Discover Time Management, Productivity and Goal Setting Hacks with David Blackmore

In today’s episode, we dive deep into the strategies that separate thriving businesses from those struggling to keep up.

Our guest David Blackmore will reveal expert insights on mastering time management, boosting productivity, and setting goals that not only meet daily demands but drive sustainable business growth.

Whether you're a small business owner juggling multiple roles or a procurement professional looking to enhance team efficiency, this episode is packed with actionable tips.

We’ll explore how to transform distractions into focus, align goals with market trends, and create a culture of productivity that permeates through every level of your organisation.

ABOUT THE GUEST

David Blackmore is the Founder and Director of Blackmore Business Solutions.

With over 25 years of experience as an Operations expert, David has mastered the art of leading and managing complex multi-site and multi-brand operations. His passion lies in creating thriving environments where talent flourishes, careers are developed, and true potentials are realised.

David’s expertise spans operational excellence, customer service, and change management. He delivers practical coaching and training using world-renowned models from Blanchard and Mastering Multi Units, empowering leaders to enhance their skills and confidence.

Today I welcome David onto the podcast, to share his invaluable insights and experiences on Time Management, Productivity and Goal setting.

Where to discover more about David and his work:-

Website:       https://blackmorebusinesssolutions.com/
LinkedIn:       https://www.linkedin.com/in/%F0%9F%93%9Adavid-blackmore-17810626/
LinkedIn:       https://www.linkedin.com/posts/blackmore-business-solutions_unleashyourpotential-coaching-dreambig-activity-6915979765132726272-pu7W/?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=android_app&fbclid=IwAR2joUCj1ROwgQhKFhmuyIx-rTCDDjttYYDKaKEvevaL-FD0up9du_Uoyqk  
Facebook:     https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100081321082707 Instagram:    https://www.instagram.com/blackmorebusinesssolutions/

ABOUT THE HOST

My name is Dave Barr and I am the Founder and Owner of RLB Purchasing Consultancy Limited.

I have been working in Procurement for over 25 years and have had the joy of working in a number of global manufacturing and service industries throughout this time.

I am passionate about self development, business improvement, saving money, buying quality goods and services, developing positive and effective working relationships with suppliers and colleagues, and driving improvement through out the supply chain.

Now I wish to share this knowledge and that of highly skilled and competent people with you, the listener, in order that you may hopefully benefit from this information.

CONTACT DETAILS

@The Real Life Buyer
Email: david@thereallifebuyer.co.uk
Website: https://linktr.ee/thereallifebuyer

For Purchasing Consultancy services:
https://rlbpurchasingconsultancy.co.uk/
Email: contact@rlbpurchasingconsultancy.co.uk

Find and Follow me @reallifebuyer on Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads and TikTok.

Click here for some Guest Courses - https://www.thereallifebuyer.co.uk/guest-courses/

Click here for some Guest Publications - https://www.thereallifebuyer.co.uk/guest-publications

Transcript

David Blackmore  00:00

Welcome to the Real Life Buyer podcast. In this podcast, you will hear interviews with business owners, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, authors and technical specialists in their field. These professionals will hasten your development, accelerate your career, and broaden your business know how. Now, introducing your host, Dave Barr, interviewing with a purchasing twist.

Dave Barr  00:21

Hello and welcome to The Real Life Buyer. I'm thrilled to introduce you to my guest today, David Blackmore, the founder and director of Blackmore Business Solutions, with over 25 years of experience as an Operations expert. David has mastered the art of leading and managing complex multi site and multi brand operations. His passion lies in creating thriving environments where talent flourishes, careers are developed, and true potentials are realized. David's expertise spans operational excellence, customer service and change management. He delivers practical coaching and training using world renowned models from Blanchard and Mastering Multi Units empowering leaders to enhance their skills and confidence. So without further ado, I welcome David onto the podcast to share his invaluable insights and experiences on time management, productivity and goal setting. Hello, David. How are you today.

David Blackmore  01:24

Hi David. Thanks for that great introduction. So, build me up very, very nicely. So thank you for that.

Dave Barr  01:29

Absolute pleasure, my friend. So let's get to know you a little bit more. You know, we've had many a coffee together and attended various functions. Obviously, the audience may or may not know you. So let's start by hearing a little bit about your career and your personal journey that's inspired you to coach others on leadership development and management, for example.

David Blackmore  01:52

Yeah. So, I mean, I've had a varied career, I suppose, over a number of years. As you say, the gray hair and the gray beard attest to the length of service, I suppose. So I started out many, many moons ago, you know, early years in the Air Force and things, and then stumbled into hospitality, where I worked for Mitchells and Butler's for 15 years and worked in numerous brands in leadership roles, Toby Carvery, Miller & Carter steakhouses, Harvester restaurants, and worked as an area manager and operations throughout that, working in pubs, bars, hotels. So I was there at the very beginning of Toby Carvery and Innkeepers Lodge, doing all of that. So that was my early career, and arguably, kind of my main area of expertise, being in the hospitality area back then. And then I changed career slightly, moved into Welcome Break motorway service areas, which was a complete shift. And back then, I suppose, motorway service areas were very own brand led. And it was, it was, you know, little coffee shop and a little this, and a little that. I had the great honour of going in and working with some fabulous people that I've known for a number of years through different brands and different ways of working. And we worked on the early days of pushing motorway service areas into the kind of food court operation that you see now, and worked with a number of world renowned brands that you now see in there, you know, coffee shops, KFC, Burger King, Starbucks, Waitrose, Harry Ramsden fish and chip shops, along with all the petrol retailers. And done that as well for probably another 14, 15, years. So that that's where my kind of 30 years of operational experience I was ended up at Membury services on the M4 which is a very large double sided site, looking after probably 19 different businesses at that point, then all different brands, all different types. And throughout my entire journey, I've had this real passion about people. So, you know, I've kind of delved into training and HR, alongside being an operator and and that's a kind of a difficult area, I suppose, is as a hard nosed operator, you're not always focused on the people and the people side of it. What I've always found, and I've always lived by this mantra, is that you succeed by your people. And so I've always worked on developing my people, building them up, getting them to really grow their own careers. And I suppose I've been very proud just how many people I can honestly look back and say I've played a small part in their development of their career, going forward and starting up my own business was quite a big call. It was, you know, I got to that stage where I felt my time with Welcome Break had come to an end. My time of traveling the country and being away from home all the time and doing that, I wanted to look at pushing forward and moving forward. So that's where we got to the point where I started up Blackmore Business Solutions and started out on my own.

Dave Barr  05:04

I sure think it's quite a challenging environment. Hospitality, we know that sector is challenged at the moment. It's not high profit necessarily business. You've got lots of people, lots of changes of people. It's pretty fast paced. I would have thought in many ways, do you see a big shift in the way things operate from, let's say today to what they were 10 years ago?

David Blackmore  05:26

Yeah, listen, David, I think there's a huge shift from four or five years ago. Covid played a huge part in the hospitality industry, and I think it's genuinely changed it forever, not all of it good, in my humble opinion. But I think hospitality has always been a tough business because there's always those tough expectations on people. And you're you're helping people in their downtime to have a great time, and when everybody else is out having a great time, you're there working and having to put that time in. And the great hospitality retailers, the great hospitality people know that. I think covid changed life. Covid changed life a lot because we suddenly had to separate tables. You suddenly didn't have this thriving environment. And the the one thing that you know, and again, this is a purely personal opinion, but everybody had to, shift their emphasis and go into home deliveries, and the world of Deliveroo and Just Eat and all of those people is a wonderful convenience for everybody at home. Personally, I think it's had a real adverse effect on hospitality. And a number of areas and a lot of hospitality operators are only just coming to terms with how to deal with that very profitable part of their business that they have to maintain now to keep going alongside, how do I now look after people in true hospitality that are actually taking the time to come out and visit us? And I think that's one of the biggest challenges I see out in hospitality now, is some people that are coming into the workforce have never really experienced true hospitality, because they are the covid generation, but are now in the workforce, and for them, that kind of transactional mode is normal. Hospitality is not transactional. Hospitality is about people. Hospitality is about that face to face interaction. And how do you make somebody feel special when they come out and spend time with you. And so there's, there's a real challenge in hospitality now, I think, just to make sure that lives and breathes, and those that are doing it right are really, really busy, yeah, so that that thing about hospitality isn't busy anymore, but that's a fallacy. The people that are doing it right are busy and are thriving. I just think people are getting a bit cleverer about where they spend their pound notes.

Dave Barr  07:44

Yeah, you certainly when things are difficult, people obviously are far more selective on where they go, perhaps more critical as well expect better service for their money, etc. So the pressure must go on the front line, I would guess, and thinking about, say, hospitality is probably quite highly pressurized, because the expectations, the speed of service, you know, what people are looking for, has, as you say, changed somewhat. So just thinking in that context as a coach, how do you help your clients balance the need for those short term productivity hits against sort of the mid to long term strategic goals. So particularly in a fast place business environment like hospitality, where the needs for immediate results could often overshadow the planning for the future.

David Blackmore  08:35

Yeah, and I think, David, it's an interesting one, isn't it? I I often found, I found before summertime that there was an awful lot of operators out there that were, oh, we'll, we'll do the training and development when we're not busy. And you kind of sit and go, hold on, surely, you want to do that training and development before you get busy so you can maximize that return on investment. And the clever ones did. So you know, through my work with mastering multi units. We work with a number of brands, and mastering multi units is all working with area managers, and it's that long strategic development, as you say, but we were working alongside them in August, and we were working with some operators at their busiest times, because that's when you're going to get your immediate results and your immediate return on investment. Because if you can get it right when you're busy, that's when you get your real return on investment. And so I think it's that real balance between, have I got time to train and develop people, versus what happens if I don't train and develop great people? That there was always this, this wonderful thing that I got taught very early on in my life as an operator, where somebody said, what if I train them up to be brilliant and they leave? And the answer, obviously is, well, what if you don't and they stay? And I think that's the same thing. What if I take time out of my busy time to train people and miss out on opportunities. Well, what happens if you don't train those people to be brilliant when you're busy and you've missed out on loads of opportunities? So I think the work in coaching about this strategic long term vision is every long term vision has an immediate need to take action today. It's all very you know, I'm sure we'll talk about goals at some point today. David, but it's all very well having an action plan. It's all very well having a long term goal, but if you don't actually start doing something about it, you're never going to get there anyway. So I when people say, How do you balance it? I don't think there is a balance. I think you have to do something straight away now to take that first step towards achieving your strategic goals.

Dave Barr  10:45

Yeah, things are right. So there's a challenge going on here, where people have these great ambitions and where they want to be in 123, years, but they're at the front line, as I said earlier on, where they're having to deal with the here now, the problems, the firefighting, as you say, training people, retaining people, energizing people to really enjoy their work. And I think you're exactly right in saying training people. They see it as an investment in them. Perhaps they feel that they are worthy of more and and when they get that training that satisfies a need. If you're stuck in a job and you have to do the same thing day after day after day and not get any support and training. I guess it's pretty soul destroying.

David Blackmore  11:28

So, yeah, I think that's true in any job, isn't it? You know? Yes, whilst I work with an awful lot of hospitality people, we work across a whole range of companies. You know, I work with electricians, joiners, egg manufacturers, you know, you name it, we work with them. And I think it's the same in every single job role. Unless people feel valued at work and feel energized by what they're doing and really understand the why behind what they're doing, absolutely, which is a real key, then that's when the mundane, average performance comes from everybody, and we don't want to accept average. You know, I hate average.

Dave Barr  12:08

Yeah. So a lot of this, in my opinion, boils down to task prioritization. You've got lots of things to do. Which ones do you select as being the most important? So how do you kind of recommend career professionals and business owners? How do they should they differentiate between the urgent tasks and those that are genuinely important for long term success?

David Blackmore  12:32

David, I you know, listen, most people would have heard of the model. There's a model that I've been using for every single day of my career, I have to be honest with you, called the Eisenhower Time Matrix. And people will have heard it in different names and different things, but it was termed by Eisenhower, you know, that great American President who also done the D Day landing, and he had this phrase, not everything that's important is urgent, and not everything that's urgent is important, and it's something that I've lived and died by. We use it in most of our training courses, certainly about prioritizing. And how do you understand how to make the best use of your time and be most productive? And you know, we could probably spend the whole podcast talking about this one subject, but in very quick terms, we have four quadrants, quadrant one, quadrant two, quadrant three, quadrant four. And the whole premise is that quadrant four is stuff that we just waste time on. And we tend to do things in quadrant four because we are feeling overwhelmed by things that are happening in quadrant one and quadrant three. Okay. And so we just go there. We head there to waste time for ourselves. Social media just useless things that we do. I have a great tendency, and I know I do it, so I catch myself doing it where I'll go, I'll go on LinkedIn, because that's work, really, isn't it? No, it's not David. That's just cheating yourself, saying it's not Facebook. You're doing LinkedIn instead. And that's that quadrant four bit, and you've just got to eliminate it and take that time out of out of your world. Q3 is things that are other people's issues. So if things are urgent, but they're not important, and that could be anything, that could be that person popping their head around the corner going, Oh, have you got 10 minutes to talk to me about this, and it turns into an hour, and it's just sucking your time away. This is people that it's their priorities, not your priorities. It's the phone ringing. You know, I've turned my phone off to do this podcast with you, because if it rings, it's that urgent thing, it destroys what you're currently doing. Q1, are the things that are urgent and important, but they're generally things that you've just left to the last minute. Yeah, they're generally things that we know that we should have been doing, but it just comes up and it suddenly becomes urgent because the deadlines tomorrow. Of course, there are other things that do happen, that just happen to us on a daily basis. You know emergencies happen. Don't know, you can't eliminate this completely. You can't eliminate Q1 and Q3 completely. You can just reduce your time on it. But the whole purpose of this is to look at Q2 and this is the important stuff that's not urgent. So it's really important to you've taken whatever your strategic plan is, whatever your goal is, whatever you know you've got to do, and you've planned time into your diary to make sure that that happens. I mean, we planned our time together well a couple of months ago, indeed, it wasn't urgent. It's really important. It's important to me. I wanted to appear on your podcast for a long time, so I've planned my diary for the last couple of months around the fact that's already planned in there. It's done, it's in place. It's rock solid. And that's what you need to do, is live in that Q2 moment and eliminate Q4 completely, reduce Q1 and Q3 as much as you possibly can. You can't do it completely and live your life in Q2 if you live your life in Q2, alongside goal setting and strategic planning and all of those things and planning timing to plan time. You know, I in my diary, I've got planning time to plan time, yeah? And I know that sounds a bit weird, but if you don't plan time, to plan Yeah, organize yourself, yeah, and organize yourself, you'll never get there. So that's the real basis. And listen, I could talk for hours about the Time Matrix, but that's the in a nutshell. A real quick precis of it.

Dave Barr  16:29

Yeah. Now it's interesting. Some of the things that people say, sometimes you just want to get a little endorphin hit by finishing something. And you know, we're talking about doing the urgent, the important something else, but sometimes your brain, I guess, needs to take a little bit of a time out, because it could be very exhausting, the work you're doing and trying to stay focused for long periods of time could be challenging. So how would you say is the best way of just grabbing a little dopamine hit, of achieving something which gives your brain almost time to Oah, that's good. I feel good about myself now. Now I can jump back in on the focus stuff. Is there any thoughts on there? 

David Blackmore  17:07

Yeah. And I think, listen, there's an easy little trick, David, I add things onto my to do list that I've just done, yep, just so I can put a tick in the box, because you're right. You need that little endorphin hit that says, well done, pat on the back, you know, and that I will freely admit to being a Q1 addict in the past. I'm a recovering Q1 addict. I I love that hit of firefighting and going, oh yeah, I've achieved this, I've done this, I've fought this, I've won the battle. And so it takes me an awful lot of work to plan effectively, because I like that passion about doing things, but I think what you need to do is break all of the tasks that you've got down into really small moments in time, and don't expect yourself to be able to focus for four or five hours at a time. You can't do it, you know, reward yourself with saying, Actually, I'm going to focus. Set an alarm if you need to, you know, if you're working on something, set an alarm for 40 minutes time and say when that alarm goes off. I'm going to reward myself with five minutes of social media. I'm going to reward myself with going and making a quick cup of coffee, because I've achieved 40 minutes of real focus on what I said that I would do. And I think that's the best thing that I can say to people. If you plan 100% of your day, guess what? You're going to fail on some of it. So I whenever I'm working with clients, and I've got one that I work with at the moment, I'm sure he won't mind me name checking in. Yeah, when we started working with Clive Watkins and Pizza Pilgrims, he was probably planning 95% of his day, and failing on 50% of it, managed to get him down to where he was going. Oh, yeah, you know, I can't get to the 50 60% but I'm only doing 70% now, but finding himself far more successful in that 70% of his time. And whenever I work one on one with clients, you know, I'm working with Chris Beanie at the moment, everybody knows. So you know, not sharing any trade secrets. Chris is working really hard on not planning 100% of his day, because if you plan 100% you'll fail some of it. You plan 50 to 60% leave yourself some wiggle room for that, Q1 and Q3 three things that are going to come at you each day, then at least you can yourself on the back at the end of the day that you were successful with what you did plan, yeah, and planning those little breaks, as you say, I think that's a great point that you made, David, is that? How can I give myself a treat to say well done. You achieve something there. Yeah,

Dave Barr  19:34

Yeah, as you rightly say, if you over plan, you hit you know you've literally filled your diary from minute to minute to minute, as you say, you will fail some things. And that's the thing that you will probably tell yourself, I didn't achieve this. I didn't do that. And you start beating yourself up a little bit over that, rather than then taking the fact you've got some really good successes, and you've overtasked yourself.

David Blackmore  19:56

Absolutely and you know, mental well being. And. Workforce nowadays is really paramount. I think we've become far more open about mental wellbeing, and being able to plan effectively, and being able to succeed in what you're planning is one of the biggest benefits for your mental wellbeing. And you're absolutely right. If you're failing on things. That's what you tend to focus on. And you forget all the things you've succeeded at. And and I you know, one of the things that we work with mastery, multi units on, and my great friend Lee Sheldon, is the full focus productivity workshop on and a productivity code of 60, 30, 10, minutes a month, 30 minutes a week, 10 minutes a day, just to plan effectively what you're going to do. We like to talk about the big three. So we say, okay, what are the big three things that you're going to achieve? I know you might want to achieve 23 things, but what are the three things that you're absolutely going to achieve this month, this week, today, and at least then you can go, actually, yes, I achieved my big three. And that's the big dopamine hit that you need to do. To be honest, say I had a successful day. I achieved my big three.

Dave Barr  21:13

Now, one of the things we're all challenged with is more and more. So I would say, is distraction. We talked about social media, people are getting very used to seeing small clips of things very repeatedly. And I'm hearing that people who are trying to learn, certainly the young generation now, are struggling to concentrate for more than, you know, minutes at a time, because that's what they're seeing and getting used to. Their brains are coming accustomed to that. So you mentioned earlier one about achieving a really focused period of time. Let's say 40 minutes. Are you seeing the difficulties of constant distraction impacting on perhaps your clients? And have you come up with ways to help them to get into a focused state.

David Blackmore  22:01

I think you're right, David, and listen, I work with a number of clients, and you know, if anybody's not looking at things like ADHD and attention spans in people, you know, I think all of us are more aware now of the fact that these difficulties exist, and how do you maintain that focus? And you're absolutely right, even LinkedIn now has started videos, hasn't it? So, yeah, you know, as you scroll through, okay, I'll watch that for 30 seconds, and then I move on. And that's what the younger generation today are starting to struggle with, is how do I maintain that focus for a certain period of time, I think that's where you've really got to break down any task, any goal that you're doing, any anything that you're doing. And you've really got to look at situational leadership in its fullness. I done a workshop with a leadership team only two weeks ago where we talked about lost leadership, and that lost leadership was about line of sight, situational leadership. So line of sight means, do I actually know what they're doing? Do I am I really aware? So this, you know, again, we'll talk about delegation, abdication. Abdicating a task is just chucking it away. You know, delegating, you've got to have some real line of sight about, how am I going to ensure that that person is going to be successful with what they're doing? And the situation will be, is okay, have they got all of the competence and commitment to delivering this task? And you've got to judge that on every individual goal, every individual task and work out quite how much direction or support you're going to have to give this person for them to achieve the task, because if you know that somebody has got an attention span of 20 minutes, well fine, don't give them a task that's going to take 40 minutes to do. Break it down into 2 20 minute sections, and then you'll check in with them after 20 minutes, have a chat, put your arm on the shoulder. How are you getting on with it? Do you need anything else? Because we've got to be aware of it. We've got to be aware of how that does. And I think something that I'm finding that relates to this point is the reverse of what most people look at. So when we talk about generational leadership, people are always thinking, oh, like you've got to look at how you manage the younger generation. How do we manage Generation X? How do we manage all of these people that are coming through? I'd argue that my children are now going into management at the age of 24, 25 How do they manage me? Because that's what they've got to start learning, is that the people of our generation can't work in these quick, sharp, 5, 10, minute things. I need a little bit more substance around what I'm doing. So I think it's just as vital that people are in leadership understand the older generation that they're now starting to manage, and how they don't adapt to the modern way as it is for our generation to understand, how do we adapt and get people to focus that are on this quickly? So it's a real it is a challenge. It's a huge challenge, and but the only way to do it, David, is to treat every single person as an individual. And that's that lost leadership, line of sight, situational leadership that genuinely goes on to every single individual task, every single individual goal, but every single individual person that is doing that goal and task. Just because I've been great at one task doesn't mean I'm going to be great at another task.

Dave Barr  22:22

Yeah, absolutely. That's some good points there. And you mentioned the word goals a few times new clients, and you're quite right. We need to have a quick chat about that. We all know about the lovely SMART goals and its various connotations, but instead you ascribe to setting GREAT goals. Can you explain what you mean by this briefly, and what makes great goals superior to smart ones?

David Blackmore 26:00

We all talk about SMART goals. There's lots of different iterations of SMART goals, and it's a world renowned style of goals and setting goals and making sure that we, you know, all of our goals are smart. Lee Sheldon and myself, Lee said this to me years and years ago where he said, I'm going to make a fortune one day, David, about writing a book about how there is absolutely zero correlation between the ability to write a SMART goal and the ability to actually make that goal happen. Because the ability to write a SMART goal means nothing whatsoever. It's writing a SMART goal gives you the ambition to do something, in my view, what's missing out of a SMART goal, and it doesn't matter what iteration you use. So I do an awful lot of work, as you know, with Blanchard and Blanchard call it stran goals. So because we want to focus on the specific and the trackable part of a goal, so they're the bits that anybody setting a goal can focus on. Is it specific? Is it trackable? And the R and the A and the M are the real, you know, the Relevant, Achievable and Motivating. And they're the bits that the person doing the goal decides on. What's missing from all of these is, where's the action plan. Where's the bit that actually makes that goal come alive and makes it happen? So that's where I came up with my new little thing of GREAT goals. Okay, and believe it or not, I don't Well, I know, you know, because we spoke about it and I laughed about it, but G was the word I was absolutely struggling with because there's about 16,180 words that begin with the letter G, and I had to trawl them all to find one that fitted GREAT goals, believe me. So the GREAT goals, if I just run through it very, very quickly, G is for Game plan. What's the game plan? What are you trying to achieve? So where are you going from x to y by when. And every single goal that you ever set for yourself has to have that very clear from x to y by when. So I'm currently achieving this. I want to get to this, and I want to get there by this time. Yeah. And as long as you've got that game plan that kind of gives you the broad outline and the broad rules of the game of this is where we're going to go to. The R stands for reason. What's my motivation behind the goal? Because if I don't know my motivation behind that goal, then how do I know I want to do it? And people ask me, does this whole system work. David, you've known me for a while now, and if we'd done this podcast a year ago, I'd filled to screen a little bit more because I was six and a half stone heavier than I am now. And so I use this for my own weight loss. You know, I knew what weight I was, I knew what weight I wanted to get to, and I knew when I wanted to get there. My motivation for it, very clearly was health led. I wanted to improve my health. I wanted to live a little bit longer. I wanted to know what I was going to do. To do that. Okay, the empathy is, is there a genuine understanding and Excitement about it? So it's all very well having that game plan. So very well knowing that, you know, there's the reason, there's my motivation for it, but am I really excited? And do I understand the reasons behind it? And certainly, if you're setting a goal for somebody else, are they genuinely excited? You can't decide for them that they're excited or that they understand it, only they can do that, but you can create an environment that is exciting around it. I knew very clearly why I was doing what I doing, and I knew what rewards and recognition I was going to give myself for doing what I'd done. The A is the real bit. That's the difference between SMART goals and GREAT goals, and that's the action plan. What are you actually going to do? When are you going to do it? Who's going to hold you accountable for doing it, and, you know, all of those different things. So we've got lead measures in there. So these are things that you're going to do over and over and over again that you genuinely believe are going to make a difference towards what you're doing. So for me, it was, I'm going to weigh myself every single Friday morning at 7am so that's a lead measure. For me, I am going to go to this exercise class three times a week, whatever that might be, then you've got the lag measures, which are the one off things that you're going to do. And this list is going to grow and grow and grow, of course, during any goal setting. But first of all, go and buy myself a set of scales. Yeah, that that's a one off action that I need to do in order to be able to achieve my goal. But it's no good just saying buy a set of scales. I had to go buy a set of scales that's going to be me that's going to do it. And by the way, I'm going to do it by this date, so that I can then very clearly know what steps are going to be taken when I'm going to take that step and make myself visible to do that, and that's the bit that's really, really missing the T is then Trackable. How do I monitor? How do I progress? How do I know what I'm going to do? So what is my target after one month? What's my target after two months? Very clearly, my weight loss has slowed now, so my targets each month are much less now, because I've got less to lose, but it's still in place. It's still that trackable. So that's the real difference that that I've put on it with GREAT goals. So you've got the G, the R, the E, A and the T. The big difference is that A the absolute action. And even if you want to use SMART goals, I urge everybody fine, write a SMART goal, by all means, but then put it alongside a very clear action plan that says, what's going to be done, when is it going to be done, and who's it going to be done by.

 Dave Barr  31:49

Some good, really good points there, and I touch on a little bit the excitement side of things, because so many people either write their own goals or they necessarily thinking about, how does it excite me? How does it energize me? How to keep me on track, how to visualize how I'm going to get there and what I'm going to look like. For example, in your case, it was, you know, how do I want to perceive myself to be into this state at this time? And that can be quite tough, because, particularly if you're given a goal, you think of big business. We all know the top goals about profitability and time and everything else, sometimes, if difficult to make it exciting.

David Blackmore  32:32

And I think you know, that was the point I made. You can't decide that it's going to be exciting. It's one of the biggest things that people get wrong when they're setting goals for other people, because it's all right when you're doing it for yourself, isn't it? You know, for me, making it exciting for me was quite easy, but when you're setting goals for other people, that's where the difficulty comes. And people just going ahh yeah, that'll be really great for you. Oh, wonderful. Yeah, it feels really great. You've just you, you've just told me I've got a load more extra work to do? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, that's not exciting for me. You might think it's exciting, but it's not for me, and that's where you have to work really hard on, how do I create the environment to make it exciting for somebody else? And the real crux of it, if you put it in simple terms, is let them understand the why behind the what. What's the reason, what's the why, what benefit? How is it going to benefit them? So I always say you've got to tune into radio, W, I, I F, M, yeah, and tune into that every single time you're setting a goal for somebody. And that's What's In It For Me, yep. What do I get out of this? Now sometimes, let's be really blunt about this, sometimes all that's in it for you is, if you make us get this much profit, your job safe?

Dave Barr  33:43

Yeah, absolutely right. Yes, that

David Blackmore  33:46

Yes, that might be all it is, but at least it's exciting, because I know that if I don't make it, I might lose my job. Yeah, so it's how you term it will be different, obviously, but you've got to tune every single goal or task that you're setting for somebody. You've got to tune them into that radio, W, I, I, F, M what's in it for me? And that's really the only way you're going to make it exciting for somebody. David, you can't just go you've got to share my excitement over this.

Dave Barr  34:12

Yeah, I think one of the other aspects being a manager or a leader is to actively support, listen, encourage, follow up with these people as well. Could you just set a task and let them get on with it, and don't check in, don't support them, don't encourage them, to try and help them sometimes, because people get stuck. If they don't get, in my opinion, those kinds of things, then they get a bit down, depressed about things. It becomes less important, less exciting. Would you think that's also important?

David Blackmore  34:42

Oh, David, I think it's a great point that you make, it really is, and listening and understanding the individual is probably the biggest part of leadership that gets missed. There's, you know, a lot of people who think they're really good leaders. A wonderful at abdicating tasks and then blaming the other person for failing in their task. If somebody that you've given a goal or task to fails at it, the very first place you should look is in the mirror, because, yeah, you've done something wrong. But then to you know you either haven't motivated them, or you presume that they'll have the skill and the task. You know, we spoke earlier about this lost Situational Leadership part, and that's really, really important. So many people get flagged as, oh, they're a great person. And I especially find this when people get promoted. By the way. When people get promoted into a new job because they're brilliant at their current job, and then six months later, everyone's going, David used to be so good. What's happened to him? Well, yeah, he was, he was really great at the job that he was trained and highly skilled at. You've put him in a new job, giving him no training, no guidance, no feedback. You haven't listened to his concerns and his worries. If you've just gone you've gone off the boiled and that's the same with all of these tasks, isn't it? You know, you've got to ask questions, you've got to get brilliant at asking questions, and you've got to get brilliant at asking clarifying questions. And what I mean by those clarifying questions, one of the biggest things that the best questions that I ever got taught many, many years ago was when you've given a goal or task to somebody to just say, Okay, can you please tell me what you understand your goal and task now is, and then shut up, then just listen to what they're telling you, because that will tell you how well they understand what you're asking of them. Yeah, you know. And that question is just absolutely brilliant. The other great question to ask is, when somebody comes to you about things, is to say, right? Is this something you want to share your ideas with me, or is this something you'd like me to give you my opinion on how you should achieve it and  that will give you a real key into what their confidence level and their competence level is, and whether you need to give them more or less support, more or less direction in what they're trying to achieve. But that art of kind of conversational capacity, whatever you want to call it, that art of asking really great clarifying questions, but really listening to the answer and listening to what they're doing. You know, the Covey says seek first to understand before being understood, which is just a wonderful way of being. And you're right. That's probably the real key to successful goal or task setting with anybody.

Dave Barr  37:50

Brilliant. Thank you for your feedback on that. Now, before I ask the last question, I see, we're running very close to time now. Where can people find it out more about you? Your business, what you do? What's your social media channels, website, etc?

David Blackmore  38:02

So, LinkedIn, I'm all over LinkedIn, so please, you know, follow me on LinkedIn. I have Facebook as well, both personal and Blackmore Business Solutions. Instagram has got Blackmore Business Solutions and David Blackmore. You know, my business is me, so I tend to use both and on LinkedIn, I've got Blackmore Business Solutions. Then I've got David Blackmore, and then Blackmore Business Solutions.com. Is my website, web address. There will be a new website going live very, very shortly, with a new logo going up. So people will see a new logo and a new website on there. But that's that's the way to get in touch with me. David.

Dave Barr  38:40

Okay, now, just to cap the goal side of things, a slightly different way of thinking about this. I'm thinking about businesses that are particularly influenced by changes. What's going on in the world. We are surrounded by immense change and discord at the moment, and it's directly impacting many, many businesses. So how do you ensure that the goals you set as a leader are aligned not only with your business's immediate needs, but also with market trends and future growth opportunities, especially in those sectors where the conditions are so rapidly changing, you almost don't know where you're going to be in a week's time. Is there a way of trying to balance that out? Listen,

David Blackmore  39:25

Listen, I think change and innovation is absolutely out there, all over the place, David, at the moment, isn't it? And you're right. The world's a very volatile place. You know, we're all waiting with bated breath for the next budget, the next change in leadership, the next change in leader around the world, whatever that might well be. And I think what people need to understand about innovation and change management is sometimes it's not about looking for the next thing you are going to do. It might be about looking at what have I got to stop doing. Yeah, and people tend to not see that as innovation and not being innovative. Well, you know, some of the greatest people and greatest innovators in the world have done it by stopping doing what we're doing. You know, if you think about Apple, they went off the rails for a little while. We're starting to do all sorts of things and said, No, let's stop that and come back to doing what we're great at doing. And I think that's one of the key things that people need to learn in a volatile market, is it might be you've got to stop doing something rather than look for something new. The other thing is, always have a 30, 60, 90 day plan. So you might have an annual goal, you might have annual strategic visions, but you've got to break it down and have a 30, 60, 90 day plan that can be very quickly adapted and changed, dependent on market conditions, depending on what's happening. And don't always feel that you've got to be right. I think that's one of the biggest barriers to success in a goal, success in change management and innovation is people's absolute obsession with always being right and not being willing to go, you know, I might have got that bit wrong. We might have to swivel a little bit here. We might have to pivot on the spot and move over in this direction, because it's just not working. I always used to say to all my people, listen, I'm really behind what I'm doing. So please, let's give it our all. And if by giving our all and doing everything the way that I asked for it to be done, you prove that it doesn't work. We'll change it again. We'll change back, but we're not going to change unless we've tried it the right way first. And so that's the real thing for me, is don't be afraid to be wrong. Be very clear that you can stop doing something to innovate change just as readily as do something new to innovate change and break any pain you've got down into 30, 60, 90 days so that you've got that ability to quickly adapt and quickly change it.

Dave Barr  41:57

Yeah, I really like that. You say we need to be agile. We need to accept that some things that we set out to do right now, which are appropriate and correct in three months, could be absolutely blown out the water because of a significant event, and to carry on blindly following the original goal, because that's what was set, and not changing, will be rather foolish, absolutely. But people do that sometimes. This is the goal I'll set for the year. That's what I'm going to keep banging away at, irrespective of what's going on around me, which is a little bit crazy, perhaps.

David Blackmore  42:29

David, I can tell you a story about a restaurant that I worked with who had a very clear, clear projection of cutting labor costs because that was a way to increase their productivity. They very, very quickly realized that what they were doing was stopping being profitable because of cutting wages. Luckily, they were brave enough to swivel and go, oh, why don't we put more people on and see if we can make some more money? Yeah, if they'd have been stuck in the mud and stuck their head in the sand, they'd probably be out of business. Now, actually.

Dave Barr  43:02

Brilliant. That's a great note to come and finish on, conclude on, lots of nuggets of information and gold that you sprinkled liberally around the podcast there, David, thank you very much for coming on the show.

David Blackmore  43:14

Thank you for thank you for having me on, David, an absolute pleasure and an honour.

Dave Barr  43:19

Yeah. Thank you very much, my friend and we'll see each other for coffee, no doubt soon, absolutely. So there's another Real Life Buyer podcast. I do hope you enjoyed it, and it has given you some ideas and inspiration for greater action and achievement. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes, and a five star review would be most appreciated. If you would like to discover more about me and what I do, take a look at www.thereallifebuyer.co.uk. Bye.