#264 Antony Thompson, former CEO, Loopin - on creating high-performing organizations

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to unlock performance and retain great talent. My guest is Antony Thompson, Co-Founder and former CEO of Loopin.  Antony has spent a lifetime in service of others, first as a Royal Marine Commando and then as a business consultant focused on creating incredible value for the teams he worked with. After leaving the Marines, he spent time as a management consultant; fulfilling the role of a reporting manager on a £5bn infrastructure portfolio. In May 2018, he founded Vanguard Global Solutions focused on delivering people strategies, encompassing coaching, workshops, and programs.  But then COVID kicked in - completely disrupting their business model. And that event sparked the idea behind Loopin, which he and his co-founder Ben, founded in June 2020.  Their 2030 mission: provide 1 million managers the ability to reduce burnout and attrition in their teams. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Antony to my podcast. We explore the growing challenge so burnout and attrition in the market and why traditional solutions can only help us come so far. Antony then shares what needs to change and why given their experiences from the Marines and the characteristics they've uncovered about what creates high-performing overachievers.  He talks about the lessons learned from the pivot they needed to pull through. And lastly, he shares what it takes to build a successful startup and why ego doesn't have a place in that.  Here's one of his quotes One of the things which we conceptualize was this bubble idea where this bubble would rise to the top of the platform. We said, look, that's the most important thing that you as the business leader need to do today because that's the thing that's going to turn the needle. And it was with that mindset: It's all about getting the quality in engagement, surveys don't work. They're lagging indicators. Maybe there's an opportunity to create something which is a leading indicator that gives you some foresight. We're very good at doing financial forecasting. But what if we could do people or human forecasting… During this interview, you will learn four things: Why are we leaning too much toward lagging indicators when we should be focused on leading indicators What the three ingredients are for high performance, and which one, in particular, to double down on How to separate the false signs of success from the real ones How to go about having the courage to have the really difficult conversations For more information about the guest from this week: Antony Thompson Website: Loopin Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices