michalina:that personal responsibility, whereas you do something well or you don't, and
Michalina:whether you gel as a team or you don't.
Michalina:And it's back to something bigger than just you two, or the three
Michalina:of you, or the four of you.
Tony:We could pick up that conversation because I do think
Tony:there are Easily applied tools that can equip unskilled people to become
Tony:more highly skilled very quickly.
Tony:No, absolutely.
Michalina:Absolutely.
Michalina:To some extent.
Michalina:To some extent.
Rob:Part of the culture and part of it, part of the whole onboarding
Rob:needs to be a clarity of what are the responsibilities of each.
Rob:And I think what Tony's talking about is I, there's a threshold, and
Rob:typically most organizations, most managers spend somewhere from two
Rob:to 10 hours a week on dealing with conflict, directly or indirectly,
Michalina:Oh, not dealing with it, running away from it.
Michalina:Yeah.
Rob:Yeah.
Rob:And that's part of the problem.
Rob:Because there is a lack of skills and a lack of, confidence, which I
Rob:really think for a new time manager, it's really a change in identity.
Rob:And I think most of the struggle is around the pressure of what other
Rob:people are thinking of them and feeling do I, am I living up to it?
Rob:Am I good enough?
Rob:And all of that fears get in the way.
Rob:You can't fix everyone's problems.
Rob:You don't do that for everyone, but when you are in that position is say HR or
Rob:your, or a leader and you're dealing with sometimes that can be incredibly
Rob:costly to where you don't want to lose someone or you have to lose someone.
Rob:And there's a lot riding on that.
Rob:If there is a mapped out, path of what you can do, then it may only be.
Rob:Going back to start Manchester United, yeah, Manchester United is
Rob:a bigger idea than most players, but they had this problem with
Rob:Cristiano Ronaldo who believed he was bigger than Manchester United.
Rob:And if in that kind of situation, it all depends on how valuable
Rob:the relationship is, and if you're dealing, with what's Ronaldo.
Rob:20, 50 million a year.
Rob:That's a, that's worth a lot.
Rob:And having a mapped out route of where you can go can help in the,
Rob:it's not going to be used for everyone because it doesn't need to be used
Rob:for everyone, but it's a threshold of where it's necessary to be needed.
Rob:That's what
Tony:I mean by aligned intention.
Tony:So let's say a new manager comes into that scenario, which is what happened.
Tony:So in that scenario, this situation was already playing out and a new manager
Tony:was brought in to that situation to now navigate, try and get the team performing
Tony:better and as managers are charged to do.
Tony:And no doubt,
Tony:Took all that responsibility on his shoulders to try and tackle that
Tony:the best way he thought possible.
Tony:Now, if there's no clarity around aligned intention about that, so if
Tony:we've got two fundamentally different beliefs that the owner is selling so
Tony:many Cristiano Ronaldo shirts that he wants that player to play and the
Tony:manager doesn't, if they haven't had that conversation at that level to align on
Tony:intention, then it's Failure by design.
Tony:Now we, none of us know whether that those conversations took place,
Tony:but from the outside, looking in, you can see the impact of division
Tony:within the ranks on pitch, off pitch, media commentary, fan commentary.
Tony:So aligned intention.
Tony:So forget culture, which is this big, ever evolving, moving feast
Tony:of people coming in and going out.
Tony:Fundamentally, let's decide.
Tony:Are we a club that wants to win or are we a club that wants to make money?
Tony:And if it's both, then how does that?
Tony:What is it?
Tony:What are the nuances that were actually agreed on so that we can make
Tony:really clear decisions that fit that?
Tony:Because until we've got the capability to do that, people's.
Tony:opinions about how it's going are going to matter way more than they should.
Tony:And you just get this noise and it's just an impossible, it's an impossible
Tony:job under those circumstances.
Tony:It
Matthew:just runs, it runs out of anybody's control at that point.
Matthew:Yeah, there's it's out of control, right?
Matthew:As they found out.
Tony:Yes.
Tony:And they're still finding out chaos.
Matthew:And they may, and they and they may have damaged their
Matthew:brand for a generation, right?
Tony:It is a really complex and, interesting to be looking
Tony:at it from the outside in.
Tony:There are clearly players that have bought into the big idea of Man United.
Tony:Absolutely.
Tony:It's this big thing that they know the history, they know the heritage,
Tony:and they're either comfortable with the demands on them to live up
Tony:to that heritage, or they're not.
Tony:They're massively challenged by it and need a load of support to, to be
Tony:nurtured through it to become who they could possibly be, bigger than they
Tony:ever thought was possible, let's say.
Tony:And you can see all these people fighting with themselves to show themselves in
Tony:the best possible light under these extraordinary complex circumstances, with
Tony:all the scrutiny of the world on them.
Tony:Real match pressure as I would call it.
Tony:And I think sometimes we forget that these are
Tony:players between, let's say a large chunk of them between 18 and 25 years old.
Tony:So they're not even fully matured.
Tony:male adults yet.
Tony:They're under extraordinary amounts of, self discovery.
Tony:They must be learning so much, so many things as they go through this.
Tony:I look at the individual and go this guy's 23 years old.
Tony:And because the game demands a certain level of performance in order to succeed,
Tony:The 23 year old who's trying to find his way in this murky world is getting
Tony:treated by the external people exactly the same way as somebody that's been
Tony:doing it for 10 years successfully.
Tony:Because the game doesn't discriminate, it says you must be able to do
Tony:this, and for Manchester United you must be able to do it this way.
Tony:And if you can't, we don't care how old you are, on your bike, not good enough.
Tony:And it's a fascinating thing to behold, but it's also a, quite an
Tony:uncomfortable watch as well for me.
Rob:I think there's a there's a, we can look at Manchester United and Liverpool
Rob:have alternated as the big teams.
Rob:So you had Manchester United in the sixties with the Busby babes,
Rob:or the fifties and the sixties.
Rob:And then after Matt Busby retired, they just drifted off, got relegated.
Rob:They were in the shade for 10, 20 years until Sir Alex Ferguson came along.
Rob:The the seventies Liverpool took over and then dominated football for the seventies
Rob:and the eighties, and then suddenly they haven't won a title until 30 years later.
Rob:So Juergen Klopp took over and he took over.
Rob:What?
Rob:When Liverpool were like, man United are now, and.
Rob:For me, he's the poster boy for unifying the team.
Rob:And what he identified was.
Rob:Liverpool had this big reputation, and players felt, overall, they
Rob:didn't feel they were good enough.
Rob:They were continually being compared to the 80s and the fans were like, they'd
Rob:lost faith and so as soon as someone made a mistake, they were on their back.
Rob:So there was all this pressure that they were a big club, but they were a
Rob:big club that had lost their way, and the players had become more average.
Rob:And what Jurgen Klopp did was he recognised He was offered the job of
Rob:Man United, but he didn't want it.
Rob:And he didn't want, because they said to him, we'll buy all these players.
Rob:We'll make you, we'll make the glamorous team.
Rob:And he's no, that's not what I want.
Rob:I want everyone to be a family.
Rob:And he looked at the team and he said they just lack belief.
Rob:And they were all for, okay, there's a new manager coming in.
Rob:They're going to get rid of me because I'm not good enough.
Rob:He's going to buy a whole load of new players.
Rob:And he's no, you're good enough.
Rob:He worked to unify everyone in the background.
Rob:He worked to get the crowd over.
Rob:So there was a, an instance in against Stoke where Liverpool drew
Rob:with Stoke and Stoke is like a low team who wouldn't be expected to
Rob:be in the same league as Liverpool.
Rob:And.
Rob:He brought all the team over to applaud the crowd and everyone was looking at him.
Rob:So what's he doing?
Rob:Applauding mediocrity?
Rob:That's they shouldn't be Applauding that and what I didn't understand was he was
Rob:building the bond with the crowd and he was saying to the crowd You he was getting
Rob:the players to say look we are one And his work was saying everyone, we are
Rob:one, this is, Liverpool has a culture, this is the standard of Liverpool,
Rob:we are Liverpool, we work as one.
Rob:And he built the team up.
Rob:So now with Manchester City, they challenge mostly for everything.
Rob:They've won the title again.
Rob:And they are, one of the best teams in the country.
Rob:And it was by giving the players confidence by building
Rob:that culture around them.
Rob:And it was by unify everyone as one, that everyone had one goal and
Rob:everyone, the backroom staff, and it was, it meant his job was to unify
Rob:people to make people feel included, but also to take where, like other
Rob:managers, like Brendan Rogers had been fighting with the transfer committee.
Rob:One of the one of the ways they turned it around was their recruits
Rob:and they were able to bring people in and make them better.
Rob:Because they were part of a system and no Liverpool player has gone away and
Rob:been better anywhere else than they are within that team and that structure.
Rob:So I think it's when you can unify everyone and you give people
Rob:belief on when people are divided and they don't see a purpose and
Rob:they don't feel part of things.
Rob:That's when supporters are, like getting on the backs and
Rob:there's division in everywhere.
Rob:And that's what I look at.
Rob:Manchester United is under Ferguson.
Rob:They were united.
Rob:He, and sometimes the culture comes from the leader where he has such
Rob:a strong personality and a strong set of values that they create that.
Rob:sense of purpose and mission.
Rob:That's
Matthew:the that's the idea of vision again.
Matthew:And it's, and you see it in business all the time where the company or the
Matthew:leaders of the company have a have a vision that's not connected to the people.
Matthew:that work under the vision.
Matthew:They can't buy into it.
Matthew:It's too grandiose or it's something they don't believe in.
Matthew:And this disconnect happens and it just becomes cultural chaos.
Matthew:So you need a vision, as you were saying about Liverpool after the Busby era.
Matthew:You need a, you can't let the vision get away from you.
Matthew:People have to be able to believe it and buy into it or it's all it is vision.
Matthew:It's not an idea anymore.
Matthew:It's not an idea people can understand, believe, or buy into.
Matthew:It's just you yapping away about something.
Matthew:Or your culture yapping away about something and you see it all the time
Matthew:in business and it's the difference between really, you may notice a
Matthew:new product or a new service or a hot new thing enters the market.
Matthew:And there's 20 competitors.
Matthew:Suddenly they're on every street corner.
Matthew:And then within about 3 5 years, magically there's 3.
Matthew:Where did everybody go?
Matthew:Those 3 had a vision.
Matthew:And something to unify in an umbrella under which everybody could
Matthew:get under and the others didn't.
Matthew:They're all selling the same thing.
Matthew:I don't know what it was like in Europe, but the big vape craze
Matthew:hit North America here and there was vape stores on every corner.
Matthew:And they're all gone now.
Matthew:Except for one or two, because they had a vision, they had data they had a
Matthew:they had a culture that could hang on through the competitive nature of it.
Matthew:And that all the time.
Saieed:I think me and Rob had this conversation not long ago when we
Saieed:were talking about Elon Musk and his, and the way he has this grand vision.
Saieed:Basically, which is normally spawn about as well.
Saieed:But another key component to that is the leadership team who take that vision
Saieed:and translate it into, objectives into stuff that's tangible into process,
Saieed:into method and how they then lead people under that to be able to.
Saieed:Align everyone toward that vision, because like you say, Matthew,
Saieed:it's having a vision is not enough.
Saieed:You need that support.
Saieed:And I think that's where that example is relevant to football teams as well.
Saieed:Because all we see from the TV screens or the stadiums is.
Saieed:a manager and 11 players on the field.
Saieed:A lot of people don't know what the names are of the assistant managers and
Saieed:all the other staff that are working behind the scenes and what they do, which
Saieed:could be very, obviously is significant.
Saieed:It could be as significant as well, a lot of the times.
Saieed:I would add that to the mix where.
Saieed:Not only the vision is important and the culture is important and
Saieed:the alignment, you need that support network or that support team to be
Saieed:able to take that and then translate it and make it into something
Saieed:that's measurable and achievable.
Saieed:I
Michalina:think from my perspective.
Michalina:I'm sorry.
Michalina:Sorry, Michalina.
Tony:Please.
Tony:No, please go on.
Michalina:There you go.
Michalina:Thank you.
Michalina:I actually wanted to suggest that we take this conversation out of football
Michalina:and make it a little bit more inclusive because this is not about football.
Michalina:This is not about one set of culture and one setting of how do
Michalina:we make the perfect football team.
Michalina:We talk about variety of teams.
Michalina:We talk about those ingredients that Rob needs for his equation.
Michalina:We say there are different ones, but they don't come up to equation.
Michalina:I think there is a there is a piece around shared purpose and shared goals
Michalina:and buying into what we are all here to do at the lowest levels of our
Michalina:organization, team, a smaller business, medium business or a large business.
Michalina:I think There is so much around diversity of thought diversity of expectations and
Michalina:mixed mixed backgrounds and mixed ways of thinking of what these things mean for us,
Michalina:that we've got a lot of work to do at this level, and a shared purpose for a mother
Michalina:who's returning from maternity leave.
Michalina:And coming back to the workplace, it's very different to a VP who's worked
Michalina:in the same organization for 20 years or to someone who's just come in on a
Michalina:contract to do a specific piece of work.
Michalina:It's very different to someone who's disabled or has mental health
Michalina:problems and needs that support and reasonable adjustments, for example.
Michalina:It's very different to someone who's going for menopause and needs to deal with a
Michalina:lot of things that are very personal and very difficult to deal with while still
Michalina:performing at the professional level.
Michalina:So for me there is this element of a shared belief that we're part of
Michalina:the team and what does that vision strategy and culture mean to me at
Michalina:this particular time of my life.
Michalina:But also there is a moment of that support and understanding And holding
Michalina:space for each other to, to go through those different stages, whether this is
Michalina:having a young family or just starting out as a graduate or going through
Michalina:life changes, divorce or, tragic death in the family and dealing with that.
Michalina:And then still being able to contribute as a team member.
Michalina:There are so many more.
Michalina:Complexity still to, to talk about what this means to be a unified team.
Rob:It's complicated.
Tony:It is complicated.
Tony:Yeah.
Tony:And I was sorry to take it back to football.
Tony:No, it's just, it's important.
Tony:I think in relation to the, because what struck me when Rob was talking about
Tony:Klopp's approach to taking the players to the fans when they lost a game that they
Tony:shouldn't have lost, there's a humility in that and there's a normalization of.
Tony:Of humans, we lose, we don't always win.
Tony:It's actually real.
Tony:We're in it together.
Tony:And I think
Tony:the business demand doesn't discriminate.
Tony:We need to be able to perform at a minimum level to deliver
Tony:success for the organization.
Tony:Now, some days I'll feel I'm up for that.
Tony:I'm ready to go.
Tony:And other days circumstances will prevail that make it more difficult
Tony:for me to step up and be at my best.
Tony:When I need to be at my best, that happens in sport.
Tony:It happens in business at every level.
Tony:And I think that the biggest challenge I see between the sporting
Tony:arena and the business arena is in sport to be at your best.
Tony:It's once a week and everything's geared up to preparing for that.
Tony:So after you've performed, whether you won or lost, you then get to analyze
Tony:it, you get to recover, you get to train, you get to retrain, you get
Tony:more information, you get supported.
Tony:If you're not feeling great or you get the psychology, it's all there.
Tony:And then you need to go again a week later.
Tony:Whereas in the corporate world, in the business world, there's almost
Tony:an expectation that every day.
Tony:We're back at it, and we need to be at match pace again and again.
Tony:There's a relentlessness to it.
Tony:And I think we need to, picking up on all of those things that you were
Tony:saying, Michalina, is to normalize those moments or those periods of time
Tony:when people are just not at their best.
Tony:It's normal.
Tony:But, under the umbrella that the business needs you to be able to deliver a minimum.
Tony:It's like you say, Matthew, it is indeed very complicated.
Rob:Thank you all for being here.
Rob:We've all brought different opinions, different strengths
Rob:and different visions and ideas.
Rob:But hopefully we've all learned something and refined our thinking in the process