0:00

david uh absolutely excited and

0:03

privileged to have you on this episode

0:05

of leadership bites welcome

0:07

hey thanks for having me on your show

0:08

guys well i can't tell you how

0:11

how happy i am i'll have done an

0:13

introduction to

0:14

who you are and i think a lot of people

0:16

probably will know who you are but

0:18

i'll cover that in the introduction and

0:20

just wanting to keep this punchy

0:22

and to keep this in a kind of a space

0:24

and place where there's immediate value

0:26

i wanted to pull on your experience

0:30

and so i just have a couple of questions

0:32

that i'd like to kind of

0:33

offer to you just to get your response

0:35

if we're okay to move into that space

0:37

yeah sure fantastic so

0:40

my um i think my interest comes

0:44

from people that have trodden the path

0:47

of leadership

0:48

very often have examples of the moments

0:51

maybe where they had leaps in their

0:53

learning

0:54

because you know there's there's a

0:56

there's a path forward which is made up

0:58

of years of experience but that's hard

1:00

to maybe talk about specifically but

1:02

there's often a a person

1:04

a moment a book a revelation a disaster

1:08

whatever it is and i just wonder if you

1:10

could share

1:11

one or two poignant moments from your

1:14

career that go

1:15

those definitely helped me learn about

1:19

myself or or to develop and move forward

1:21

i'd love to hear a few of those

1:24

yeah so of one of the critical moments

1:26

for me

1:27

was shortly after i took over as a

1:32

captain of the nuclear-powered submarine

1:33

uss santa fe

1:35

and i'd come up through the navy system

1:38

and i was being promoted on the strength

1:40

of my ability

1:41

to tell people what to do and get them

1:44

to do it

1:45

and make good decisions and

1:48

i was deeply deeply deeply rooted in

1:51

that

1:53

paradigm of leadership leaders and

1:55

followers

1:56

management and workers how other how

1:59

else could it possibly be

2:02

uh and so i show up on the uss santa fe

2:05

now

2:06

i'd spent a year uh training to take

2:09

over a different submarine

2:11

which was a different kind of submarine

2:13

okay and

2:15

what happened was the santa fe wasn't

2:17

doing well it was the worst performing

2:19

submarine in the fl in the navy

2:20

and the had the worst morale and the

2:22

captain

2:24

to his credit in my mind said i'm not

2:26

the person for this i resign

2:28

a year early so the navy hadn't done the

2:30

normal

2:31

they hadn't sequenced someone into to

2:33

come replace him so at very short notice

2:36

two weeks notice they told me

2:38

hey you're not going to go where you

2:40

thought you're going to go to the santa fe

2:41

different kind of submarine oh by the

2:43

way it's the worst performing submarine

2:44

and it has the worst morale

2:46

and you don't know the ship better than

2:47

that you should be fine

2:49

[ __ ] them crack on and

2:55

and so here's here's the picture of the

2:58

the ceremony but the reality was i

3:02

looked like this

3:03

inside i was i was really quite nervous

3:06

anxious and concerned but

3:10

you don't really can't really show that

3:11

i mean you're a submarine commander you

3:13

don't want to be

3:14

vulnerable and i gave an order

3:18

very early on that couldn't be done it

3:20

was a very simple thing it was about

3:21

shifting

3:22

into the second gear on an engine that

3:24

only had one gear

3:26

and when the navy went to the newest

3:27

ship they sent the

3:29

the navy's constantly simplifying the

3:32

machinery because

3:33

simpler machinery fewer moving parts

3:37

breaks less cost less cheaper to

3:38

maintain more reliable so

3:41

you want to make it exactly as you want

3:43

to get as simple as you can and

3:47

uh with santa fe being one of the newest

3:49

ships ship i'd never been on

3:51

kind of never been on before that

3:54

[Music]

3:55

this this motor now had uh one speed but

3:58

on all the older ships was two speed

4:00

motor

4:01

anyway i um i suggested going to second

4:04

gear on this one speed motor and it came

4:05

to light hey can't do it blah blah blah

4:08

and nothing really happened but the

4:10

thing that really shocked me and rocked

4:11

me back on my heels was

4:13

the fact that the officer ordered it and

4:15

when i asked him

4:16

if he knew about it he said yes and well

4:19

why did you order it because you told me

4:21

to

4:22

and wow in

4:26

yeah now if you're listening to this and

4:29

say oh that would only happen in the

4:31

military

4:32

yeah i don't know commercial spice

4:36

i can list a hundred corporations

4:39

volkswagen wells fargo blockbuster

4:43

wherever

4:44

whatever where people just do what

4:45

they're told i mean it is the number one

4:48

behavior in a corporation that get you

4:50

advanced attach yourself to someone else

4:52

and do

4:52

what do what they want you to do yeah

4:55

and

4:58

it's designed that way the organization

5:01

is designed that way

5:02

we do say we do sprinkle fairy tales say

5:05

oh but i really want you to think

5:07

but the fundamental organizational

5:09

design is for compliance and conformity

5:11

not for thinking and we

5:14

we can tamper with the edges but it

5:16

doesn't really make a fundamental

5:18

difference

5:19

my thought was oh i need to give better

5:22

orders i got to make better decisions

5:24

this had always been my thought in the

5:26

past

5:27

but on the santa fe it was because it

5:29

was a brand new ship

5:30

that was unfamiliar to me i was like

5:32

well how am i possibly going to learn

5:34

everything

5:35

before i kill everybody there's no way

5:37

so the problem wasn't i gave a bad order

5:40

the problem was

5:41

i was the one giving orders and this

5:45

was my damasking moment

5:49

where i realized all my leadership

5:53

training all of it and and i would dare

5:57

say

5:57

basically all leadership training on the

5:59

planet

6:00

90 of it is about telling people what to

6:03

do and getting them to do it and making

6:04

good decisions

6:06

and it's not helpful

6:10

it was that it was the winning formula

6:12

for the industrial revolution but is not

6:14

the winning formula for thinking

6:16

organizations because it's not about

6:18

thinking we need to optimize the

6:19

organization

6:20

not for doing but for thinking and we

6:23

need to balance it with doing

6:25

so we need doing and thinking but right

6:28

now most organizations are 99

6:30

doing one percent thinking now there's

6:32

some a few people at the top

6:34

we reserve those spots those are the

6:35

thinking spots and they make decisions

6:37

and tell everyone else what to do

6:39

so there's two problems for this number

6:41

one

6:42

we're not activating the thinking of

6:45

many people in the organization

6:47

so we're missing out on what they what

6:49

they know it's bad for the organization

6:51

but it's also horrible for them for as

6:53

human beings

6:54

just to show up to work and just be a

6:55

cog in the machine

6:58

and so that's number one number two

7:01

it's fundamentally coercive because

7:05

we separate the people who are making

7:06

the decisions from the people who are

7:08

doing the work

7:09

the people who are doing the work are

7:10

not making decisions about the work

7:12

somebody else is making decisions about

7:14

the work and so everybody in every level

7:16

of hierarchy

7:17

has two problems number one they're

7:19

trying to control

7:20

somebody else and they're being

7:22

controlled by their boss

7:24

both of those things are tremendous

7:25

sources of stress

7:27

because you can't control somebody else

7:28

so you're trying to control something

7:30

you fundamentally cannot control

7:31

and you in turn are being controlled

7:33

which also doesn't feel

7:35

good and we have studies here in the

7:38

united states

7:39

that show the cost of the stress

7:43

and the relationship to toxic workplaces

7:46

is over 200 billion

7:48

dollars a year and was the fifth leading

7:51

cause of death this is pre-coveted fifth

7:53

leading cut

7:54

fifth leading cause of death in the

7:55

united states is toxic workplaces

7:58

why because it's fundamentally designed

8:01

to be stress

8:02

inducing and so we don't

8:05

we can't just tinker on the edges with

8:09

this approach

8:10

what we need to do is let the people who

8:12

are doing the work make make

8:13

as many fundamental decisions about the

8:15

work as possible

8:17

and it and it comes down to the is baked

8:19

into our language

8:20

that's the problem you can say whatever

8:23

you you can you can

8:24

dream up and write policies about

8:26

whatever you want

8:27

but if you show up and you run a meeting

8:29

the same way you ran the meeting two

8:31

years ago

8:31

the same way you ran that your your

8:34

parents ran a meeting that the

8:35

ceo ten years ago ran you're not changed

8:38

nothing's changed

8:40

and that's what we see well that's

8:42

fascinating and

8:44

again i have a sneaky suspicion you know

8:46

as i always do when i speak to somebody

8:47

like yourself that

8:48

i could spend a couple of days with you

8:50

on this so uh keep keeping it tight

8:52

um i'm i'm i'm really alert to what

8:55

you're talking about

8:56

i've also become quite alert i think to

8:58

another thing

8:59

is that people need to be developed

9:02

in themselves as much as they do in the

9:05

role

9:06

primarily because what i also see is

9:08

that people

9:09

put themselves into a submissive state

9:12

sometimes even if they're being asked

9:13

not to

9:14

and what i mean by that is the market

9:18

shifts

9:18

covid happens etc whatever it is and it

9:21

becomes harder to get a job out there

9:23

they've got a mortgage they've got a

9:24

second kid on the way whatever it is

9:26

and even if they've got the recognized

9:29

guru of leadership in in the

9:32

organization

9:34

their fear manifests in a submissive

9:37

state

9:38

and because they're fearful of losing

9:40

job and all those kind of things

9:42

and one thing i'm i'm highly alert to

9:45

is that even if you are actually

9:48

a really skilled leader

9:52

there is something about the

9:54

organization

9:55

has to be more than the individual i had

9:58

gary ridge on the podcast who's the

10:00

md of wd-40 he talks you're very much

10:03

about

10:03

we're a tribe and we're coaches and not

10:05

managers and

10:06

you know that that kind of thing but i'm

10:08

i'm just

10:09

super alert that even when a company

10:11

tries its best and tries

10:13

really hard there are still times when

10:16

people do that to themselves because of

10:18

their own fear

10:19

and i just wonder if you observe that

10:21

where i'm giving you permission

10:23

and yet you're still not stepping up and

10:26

what you might do to bridge that gap

10:27

because it's not

10:28

technically what you're doing it's the

10:30

reaction they're having to

10:32

you know it's an interesting

10:33

conversation for you yeah

10:35

so the way we think about it is

10:39

the leader's job is to create the

10:41

environment where it's safe for people

10:42

to participate

10:44

it being bold and if you're looking for

10:47

bold behavior

10:48

it needs to come from a place of safety

10:50

not from a place of fear

10:53

you can you can goad people and scare

10:55

them into once

10:56

jumping but then they age they all jump

10:59

in different directions

11:00

it's not organized and it doesn't keep

11:03

working it doesn't get everyone's best

11:04

thinking

11:05

so leaders say oh my job is to make it

11:08

as safe as possible

11:12

if if you're the employee the employee's

11:14

job

11:16

is no matter how safe the environment

11:19

feels

11:20

i'm going to be bold i'm going to share

11:21

what i think i'm going to speak up and i

11:23

see things differently

11:24

now you say oh people say oh it's up to

11:27

you to make a decision

11:29

i think these people they're a little

11:31

bit deluding themselves

11:34

and they're blaming the the team

11:37

when they really haven't made made it

11:40

easy to

11:41

to for the team to speak up i'm guessing

11:45

but because i'm just based on what we've

11:47

seen in 100

11:48

corporations they're still running the

11:52

meetings the old way they're going to

11:53

talk about it and then they're going to

11:54

vote

11:55

and they're going to say look everyone

11:56

voted the same way yeah that's because

11:58

you structure the meeting incorrectly

12:00

they're going to ask binary questions

12:02

they're going to say things like so we

12:03

should launch the product next week right

12:05

and then they're going to complain

12:06

because they didn't get any descending

12:08

opinions

12:08

well that whole sentence was was

12:12

a bad way to do it

12:15

the way adding that and adding that

12:18

right

12:18

at the end is is designed to suppress

12:24

different opinions does that make sense

12:27

we good here it's it's coercion those

12:30

are all small

12:31

small coercions and so we're actually

12:33

coercing over and over again

12:36

every binary question is a micro

12:37

coercion because i'm trying to force

12:39

someone

12:40

to take a binary position in a highly

12:43

complex world

12:45

for something about the future you're

12:46

gonna say oh did you go to the game last

12:48

night okay that can be binary but we're

12:49

gonna say

12:50

should we launch the product yeah the

12:53

decision is binary but the input's never

12:55

binary it's like how

12:57

strong how confident are you in the

12:58

product start the question with the word

13:01

how over and over and over again so i s

13:02

what i see

13:03

is here's a very simple here's a simple

13:06

example how this plays out

13:08

on a cross-country flight lady stands up

13:11

falls over she faints she stands up too

13:13

fast and she faints the lights come on

13:15

all the flight attendants rush over are

13:17

you okay are you okay

13:20

yeah i'm i'm fine i'm and she's sort of

13:22

shaking i'm fine they put her in the

13:23

seat next to me which is empty and she's

13:25

sort of recovering and

13:26

pretty soon they all quiet down they go

13:28

back to their they turn the lights back

13:30

off and i say

13:30

how are you not a binary question

13:35

the problem with are you fine everyone

13:36

says yeah of course i'm fine

13:39

i'm fine i was on a bike riding one of

13:41

the guys in our in our bike group

13:43

crashed and he's lying on the ground we

13:45

stop and we're looking at him he's like

13:46

i'm okay i'm okay

13:48

yeah he had broken his pelvis he wasn't

13:51

okay

13:52

look the problem isn't him saying he's

13:55

okay the problem is

13:56

us saying are you okay that's the wrong

13:59

question it's how do you feel

14:03

where does it hurt and

14:06

we are just conditioned

14:11

in the wrong we are programmed to speak

14:14

the industrial age

14:15

language and then we blame our team and

14:17

we say well where's your thinking

14:18

because you're managing me like a cog in

14:20

a machine every word you say

14:23

is programmed to get me to go along with

14:26

what you want me to do

14:27

so does the craft of asking the right

14:31

kind of question and then there's the

14:33

environment that gives me the safety to

14:35

respond to it

14:37

it's the same thing the environment is

14:39

created by

14:40

a quote the question anything now you

14:42

could attain handle

14:44

when people make mistakes which they

14:47

always will

14:47

we say what did we learn it's always

14:51

about learning what do we learn

14:52

everything has two dimensions what did

14:53

we do what did we learn what did we do

14:55

what did we learn if all if your only

14:57

dimension is what did we do

14:58

then you're going to have failures what

15:00

did we do well we didn't quite do

15:02

we didn't quite get there i have a goal

15:04

for this year which i'm

15:06

very close to making but i might not

15:08

make it

15:10

i have a fitness goal at the end of the

15:12

year and [Music]

15:14

so if that's all i'm focused on it's

15:16

going to feel like a failure but

15:18

if you say well oh what did i do what

15:21

did i learn well what did i learn well i

15:23

you always learn something right so it

15:25

mitigates the sense of failure and

15:28

we can get better it's a it's about

15:30

getting better

15:32

yes there's an interesting relationship

15:35

i think between

15:37

the well especially i'm from the

15:39

commercial space i

15:40

i don't know your space that you're

15:42

talking about at all but that

15:43

expectation of an end game that can be

15:46

quite

15:47

selfish for people i.e people are in

15:50

private equity companies they've got an

15:51

earn out or bosses that can get a

15:53

certain bonus

15:54

so you know that that kind of

15:57

um and it's not about running a kibbutz

16:01

but you know balancing the human doing

16:03

and the human being kind of thing and

16:04

actually having a sense of

16:06

social responsibility i'm not a big fan

16:08

of the word corporate social

16:09

responsibility

16:11

but just social responsibility and

16:13

asking come down to that

16:15

um and again i'm not about get rid of

16:18

the profits but

16:20

i'm worth it i'm with you here's here's

16:22

what we see it's it's

16:23

very clear

16:26

if you're doing quote social

16:28

responsibility out of a sense of charity

16:30

that's that's

16:31

to me great have a charity just give the

16:34

money away

16:34

that's corporate social responsibility

16:36

to me yeah run a charity fine do that

16:39

but

16:39

yeah here's the thing you're

16:43

the people in your company are number

16:45

one

16:46

your customer is not number one you

16:50

your job as a leader is to take care of

16:52

the people in your company and the

16:53

people in your company will take care of

16:54

the customer

16:56

if your company if you say customers

16:58

number one then the people

16:59

in your company the doing the care and

17:02

the feeding

17:03

are number two so we work with

17:05

mcdonald's and i'm in a mcdonald's and

17:06

franchise i'm standing in the back

17:09

and the shift manager the team meets

17:12

before the shift and shift managers sort

17:13

of barking at the people

17:15

only two pickles blah blah blah and

17:17

don't forget what happened yesterday

17:19

okay now go out there and serve

17:21

hamburgers with a lot of empathy

17:23

like really you know screw you because

17:26

if i don't get treated with empathy how

17:28

am i gonna treat the customer with any

17:29

kind of empathy

17:31

so the way the path

17:35

look you could get rich with a very

17:36

short-term focus a lot of people have

17:38

done it

17:39

i think ultimately at the end of the at

17:41

the end of your life

17:42

it's a relatively hollow uh

17:46

approach to legacy i think

17:49

long term and we know guys

17:54

compare costco which was run by jim

17:56

senegal costco is a big box store here

17:58

in the united states

18:00

quiet not a big brash guy no one ever

18:04

heard of them

18:05

and in 1980 if you had invested same

18:08

amount of money in costco and ge

18:10

you would have way more i don't know the

18:13

number 100 times more money in costco

18:15

right now

18:15

but then we have jack wells big and

18:17

flashy blah blah blah

18:19

and then crash yeah

18:22

and he had a certain

18:25

genius for achievement but not for

18:27

leadership because as soon as he left

18:29

the thing fell apart his his disciples

18:33

were basically disasters wherever they

18:35

went

18:36

and that's not

18:40

to me leadership happens the day you

18:41

leave

18:43

i'm fascinated by you know this idea of

18:45

you know momentum isn't leadership

18:47

you know and if the product or the

18:49

market is allowing you to have momentum

18:52

that's not in itself great leadership

18:55

it's

18:56

uh and a lot of people think that they

18:57

are the cause of success when actually

19:00

it's happening in spite of them

19:02

i see that a lot right well we always

19:06

when good luck happens we that's that's

19:08

my talent i made that happen

19:11

exactly um and i've been the beneficiary

19:14

of

19:15

of a tremendous benef if i were a

19:18

submarine

19:19

i could be the most famous ever

19:21

submarine commander

19:22

in denmark write a book in danish and

19:25

there's five million people who could

19:26

read it but

19:29

so there's a lot of luck involved but we

19:31

should always remember

19:32

that that there was there's luck

19:34

involved but and when but when you are

19:36

lucky and you're ready then you can

19:38

um okay you can take you can take

19:41

advantage of it but certainly

19:43

for us leadership the path to long-term

19:46

success

19:47

is through your people it's through

19:49

taking care of your people and creating

19:51

a

19:52

thinking team creating a team which

19:54

consistently makes

19:56

good decisions organizations can tell

19:58

you to the tenth of a penny

20:00

what all the different pieces they're

20:02

making building a car they can tell you

20:04

what that screw costs and

20:07

when you ask them well what did it cost

20:08

to make the decision to build

20:10

this car like something why did you use

20:13

these kind of tires or

20:15

why did you place the gas tank where you

20:17

placed it no idea we have no idea what

20:19

our decisions are costing us

20:21

so we always think in two dimensions we

20:23

have decision making factory

20:24

and then we have the factory factory

20:26

where we're making the whatever it is

20:28

the product that we're making and then

20:30

the decisions which improve the product

20:33

the job this is leadership the

20:36

decision-making factor because it's

20:37

about thinking it's about human

20:39

interaction it's designing in human

20:40

interactions

20:41

that activates and allows people to

20:44

express their thinking in

20:46

in a most effective way this

20:49

while you're in the organization we call

20:51

that achievement you're a great achiever

20:54

you're that's a great accomplishment

20:55

that's a great achievement

20:57

it's not great leadership until you

21:00

leave

21:01

and then we see how the organization

21:03

does yeah

21:05

so in your kind of space

21:08

high performance and people that

21:11

actually cause

21:12

problems but are high performers

21:15

and i think i see a lot of organizations

21:17

but for foul

21:18

of they actually have a certain amount

21:21

of incredible talent but it's

21:23

you know they they just pareto's law

21:25

kind of stuff in play

21:27

and when those people are you know good

21:30

contributors that's a beautiful thing

21:31

but when they're

21:32

maybe malcontents or saboteurs or

21:34

whatever it is but they bring

21:35

home the bacon so to speak and i just

21:38

wonder your

21:39

not so much your tolerance but your

21:40

approach to people who are

21:43

technically excellent and worth every

21:45

penny but at the same time

21:47

cause massive issues i just wonder how

21:51

i mean how you how you face into those

21:54

kind of

21:54

people and it depends what kind of a

21:58

company you're running i

22:00

i it's hard for you for me to imagine in

22:03

my experience

22:04

going from your history from your past

22:07

when you're in those places and spaces

22:08

somebody who's a

22:09

bloody great performer but caused

22:12

emotional problems with people it was a

22:14

sort of well you have to get it

22:17

okay on a submarine nothing happens no

22:19

one person is that

22:21

valuable i i would get rid of them you

22:23

have to get rid of that person

22:24

it the the there's we we somehow get

22:27

enamored

22:28

and the the same thing with why are we

22:30

paying ceos 2 000 times the average

22:33

because they're so you really think this

22:35

person is so much better at making

22:37

decisions

22:37

well again that's a fundamentally flawed

22:39

approach because that's not the ceo's

22:41

job the ceo's job is to create

22:44

an organization you got 20 000 people

22:46

working in your company

22:48

isn't there brain power worth something

22:50

no no we're going to bank it on the ceo

22:52

making the right call

22:54

well how about there are hundreds and

22:56

thousands of little decisions that

22:57

happen all day long to the organization

22:59

that add up

23:01

to determine success or failure now

23:05

if if you're fundamentally in the wrong

23:07

business then yeah that's

23:08

that's that's going to be a problem but

23:09

your organization will detect that

23:11

they'll notice it sales will start

23:12

dropping off it'll be harder for the

23:14

salesman to sell the product

23:15

the the people that are talking to are

23:17

going to start talking about well you

23:18

know there's this other thing have you guys heard

23:20

and in the right organization that gets

23:22

filtered and it gets responded to and

23:24

the organization reacts and

23:25

and changes to it yeah you can't i mean

23:28

i'm guessing

23:31

i i i don't know i guess there may be

23:38

you know what i i'm going to just go out

23:39

on a limb and say there is no such thing

23:42

we've seen so during the financial

23:45

crisis

23:46

there were some some hedge funds over

23:50

here

23:50

that got it exactly right this is the

23:53

2008 they

23:54

they saw the thing they saw the

23:56

implosion coming

23:57

they bet against the mortgage markets

23:59

they made billions of dollars they were

24:01

they

24:02

they're on their own private islands of

24:03

their own private yachts

24:06

and then and then and then they don't

24:08

repeat and then everyone throws money at

24:10

them

24:10

and then they underperform for the next

24:12

10 years

24:13

just so just because you made a great

24:16

decision once now you may say that's all

24:17

i need yeah

24:18

all i need is one good decision make a

24:20

billion dollars i'm done fine my family

24:22

said for generations

24:23

okay but i don't think

24:30

i mean i don't know uh

24:34

one of the exercises we do with with uh

24:37

ceos sometimes is we have them say

24:40

right you just got an email from god who

24:43

said this is

24:44

your last day at midnight tonight you're

24:46

gonna you're gonna die

24:48

and what are you what are you thinking

24:49

about just just jot down your thoughts

24:51

for the next 20 minutes most of them

24:55

don't talk about money

24:58

they talk about they talk about people

25:02

and there's a there's an interesting

25:06

little book a nurse in australia wrote

25:09

five uh wishes of the dying or something

25:13

like that

25:14

and really so she's a hospice nurse and

25:17

she's

25:18

it's a chance to talk to people who are

25:21

near death and the things they talk

25:24

about and they talk about

25:27

they don't talk about oh i wish i'd made

25:29

more money that is not one of the top i

25:31

just do a spoiler alert

25:33

top five so yeah i you know what's

25:35

important in your life

25:37

and you gotta you gotta i call it fast

25:39

forward you gotta take

25:41

take the take the movie of your life and

25:44

play it to the end

25:45

imagine or at least play it a year

25:49

in the future or 10 years in the future

25:50

and like well what what is it

25:52

what is what is it about what you're

25:54

trying to get people

25:56

to move away from just being task

25:58

focused to say

25:59

listen jump to that point where actually

26:02

you'll actually know what's really

26:04

important to you

26:05

and connect with that now and actually

26:07

if that is a true thing

26:08

then start behaving like that now yeah

26:12

yeah i i feel that yeah another thing is

26:15

i think we also we view

26:17

we spend too much time what i call

26:19

behind our own eyeballs

26:22

my sense of the world is i'm looking out

26:24

through my

26:25

eyeballs and in me whatever is

26:28

whatever i am is behind my eyeballs

26:31

looking at the world through my eyeballs

26:35

and i say get out from behind your own

26:37

eyeballs

26:38

and basically you want to be over here

26:41

put yourself over here

26:42

look back at yourself in a meeting

26:45

imagine okay i'm sitting over there and

26:46

i'm looking at me

26:47

what do i think this was on a live video

26:50

i have to say this was a live video

26:51

stream

26:52

and the people that you care about were

26:54

watching

26:55

would they be proud of you would they be

26:57

going oh my god

26:59

and very often having that third party

27:02

perspective

27:03

and if you think they'd be proud of you

27:05

well you know crack on but if you if you

27:07

know in your heart they'd be embarrassed

27:08

then you know do something else right

27:11

yeah

27:12

yeah it's an interesting one so in in

27:14

your time

27:15

of developing and nurturing talent and

27:18

bringing people forward you know i often

27:22

you know i often say what's the best

27:24

piece of advice that you've ever

27:25

received but i've actually started to

27:27

ask a different question which is

27:28

what's the best bit of advice you've

27:30

ever given

27:32

which is a slightly different take on it

27:34

and may make you think but i'd love to

27:36

know the answer if you've got one

27:40

well i guess the best piece of advice

27:42

i've given is advice i've given to

27:44

myself

27:46

um and and there's there's a couple of

27:49

things number one is

27:50

only contr all only control what you can

27:54

control

27:56

just control what you can control and

27:58

the only thing you control

27:59

is yourself and give up

28:03

give up trying to control everybody

28:06

else just give it up you can influence

28:10

their behavior

28:11

but it comes by controlling your own

28:12

behavior so what we have instead of

28:15

instead of leaders i walk

28:18

standard situation i walk up to you i

28:20

say hey boss here's a problem

28:23

what should i do well

28:26

either my boss tells me or they'll say

28:29

well

28:30

what do you think uh we should do

28:33

and um i'm like well i don't know you

28:36

tell me okay we'll do this

28:38

so and then i get lecture because i've

28:42

taken enough initiative and

28:46

what they can do is they cannot answer

28:48

the question

28:49

they can say even ask me what do i think

28:52

is that sometimes a

28:53

too big of a bridge you want to start

28:55

with what do you see

28:56

because what do you see is observation

29:00

description which is unemotional even

29:01

what you think can be

29:03

feel emotional because it can be judged

29:05

which is what what you see does not feel

29:07

that judgmental is oh i see

29:08

four rooms i see a wall i see some

29:10

lights it's observations

29:12

it's that that's where you start they

29:14

can't control themselves

29:16

they can't help but speak up or

29:19

be the way they are and so they're then

29:21

they push it on

29:22

other people oh you're empowered but i

29:24

refuse to shut up

29:26

that's the classic and

29:28

[Music]

29:30

if your happiness is dependent upon the

29:32

behavior of other people

29:33

you're screwed yeah good luck with that

29:35

yeah good luck with that i

29:37

had this conversation my with my

29:41

my mom she was upset my kids were all in

29:43

their 30s now but

29:44

you know earlier um in their 20s oh they

29:47

didn't send me they

29:48

didn't send a thank you note and i'm

29:51

like well don't send them a present

29:52

next year no no no make them send me a

29:54

thank you will you

29:55

are you i'm really upset they didn't

29:57

tend to think well you

29:59

that's your problem why

30:02

why is there action have any controlling

30:06

your happiness

30:07

so now you're you're you're in a game

30:10

you can't win

30:11

because now you have to control other

30:13

people in order

30:14

to get them to do stuff that you think

30:17

is going to make you happy

30:18

it's a loser's game so stop trying to

30:21

control other people

30:24

and i guess that's my big piece of

30:25

advice i find

30:28

which is interesting when you are

30:31

inverted commas

30:32

in control and that's interesting

30:35

conversation for people i guess

30:36

yeah i say people the team's behaviors

30:39

need to be

30:40

coordinated highly coordinated

30:43

but not when you really have it going

30:46

right people's behaviors are coordinated

30:48

but they're not controlled

30:51

so it is a picture is a team where

30:53

everyone is doing things announcing them

30:56

and synchronizing in in a

31:00

in this beautiful ballet

31:04

uh but there's a lot of communication

31:06

people say i'm doing this i'm about to

31:08

doing this on the submarine it might be

31:10

flooding on torpedo to lining up torpedo

31:13

initializing gyros raising the periscope

31:15

aligning the sonar

31:16

and people are announcing this

31:19

that's what it would sound on on the

31:21

santa fe and i could say

31:23

because they were announcing it i i

31:24

could always stop it i say stop don't do

31:26

that hold on for a second

31:28

i need this other thing to happen first

31:30

but what normally what we see is in the

31:32

movies

31:33

is one person the captain saying

31:36

initialize sonar line up the torpedo and

31:39

so we're controlling things

31:41

which a makes things slower b steals

31:43

people's ownership

31:45

and doesn't get and it doesn't

31:47

distribute the thinking

31:49

we've we've we've uh

31:53

created one singularity of thinking

31:57

and if that thinker makes the wrong

31:59

decision we're all

32:01

dead i love that phrase actually uh

32:03

distributed think

32:04

distributed thinking i think that's a

32:06

it's a it's an easy thing to say but it's

32:08

there's a huge amount of stuff to unpack

32:10

in there which we haven't got time for

32:12

now

32:12

yeah yeah that's a that's a massive

32:14

thing about permission

32:16

safety to do so being trained enough

32:18

well enough to do it

32:21

there's a lot in there yeah exactly yeah

32:24

right and it's not just oh i have an

32:26

opinion on something i don't know

32:27

anything about that's not thinking

32:28

that's just

32:30

an opinion yeah exactly like thank you

32:33

for it but

32:34

yeah this is actually a nuclear reactor

32:36

you actually need to know something so

32:39

or an airplane or surgery or internet

32:42

security what you're talking about is fascinating

32:43

because i my little boy had a

32:45

an asthma attack a couple of years ago

32:47

and the ambulance came

32:49

incredibly quickly and of course they

32:52

told me to get out of the way

32:53

you know because i can i just yeah you

32:56

know as in

32:57

your opinion sir you know but

33:00

if you just step to the side and uh and

33:02

of course what i did say

33:04

was them calling off you know this is

33:06

what i'm doing the check

33:07

well i'll get the pump and they they i

33:09

don't have to look at you but i'm

33:10

hearing

33:12

and so they didn't have to watch each

33:14

other and it was a ballet

33:16

and then when they'd basically saved his

33:18

life and you're stood there going

33:20

holy shmoley because it's their day job

33:24

but to you you've just seen this a

33:27

miracle

33:28

a miracle we got in the ambulance and we

33:30

were going to the

33:31

hospital and my little boy was fine and

33:33

then they did

33:34

a debrief and they went um right

33:38

anything we should think about not

33:41

anything we did wrong

33:42

not anything we did right so then we're

33:44

gonna just give each other a group hug

33:46

but anything we should think about and

33:48

they did this for a bit and i turned

33:49

around and said can i just ask why you

33:50

did that and they go

33:51

and not wait till the end of the shift

33:53

or they go yeah because we might have

33:54

another one in a minute

33:56

and is there i thought yeah of course

33:59

of course it might happen again in

34:01

literally five minutes and if it does

34:03

anything we should have thought about

34:05

and i thought oh this is this

34:07

is what i mean there's obviously a

34:08

hierarchy there was a supervise you

34:10

could tell there was a hierarchy

34:12

but it wasn't in play and that was i

34:15

imagine what we're talking about here

34:16

that's exactly right

34:18

what you described is exactly what

34:21

what i think the highest performing

34:23

teams the way they operate

34:25

the hierarchy comes in play

34:29

two months earlier when we said

34:33

okay when we arrive on scene who's going

34:36

to do what and how are we going to

34:37

interact

34:38

and i've gone through training videos

34:42

american heart association training

34:44

videos of how teams should interact to

34:46

heart attacks

34:47

where the doctor is directing every

34:49

action

34:50

and this is fundamentally in my mind a

34:53

flaw

34:53

it's a it's a it's fragile it's flawed

34:56

because

34:57

of two reasons number one it's very

34:59

fragile

35:00

we we think that being in control makes

35:02

it more safe and reliable

35:04

it's once advised looking out at the

35:06

back of one brain looking at through the

35:08

eyes as you said right yeah and if the

35:10

doctor forgets something

35:11

it's gonna be it's gonna make it harder

35:14

for the team these are all probabilities

35:16

so it's going to be harder for someone

35:18

on the team to speak up and secondly

35:20

it's not invoking everybody's thinking

35:23

we're as good as one person but we have

35:25

eight people on the team

35:27

yeah stupid i love it listen

35:30

i'm going to respect time here dave yeah

35:33

and

35:34

um you know i often say i could you know

35:36

i could keep going until you lost your

35:38

patience so i'm gonna

35:39

keep it at the good side and just from

35:42

my perspective

35:42

just thank you so much for taking that

35:45

time just to come on the episode and i'm

35:46

just going to press stop now and we'll

35:48

have two seconds but thank you

35:50

thank you so much for coming on cheers

36:01

[Music]

36:11

you