Paolo Gallo, author of, The Seven Games of Leadership and The Compass and the Radar, brings a wealth of experience from his leadership positions at the International Finance Corporation, The World Bank, and The World Economic Forum. 

Paolo stresses the significance of aligning our decisions with our genuine passions and skills. He also underscores the importance of clarity in discerning our priorities and recommends embracing confusion as a regular aspect of self-discovery.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

Please check Paolo Gallo’s books The Seven Games of Leadership and The Compass and the Radar, and use the affiliate links to support Pity Party Over at no additional cost to you.

How do you navigate life transitions while maintaining a sense of direction and purpose? Share your story!

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TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: Have you always had clarity about the trajectory, what you wanted to do? How did  it work for you? Because for a lot of people, they find out who they are and what they want to be later on in life. Even myself, I take all kinds of detours and turns and I learned about myself as I went, but your career seems to be so very clear, very almost like if you knew where you were going, at least that's the impression that I got.

Paolo Gallo: I believe I had, but not because I'm particularly clever, but because I had clarity in what I wanted to do in my life since my early twenties and without tending to many things. But I started to study economics mainly by default because they said, oh, law, I think it's too boring, medicine, I faint if I see a drop of blood engineering. No freaking way. I don't understand mathematics.

So I chose economics mainly by default. So it wasn't really totally convinced choice when I started university, but as I was studying this subject, all of a sudden things start to make a lot of sense.

You study economics, finance, strategy, marketing, accounting, human resources and law and sociology, and all of a sudden I start to see a puzzle that fit together quite well. And then in the third year, I studied human resources and organizational behavior and bingo, I said that's exactly what I wanted to do.

And I haven't changed my mind since then because I've always been passionate about developing people and organizations. And you may see that the last 30 years, that's pretty much what I've been doing in different contexts, in different organizations. But I have this clarity of thoughts and clarity of feelings about what would be my trajectory since my early twenties.

And now that I'm in just turned 60 recently, I like to think that I've been doing what I loved for the last 35 years and I've not regretted.

Stephen Matini: Amongst many different experiences, and that you work in human resources really a super high level, you work for the World Economic Forum, for the World Bank. What is your fondest memory of the time, something that you may have accomplished that somehow is really dear to your heart? 

Paolo Gallo: Listen, more than accomplishment, perhaps, there is a story that I also quoted in some of my speeches now because I start working for the World Bank. And yeah, I was happy, but I wasn't a hundred percent yet into the role. And a few months into the role, my boss asked me to go to Africa and been to Ghana and then to Senegal.

Our first trip to Africa, I remember the driver said to me, listen, I'll take you to a village where I come from. And so we went to this village and then he showed me, said many years ago in this village we didn't have a well, and my mother used to walk seven kilometers each way just to get two buckets of water. And it was polluted water and it was a dangerous journey because it's full of a wild beast.

And then the UN War bank came the build this well and for extra stuff and the life of our village changed. So it took me to see his mother. Of course, they I speak the local language and she couldn't speak English, look at each other and the mother hug me. And I have to say that's the moment which I realized why I joined World Bank, why I was doing what I was doing. So more than an accomplishment, I like to think that the moment in which I realized the purpose of that organization was exactly there.

So it didn't come rationally, it didn't come, cognitively came from my guts and my heart, and I found it was a very important moment in my career to build this sense of purpose that perhaps I didn't have so strongly when I was working for Citibank.

Stephen Matini: As you're talking, I'm thinking of the word success, which means the different things to different people. For you, success is connected to purpose? 

Paolo Gallo: Yes. My first book, I start with a story. The name of the book is called The Compass and the Radar. And I kept on telling the story to myself and also to people that listened to me, including now because my father once, when I was at the beginning of my school, literally I was six years old, he told me, Paolo, please remember every day you go to school if you learn something new, if you helped all the people and if you love what you're doing.

And that's the reason why I call the compass of success because to me, my own compass has been quite clear my own mind to see do I learn something new every day? Did I help somebody or at least did I do something helpful and do I still love what I do?

If you have clarity about these three questions, then the rest, I don't want to say it's marginal, but it's not so essential because I think the motivation comes when you are linked with a purpose that is probably bigger than you when you love doing what you're doing, so you are able to deal with some of the difficult moments that you are having in whatever journey you're taking in your life and the helping others are dominion a condescending way, but in terms of building relationship of trust with individuals, that is going to last forever.

So relationship cannot be only transactional, which I refer to you only because I need you to be based on trust. So you have the clarity about the learning, the helping and the loving. I think you have a clear definition of success.

Stephen Matini: Everything you say sounds so wonderful to me and these are also values that inspire my own career. In your career, have you always met people that welcome this way of thinking or were you some sort of a weird ball? 

Paolo Gallo: I wish I could tell you absolutely yes, and in which case I would be on delusional or on the drugs. So once I told my daughter, everybody loves 007 movies because there is a villain in the movie. Now without a villain, you must think that the movie is quite boring. So you meet villains in your journey, you meet people that are, let's be English more than Italian, not particularly pleasant or helpful.

And this is a moment where you have to verify the solidity of your values. You confront yourself with what I'm prepared to do. Oh, you're not prepared to do in a given situations. So the answer to your question absolutely no, but I think that overall, if you look at my 30 plus years experience, the number of good guys are overwhelmed, the number of bad guys, some of the big guys are really bad.

There are one or two in particular that were absolutely awful as human beings, but these people pushed me to confront my values and to stand on my feet and once it cost me my job because it was fired by one of them. But what I consider at that time shameful, I now realize that it's actually probably my biggest achievement inside professional life.

Stephen Matini: The concept of staying true to oneself is really central to your thinking, to your approach to life. What is the difference between a compass and a radar? 

Paolo Gallo: The compass is remembering what you stand for. No, it is a value and I'm referring to, it is the definition of success, which is not about visibility or fame or money or power, but it's about meaning. It is about helping and it's about learning.

And the radar is the capacity to open the window to see what's happening outside. Because one of the features that I realized in my own life, I met a lot of phenomenal people, incredibly good in doing what they were doing, but for some reason they lacked the intellectual curiosity to go one step further, to stand the effect of whatever technology that is an impact in their job or demographic or whatever.

So the radar is the capacity to maintain this intellectual curiosity to keep on learning and also in psychology called contextual intelligence, the capacity connect the dots and to know how a given topic will have an impact in whatever activity you perform in your role or sector or position that you have in a company.

So I think that if you have a clarity about compass and intellectual curiosity about the radar and you keep it open all the time, you may end up in a good place if you're exclusively focused in doing very well what you've been doing, you become a prisoner of what I call the better game.

In my second book about The Seven Games of Leadership, the better game is great, you improving, doing what you're doing, but there is a moment where perhaps it becomes a trap it because if you keep on doing well what you've been doing, maybe you'll miss that something else that is happening.

The example they provide is VE were produced in the best type machine in the world and then one day they that nobody was buying them anymore, but they didn't focus in developing computers and the thought were to business literally in 36 months after 60 years of a successful journey.

The same happened with individuals. So I always encourage people to say, listen, you may be credibly good in doing what you're doing, but please try to anticipate what is coming next because if you are non reactive move, then you may end up in a difficult spot.

Stephen Matini: Would you say that someone can balance the inner dialogue with all the stimuli that comes from the outside? How do you think that you can find the balance? 

Paolo Gallo: In my second book, the first chapter is called “What the Fact Moments” because there are a lot of events that derail our attention to and our focus, and sadly we had a lot of these moments in the last few years from Covid to the world in Ukraine, and what's happening right now in Gaza, is a continuous derailed of our tension and our focus. Not to say that what's happening is not important, but to say that most of the time we spend time in focusing on something that is not relevant or we cannot change.

Okay, or a very limited the first time is to say, are you focused in what really matters to you? And focus doesn't mean obsess and you ignore everything, but being aware of what's happening around you doesn't mean that you are not focusing on what you should be doing. That's one element.

The second element is I ask also my clients in coaching and conferences, two very simple questions. One is from 0 to 10, how proud are you of what you've achieved? And most of the time people say nine, eight, they look with pride with what they have achieved and rightly so.

And then ask another question, which is from 0 to 10, how proud are you of what you've become? It really is a powerful question. And when I ask this question, usually people immediately stop and they visualize the delta, the difference between the effort that they put in achievement and the unfocused of becoming.

And sometimes ago, I will not tell the name of the person obviously, but I'm coaching several CEOs, people that are running huge organizations, thousands of people, billions of revenues, and one of them probably the most powerful that I'm coaching, and you remain silent for a few seconds and they started to cry and I didn't expect this reaction and I said, what's happening?

And I said, yeah, listen, my salary, my compensation, you know that I'm on newspaper every other day, but what you don't know that I have three failed marriages and three of my four kids that don’t want to talk to me anymore and therefore I failed completely as a human being, as a father, as a husband, even if you see the image of a very powerful rich individual.

I don't want to have a psychological analysis of the individual, but it's really to be mindful that it's like the two muscles that you have in both arms. You have to develop the achievement side, you have to get stuff done, you have to apply the knowledge in so concrete, but you also have to grow as an individual.

And that's the focus of my book, The Seven Games of Leadership. They tried to explain the seven phases of personal development that are a prerequisite to become a credible leader in whatever organization, contest, community, operating.

One question that ask people, and funny enough, I mean it's not funny because it's a bit of a sad example. He came up today on a Italian newspaper. There is a former soccer coach called Ericsson that used to be the coach over the English national team and also some Italian teams here. And they said, oh, I have cancer. I have one year to leave. So I asked question, to myself and other people, if you are given one year to leave, would you still continue doing what you're doing?

If the answer is yes, that is great. And if the answer is absolutely not, I would leave it tomorrow morning. Then my question is, do you need to have cancer to reflect about this question? And here, of course it's not because I wish people anything bad, but it's simply to say, okay, can you think that if what you're doing right now makes sense to you as an individual?

I'm trying to push people with my coaching session and with my speeches and with my book to think about essential questions, not about when can I get my next other increase or maybe next promotion.

Stephen Matini: One of the question that I ask myself that allows me to understand whether or not I am aligned with myself is would I want to be somewhere else in this moment? Quite frankly, I'm very happy to be here. This is exactly where I am. I'm enjoying myself, I'm doing exactly what I want and I know that this is time well spent. Sometimes I don't have the kind of luxury we all have to work and do things that we don't enjoy as much. But knowing the difference, knowing when I feel that way and when I don't feel that way, I think it makes a huge difference, particularly moving forward and making choices. They are as much as possible, they resonate with me.

Paolo Gallo: This is actually a very good point, and just to provide another practical example, yesterday I just opened the May because I wanted to read. I was contacted by one head and to say, dear Mr. Gallo, I hope you're doing well. Please let me know when I can call you because I have a very interesting role that I'm sure you may be interested in considering.

Can you give me your phone number, I’ll call you ideally by the end of the week. And I said, thank you, Mary, but I'm really not interested in any role because I'm too much fun in doing what I'm doing right now. And she said, okay, thanks for letting me know.

I didn't want to sound arrogant, but just the idea that all a sudden I have to go back to nine to five, it's never been nine to five, it's been nine to eight maybe with a boss and maybe if I'm lucky, I can take a week off at Christmas and maybe two weeks in August. That's not the life that I've for me.

So I think it's important from time to time to take stock of what you're doing and also to understand in my book, there's a concept which is called congruence. If you're congruent with who you are, if you are in the right place, and as you said, if you feel like you want to be there, it's the same with people, and I work with your wife, with your husband, with your kids, if you'd rather be somewhere else, then you're in the wrong place.

If you're so happy, maybe to have a soup with your wife and you prefer soup with your wife and then maybe being alone in the Maldive, then you are in a good marriage. Sometimes time is important to have a taken stock and to reflect rather than just being moved by actions and getting stuff done.

Stephen Matini: In hindsight, everything is so much clearer, in general, but if you could do it all over again, I mean your professional career, and if you could have known back at the time one of the insights of your book, The Compass and the Radar, which one would you use?

Paolo Gallo: I tend to trust people. And in few occasions, I have given trust to the wrong people, and this is a mistake that I've done more than once in my life by falling in love with people, situations and professional of course, and then being deeply disappointed at the end of the journey.

But at the same time I feel like, okay, should I become paranoid and distrust everybody? I prefer to be disappointed 10% of the time that never be disappointed, but never to enjoy any conversations. So that's perhaps one on one point.

The second one is probably I got worried too much about situations and people and perhaps now that I'm different age, I could have taken more likely situation that were maybe difficult, but not necessarily life-threatening or dramatic.

But when I was in that moment, the entire world was evolving, relating to these quota problems I was trying to solve inside of human resources. So in retrospect, perhaps I should have not slept, lose a lot of sleep over our performance management process or our pension system or the recruitment of somebody that I did in the past.

Stephen Matini: Are you still an adjunct professor? Are you still teaching or you don't? 

Paolo Gallo: Yeah, I do. I do is part of my activity and I think that what I do is that in terms of coaching, writing or magazine or books, giving speeches or seminar or workshop and teaching is part of the same debate because everything feeds everything else. So when you give a speech, you have to get prepared. When you get prepared, you have to study. When you study, you become a better professor. When you become a professor, you get better feedback when you get better feedback.

So I think everything is correlated. So I like to think that whatever I do is part of a cohesive puzzle that makes sense to me and that's what matters to me.

Stephen Matini: How old are your students on average? Which age group do you teach to? 

Paolo Gallo: I do executive education. So I used to do undergraduates, I now do executive education, executive education, it really depends, but probably people between late thirties to early fifties. So people between, I dunno, let's say 12, 15, 20 years experience, they want to go to the next phase, they want to go deeper in certain topics and I kind of enjoy because these people already had a significant portion of their professional life behind their back and saw the very deep and meaningful conversation about problem.

I've learned all the time by talking to them, next time actually be on Tuesday when I will be talking to 270 people in Milan and I have two hours, but I always say two people I want to have half of the time for questions. Anytime I give a speech, I say, I don't mind if you give me three hours. I'm not going to talk for three hours. That's a long one. But I want to have a list time of half of the time are located for my contribution for questions because question is a way to reflect and to also understand if whatever you said has an impact on the people that are listening.

Stephen Matini: What is the question that you hear more frequently from your audience about career, career alignment and such? 

Paolo Gallo: Well, listen, several of won, but if I go back to the book that's been just released, The Seven Games of Leadership, it has been released in October and I've done so far about 22 or 23 presentations now this book and quite lot of people, they were quite well prepared and already read the book.

And what I love is when somebody believes that what is written is being meaningful to him or to her, not because they fell in love with the line with a quote or with the lyrics, but because bingo, that's exactly where I am right now.

To give us specific example in The Seven Games (of Leadership), that is what I believe is the most difficult game of all, which is a crisis game. And the crisis game is a moment that usually occurs in your mid forties, but it could be a little bit earlier, a little bit later where you scratch your head and you're thinking, do I want to do the next 20 years of my life the way I did the last 20?

So in soccer terms, do I want to play the second half the way I played first? Usually the answer is no, I don't. I want to do something different, but I still have not figured it out what it is.

So what really gives me joy is when people read the book or maybe listen one of my speeches or read one of my articles and come back to me, say what was written is exactly the way I feel and therefore there is a validation not about the validity of my book, but the validity of the instruments that offer to the readers. And this is a moment where I feel that whatever I'm doing makes sense not only to me but also to other people.

Stephen Matini: Do you remember the time when you got the first spark about this book, The Seven Games of Leadership? 

Paolo Gallo: Yes. I mean, of course. I shared the story at the beginning of the book where I always asked my daughter, she's now 18, what have you learned in your school.

Two years ago over Christmas holidays? She said, daddy, but you've been asking me this question for many, many years now it's my turn. What have you learned.  And I said, shit, that's a powerful question.

So I asked a little bit of time to reflect, and then I told her the story and she said, daddy, I love your story. Why don't you write a book about it? And that's why I wrote this book. What I told her is to say, listen, I met thousands of people in my life now in my professional life, in interviews, seminars, workshops, coaching webinars or whatever, and that's been wonderful.

But what I realized that I did not meet a thousand of people. I had the same conversation a thousand of times because certain topics, certain challenges comes regardless of any of the variable, okay?

So you can be a banker in Switzerland, you can be agriculture specialist in Washington, DCO, you can be an engineer or consultant in whatever company. There are issues that comes up regardless of the job that you're doing.

And as reflecting about the conversation, the topics, I realized that were seven clusters of issues that came up. And I noticed that there was a sequence in these conversations, and rather than call them phases, which is a kind of a Jung definition, I call them “games,” because every game implies the understanding of the rules and the capacity to go from one to the other because you cannot get stuck in one game from all the entire life. So I was triggered by a conversation with my daughter and then the rest followed up based on my reflection and some hard work to come up with that book.

Stephen Matini: What would you say that is the biggest difference in terms of leadership, what we need today from a leader, compared to what the need for leadership used to be, I don't know, 20 years ago? 

Paolo Gallo: When I proposed my book to Bloomsbury, they asked a very good question and the question was, Paolo, do we need another book about leadership? And the answer is no, probably not, because there are thousand of them every year, millions.

If you write leadership on Google, you have a 15 million century and definition, the stories are so different. So should I add another one to the very crowded and intense topic? But I also realize as I've been working and studying leadership for many years, and I think I've worked with a lot of leaders and them, you have three school of thoughts when it comes to leadership.

One school of thoughts is tell you what the leader should be doing. And so it is a focus on the deliverables, and this books are very technical. They focus on KPIs and business models and this kind of stuff.

The second school of thought is to say, actually this is what the leader should be. And so you described some ideal behavior, probably more meaningful to me than the former one, but at times is a bit aspirational. And at times also they indicate stuff that very difficult to reconcile and quote an article, let’s say a leader should be somebody with 30 years of eyes on, but being able to get a profit every quarter, which is kind of difficult to being able to reconcile.

The third school of thoughts that I saw is you take a leader and you describe what he or she has been doing, and they say, just do what Steve Jobs has been doing and you'll be fine. That's very interesting to read, but the contest is completely different, your brain is completely different and it's very difficult to say you can be the new Michael Jordan, if I'm telling you about the life of Michael Jordan. I mean it's difficult to get there.

But what we realize that there are very little, if nothing, except in other disciplines like psychology or other discipline, they said, how do you grow as a leader? What I mean by as you grow as a leader is not how you become from manager to director to director to vice president to vice president to managing director. Now it's how you grow as an individual, which is a prerequisite for you to be a leader. And I haven't found a lot on that topic. So I wanted to fill this gap by saying, listen, if you want to have a to do list, it's not my book.

If you want to be list, maybe there's some element of it, but it's not there. If you want to see the autobiography of the story of a very famous individual, there are plenty up there. I'm trying to help you out in understanding what could be or would be your journey for you to understand where you are and for you to reflect and perhaps to continue your journey with your own thinking legs and critical thinking. That's the overall purpose of this book.

Stephen Matini: Is it connected to what we said at the very beginning of our conversation, the meaning and the importance of knowing your purpose? 

Paolo Gallo: Yeah, I mean that to me is very important because I'm a very simple guy. I mean in a very humble and genuine way. When I say simple, it means stupid. It means I've clarity about what is essential.

And to me, I always ask myself, when a nice people, when are you at your best and which activity when you perform, you lose track of the time, when you are in the zone, and you see with kids, kids when they play, they even forgot to eat and they even forgot to go to the toilet because they're so focused in the device, doesn't matter. And it's a beautiful things to watch because they're so into the game, they don't care about everything that is around them. Okay, why? Because they're freaking focused.

And let's go back to the beginning of this conversation. So then when you ask the question about when are you at your best, I realize that I'm going to be best when I have a total autonomy of my time. And two, when am I helping organization teams of people to grow.

So I realized that if I were to do an activity where I can do this with autonomy, then I will be at my best. And why not your best? You produce wonderful results, and when you produce wonderful results, people come to you and you don't have to worry about money. But if you start by thinking, oh, I want to make a list of 10,000 per month, and you start to devise a way of tricking people, it just doesn't work.

I'm pushing people to think, when are you at your best? When you lose track of time, when you find the energy to do it? And equally, what are the sort of activity just thinking about makes you sick, tired, disgusted, bored, annoyed or disengaged?

Because focus on the stuff that gives you energy and then you probably have a direction of your personal and professional life.

Stephen Matini: I really do believe that if we focus a hundred percent on our truest talent, what makes us happy, that's usually where you find all the solutions. It's just that for myself, that happened later on in life. If I'd known that at twenty, probably I would've made different types of decisions I think.

Paolo Gallo: The day before yesterday spent one hour with the daughter of very d friend of ours that is struggling on that decision, and I realized that was a huge amount of anxiety and pressure related to her decision about her professional life.

What I found helpful is to remove elements that pollute in your decision making because they're not essential in your final decision. Let me give you an example. This is a person that has brilliant, severe, she's speak three languages. She worked for six or seven years. She's now in her early thirties and she doesn't know what to do next.

And one question is maybe another MBA or maybe completely change sector. So there were a lot of stuff, and she has an element about logistic, about should I be stay in England or go to another place? One element about what's about my boyfriend, we love each other and I don't want to be distanced. One element about finance to say, well, some of the MBA are very expensive and I can't really afford or maybe ask for more money to my family. Some element about should I been able to do maybe work? And B, at the same time, there was a lot of stuff that is very difficult to reconcile.

So I'm asking people to say, remove what is not essential. I'm not saying the money is not essential, but you should not get married with somebody because maybe he has available by the sea. No, you should be married with the person because you love it. No, if there is also available by the sea, even better, but should not be the decision that drives your final outcome.

So when something creates anxiety, usually is because there are too much stuff to handle at the same time and you have to remove stuff from, it's like when you put things in order in your bedroom on your dining, no, you have to remove stuff and then all of a sudden you have clarity when you focus on something that is very meaningful.

And one it exercise that I ask people to do is exercise or visualization. So close your eyes and you open your eyes and you have a day in front of you, which day do you want to have? And if the answer is, I hate thinking about going to university, then issue is not the money. You don't want to go there. But if the answer is Jesus, I mean I really would love to learn more about artificial intelligence and I dunno anything and I'm fascinated by this topic, et cetera, then you have an indication that perhaps this is a good avenue.

So in decision making, most of the time we feel blocked because the decision is, I'm going to say a funny word, is constipated by too many staff, the blocking the fluidity of your thinking. So remove stuff that are important to consider but not essential on the first place. And then step by step, you can end up having a much better decision making if you have a methodology that allows you to drive a decision in a meaningful way.

Stephen Matini: So as of today, what is your definition of clarity? How would you define what clarity is? 

Paolo Gallo: Perhaps by understanding what is not essential? And what I mean by this is I just been to a restaurant with a friend and you go through the list, they say, no, no, no, no, and then you realize what you like.

To me, it's also clarity about what you're not good at. It's clarity about what you're not interested in doing, in the capacity, as I wrote in my book also to let go certain things that are perhaps not relevant anymore. Let me provide an example because again, I always love giving examples.

When I was a in human resources at the EBRD European Bank for Reconstruction Development, I set up a group for the head of human resources of international organizations. And so in 2004, I organized the first meeting of head of human resources and there was a success and there were about 60 of them coming from all over the globe, head of human resources for international organization like ... , the World Bank, the IMF, the United Nation, the NATO, et cetera, et cetera, WTO, WHO and ILO, and this kind organization.

Great. And the second year I was the keynote speaker. I was at the board and for about 16 or 17 years, I've been participating as a founder with another guy called Pierre of that group. Then I left, stopped being head of human resources in 2018.

And on LinkedIn I saw that these former colleagues of mine were organizing a meeting and I wasn't invited. And part of me was very disappointed and very hurt by the fact that, look, I've been the founder, I created this group and now they don't even acknowledge that I created and I don't even invite me. So I was upset for a good couple of weeks. Then one day I thought, but I'm going to say Palo, you have decided to do something else in life. You have decided to be an independent thinker, to be a writer or a professor, author, et cetera, et cetera.

You have removed your T-shirt with head of your resources, why you even care? And so this clarity of what is not essential helps to be focused on what it is. But if you don't have that clarity, you may regret that, oh my God, I'm not part of the group, but part of the group was part of our role that I decided not to have anymore. And therefore, clarity about what is not essential usually helps in understanding what you're to focus on.

Stephen Matini: Do you ever get confused or fuzzy about what to do next? Or are you always clear? 

Paolo Gallo: I’m clear after the confusion. What I mean by this is, and I'll give you maybe another example, mindful that you are close to the end of this conversation now. When I stopped being an HR director and I became an independent consultant, coach, also a professor, whatever you want to say, I use this analogy, which is I felt that I opened an ice cream shop with 50 flavors because I was able to do many things following 30 years of experience and studies and MBAs and blah, blah.

I made available a lot of services to a lot of people, but then ended up doing coaching with one person, the revision of a performance management process to another organization, developing a leadership development for another one, doing a workshop for somebody else and teaching the university. There was a lot of stuff going on.

So it was a bit of a confusing moment for me. But then at the end I said, okay, if I were to have an ice cream shop and now summer is over and I closing the ice cream shop, what did I learn by looking at the clients that came to my shop? And I realized that most of the clients wanted to have three or four flavors. I mean, nobody want to have a banana ice cream, but everybody want to have a chocolate ice cream. So what does it mean to me? It mean that clarity about what the clients wants to have first point.

The second one is interested in developing the best chocolate ice cream in the world. If the answer do it and dismantle and stop producing banana cream in, the answer is no. Maybe you suggest somebody else for the chocolate ice cream, but you produce something that is still relevant for the client.

So what I'm trying to say is confusion is part of the creativity process, but you need to have a methodology for you to say, what did I learn by listening, by working and by being in different debates with different people. And then you can have clarity about what did I learn at the end of the season? So what did I learn by listening these people?

And if 80% of the clients asking three things, then preparing 47 dishes makes no sense. I think it's much better to prepare four dishes and do it brilliantly well. And that's pretty much part of the learning process that I've learned when I became an independent consultant by say, I don't want to have a menu with a 75 items. I want to do four things, but incredibly well.

And if somebody called me to say, Paolo, can you do a performance management or bonus system? I know how to do it, but I'm not interested in do it, and I have people that can do better than me. And so I call this guy, I need to sell this and call our, call this company. They can do better what I can do, but from the average plus. But these people will do a super job.

But if you want to have a super job, please ask me these three things and I'll deliver it to you. So confusion is a necessary part of the creative process provided that you have a process perhaps to provide clarity at the end of this confusion,

Stephen Matini: This conversation is a delight Paolo, I really love it. Thank you so much for your time. We cover so many different things. Is there anything that you deem our listeners of this episode I should focus on? Of all points that we touched? 

Paolo Gallo: Well, first of all, Stephen, the pleasure is mine because always great to have a meaningful rich conversation in a psychologically safe space, and you've been able to provide this. I'm very grateful for your kindness and also your intellectually stimulating questions, so I'm grateful to you.

The second question is, I think that from time to time, I always say to people, we are human beings, we're not human doings. And from time to time is helpful, and perhaps the beginning of the year is a good moment to do this for a second pose and reflect about where you are in your journey. And it's not about I'm a manager making 3000, I want to be a director making 5000. That's not really what I need.

It's to say, where are you in your journey as a human being? Have you not only achieved also become? Have you invested in improving yourself as an individual, not only in terms of making more money or having more power?

And so I know it sounds a bit of a commercial, but reading The Seven Books (of Leadership) could be perhaps a moment of reflection that can help the reader to understand where he or she is and to understand how to continually progress in your journey as an individual. So I don't want to, sounds like please buy my book because frankly I make one euro per copy. So I don't care because you don't write the book to make money.

But I think I wrote the book for the sake of supporting people in their professional development and perhaps reading my book could be a way, not the only way, but a way to achieve that character

Stephen Matini: And probably Bloomsbury said yes to “another leadership book” because they sense that it's not just a leadership book based on how you describe it. So I'm going to get it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to get inspired.

Paolo Gallo: Thanks so much, Stephen. It's been such a pleasure and I hope I will. Professional path will cross again and grazie and thank you so much for your time.