Curious Leadership with Dominic Monkhouse

In this episode- Decision making against disasters- Growth mindset- Choosing to grow is even more challenging with a team- Lead by example Re Empowering the team   "This is where I had to step up as a leader, the first time I'd had to deal with something like this, and you know we'd done a bunch of psychometric tests before the race.... you know they'd said your good at dealing with crisis" – he jokes – "But you never really know until you're there right?!"He noticed that, as the leader, his emotions were really impacting on those of the team. When he portrayed his struggles negatively to the daily huddle, he noticed the day's morale followed suit. That is until one of them pointed out the team's attitude. The jolt forced them to "get their act together". Growth mindsetBrendan had a jolt realisation that his team member was absolutely right. They had to stop feeling sorry for themselves. Overcoming a disaster isn't about the good decisions, bad decisions, or karma, or fate - it's about what you do with it.Many companies and teams have a lot in common, Brendan's race was against identical boats, but what separates them is their ability to handle disasters. "We don't learn from our experience on its own, we learn from reflecting on our experiences. It's a deliberate practice". Acting in this way is difficult when you need to learn from your own disaster - it's even worse when you have other people's opinions, egos and input to consider. No one wants to feel blamed. But the best teams have to sit down and learn together. It's not about shared trauma its about the openness to constructive communication. Brendan remembers the excellent advice of "we need to make a promise to each other, that we will only learn the hard lessons once".  Blame After finishing a disastrous leg of the race 7th out of 10 boats, Brendan hosted a debrief to try and work on the team's mindset. Emotionally, defences were up. "We go to great lengths to recoil from blame". To re-set, he gave the team a new value: "In this team, we only use blame in the event of gross negligence or malice, everything else is a learning experience" Then all they had to do was live it, he used his own emotional position to "plant a flag in the sand". In starting a conversation about how to constructively growing from an experience, he allowed the team to relax and follow suit."There's a hierarchy to speaking up. The higher up you are the easier you think it is to do."You have to lead by example when setting your growth mindset - to enable the rest of the team to feel vulnerable. In the end, Brendan's team came back from the disaster to win the race, but it was the decisions they made in the debriefs that changed the outcome, not the sailing. "It came down to us treating this race as a race of 10 teams not a race of 10 yachts".Recommendations-Growth Mindset by Joshua Moore and Helen GlasgowYou can also find the video version of this talk on our youtube channel HERE 

Today’s guest needs no introduction. Essentially, if you run a startup and you haven’t heard of Steve Blank, can you even call yourself an entrepreneur?Steve is the ultimate serial entrepreneur, retiring in 1999 with eight high technology startups under his belt. He coined the term ‘customer development’, codifying what that was in the inaugural start up book, The Four Steps to the Epiphany - the start up book that kickstarted the lean startup revolution. He then went on to teach a course at Stanford based on what he had codified around startups and what makes the successful ones successful. And one of the guys on his course was a chap called Eric Ries, who you might have heard of for writing a book called The Lean Startup. Then he found himself on the front cover of Harvard Business Review with his book and that, as they say, is history. Steve went on to change the way the world thinks about startups. This is truly a fascinating conversation, we talk about what the job of the CEO is, what customer development is, why innovation is so hard and why established businesses hit a plateau. On today’s podcast:The Lean StartupEric Ries & Alex OsterwalderThe difference between search and executionThe personality of a founderThe job of a CEOExecutioners and innovatorsLinks:Book - The Four Steps To The Epiphany

If you’re wondering how your team’s happiness is, or how you can support employee wellbeing and sustain team morale, then you don’t want to miss Nic Marks, CEO and Founder of Friday Pulse, Dom’s employee engagement, employee happiness, employee measurement tool of choice. “When I ask how engaged you are, people don't know. You know, it's like, if you ask people, how meaningful is your work? It sounds great. But people don't know what the top of that scale is. Do they have to be Mother Teresa? Do they have to be Nelson Mandela?”Nic's been on the show before (link below), and in that episode, he talked about the work he did previously, and the TED Talk he's done. But today, we're digging into, (again, link below) a chart that Nic and his team have put together, which looks at the weekly employee experience for 2019-2020. It’s as clear as day to see how it fell off a cliff in March. So we talk about that and we also talk about why it's come back up. Where are we now? What are the thoughts and hopes for 2021? “The evidence suggests that Homo Sapiens defeated Neanderthals because they out-teamed them. And I think if you bring human beings together, physically together, you get a team that you just don't get, when you're on Zoom.”As usual we discuss book recommendations, and Nic shares fond memories that he has for Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos, who passed away recently. This is another great chat with Nic, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.On today’s podcast:Measuring employee experience and happiness at workWhy Gallup can’t measure engagement (but Friday Pulse can)Unhappiness at work is a signal to moveWhich jobs are suffering more than othersTony Hsieh CEO ZapposLinks:Nic’s first podcast episode on The Melting PotNicmarks.org

Chris Croft is a writer, a keynote speaker and a bit of a guru on Linkedin Learning, with 34 video courses on subjects including Project Management, Time Management, Process Improvement, Assertiveness, Negotiating, and Happiness, with 20,000 views a day and over 11 million views in total.  His Project Management Simplified course is thought to be the most viewed project management course in the world. He also teaches leadership. And he’s currently teaching other people how to be trainers. “So I'm teaching them how to be self-employed, how to write a training course, how to sell a training course and how to deliver a really good training course. And just generally sort of how to be me, only better is what I think of it.”Today we chat to Chris about the differences between management and leadership, and what the key elements are of those jobs, why they're different, and how delegation is absolutely critical, but why some people find it so difficult and what you need to do to master delegation.“I think delegating is probably the most important skill. And I think most bosses are bad at delegating. To delegate something important is really hard. And I absolutely think that the world divides into the good and the bad delegators.”This is a really insightful conversation with Chris, we hope you get as much out of it as we did.On today’s podcast:How to train to be a trainerDefinition of sellingDifference between leaders and managersVisions, systems and peopleThank peopleHis 8-point Management CharterPut your prices upWrite down your goalsLinks:www.free-management-tips.co.ukwww.successfultrainers.comchris@chriscroft.com - email Chris for his 8-point Management CharterProject management by Chris CroftTime management by Chris Croft

David Tudehope is co-founder and CEO of Macquarie Telecom Group in Sydney, Australia, providing telecommunications, phones, data, data connections, data centres and cloud services. He co-founded the company with his brother, Aiden, back in 1992 and throughout their existence, they’ve tried to strike the balance between being entrepreneurial and running a public company with risk management and governance. But there’s always going to be a tension between those two things, because they don’t want to lose the essence of what makes them special - their entrepreneurial spirit, but at the same time, they have to be a public company. The last time we spoke with David, their market cap, and this was a few years ago, was $350m Australian dollars. Today, their market cap is $1.13 billion Australian dollars. They've had a fantastic year. “We've had a year where we really had to focus on what's important, on our core customer experience, which talks to our company purpose. At a time like this, people will value great customer experience, even more than the normal.”In this really insightful episode, we talk with David about what underpins their business success. Because for them, it's their Net Promoter Score. We also talk about what David’s purpose is, a purpose that he’s remained true to from creation in 1992 through to today. And that purpose is to provide outstanding customer experience.On today’s podcast:Building on customer experienceHaving a purposeNet Promoter ScoreStorytellingThe World Communications AwardHiring for great customer experience

Are you wondering how your business can innovate better? Are you confusing methodologies and activities with the process of actually keeping and creating a pipeline of innovation? Then don’t miss this hugely insightful episode all about innovation, with the internationally recognised innovation expert, Pete Newell. Pete finished his 32-year military career with a 3-year tour running the US Army’s skunkworks - or in layman’s terms, he was the Director of the US Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF). He had a remit to go and find problems and solve them, using commercial technology to solve a battlefield problem. Out of the 300 problems he was tasked with solving, he found resolutions for 20 of them. An incredible hit rate.When he realised he couldn’t stay in that role indefinitely, Pete retired from the military to found BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in US national security, state and local governments, and beyond. Pete is also founder and co-author, with Lean Startup founder Steve Blank, of Hacking for Defense (H4D)®, an academic programme originally taught at Stanford University. “[This is] the only class they take in their academic career that allows them to use everything they use in university or network they build to work on a real problem with real people to give them real experience that leads to real jobs.”So to find out what the fundamental things are inside an organisation that you need to do to drive innovation in your business, don’t miss this fantastic conversation. On today’s podcast:The work of BMNTRapid Equipping Force (REF)Hacking for Defence (H4D)®H4X® - the operating systemWhen Silicon Valley met the militaryThe innovation pipeline

What have you done today that pushed you to your limits? For today’s guest, Nick Hollis, getting over COVID is testing him. But it won’t stop him from working his hardest to set a new world record for his ultimate world challenge - the 721 challenge. Nick wants to be the fastest man to climb the world’s Seven Summits (he’s already completed this stage of the challenge), ski to the North and South Poles unaided and row the Atlantic Ocean.The reason? To help him on his true mission - to promote sustainability and work for a greener future. Backed by The World Land Trust (of which Sir David Attenborough is a patron), Nick is putting the environment at the centre of his challenge. As well as being a mountaineer, athlete and entrepreneur, Nick is also a circuit speaker, and one of his most popular topics is around purpose and resilience, two key skills for business leaders. In today’s episode, Nick shares which of the seven summits was the hardest, which one was the easiest, which one he enjoyed the most and which was the most beautiful. He talks about his motivations for leaving his job at HP, and why following your passion is something everyone should do. Back yourself, life is short, says Nick, who’s currently recovering from COVID. This is a truly inspirational conversation, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did. On today’s podcast:From HP to mountaineerCorporate adventure trainingWhy Everest isn’t the toughest mountain7 summits on 7 continents 721 ChallengeCatching COVIDWorld Land TrustLinks:https://721challenge.com/Facebook - 721 ChallengeTwitter - @721ChallengeInstagram - @721_challenge)

Here's a podcast treat to be enjoyed by the fire this festive season our second look back at the glorious sunny summit we hosted in September. Our bouns episodes are bringing you the wonderful live speeches in reverse running order so today you have the brilliant Alex Barker. Alex's invigorating talk is on the "Be More Pirate" movement that she is now spearheading following the almost unexpected excellence of Sam Conniff's original book "Be More Pirate". A book which, as Alex discusses inspired ordinary team members in a wide variety of companies and organisations to implement improved cultures for change. Sam and Alex have since co-written an equally excellent follow up "How To Be More Pirate" so if you too can see your company benefiting from innovative value-based change definitely give it a read.  When Alex Barker decided to join Sam Conniff on his "Be More Pirate" journey, she began researching historical pirates and life in the Navy in the 1600s. Putting the ideas that she discovered in context changed the way she framed pirates: "People became pirates not because they were more bloodthirsty or because they were greedier... people became pirates because they wanted to be less miserable".  She, like many readers of the original book, was inspired by the secret history of ordinary people's innovation. She points out that in terms of team culture and social values, pirates were often "ahead of the curb" in comparison to their law-abiding counterparts. "On a pirate ship is where you saw the first form of social insurance" and that their own norms and rules were actually organised, they simply were not the norms of the time. An unknown example is that pirates had same-sex marriages with practice "so sophisticated that it even had an inheritance clause - so that if I died my partner would get my share of whatever booty we were allocated".  Also inspired teams, form companies around the world have been writing to Sam and Alex about their decisions to undertake their own Pirate Code. They are using a set of principles to define what they stand for. Allowing them to not only look at where their company is going but to evaluate the direction of travel. A reader told Alex " I knew when I read it, I don't need another strategy or 10-year business plan - I need a pirate code." Companies and organisations may also decide to hold a "facilitated mutiny"- this is to capture the energy and insight of the team, to find fast fixes to unnecessary issues. Alex feels that business can change their culture by giving people permission to improve; by "redistributing power"so that someone who knows the detail of the problem but might have otherwise been afraid to speak up. Alex gives an example of a marine biologist who was bold enough to ask if the 5000 attendees to The International Corral Reef conference should be flying in for it—pointing out that the act of flying for a conference so centred on global warming "doesn't sit with our values". Here, by creating a culture that allowed conversation and also by being bold enough to "fly a flag" fo the idea, they inspired a change and a whole new approach to audience outreach that would otherwise not have been discussed.  Being more pirate is about being bold enough to change a norm, giving voice to the people that might have the solutions to a problem and improving culture. "We all know that we now sit in a moment where there is more possibility than there ever was to make changes - there's never been a better time to be more pirate". To consider not just your approach to scaling-up your business, but the values that you want to grow.  

When was the last time you met somebody who’d spent 30 years in the same company? Meet Brian Coburn. Brian started at Stagecoach as a 16 year old trainee and went on to be their Chief Technology Officer. Today, Brian is CEO of payment orchestration service for e-commerce enterprises, Bridge. With that information alone there are so many questions to be asked: how do you go from being the trainee to the CTO? What changes do you have to make along the way? What jobs do you get that allow you to go from 16 year old trainee to Chief Technology Officer at a multi billion pound turnover global business like Stagecoach? Did we mention Brian has done all of this without ever going to university? So what does the school of hard knocks look like? What does it teach you along the way? One of the most fascinating parts of the conversation is where Brian explains that his business inspiration at Stagecoach and now, at Bridge, come from being in a rock band in his youth. This is a really fantastic conversation with some great insights from Brian. We really enjoyed talking to him. We’re sure you will too.On today’s podcast:A 30 year career at StagecoachDigitalising StagecoachPlaying in a bandCEO of BridgeStartup business adviceLinks:Stagecoach

“If your business isn't growing without sales, it may not be a sales problem, it may be a design problem with your product or a problem with your delivery.”Are you struggling to make sales? In today’s episode, we’re chatting with Justin Roff-Marsh, sales contrarian, CEO and founder of Ballistix, an LA-based international management consultancy specialising in Sales Process Engineering. Justin will be in the UK, speaking with us, on 27th January, and to whet your appetite and to get you excited he’s coming over, he’s back on the podcast. In this episode, he’s talking about lifetime value and customer acquisition cost, LTV to CAC; about how you re-engineer that into the number of salespeople you need, and how you then measure the success of that sales team so that you can make sure that it works, and then scale the hell out of it. Justin also shares his thoughts on managers versus supervisors and the importance of supervisors, and the mindset that CEOs and businesses might have around incrementalism versus aggressive business growth. Finally, Justin expands on his view that companies shouldn't use revenue as a performance indicator. This is a fascinating conversation, there’s so much great content, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did. To find out more, download and listen to this latest episode of #themeltingpot, or come and see Justin, in person, on the 27th January - more information to follow.On today’s podcast:How to estimate lifetime valueMeasuring the success of a sales teamManagers versus supervisorsIncrementalism versus aggressive growthRevenue isn’t a performance indicatorWhat to look for in a salespersonLinks:The Machine - Justin Roff-MarshIt’s Time To Build - Marc Andreessen