Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
So welcome everyone to another episode in our podcast series, unlocking your people. Did you know that in Canada there are over a million family owned businesses? According to the Family Enterprise foundation, they represent about 63% of all private sector firms in Canada. There's a lot of people working with family and when we're talking about people dynamics and dynamics in the workplace, which is the point of this podcast, that therefore has to be somewhere at the top of the list. So I'm thrilled today to be joining by Jeff McAloon, who is in business with his brother. He's an entrepreneur, he's been a senior leader, he's been an HR guru and a whole bunch of other useful people things to have a conversation about how we put things in place to help support effective communication, how we manage conflict, how we do all of those things when the relationships are both professional and personal. So with that in mind, let's go over and see what Jeff has to say.
Jeff, thank you for joining us. Welcome to the podcast. Super excited to have you on the show. I've done a little intro to you, but maybe you'd like to just share a little bit more about yourself or those who are listening.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Sure, yeah. So born and raised in just outside of Saint John, New Brunswick. Lived in Toronto for a period of time.
My brother and I are co owners of the smart energy companies, as you mentioned. And I just, I love life. I'm a big believer in adventure and you know, you ever seen that movie where Jim Carrey says no to nothing? It's kind of like me, I just, I love adventure and I love life. So I've had a really kind of interesting background, I guess, kind of a varied career. I've had the opportunity to work in a lot of different industries.
My trained as an opera singer and now here I was a solo developer just to kind of give you the bookends. So, yeah, so that's me. And I'm super excited to be part of this podcast. I'm really honored that you asked me and yeah, I'm happy to be here.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: And I asked you and of course you had to say yes because you can't say no.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: I can't say no to you, but why would I, right? I mean, I've never done a podcast, so. Cool. This, this is. I can't say no.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: I am pleased that this is your first podcast experience. Awesome. Yeah, well, and actually your current role is one of the reasons why I wanted you to come on chat because you are co CEO, correct? You're with your brother in the business. And there's lots of interesting things that happen when families start running companies.
And you had talked to me a few times about some of the things that you've been able to put in place and kind of how you make the most of that dynamic. And I was hoping you would share a little bit more about the ups and downs and brilliances and sort scratchy head moments of working with your family.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Sure, yeah, I'd love to.
Yeah. I feel really.
I feel really lucky to work with my brother and, you know, sharing in all of the ups and downs that come with being an entrepreneur that you know all too well.
So I guess, you know, without boring youth, a lot of history, you know, Mark and I have been. Mark's four years younger, but we've been very close through all of our professional careers.
And always sort of, you know, I grew up in the corporate world, and Mark has been an entrepreneur since he was a kid. You know, he opened his first business when he was, I think in grade 9 or 10 maybe, and has been an entrepreneur ever since. And I've always really valued that and respected that and loved watching his path. And I think, I don't think I know he would say the same. He's always really appreciated my career. And as we've approached different challenges in our respective careers, we're always leaning on each other, we're always talking to each other. There came a point in time in my last role, the last chapter of my career, I guess, where I just had this desire to be an entrepreneur. I was fortunate to be surrounded by, influenced, mentored, connected with a lot of really successful Atlanta Canadian entrepreneurs, and was just really motivated by what they do in terms of building value in the community around them, but also building value for themselves and for their family. And so as I was looking at my next chapter, Mark, you know, really gave me some respectful space, but also made it very clear that he would love to do something together.
So, you know, obviously I knew a lot about his business.
But before we even talked about becoming partners, you know, all the formal stuff and the legal stuff and shareholder agreements and all that stuff, you know, we both agreed that first and foremost, the most important thing is our friendship and our love as brothers.
And we really do. Like, you'll, you know, you'll meet Mark one day and you realize we both wear our heart and sleeve. We're not afraid of saying that we love each other. There's hardly a day that goes by we don't hug each other, to be honest. Like, we're just that kind of family. We're very close.
So that relationship and that respect and trust that we have each other is absolutely paramount.
And whatever we might do as entrepreneurs together, that could never, that was never on the table as a possible risk.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: So we spent a lot of time talking about what does that mean. We actually hired an executive coach to help us through those conversations.
Dave Vale, our coach at the time, was, was just so instrumental in helping us formalize on paper what, how that, how those interactions could work or what might happen if it doesn't work very well.
So this might sound kind of silly, but for us it really works. So we created a psychological agreement so that it's, I mean, it's not, it's a contract. We both wrote it and signed it, and it's not something would ever stand up in court. But it's an agreement between us that talks about, you know, what are the things that we're excited about, what are the things we're nervous about because we're both very different people, very different backgrounds, very different approaches. So what concerns do we have working with each other when there's conflict, how do we resolve that, how do we deal with that in a productive manner?
And so we both really feel proud about that document that we came up with. But a document is only as good as often as you look at it, right? So we actually look at it monthly and we have a shareholders meeting monthly where we sit down and say, okay, was there any point this last month where I was off site? Do you have any feedback for me? Here's some feedback I'd like to share.
And so it's not a once and done. It's an active process that we continually have to monitor and check.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: That's awesome.
It reminded me when you talked to me about it, about something we do often with leadership teams, we do contracting, which is a similar principle, like what are the ground rules by which you are going to operate? But what I love is that you've baked it in, right? So rather than being, okay, we'd have a lovely conversation and we agreed all these rules and now you're telling them, really mad at you. We're actually having regular conversations and saying, how am I checking in on these things? How are we living them? And are, do you need to give me any feedback? And I think it's the, the, what is most important in your relationship is the relationship, the fact that you had that conversation first.
What's, that's the non negotiable line that can't be broken. And I Think that's right. Clarity is really important.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's not always easy. Like, again, we. Because we take such a different approach to things, there's. There's a lot of potential for conflict, but there's also a lot of potential for great value. Like, we call it our secret sauce because every challenge we are faced with in our business, we've got two very different minds looking at it from two very different perspectives. So we use that to our advantage. But as I, you know, as I said, there's. There's challenge for conflict. And so it takes an active process to really manage that in a healthy way.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Have you always known those different. Like, were the differences part of why you wanted to work together, or is it something you've explored more since you got.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: No, yeah. No, we've always known that we're very. Ever since we were young, like, we're. We've always known that we're very different. And I don't mean to say that in any way of a conflict. Like, we've always been very, very close. Like probably the closest of brothers you can find, but just very different approaches. Like, if you looked at us on, you know, the Myers Briggs scale or the DISC scale, like, we would be. We would be very different in our approaches to communication, style, to analysis, to action or inaction.
We're very different. We've known that forever.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: Well, and sometimes being different is the Jerry Maguire thing. Right. Like, I was in a session this morning and I was talking about personality types, and I said, like, opposite sides of the personality spectrum. And you complete me. Right. So there's something going on with you and Mark. You're bringing more of your stuff, he brings more of his.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: I'm going to leave this and go to Mark's office. Go, Mark. You complete me.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: Don't tell him I was the one who gave you.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Oh, no, you're not getting credit.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: I mean, the kind of co CEO is one that sometimes people kind of scratch their head over. How do you. Like, surely there's one person that needs to be at the top of the tree and somebody has to make the decision. So how do you deal with two people being the decision maker? Like, how does that work constructively in your organization?
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah, what a fantastic question. And it's honestly one in the early days that I really struggled with. So when I actually first joined the business, we were not co CEOs in title.
And I'll get to. I'll sort of explain that further, but we. So I think my title at the time was Chief. Chief Revenue officer, maybe. Anyway, not sort of big on titles. Mark was CEO and I was chief Revenue officer. We operated the business as co CEOs. We had very clear lines of responsibility. We made every single. These major decisions, you know, micro stuff. We handled our own thing, but major decisions. We absolutely handled everything together. So operationally we were acting as co CEOs.
I felt really strongly in the early days that that might lead people to confusion because just like your question alluded to, like, okay, who's making the decision? Like, at the end of the day, the buck's got to stop with someone. Where is that? Whose desk is that on? And so I felt that that would confuse people. But then as we got into business together, we actually had some very opposite feedback from other people who were saying to us, you know, you guys run this business together. You clearly have delineated whose responsibility is what. Why have you chosen to take this approach of not co CEO?
So we, you know, after some discussion, we decided probably might have been even two years into the business together, that we opted to switch to the title of co CEO. Now we really. Part of that psychological agreement and part of those monthly discussions is we have to make sure that we stay in our lanes.
So Mark and I have both been CEOs of our own businesses for a long time.
And you know, when you're.
It's only at the top cliche, but when you're the CEO, you kind of get used to making the decisions. You have to make the decisions. That's ultimately what a CEO needs to do. Make the strategic decisions that are going to advance the mission of the organization.
So now you take two sort of very different personalities who are both used to being the one who makes the decisions, and you put them together again. More opportunity for conflict. Right.
So we've had to really be clear on where are the lines in terms of your business. So for us, and it's different for all kinds of co CEO models, but Mark is very technical. He's a dreamer, he's a visionary. He's product development, he's operations.
I'm business development and finance and marketing. And just those align more to my skill set in the background.
I would say that that area of crossing into each other's lane has probably been the more frequent area of conflict. And I won't speak for Mark. I'll just speak for myself. I can think of a couple of examples for sure in the last, let's say, six months or 12 months where I've stepped in his lane.
And it's almost, I Don't do it because I don't trust him. I trust him implicitly. But I'm used to making decisions. I like doing things the way I like doing them. I've done them over a long period of time. And he does things very differently and gets in a phenomenal outcome. And so I have to remind myself constantly, Mark does things very differently for me, that's good, that's healthy. That's not the way I've been used to it. When I've built organizations as a CEO, things kind of move along as you, as you design them to. So I guess, you know, if ultimately we had to make a decision and we were at loggerheads, I can't think of a time when that's happened. But we have an advisory board and we would probably bring them in that stage and say we're struggling with this, we're at loggerheads. Give us another perspective.
But I guess, yeah, I don't know. That's very long winded answer to no.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: It's a great answer. It's a great answer because you're talking about how do you navigate the, the clarity. And having train tracks is right. Ultimately at some point someone's going to stray over the tracks. Right?
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Right. Yeah.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: And then how do you do that? And what I think I, I hear listening to you is I think the foundation of trust and value for one another is what makes those conversations work. Right. Because you're coming in and having your minds changed as opposed to coming in and staying entrenched in your right view of things. Right.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: So yeah, I mean that trust is so important because I know like there are times where I know when I'm saying something, Mark's really not getting it. And I know for sure when he's saying something, there's times when I'm really not getting it. But at the base of that, each of us always know 100% that we're doing it for our best interest of the organization. So that underlying trust is fundamental.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Can you talk a little bit about culture? Because the co CEO model in terms of the way you've described decision making, so that makes sense. Right. You've kind of split trained, you've got your areas of expertise, you've got your portfolios, you own them. But you can't split culture. Culture is culture and from our perspective, leaders are the custodians of culture. And as a CEO or co CEO, it has a lot to do with how you view the world, how you behave, what you could decide is relevant, important, so you can't split your culture and say, well, Mark's part of the business has his culture and Jeff's part of the business has his culture. So how have you managed that in the cultural side of things?
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question.
I would like to say to you, I wish I could answer this question by saying we, you know, we sat down and we had a strategic discussion and we determined to plan and we said, this is what our culture is going to be. But if I'm being honest, we didn't do that. You know, I think whether right or wrong, I think our culture has evolved as just a part of who Mark and I are. I mean, I suppose because we have grown up so close together, we share so many values and much of those family values we've brought into our business.
We have spent some good time, I would say, determining the words that describe our value. We do make an effort to have very regular team events with the whole team together.
There's a lot of overlap between the activities that our respective teams work on. And I think they.
I hope that our team sees us modeling the behaviors that we want everyone to model in terms of culture in those circuit in those instances. So it's not like our teams are so siloed. We're not, you know, we're a team of 20 people, so it's not like we're 200 people. And, you know, every single person on the team interacts with everybody else and everybody interacts with the CO CEOs.
Probably something we should really focus on when we become a team of, you know, 50 or 80 or 100. So if you know anybody, any good consultants out there that can help me with that, Jess, just let me know.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Will you give anyone. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure who I'd recommend in that spot.
I mean, no, I mean, you're at. You are at that point. Right? So we, when we. We segment based on size, business by hand, you're at what, 20 now? 20.
So you're now getting to the size where you can't necessarily get everybody in the same room anymore. You can't necessarily see who everybody is. You don't necessarily see everybody in the run of a week. So now is the time to be thinking about the things that glue everybody together.
You're both out of the office. Right. And culture. Culture is one of them. Communication is usually the other one. Right. Who. How do you ensure. Because once you can't get everybody in the same room together, it starts being more complicated too.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Who talks to who about what?
[00:15:43] Speaker B: When it's like. And I would imagine, I mean, you would know this better than anyone on this call that, you know, it's somewhat, I'm going to say easier, maybe more tactile to design the parts of the business that you know are going to happen when you scale. So we talk about scaling our business all the time and we look at it from an operational standpoint, we look at it from a procurement standpoint, from a sales realization standpoint. How many actually talk about it from a culture standpoint like that? It's maybe a little less tactical, so harder to get your hands around, I don't know. But it's the first thing that comes to my mind, I guess, when I think about scaling our business.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Business. Yeah, we see.
I mean, from our perspective, there are certain things that consistently show up as you add heads. Right. And so one becomes you and Mark can no longer do all of the people leadership activities. Right. So who does your hiring, who does your firing? Who does the one to ones and do they do them in the same spirit with which you and Mark would do them? Different. Not style, that's a different thing. But with the same kind of culture, values, perspectives and so on. And then like as you grow, you're at that stage now with 20, where what will start to happen is you will get further away from people.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Right.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: And then people are like, I used to see Jeff all the time, Mark all the time, and now I only see them at whatever. So it's like starting to talk to people about. And you can put it into the cultural book, it makes sense. But the people and cultural implications of scaling, because you're right, we talk about the process implications of scaling and the work implications of scaling, but we don't often talk to people about how scaling feels. Right. And having been through organizations that have been bought by acquired. Right. That's totally different thing too. When you've been in situations where we've even just done things like move building, which I know you've recently been. Have you done it yet or you still plan?
[00:17:29] Speaker B: Yeah, we're a month in now.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah, we talk about that too. Because now, like those things make a difference to how people feel about their connections to one another. And we sometimes forget to talk about the fact that as we get bigger, you are going to see less of the CEO. And it's not that the CEO doesn't care. Right. Like it's more of that.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: It's just a function of getting bigger.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And then how do you spotlight the next level down of your leaders. So it's as good to be with them as it is to be with you. Because I'm working with a CEO at the moment where he's bit of the rock star in the business. Right. So he grew the business from scratch. It's all been his business. It's all been about him.
Now he needs to be more outwardly focused, and there's too many people, so there's this level been built underneath him. But everybody still wants to talk to the CEO because the CEO.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: How do you create that level of. Underneath you, who are the kind of rock stars that carry the camera when you're not aware? But okay, that's a whole. That's a whole other growth.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: That's another webinar.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: That's a whole other conversation we can talk about.
One of the things that I know you and Mark have done was around personality assessments, raising up to your side of things and kind of beyond the little bit that I know we've done through elp, You've gone hog. And sometimes I have people who, for the most part, whenever we do personality workshop, everyone loves it. But sometimes I do have people who are like, why would I. Why would I bother?
[00:18:48] Speaker B: Right, Right.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: I gather from our conversations it was something that was helpful. From your perspective, you want to talk a little bit about why you bothered to do that when it's actually your brother.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. So, you know, over the years, I've participated in probably half a dozen different models, maybe a dozen different times.
And I've.
I guess, first of all, I find that study of natural behaviors, of scholarly communication preferences, I find it very fascinating and how we interact with people. I find that whole science very interesting.
But what drives me crazy is when. And I have been with organizations in the past where you spend time and money on these, and it's a one day, and everyone's oh, la, la, huggy, huggy, isn't this great? And then it collects dust on the shelf and drives me bananas.
So not only have we used that with interactions between Mark and I, but we've rolled it out with a number of our teams. So, for example, our sales team, actually, we've just done a refresh. It was maybe nine months ago. We did this the last time in the sales team and then just done it again last week.
And we use the information in two different ways.
One, primarily, we use it to help improve our interactions as a team because we have different personalities, different natural styles on our team. And I want to.
I want to take advantage of that. I Want to. Just like I've described how Mark and I call it our secret sauce. Well, we have the ability to develop a secret sauce in our sales team. Everybody has a different approach and a different style, a different way of looking at things. We might as well maximize that. We're only going to be able to maximize if we better understand it and if we talk about it and we have that common language to use.
Secondly, we've also used.
We just happened to choose disk was the tool that we've used. But we also use that to help us better support our customers and better support our prospects. And it helps us tailor our approach to them so it's more meaningful interaction for them.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Can you talk a little bit about what you've been doing with it internally? Because I think the point around that you hate the one hit wonder is brilliant because it's a tool, right? It's like anything else. If you buy a hammer and you use it, hit one nail and put it in the box, it's never good. So what are the sorts of things you've done with it to like use it effectively with the table, like on.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: A real practical day to day basis? Yeah, well, actually. Well, I'll show you. I got my little notebook here.
First of all, it's so well used, it's full here. We laminated the disk. You probably recognize the disc colors. So one is how to identify the different disk profiles, one is the do's and don'ts and the other is how to communicate. So I mean, not only does sort of the laminated easy to grab serve as a good reminder for me or for a person on the team, but we will pull it out during meetings. Say, you know, like I think we've been going red on this a little bit. Maybe we need to step back and do a little more analysis and a little more digging into this before we jump to a conclusion. Or so I think that might be. Is that what you're asking? Sort of one practical example of how we use it. I think we most definitely refer to it very often. In fact, we just did this last week when we were going through our sales team, their portfolio of prospects that we're working with. And we were identified, everyone on the team to identify two people that they feel are maybe a little stuck. You know, they're kind of stuck in the pipeline. We don't have a yes and we don't have a no. We're just kind of left wondering what's going on. So we brainstorm as a team.
What could that farmer's disk profile possibly look like and how might we communicate to them in a different way that will help unstuck them, if you will. And again, it's not about. It's absolutely. In fact, it's absolutely not about forcing someone to say yes because sometimes no is the answer that we need to get to sooner. Right. And so we'll use it in that sort of practical way as well.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: You describe a really kind of good.
Now I know you so empathy as part of your way of doing things, but you're describing a really deep kind of understanding of who your core client is and the life that they lead. Right. And using disconcert. How do you help the folks that are going to carry the products, sell the products, have the same understanding of who your ideal client is?
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question and probably not one answer a number of things that come to mind.
Certainly we, you know, we embed ourselves in the publications and, you know, the newsletters and the associations we attend of that agriculture association. We attend those association meetings. So we meet regularly with the farmers and we're in the room when they're talking about concerns at their agriculture association. So we really deeply understand the issues and concerns they have.
We talk regularly as a team about the clients that we're speaking with to try to learn about their particular business.
We've learned a lot. I mean, obviously every farm is unique, but there are a lot of commonalities on different commodity groups. And so a dairy farmer would have many of the same challenges as dairy farmers across Canada or an egg farmer or a poultry farmer.
We, I guess I'd also say this just occurred to me now. We. We brought a member of our team, one of our Smartergy consultants in P.E.I.
grew up on a dairy farm. He's been a dairy farmer since he was a boy. He's born into a dairy farm, lives on a farm in P.E.I. and he raises calves for show.
And so having John Raymond on our team, wow. Like, that's just really brought a whole new level of understanding to. To what the daily life is of a farmer. And that's helped. That's helped our team tremendously.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: Love it. Lots of. So the. How do you expose them to as many different things, whether it's publications, experiences, conferences, lived experience, having somebody on the team, all those things, you're kind of immersing them. Yeah, that world. Yeah, that's. That's cool. We. When I used to work at Unilever, I mean Unilever is a massive organization. We've watched pockets than we would Be able to do. We used to do, like, customer experience experiences. Right. So working on like. And the one that always stuck out was for AX deodorant, because it, you know, AX is made for teenage boys, of which not one. And so if you were working on the Axiom brand, you'd go away for the weekend with a bunch of teenage boys.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: Experience life the way they experience. Wow.
To get into the head and understand the client that you're talking to. So, okay, I'm in a position to necessarily do that for all of our customers. Customers. But what you're talking about is the kind of more pragmatic way that you might do that. Unfortunately, it's not. Not teenage boys that you're lucky for us.
Holiday camp by the ocean bore before.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Very eye opening. Very eye opening.
[00:25:37] Speaker B: That could be a whole podcast on its own, too.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: Whole different thing. That's a whole different things. We don't need to talk about.
You talk. I mean, your. Your passion for what you do, like, shines through, which I think is interesting, because you said it wasn't you that started the business. This was Mark's business. And you came from a corporate background originally, so not an entrepreneur. So, like, tell me about where the. Where's the passion come from? How do you have the spark you have?
[00:26:06] Speaker B: So, yeah, gosh, these are great questions, and I'm sure I'm gonna hang out.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: None of them. I sent you ahead of time, so.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: Well, no, I'm gonna. I'm gonna hang up this call and go, oh, I should have said this. I should have said that anyway, but just spontaneously, my answer would be, I'm passionate about building.
So the opportunity to build a business together. I mean, the business existed already, but Mark and I together are building it to new heights that really lights my fire.
Building teams, building organizations. And that I've done my entire career, albeit not as the owner of the business.
I'm passionate about building value in our community.
So building an entrepreneurial team that is building employment, that is building manufacturing in our home province.
And we're building a team and a business that ultimately is going to support farm businesses, but also it's going to save the planet. So now as I look at this chapter in my career, I feel like I'm building value in the community. I'm making an effort in securing, you know, food security, an effort in improving the planet. And I'm building value for my family, for myself, and for my community. Like, checkbox, checkbox, checkbox, checkbox. Right.
So, yeah, I think probably that that aspect of building something that maybe didn't exist before or accelerating something that didn't exist before, that, that really is what gets me excited.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: And there's a lot of nuggets in there too, right? Because it, I mean it is sometimes easier and perhaps rightly so if you're in non profit world, for example, right? The man. The mandate of your organization is likely one that touches the tugs at the heartstrings more. If you're, you know, in an organization that is doing food security or climate change or ending homelessness or some of those kind of big kind of drawers, you kind of have a passion for the mandate. But for somebody that's like going into work in a insurance call center, right, that's perhaps doesn't have, you don't immediately intrinsically think, yeah, saving the planet. But there's. What you're talking about is alignment, right? Understanding your own values, understanding how your values translate to where you're working and making sure that you're working in a place where you can go check, check, check, check, check in the morning and be excited about going. And it works very cool. And you clearly know yourself super well, which I know.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: Well, I think it's, you know, I think it's really important. And one of the lessons that we try to impart on our three children is, you know, I don't know that there are many natural check gates in life where you have to ask yourself those value based questions. You know, I heard a mentor, business mentor years and years ago say it's totally fine the corporate ladder, but you, sorry, it's totally fine to climb the corporate ladder, but you better stop once in a while and look up and make sure the ladder is leaning on the right building. I'd like to try to live my life by constantly evaluating am I moving in the direction that's going to get me to where I would like to be one day. And I think that's probably a big part of the reason. Like if you look at my resume, you know, you probably think I have adhd, like I worked in so many different careers and so many different jobs, but every single time I can think specifically the conversation Sophie, my wife and I had when I made that change to say, you know, this is perhaps a bit of a non traditional jump, but I'm doing it because it moves me here.
Jeez, I'm getting really philosophical here.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: No, it's. But this is the stuff we don't talk about, right? Like I had a conversation with somebody a few months ago going through a couple of things I was trying to fathom in my head. And she put language to something that I think I've always thought about but never really been able to articulate. And she was talking to me about values based living versus goals based.
So you're climbing the corporate ladder.
Like, what do I want to get, where do I want to get to? What do I want to have different from? Am I actually waking up every day and doing what floats my boat and, and fulfills me as a human being? They're not mutually exclusive. You can accomplish your goals by living a value space life, but if you're only living a goals based life, it tends to be less fulfilling. Right. And you're constantly thinking about what next, what next, what next, where burnout can also come from. Right. I think that's a. It's a really important conversation and one I'm not sure that we do have early enough with people. I mean, I have kids too, and the, the conversation is often, what do you want to do?
[00:30:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:21] Speaker A: Like, rather than what's important to you? Like, who do you want, who do you want to be? Not what do you want to be? That's a job do. Like what job do you want to do? Do you want to be an accountant, a doctor, lawyer, like those types of things. Right. So I think that's a great point. So you didn't come out of corporate world, entrepreneurial world. I did the same, albeit I don't have a co. I don't have a co pilot in. In quite the same way, which maybe I will give some consideration to because it sounds kind of fun to have somebody else in it with you if you can get the contracts in place.
What have been some of the biggest shifts for you in corporate entrepreneur?
[00:30:58] Speaker B: Yeah, great question.
Managing cash flow sucks. I'm just gonna call it. I'm just gonna say it. You know, I've been so w.
Every entrepreneur in this call probably knows that already.
Yeah. I've been so fortunate in my past careers that when I wanted to try a new strategy or build a new wing of the business or hire someone for a new role, I had access to the cash. Just by the nature of the types of organizations I was in, that's not the case. And so you can have all kinds of great ideas, but if you don't have the cash to fund it, it's not going to happen. I think my biggest surprise is that the two worlds are actually really not that different.
You know, in fact, there was a. For a while, I was Saying, because I've been really enjoying this, the ups and the downs. And I've been saying, I was saying at one point, geez, you know, I wish I became an entrepreneur sooner. I probably would be better equipped today if I had become an entrepreneur sooner. And a really good friend of mine, Mark Bishop, who is co CEO, in fact, of a major film and TV production company, who has been an entrepreneur forever, he challenged me. He said, no, no, no, Jeff. He said, I wish that I had been in the corporate world sooner.
There's lessons and experiences you've had that I don't have the benefit of. So I've been kind of challenging my thinking on that ever since Mark said that to me.
So, you know, we're talking about engaging and motivating people to accomplish something greater than the sum of the parts. There's something about having real skin in the game that that makes a difference in how you make decisions and how you spend your time. If you're not delivering value every single day, you're going to be out of business or you're not going to make payroll.
So I often think that there's a lot that the corporate world, the public sector world, can take as lessons from the entrepreneur world. Imagine if everybody in every industry had that real skin in the game. Imagine if our public servants or large corporations had people that were making decisions as if their payroll depended on it. Yeah, that might be interesting.
[00:33:01] Speaker A: Well, and even for us, a lot of people struggle coming into our world because we're a consulting firm to put a cost to their time, right? So as soon as you say to people, okay, you've got billable targets, you've got utilization rates, you have to generate X much revenue in the run of a week, you start realizing how much time just disappears out of the window. And you're like, well, like, where did that go? What did I do for three hours today? Well, I thought I was working really hard, but I'm like, I don't know what I did did today, right? And so I think. But those things help people realize how value is created, right? And then they understand what it is that they're doing to contribute to the sustainability of the organization or the delivery or how do we pay for pay increases? Well, we pay for pay increases by being able to be more profitable, right? So I've been asking all of our guests to, to wrap up their conversation with me by giving everybody one tip. So when they think about working with people, leadership, something in that realm, what is one tip that you want to share with the world that you have learned or been useful to you that might be useful for others.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: I don't even have to think for a microsecond to give you the answer to that. And it might sound cheesy, but it's absolutely the power of belief. I'm just a firm, firm believer that we create our own realities, we create our own belief system, and it's not like some magic secret sauce. There was a book written and a movie done 15 years ago that. I'm not going to say the name of the movie because it drives me crazy how they made this power of belief seem like some secret sauce. Oh, I just dreamt about money and checks started coming in the mail. That's bs. It doesn't work that way. It's hard work indeed. Yeah, imagine. Right. Wouldn't that be great?
It's hard work. Like there are tools and techniques and practices that every person can employ to shape their belief system, shape their current reality, and those drive our behaviors and drive our outcomes.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I can see that. It's lovely. Brilliant tip and one you've shared with me and I'm trying to do. It made me more of a Jess way than a Jeff way. But definitely, yeah, love it.
Listen, thank you so much for making time to come and chat with me today. I think we've covered all kinds of useful things, from the joys and ups and downs of family and contracting to co CEOs to team engagement to the wonderful world of farmers and how we get people to understand the world. World they live in.
Really appreciate you coming on and sharing your wisdom with us. So thank you very much.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Thank you, Jess. It's been great.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: All right, Jess, so here's your question for this week. Okay. You ready? Okay, I have. I had to tell someone on my team they didn't get the promotion they were hoping for. And ever since they've been really down and checked out, I'm not sure how to help them bounce back or if they even will. Any ideas?
Okay.
Yes. Okay, good one. So they applied for a promotion. Is that what it says? They didn't or just a job? Yes. They applied for a promotion. Yes. Okay. Promotion. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, bad news.
Giving people bad news is never fun. The first thing I'd say is, so let's deal with where they are. Then we come back to how you have that conversation in the future that might not cause them to. You fall over quite so much.
So there is nothing to stop you from dealing with what you have in front of you with that person. So if if they're what I call off pattern. Right. So you're saying the person's not bouncing back or kind of deflated or whatever. Understandably so. They were probably hopeful they were going to get this job and they didn't get it. Deal with what's in front of you. So you seem down and flat since we had the last conversation or just want to check in with you after either promotion conversation, how are you doing? And open the door to a conversation about how they're feeling and see if they will share kind of what's going on with you about it. And really a lot of that conversation is going to be perhaps doing what might have been done in the first conversation if it wasn't. So I'll talk about that in a second.
And it's really about listening, kind of empathizing with where they are, like helping them feel, come to terms with the decision and those types of things. There is a model called the Scarf model, which is developed by the Neuro Leadership Institute out of New York, which I love, which is about motivations in the brain. So what makes you happy or un. Like happy or unhappy. And they talk about threat and reward, right? We respond to threat and reward. And so when you have to give somebody bad news, what you're going to do is essentially press all their threat buttons. And so that person has an emotional response to all of the negative things that you're telling them. And so you can use that model and if you Google it, you'll find it, but you can use that model to help prep for that type of conversation. Or if you didn't do it, the first conversation in this one, I'd use it to prep for this conversation. So the five, five, the five trigger points. They talk about status, which is about feeling important.
Certainty, which is about knowing the plan, having the future, not being gray. Like gray ambiguity is bad. Like I want to have some sense of what's coming.
Autonomy, which is about control and freedom. Relatedness, which is about belonging and fairness, which is about being treated fairly. So when you think about not getting a job, particularly a promotion, or particularly if that person really thought they were going to get it or all those types of things, then they don't feel important anymore. I didn't get the job. Like what now? Maybe I'm not good enough. All those thoughts will go through their heads. They don't have any certainty. So who is getting the job? Does that mean I don't have a job? Will I ever get a job now? Whenever, get a promotion? Like all those Things go off. They don't have any control over that process because somebody else picked their destiny for them. They may worry that that affects how they're seen and the relationships they have. And they won't know how the decision was made, so they'll question the fairness of it. And so any one of those buttons will cause some kind of negative emotional reaction in somebody to a degree. If you've walloped all five of them, it's kind of not surprising that that person is having not the best day, week, month. Right? And so what we want to do is when we give the bad news originally in the first conversation, we want to speak to those things. But if you miss it, you can come back and do it later. It's not like we get one shot with people. We never get shot again. You can have the conversation. So it's, how do you make that person feel reassured that they are important? Important? Look, just because you didn't get the promotion doesn't mean you won't get the next one. I can't guarantee you anything, but, like, you're super valuable here. You're really well respected in what you do. You're great at your current job, right? So don't take this as a kick to how important you are, because that's not what it is. Then you work on the certainty in the control piece. So let's figure out a plan for how you can work on the areas that you need to develop in in order to get a job in the future. Again, I can't guarantee you anything, but let's look at why you know what wasn't so strong in your interview. Let's build a plan to work on those things. And you're giving them some certainty. Again, you're giving them some control back. Give them proper feedback from why they weren't successful in the interview. Then it's fair. It wasn't. You just didn't pick me. I can actually point to the things that you need to work on and that you need to build on. Let's build them into your plan. Then you know it was a fair process. And because I'm working with you to support you on this, we have a good relationship. I'm kind of boosting you that way, right? So that's an example of kind of how you might, might use those trigger points to kind of frame that conversation and, and be okay with people being unhappy. Like, so one of the things that I always say to folks is data just tells you someone cares, right? Emotions are a form of data. They just Tell you the person cares. And in this case they. They care unhappily because they didn't get something they wanted doesn't mean they won't ever. Right. But the more that we focus on those kind of buttons, the more that we can help them move to a more positive place, place more quickly. So Scarf is definitely worth checking out. If you're going to have to give somebody bad news, you can use it to prep for that conversation. Or if you see that somebody's unhappy about something, you could kind of listen to what they're saying to figure out which of those triggers might be causing the reaction and help to remove it from the situation. So that's a very short answer to what could be a longer situation. But I start with that open door conversation about how they're feeling. Try and reassure them on any of those points that you hear or all of them if you want to do and then see if they're progressing over time.
But also be patient. I mean, if the person really wanted a promotion and they didn't get it, they're not going to suddenly bounce back tomorrow. And that's okay. As long as they're showing up respectfully and professionally and still continuing to do their job, then let them lick their wounds for a while. That's all right.
Amazing. And is there any place online that people can go to find that information or anywhere you would direct folks for more information on that? If you. So if you, if you want to Google the NeuroLeadership Institute, you'll get some information about what they do. But if you Google Scarf and the Neuro Leadership Institute, it'll tell you all about that framework. And you can also do, I think you can still do it. They have an assessment of it online so you can do your own assessment and see what your major SCARF triggers are. And it always used to be free. I don't know if it still is, but it used to be free. So that's definitely something I would look into if I was a leader in an organization and didn't know about it. It amazing. We'll put that in the show. Notes for listeners.
Thanks.
So that's it for today's episode. I have to say I was reminded again through the conversation with Jeff about the power of mindset and when. If you think you can, you can, and if you think you can't, you can't. So one for me to take away from today's episode. I'm sure there were other nuggets in there that will resonate differently with different people. So if you have comments on any of that, please let me know know@contact3ca of course, don't forget to follow us on Spotify, itunes or check out our website for various episodes. Now, next time we're going to have a slightly different episode. We don't actually have a guest Next time we have a full episode of just Ask Jess Scenarios. So I'll be talking about different tools, techniques, frameworks and dealing with the situations that have come in on email that you would like my thoughts or input on. So that is the plan for our next episode. I hope I see you there.
