
Business Problems Solved Podcast
WARNING - This podcast WILL challenge your thinking.
Welcome to Business Problems Solved!
In this podcast we help you solve your business problems by providing real examples and practical approaches to make today better than yesterday.
Introducing your host, the multi-sector, self-professed ‘most improved improvement person’ and qualified Business Problem Solver
Lee Houghton (pronounced Hawton)
You can contact Lee on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter by searching for Lee Houghton THE Business Problem Solver or via visiting www.leehoughton.com for more content and to solve your business problems.
And remember – saying you know how to do it, is not doing it …
Latest episodes

Dec 7, 2020 • 40min
The Mindset of A Champion - with Jordan Reynolds
This week, Lee interviews Jordan "The Wanderer" Reynolds, a British pro-Boxer whose message really is that you can achieve anything if you have the mindset of a champion! It's an incredibly empowering conversation that'll make you believe that if you can change the way you think, you can achieve anything. KEY TAKEAWAYS Trauma in life, especially in our young years, may seem cataclysmic, but it also prepares us for the rough waters of life. Positivity can be achieved by visualising the future we want. Keep your eyes on the prize and work hard. Remember why you're doing it. If you believe in something enough, stick with it and keep going. Keep believing, and good things will happen. There isn't anything you can't achieve' We can't blame children for their lack of attention when we as parents do not do enough to curb their addictions to social media and technology. We need to take responsibility and reconnect. BEST MOMENTS 'If you stick at something, you'll always overtake people' 'I've never shied away. I've always been me' 'I'm the type of guy...' 'The wanderer has still got plenty of time to wander' VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast Jordan Reynolds Twitter - https://twitter.com/reynoldsboxing Jordan Reynolds Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jreynoldsboxing/?hl=en ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Nov 30, 2020 • 11min
The CUES for Confidence
In this week's show, Lee revisits the topic of confidence, and how you can grow and develop your own confidence levels by breaking it down into three areas, and working on each one in small, incremental ways. However, after a recent challenge, Lee returns to re-examine the subject with a new element in mind... KEY TAKEAWAYS Confidence can be broken down into three CUEs. By scoring each out of ten, we gain our confidence score, and can focus on incrementally raising each score up to gradually increase confidence. The CUE for Confidence is: Comfort Understanding Effort If you can demonstrate the thing you're good at, but not in order to promote ourselves, or to make ourselves the beneficiary of praise, and instead to help others, then arrogance can be avoided. BEST MOMENTS 'There is a line between confidence and arrogance' 'Are you selfish or selfless in the act that you're completing?' 'I'm a big proponent of "thinking drives behaviour"' VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Nov 23, 2020 • 40min
We Need More Professional Weirdos - with Lord Simon Jacobs
Please be upstanding, as Business Problems Solved welcomes a real-life member of the nobility to the show. Lord Simon Jacobs joins Lee to discuss his journey through business, which led to the founding of Professional Weirdos, a creativity training company designed to encourage the unique gifts in everyone, and which help to create an effective business culture. KEY TAKEAWAYS Many people find themselves hired for their creativity and unique abilities, only to have these singular qualities lost and diluted as time goes by. Professional Weirdos is designed with keeping this singular spirit alive in people. An important part of being creative is the ability to also accept feedback. If you put anything out into the world, you have to be open to all types of feedback, positive and negative. Creativity comes in all shapes and sizes. We must never assume that we do not have a creative side. Even the act of problem solving involves a level of creativity within ourselves. We must seek to redefine what professional means,. For many it is the stereotypical image of an executive, when it actual fact, a professional does not need a suit a tie. It is reflected in the qualities we present in business and in life. BEST MOMENTS ‘For the individual there’s motivation and new ideas. For the company, there’s innovation, there’s motivation, and there’s efficiency’ ’There are weirdos who do things professionally, and there are professionals who are weird’ ‘Fundamentally, being human means that you are creative’ ‘Professional means being timely, being honest, it means being polite' VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast Lord Simon Jacobs LInkedIn - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/simonjjacobs Lord Simon Jacobs Twitter - https://twitter.com/lordsimonjacobs?lang=en Professional Weirdos - https://www.professionalweirdos.co.uk/founder/ ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Nov 16, 2020 • 43min
Learn to Lead and Lead to Learn - with Katie Anderson
In this week’s show, Lee talks to Katie Anderson, a leadership coach, independent consultant, author of ‘Learning To Lead: Leading To Learn’, and a passionate advocate of helping to develop individuals’ confidence and capabilities in improving themselves and their organisations. Katie discusses the incredible journey that led to the insights she now uses to empower others, the value of recognising your purpose from moment to moment, and why balance might be the ingredient you’re missing when it comes to developing and leading teams. KEY TAKEAWAYS We should always remain open to opportunities, and to the "golden seed” moments that can bring about an awakening, and a whole new perspective. Perspective, experience and wisdom allow us the vocabulary we need in order to both recognise and communicate our purpose. We must always try to develop people with the right intentions. It is not a box ticking exercise. We must help others to rise so that they can contribute their unique gifts and insights to the wellbeing of the business. We cannot convince people to change, but we can offer experiences that change their thinking, and their perceptions in such a way that they seek change of their own volition. BEST MOMENTS ‘It’s enriched my own perspective about leadership’ ‘If there’s a big disconnect between your purpose and the moment, there’s a different problem you need to address’ ’The process and the people are two sides of a balance that needs to be working in sync’ ‘Identify the process they need in order to help support the people' VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast Katie Anderson - https://kbjanderson.com/about/ ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Nov 9, 2020 • 53min
Rockstar Drummer Tom Morley
Tom Morley was the original drummer and a founder member of Scritti Politti, the 80s band who were pioneers of DIY music before appearing successfully on the dance scene. Unlike other bands Scritti Politti used to make half their songs up on stage, so from an early age Tom got used to taking risks in public. Through a scientific method, Tom has developed an entirely unique form of team building known as INSTANT team work, which he has been pioneering with great success in order to bring teams closer together. In this week’s show, Lee talks to Tom about the science behind the method, and how teams are at the heart of any endeavour. KEY TAKEAWAYS No matter which walk of life we belong to, we all spend time in the womb, subjected not to all five senses, but something more primal. This primal connection continues through life, and manifests itself in connections with others. Science has recently proved that drummers experience the world differently. Their acute sense of rhythm means they see patterns everywhere, including patterns of behaviour. Being able to read ‘the energy’ of a room fast Tom creates INSTANT teams, delivering INSTANT team work. Society is designed around happiness through consumerism. By reconnecting to one’s spirit, we gain this rush of happiness through natural, primal means. The simple act of synchronising our movements with another’s leads to an instant sense of participation and team spirit. In this sense, rhythm may be the missing component in any business’s team-building endeavours. BEST MOMENTS ‘We all respond to a beat!’ ‘Business people are goal-orientated, focused, and interested in new things if they are packaged in short bursts’ ‘Most people live lives of quiet desperation and go to their graves with their song unsung’ ‘I am the permission. I am the Rock Star Activator!' VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast Tom Morley - https://tommorley.com/about/ Tom Morley LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommorleyrockstar/?originalSubdomain=uk ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Nov 2, 2020 • 43min
Positive Recognition Can Be Life-Changing - with Neil Skehel
How often do you celebrate success? In this week’s show, Lee talks to Neil Skehel, the CEO and founder of Awards International, dedicated to helping success in others to be celebrated! Neil discusses the importance of honouring positivity and achievement, and how the act of recognising success can be truly life-changing and empowering. KEY TAKEAWAYS Recognition reinforces self-belief. Rewarding achievement should be commonplace, allowing our people to prosper, and leading to transformation. Society tends to be afraid of boasting and bragging. Some think that if they tell someone they’re doing a good job, it somehow disempowers them. If we recognise people in the right way, however, they will do more. A marvellous way of emboldening our team members is to tell them privately. Removing the suspicion that praise is being given so as to glorify the praiser, can certify and endorse that praise for the recipient. People need to learn and develop whenever possible. By endowing people with skills, we give them the accolades to do better. BEST MOMENTS ‘People who receive good, clear, strong recognition can become transformed’ ‘Positive recognition does change your life’ ‘Celebrating success is also about feeling okay as a person’ ‘When people enter awards they create a case study in change' VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast Awards International - https://awardsinternational.com/author/neil-skehel/ Neil Skehel LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilskehel/?originalSubdomain=uk Neil Skehel Twitter - https://twitter.com/neilskehel?lang=en ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Oct 26, 2020 • 12min
Five Lessons From Children, Not For Them
We are so intent of teaching our children about the world that we sometimes miss the things that they can teach us. In this week’s episode, Lee tells you about the five most valuable lessons he’s learned from his own children and his own childhood. KEY TAKEAWAYS It takes around 3000 attempts for a child to learn how to walk. They fail often, but we encourage them to try again. We are instilling a positive learning ethic, and yet this ethic is lost as education develops. We must create an environment in which it is okay to fail sometimes in which experimentation and risk-taking are encouraged. Kids are always pushing against boundaries. As we grow up we find ourselves adhered to laws, beliefs and rules. What can we do to break the rules and push the boundaries in adult life? BEST MOMENTS ’You don’t know if something works or not until you try it' ‘We don’t get as many opportunities to fail as we do as a child’ ‘Learn like a child. Test the boundaries. Push the boundaries' VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast Anish Hindocha Twitter - https://twitter.com/hindocha_anish?lang=en Jigsaw Consulting - https://www.jigsawconsulting.co.uk Anish Hindocha LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anishhindocha/?originalSubdomain=uk ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Oct 18, 2020 • 53min
Change Your Habits And Change Your Life - with Anish Hindocha
This week, Lee talks to “Mr Habits”, Anish Hindocha, the founder of Jigsaw Consulting, and a lean consultancy expert devoted to driving improvement through teams. Anish discusses the importance of reflection in every business journey, how we can shape the habits that will lead us to success, and how we can gain back focus and see through distractions when we need to. KEY TAKEAWAYS Every step we take is a learning experience. Especially in the beginning of a business journey, when we are left to ourselves in many cases, we should focus on each step we take, and examine the things that we learn along the way. Time gives us perspective. We cannot always recognise the value in feedback when it is given. We gain clarity over time, and recognise the value in feedback. Habits are all a matter of triggers (the circumstance that activates the need for something), and the reward (the thing we do for ourselves in reaction to the trigger). Modifying our environment is essential in diverting distraction. Tailor each day and space to the task at hand. Get the toughest tasks out of the way first, turn notifications off, spend at least 25 minutes on focussed work, then take a break and repeat! BEST MOMENTS ’There’s lots to gain from taking a step back and looking at what you’ve learned’ ‘When you start to understand yourself more, you start to understand the feedback from the past’ ‘If you want to change a habit, you need to know what the trigger is, and what the reward is’ ‘For years we have trained ourselves to be distracted' VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast Anish Hindocha Twitter - https://twitter.com/hindocha_anish?lang=en Jigsaw Consulting - https://www.jigsawconsulting.co.uk Anish Hindocha LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anishhindocha/?originalSubdomain=uk ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Oct 11, 2020 • 44min
Empowering Others Through Listening - with Julian Roberts
Lee talks to Julian Roberts, an expert leadership and business consultant (and now fellow podcaster), about how he helps organisations to thrive, and how through listening and employing a technique known as “inner wisdom", he has helped senior and emerging leaders to build resilience, facilitating them to their next level, creating deep self-awareness along the way, and enabling them in times of company growth. KEY TAKEAWAYS Coaching and consulting is the art of listening, and using the “inner wisdom” to discern the key words that indicate the needs of clients. The most important component in true listening is to develop a mind-set that steers us towards understanding our conversation partner, instead of simply waiting for your turn to speak. Resilience can be developed by becoming more accepting of change. By resisting, we enter survival-mode, which instantly raises defences. Instead, look for the opportunities that change can bring. Clean language can help to kick-start conversations. It’s a technique that helps to remove pretence and allows the client to step outside of the experience in order to open up more fully. BEST MOMENTS ‘You’ve got to shoot for the moon and stars’ ’The biggest thing for me is listening’ ’Seek first to understand before being understood’ ‘It’s like kicking a boat without rudder into the water, to see where it goes' VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast Julian Roberts Consulting - https://www.julianrobertsconsulting.com Julian Roberts LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/julesroberts/?originalSubdomain=uk ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Oct 4, 2020 • 36min
Talking In A Language That Everyone Can Understand - with Mark Rice
Lee talks to Mark Rice, the Group Chief Information Officer for The Big Word, a market leader in translation, interpretation, localisation and language technology solutions. Mark discusses his business philosophies, the “Larry” rule and how it can help your business ideas, and how The Big Word are adapting to a new business landscape. KEY TAKEAWAYS Most ideas that enhance or upgrade a business are essentially re-runs of older ideas. It is the interpretation of these ideas, and the adaptation into a new landscape that set them apart. Ideas always transmit better when they are crystallised. If you can’t distil an idea into a thirty second pitch, then you need to go away and think about it again. Workers who are free to express themselves creatively, and with less pressure, will always deliver better results in the end. Remote working should never be all-or-nothing, but tailored to each worker’s circumstances. It is unfair to expect our workers to live and work constantly in the same place. We should be giving options. BEST MOMENTS ’The first thing is have we got data? Have we got numbers? The second thing is have we got logic?’ ‘My start point is that if I understand it, then other people will understand it’ ‘I have a desire to make things easier and simpler for people’ ‘I like less bureaucracy and more chaos' VALUABLE RESOURCES Business Problems Solved Podcast The Big Word - https://en-gb.thebigword.com/about-us/ Mark Rice LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-rice-03791623/?originalSubdomain=uk ABOUT THE HOST For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses. In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material. Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker. CONTACT METHOD You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194 Lee@leehoughton.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/