144. From Vision to Execution: How Dependable Executives Drive Success with Bill Nikolouzakis

💭 Ever wonder how true leaders nurture success in small businesses? 

Bill Nikolouzakis is an esteemed keynote speaker, executive coach, and growth consultant. This conversation takes a deep dive into the challenges and victories that shape the entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing the pivotal role of business acumen in weathering the storm of the initial five years.

Bill sheds light on the transformative power of embracing continuous learning, and the indelible impact small businesses have on the economy's fabric. And at the heart of a thriving workplace culture lies servant leadership, the kind which fosters radical candor and genuine care, ensuring every team member feels valued and heard. We discuss the delicate art of balancing high expectations with empathy, and how, by wholeheartedly serving your team, you inadvertently excel in serving your customers.

Learn how to artfully integrate servant leadership principles into your management style and witness the cascade of positive change that follows, both within your team and the wider sphere of your business influence.

🌐 Connect with Bill:
• Website: https://levelsgc.com/ & https://billniko.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billniko10/
• LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/levelsgc/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/billniko10/ & https://www.instagram.com/levelsgrowth/

Book Mentioned:
Screw It, Let's Do It Book by Richard Branson

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:26

Hey, everyone! Welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Bill Nikolouzakis. Bill is a keynote speaker and a growth consultant and an executive coach with an organization called Levels Growth Consultants, and what inspired me to talk to Bill today is his keynote speech that he's done around Servant Leadership, the servant leader, turning your business from good to great, Servant Leadership is something that we've touched on a little bit around the show, but not in any depth. So I'm really excited to unpack it today with Bill to understand where levels is coming from to understand his views about Servant Leadership, what it is, why it works, and give some actionable tips to everyone out there in the audience about how you can embrace Servant Leadership, either as a business leader to grow your business, or if you're a team leader, to generate an amazing high-performance team. So Bill, without any further ado, I'd love to hear more about your background, and what led you into this path around being an executive coach and helping organizations the way that you do.

Bill Nikolouzakis: 1:39

Thanks, Mick, and thanks for having me on the show. So my background is an entrepreneur I started my first business when I was 21. learned some hard lessons and between 21 and 25. And around 26 years old, I started a property research business a digitally enabled business that I sold to an ASX listed property platform iBuyNew and then I fell into corporate so in a couple years later became the Group CEO and Managing Director, and then I was the Chief Revenue Officer of another ASX Listed Property technology company called PropTech Group, a lot of mergers and acquisitions in there a lot of you know new teams coming into an environment. So learn a lot about you know, integrating teams, how to build cultures that were existing cultures that you wanted to maybe improve and sort of brought me to out of my corporate life, I've always loved small business, I get I'm very easily persuaded to join really cool projects. So I get persuaded to go back into corporate when there's something really cool happening. I've always loved small business, I've always loved working with small business owners, and to be completely upfront, there was no nasty plan, I left corporate and a few people reached out for my help. And I built a business around that, and now we love keynote speaking, it's, you know, I say, if somebody would pay me enough to not have to do anything else, that's what I'd love to do. I love speaking to audiences, I love researching. I love researching keynotes, I love putting them together, and I love seeing the reaction of a crowd when the penny drops on a certain topic, and that's what led me here. So I work with a lot of small businesses, whether we consult with them on big projects, you know, improvement projects, sort of to medium sized businesses, or large or small ones, or, you know, we're doing executive coaching for small businesses as well, to help them increase their level.

Mick Spiers: 3:12

So congratulations on your success, Bill, well done, great career yourself. And now you're helping others to forge their businesses and forge their careers. There's an interesting thing that I picked up when you're talking, and here's a lesson for everyone out there. If you're sitting there and maybe you're at a fork in the road, as Rusty Gaillard would call it and you're wondering about what to do next, have to listen to some of the words that bill was using there around, multiple people were coming to him and asking him around the same questions. And if people are coming to you and asking you for your advice, asking you questions around the same topic, again, and again and again, that might be a signal. That's what you're good at and where people see you adding value, so that was the first thing I took away. What I'm curious about Bill is the obsession or I'll call it that with small business? What is it about small business that inspires you?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 4:05

Yeah, interesting one, because, you know, I didn't come from a family of small business owners. You know, my dad drove cabs. My uncle, my mom was a seamstress. And then there was no seamstress in jobs. So she became a kitchen head. So I didn't really have any background. I guess I'm a I'm like a lot of us. I'm a failed sportsman. You know, like until I was 19 years old, I never really worked, I got paid to pay very low level soccer, football. And you know, I tell the story often, but I was sitting on a bench at the second tier of Australian football at 19 years of age. And I had these stark realizations, freezing cold, I remember this dial, because yesterday, it started realization for the first time ever, and this is legitimate. When I was 19. I thought, well, I'm actually not going to be a professional footballer that plays in Europe. And it changed my whole life. I actually quit football, I played the season out and I quit the next year, I just knew I wasn't gonna make it. I just had this overwhelming feeling that I wasn't going to make it and I just threw myself into something else. And that just happened to be working in finance. So I was always good numbers. So we're going to finance when you didn't need any degrees to get into finance as soon my age. And I don't know, I just had a feeling that I could do something a little bit better than what was being done. And that was my first business and it all sort of happened from there, I had no idea what I was doing, you know and the actual service we provided was actually pretty good. It just I had no business idea how to run a business, you know, so those businesses failed not because you know, we could provide a good level of service or wasn't a good idea. Just we just didn't know the basics of running a business because I had no one around me, and then I also had, I guess, I was lucky enough to have an older brother that was been very successful, you know, and up and downs as well, but very successful in business as well, tech guy, you know, seeing him in business, even when, you know, early on when things were really tough, I just loved the idea of building something for yourself. And if people often ask me, you know, when I was in finance, I'm someone that researches things deeply. So when I'm in finance, I like to learn everything I could about finance, and I was in property, and then I did it. And then technology, and I learned everything I could about technology. And people always say to me, Oh, you must love technology, you know everything about technology. And I just, I love building things. And I don't care what the industry is really, I love, like I said, cool projects, I love building something special. And, you know, that's why I don't really care about you doesn't have to be as the business owner, you know, I've been more than happy to be an employee. I'm not one of those people. That's people say to me, Oh, you've owned business for a long time, can you be an employee? No problem at all. And I've got no issue at all reporting to people. I just love building great things, that means doing it as a manager somewhere or doing it as a small business owner. I've just found that the stages of businesses that I love the most, that early stage business, and typically to do that I start my own, but it's not necessarily because I've its massive passion to start my own business. It's really just because I want to build something pretty cool, and sometimes doing that by yourself is the best way to do it.

Mick Spiers: 6:44

Yeah, really interesting there. I'll share with you what I'm taking away. So first is those moments of realization, most of us have them in our careers, it's just whether you're paying attention or not. So for you, it was sitting on a cold bench beside a freezing cold football field for someone else, it could be just, you know, on the commute to work one day, or sitting in a meeting and stopping and thinking, you know, what are we doing here? And why are we doing it. So those moments of realization are really interesting. And then for you, what I'm seeing is someone that realized relatively early in that journey that you like to build things, you like to start things. And sometimes No, I wouldn't say this as a universal rule. But sometimes the easiest way to start something is if it is your own business, because you are calling the shots, and as long as you've got some capital available, or enough capital to get started, you can start something whereas if you're inside a company, you've usually got to convince a whole bunch of other people to say, hey, I want to start this mini business line, or whatever the case might be, is that what I'm hearing there, this passion to start things?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 7:47

Definitely, you know, I guess a small business is awesome. And starting businesses is so fun, and, you know, bring an idea to life, that seed of that idea, and there's nothing better than being able to build a team from scratch in your own image, right, when you take when you go to another business, you know, there's a team there already, you got to sort of mold them. And you know, all those things are great, but it's also really hard. Like it's really, really hard. And you're going to do things you don't want to do, right, you're gonna do the admin, you're gonna answer the phone, you're gonna if you come from a corporate world where you've got layers of people underneath, you know, it's going to be a rude awakening the amount of, you know, just low level stuff that you just have to do because you don't have the funds or you shouldn't be paying other people to do those things. I don't believe in these people say to me, oh, what's your hourly rate as a business owner? Just think that's so so disingenuous, because how many hours you're working, you know, who's working eight hours a day as a business owner, right? Like, I mean, you know, really, it's not really your hourly rate, it's how much sleep do you need to survive? How much family commitments do you have? And then do everything else that you can even if it's a low level task, that is not that expensive, because you're owning a business, right?

Mick Spiers: 8:46

Yeah, there are a lot of people that do those math and say, if if it's a task that you can outsource for something less than your own rate that you should do so. But there are moments in time in a small business owners life where you are doing the grind, you're doing everything, you're everything from the janitor to the CEO all at one, there's a few great things because you are the one that can make decisions, and you can decide what you're going to do and what you're not going to do. And you can do things like handpick your team as you grow, like you mentioned. But anyone out there that's getting dreamy eyes, be aware of what Bill said about it's hard work too. One of the common misconceptions I'd love to run past your bill is this thing about, you know, you become your own boss, and you run your own hours, and you know, all of this kind of stuff. And I can say every successful small business owner that I've ever seen, leave corporate to go and start their own thing when they did so they worked harder, not less.

Bill Nikolouzakis: 9:39

It's the wrong reason, right? You don't leave corporate to go into your own business to work less, that's the wrong reasons. You know, there is some truth in, there is flexibility. You know, like, I cooked my kids dinner tonight, a couple of hours off, did all that hang out with them, then jump back on there, you know, there is that flexibility. But when you get to a certain level in corporate, that's there too, right? I mean, you know, you got to let that same you got to do what you got to do until you can do what you want to do. And that's the same in corporate you know, sometimes you got to work the long hours, do the grunt work until you're afforded a certain position in that business where you're still gonna work really hard, probably harder than ever, but you might have the luxury of doing that a little bit more on your own terms. And that's the same small business, you know, you do have some more flexibility for sure. But you'll often find that you're not able to take, to use that flexibility because you're you know, you're putting in some pretty hard work. You know, I don't care how smart you are to succeed in small business, you have to work hard, you know, that I'm sure there's some people out there that have had some luck and all that along the way. But you know, if you're relying on that you're in trouble, I think.

Mick Spiers: 10:36

Yeah, well said, Bill. Now in many countries around the world, small businesses, the engine room of the economy, right. So it makes up most of the businesses are small businesses, huge amount of gross domestic product, driving the economy around, even mini economies around little towns and all this kind of stuff. But many small businesses fail. Many, like the stats are all within the first five years, a very high percentage of small businesses fail. Why do you think that is, Bill?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 11:04

Well, I'll take it back to my experience. Yeah, the two businesses that I had that failed, and we both failed, we didn't get bankrupt, or it just means that they weren't making any money, we just stopped doing them. And we lost a bit of money on the way. But they didn't fail because it wasn't a good idea. And they didn't fail, because we didn't provide a good level of service, that failed, because we didn't know the basic principles around running a business. We weren't careful with our expenses, we didn't understand the cost of service, you know, which in small business, you know, there's just some things that maybe you don't understand that that you might not be super aware of. It's not about how much it cost just to get a client, how much does it cost to serve them, all those factors around, you know, how to run a business financially stable in a stable environment, you know, being able to be I think, a lot of small businesses that fail might have some initial success, because in business to succeed, you know, you're not running one model forever. You're constantly changing, adapting, improving. And I think there's some of the reasons I think businesses fail. I think probably the biggest reason, though, is going back to my early years, just that maybe it's some knowledge around the financial aspects of the business. And you can't, you know, I used to say to my accountants, I hate this sort of stuff, you do it for me. But that doesn't work. You know, it doesn't work, you need to have at least a basic understanding of it. And if don't make, there's never been an easier time to learn it, jump on YouTube, type in a few different things, you'll get the basics, you know, listen to some podcasts like this, you know, I'm a massive podcast listener. That's why I love doing them. And there's a lot of downtime driving, you don't need to listen to Hamish and Andy. And although they're super funny, you know, there is some things you can learn along the way. So I think just having a really deep understanding of the basics of running a business is probably the reason why people most people fail.

Mick Spiers: 12:39

Alright, so key one around business acumen, and if I can compare that maybe to the corporate journey, most people that climb through the corporate ranks, they go through almost a school of hard knocks approach to learning business acumen along the way, they're learning something new all the time. And you impress me earlier with your growth mindset that you do really dedicate yourself to learn everything about the thing that you're doing, and kind of marrying that up with the things that you love. So you're learning and you're learning around things that you love, in small business, you're thrown in the deep end. And I think it's not just business acumen, well, maybe we can unpack further, but you are, you're thrown into the deep end and what you said before about, I'm just going to outsource it to my accountant, there are certain levels of accountability that you just can't do that you need to have skin in the game, you need to have your finger on the polls, because it's your money. And you need to make sure that you're building some of those business acumen muscles. How does that sit with you?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 13:34

Yeah, exactly, and, you know, obviously, you need a good accountant, and you want them to do a lot of that work for you. But you know, they can look at your cash flow and see which expense isn't necessary. And which is vital to the bid. These are these are things that only you really know, so you got to be involved. And you don't have to love it. And you don't have to, but you just got to be involved. And it's a lesson I learned really early on and getting some basic understanding of it. And then making sure you're asking a lot of questions, understanding that side of it. Because it's a really important part, you know, I'm going to rip off a term here, I'm gonna adlib, but the CEO of agents agency or a real estate Franchise Group, So Mettlesford DeKarka says this, it says, profit is sanity. And growth is vanity. Right? So it's not all about just growth. It's about you know, what does that growth mean, from a profit perspective? When are you actually making money? And these are the things that your accountant can help you with, but you need to be in the room and asking questions.

Mick Spiers: 14:27

Yeah, spot on. And then it comes back to some of those things that you're talking about between cost of service and the likeness how you can know that you are generating margins that will sustain the business, right? Yeah, very, very good. Alright, so we've covered business acumen, the other one, like if we come back to this whole janitor to CEO thing. The other thing is, you're immersed in this world where you could have to do everything in the business for a while, and you got to be on that learning journey. What do you think of the other missing ingredients that most people that go into business don't realize that they're missing until they get into the deep end of the pool?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 15:02

Yeah, know the gaps, you know, know your gaps. It's impossible to be good at everything. Just know your gaps. And don't be afraid to ask for support. In fact, I'm going to add one thing to the what make businesses fail. A lot of times I think it's ego, you know, listen, I know this, maybe you are the best financial advisor, accountant, bricklayer, maybe you are the best at that, doesn't mean you know everything there is to know about running a business, right, there's things that you need to get out on. And that's why the coaching piece is really important to me, you know, when I deal with all these different industries, I'm not going to be a better electrician, or whatever it is, then that person I'm not trying to help there, what I'm trying to help with is looking at known bins of business principles, what's going to help them get to the next level of their growth. And I think that's a really important part of it, just understanding where those important parts of it are of your business that you don't, that you lack knowledge in and finding the help whether that's a full time employee, or whether that's asking your accountant, whether that's bringing a business coach, or whatever it is, in fact, so levels is my main business, but our own and other two businesses that I'm not exactly, you know, fuzzy, non executive director. And we quickly found when we started at one of these businesses, it's a national law firm digital law firm that we built, I build a digital product, end up with a lawyer, good friend of mine, Rex Afrasiabi, and we started a company called Bond Conveyancing, and we had these great tech product that we built all the legal knowledge in the world, but we knew we lacked one key area. And that was someone to execute on recruiting and managing high quality conveyances. And property lawyers that are going to produce an amazing experience, and we knew we had this great tech, that's going to change the game. But if you didn't provide a good level of service, you can have all the tech in the world and it's so useless to you. So we went and found a lady by the name of Allah Rice, who had the exact opposite strengths to us, and she's built this amazing team now, that's helped us grow into one of the fastest growing law firms in Australia in the last year. So that, you know, just understanding what those gaps are, we knew we were good at that wasn't our strength. And we found someone that fit that, you know, sometimes it's an employee, maybe it's if you're starting a business, maybe you got to consider a co-founder, you know, there's a lot of different ways to do that process.

Mick Spiers: 17:01

Alright, so I'm hearing essentially three things there, Bill. The first one is the self-awareness, self-awareness to understand what you're good at, and what you're not as good at, alright. Second part is having an open mind, a growth mindset, a learning mindset, and to not pretend you're always going to have all the answers. And then the third one is then to go and find those people that will complement you. And they could be team members that you're recruiting that complement your skills, like, don't just go out there and recruit a bunch of people that are exactly like you go out there and look for people that might complement your skills, or like you said, it could be your broader team could be contractors, or service providers that are helping you or it could be a business coach. Tell me more about the relationship between a business coach and a small business owner?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 17:46

Yeah, so when I think about any kind of advice part to any business owner, it really depends on the lifecycle stage of that business. And it's so different at different

Mick Spiers: 17:52

Alright, so I'm hearing picking the right coach stages. You know, when you're the CEO of a company with 40-50-60 employees, really your job is strategy and recruitment, that's it, you know, by a really good people that are going to improve your business and keep them accountable, and then strategy. Now, if you're a small business owner, that's got three employees, and you're looking to take it to the next level, I'm going to give you very different assistance and very different advice than that CEO with 50 employees that was trying to grow their business. So with that CEO, we might be talking about, Okay, what's your go to market strategy? What kind of, you know, what's your acquisition strategy? How are we going to get the growth where you are financially? You know, how do we keep the top players more accountable and get more out of them? How do we improve culture? With the smaller business, it might be, Hey, okay, we've got three employees, you've been doing sales and all the other work and then you've got a couple of other helpers. How do we turn that into an actual business where, you know, you've now got other people actually executing the main service offering where, you know, a lot of times I get service owners, so I don't ever want to stop being a mortgage broker or an accountant, I want to always do that, like, that's fine. And you know, that's a great way to think about it in business, but you're doing more than 30% of the business, and you're not a business owner, you're self employed, which means that you're still working for someone, it's just that someone's yourself, right? So you're not really running a business, per se, you're sort of working for yourself. And that's a distinguishing factor. If you want to grow a business, I think that's where I'm more of help. And different business coaches work in different ways. Sometimes it's industry specific people, you know, mortgage broking how to write more loans better, you know, I'm not going to help with that I'm going to help with how do we build a structure? And how do we build a model that's going to help you grow? So yeah, different lifecycle stages need different help, in my consulting business, you know, I've gone in and helped in sort of like an outsourced or fractional Chief Revenue Officer role, we've looked at sales and marketing only, that's the only thing they wanted me to help with. And we've built structures around that team members, change the model, change the pricing, and looked at all that. So really for your business. I'm hearing going in there with a coachable just depends on what people are trying to achieve. And then finding the right I think, more way for me and more generally, finding the right coach that you've got a level of respect for that you'll actually take on their advice, because you can't help anyone if they're not willing to take on so you have to be someone that you meet you say hey, actually, that person knows what they're talking about. And I'm happy to listen to them. Because if you don't think that then don't deal with them because there's no use even if they're great, you're not gonna take their advice on and the second thing I'm just making sure that you know, there's a lot I've never actually been naked, I've never been in an industry that's so saturated with people that are so under qualified, you know, like someone has been, you know, never run a small business may be successful in a middle management corporate role in that industry than advising that industry and how to run a business when they've literally never run a business before. You know, and there's a lot of people out there some great ones, some really great ones too. But there's just so many and a lot of very under qualified. mindset that you're ready to listen and learn. I'm hearing that picking the right coach includes thinking about the size of your business, the stage of the lifecycle of your business and the direction of your business. And then identifying someone who's been there before, someone that's actually been through that pain, understand you, they understand the pain, they understand your dreams, they understand what you're trying to achieve, it's because they've done it before. That's who you'd be looking for in a coach. All right, very good. I'd like to step on to another key ingredient, you mentioned about some of the pivots that people will need to make during business. So they might start being the best accountant or the best bricklayer like you were saying before, but if they're truly going to grow a business, their role has to change. And they find themselves doing less and less of that and doing more leadership. And yet many of them have fallen into small business and have never been through any particular leadership training, etc. How do you address the leadership deficit with small business owners?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 21:46

Don't I go roundabout way of answering that, first of all, I will make it very clear that I think personally, there's very few times and a hired CEO will do better than the business owner running their business, very few times, if you know, you're very good, just that one thing, and you're horrible at running a business, maybe that's a good idea. But most of the time, I think you should do it yourself. And it's easier to learn how to manage people, the processes involved in that, you know, the leadership aspect of a business than it is to have the passion and the drive and all those things, because it's your business, right. So that's a very important point in that I think most business owners in a very, very high percentage of them, you know, should really think about doing it themselves, and then hire people around them that have that knowledge that they might need, or you know, use a business coach or whatever it might be. So, you know, really, if you've never had a leadership role before, you don't understand the simple things that make a big difference, you know, what kind of meeting cadence should you have? Now, what do you do in a one on one? How do you recruit someone? What's the process to do a successful recruitment? You know, what are the steps? How are those steps happen? These are all things that are important, but that are learnable, if you want to put the time in, you can probably learn them yourself online with enough time. But realistically, you know, there's outsourced HR companies that can help you with stuff like that. There's, you know, business coaches, there's all these things, instead of hiring an outsourced CEO, you know, no matter how lovely and great, they are probably not going to have the same passion and drive as you, right. And you're going to call it the payment, prepare needs, it's often much better doing yourself and then building the people around you goes back to that that point before just building the people around you to fill the gaps. And it's a really important part of a try learn it yourself, you know, and it gets some level of knowledge on it yourself.

Mick Spiers: 23:22

Yeah. Okay. So coming back to learning mindset growth mindset again. Leadership is a huge determining factor in the success of your business. But the good news is exactly what you said, Bill, is it can be taught, it can be learned it can be improved over time. Now, what led you to come on our show, we were intrigued by your keynote speech that you do around Servant Leadership. So tell us what servant leadership means to you, Bill?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 23:48

You're probably going to get used to this, maybe I'll tell you in a roundabout way. So the reason I'm interested in servant leadership was when I first started businesses, I always had this mind that I didn't want to be one of these business people that was cutthroat and didn't care about people and did the wrong thing. And I really just wanted to start, actually, I hated that I really didn't want to be any part of that business. And one of the reasons I didn't love corporate is because it's a bit too much in corporate, you know, but so I started this business, and I was built this mindset that I'm going to be really nice, I'm going to want everyone to love me. And I'm going to run this process where everyone's have a happy to work life. And that'll give me great results. And when you're a really small team, and you've hired really good people, genuine people, and they all know you're well and you're close to them, sometimes that can work. But what I've quickly learned was that being a good leader doesn't mean you're soft and fluffy all the time, right? Sometimes being a good leader means you're having those difficult conversations in a very respectful way to help improve someone or if they're not the right person, to help them understand why they might be better off doing something different, right? That's still to me, it's doing the right thing. And I came across this fantastic book called Good to Great, which did a survey on some some businesses over a 20 year period. And you know, what was really interesting to me was the types of leaders that were successful. The most successful S&P 500 companies over that 20 year period didn't have the flashy CEO with a good suit. That was great with media that was super charismatic. He was typically someone that had been either promoted within the business so they understood the business well, but it was that quiet achiever, someone that loved and respected the people within the business, but that was you know, numbers. driven and empathetic. But the best way to explain what I believe servant leadership is a shift from being a boss to serving your team, right? So giving them a servant leader, gives your team everything that they need to succeed, gives them air with a bit of that means emotionally, your empathy, active listening, tools, all those things. But it's not just because you're a great bloke that you do those things, you do those things, yes, because you want to do the right thing by people. But then you'll also give yourself the license that you've done all those right things to have those difficult conversations. And it's understanding, how you have those difficult conversations in a respectful way. You know, you're always one on one, never in a group environment, you know, even with sales teams. And when we look at results, you will never in a sales meeting. For instance, I always recommend sales leaders never talk about the people that have got bad results in a sales meeting, bring up the people with good results. But the people that have got bad results, they're going to see themselves on that screen on that dashboard in that meeting. That's enough, that's enough to drive them and then you have those difficult conversations one on one, and a servant leader is all about getting the best out of your team. And you know, even if I was a horrible person, I would still be a servant, servant leadership, because I think it's the best way in the 21st century, to get a team to perform the best. And I'll finish off on this thought, if that's okay. So you know, the leadership principles that most people are used to, you know, this, you got to be a by nine o'clock, and if you're late, or if you take a sick day, and all that kind of stuff is really hardcore. These were all founded in the 18th century, in the industrial age, when if you will, one minute late to work, the whole production line stopped, right 1000 People couldn't work, because you went there to pull that thing off the machine, right, whatever you're doing. So really important for you to be on time, right? So you can understand why they had this hardcore approach to, you know, to that kind of leadership style. And the power was in the employee's hand. We're in a knowledge economy. Now, not all industries, but knowledge economy drives the economy now, and in that economy, in the 21st century, leading in this way gets you the best results, and I truly believe that.

Mick Spiers: 27:23

All right, so Jim Collins work from good to great, it's one of the most common answers to our rapid route, maybe your answer to when we get there. What's your favorite book, it comes up very often. And servant leadership is certainly a big part of what Collins talks about. And taking your definition here shifting from being the boss to serving your team. Why do you think it works?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 27:45

I think it works because we have changed as people you know, I don't subscribe to these are the millennials and Gen Z kids, they're different, and they don't work hard. And they don't you know, they don't take criticism and all this kind of stuff. First of all, even if all that was true, you saying that is not solving anything like you got to try and find a way to make it work. I think I'm a Gen Y. I'm 42. And on the first of the Gen Ys, right, like not young anymore, there major part of the workforce. So if you're not trying to find ways to work with Gen Y as Gen Z as

Mick Spiers: 28:11

So the key things I'm here, when you talk around millennials, you're crazy, right? You need to find a way. The second of all, what I've found is that actually, those buy in and around engagement around ownership. And I'm going people are really great employees, but they need to buy into what you're doing. And they need to really believe in it. They're not someone that can come in clock in clock out, to say it's about then energy, where do they put their energy. typically, I'm sure there is, but generally, they're not someone that does that they really want to buy into something. And if they buy into work, they'll work hard, they'll ask a lot of questions. You know, they'll be the people out So if they feel like they're part of what's being developed, there that are working hard for you. And I think their reaction to the way they're managed is very different. I think these principles is a is some empathetic approach, not being told what to do, but they've got some kind of, I'll collaborative approach works better with them. And it's not only business, you know, you look at the sporting world, you know, I'm a big soccer head qs I said before. Josie Marino was a use the term I use before skin in the game where they feel that famous coach, what everything he used to be this hardcore taskmaster, you know, and even he says now that he coaches Roma, in Italy, and he talks about the change in mindset from they're part of the journey, they're going to go above and the players, and you can't do any of that anymore. And, you know, the links, he goes to now to learn about his players to understand their personal lives, or things that he would never beyond, they're not going to do the bare minimum, they're not have thought of, you know, doing 15-20 years ago, because he knows he's going to get the best out of those players by understanding what's important to them, and then helping them going to just do enough to make sure they don't get fired and reach their goals. It's a sign with Servant Leadership. get their paycheck. They're going to go above and beyond because they feel like they're part of it. It's this kind of sense of love and belonging that I belong to something that's bigger than myself. How does that sit with you?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 30:06

Yeah, I mean, there's a saying, I always sort of think back on when I'm thinking about this kind of stuff. And it goes a little bit like this. So it says you pay employees to do their job, but they volunteer their best, right? So you think about their Yeah, you pay them to do the job. Yep, they've got to be there between this time and that time, and they've got to do a certain amount of product. Yeah, they're gonna have a certain amount productivity in that time. But if you want their best, they're volunteering that best, right? So if you are good leader and you want maximum productivity and the best outcomes for your clients, and the best profit and the best whatever, then you need to find a way to get more people to volunteer their best. If someone's got a better way that servant leadership, I'm open to it, I'm not wedded to anything. But I've just found that this is the best way to engage people in this day and age and get the best out of them. And you know, I'll touch on, you know, I work Servant Leadership in conjunction with these two other philosophies that I've got. One of them is from the old Netflix days, which I don't condone a lot of the stuff that they do. In fact, they're probably illegal in labor laws in Australia, half of them, they run a business in a very specific way. But one of the things they do is great is I don't know, If you've heard this Radical Candor discussion, I sort of have a cloud, I call it radical honesty, and it's just about if there's something that can be improved, it's your duty to bring that up with a person that can improve that thing, and work together to prove it, you know, that's low level to the CEO, and vice versa. And in fact, whatever I implement this, a little trick I use is to try in the first weeks of someone starting in their role is to try and get them to give me some feedback. So I try and pry it out of them one way or the other. Because what that does is it starts from getting used to giving feedback in a respectful way. And we go through training progresses on this, because you can go wrong if people abuse this, but if you go through, if you do it properly, and you follow the tenants in the right way, and you know, one on one in private, do it respectfully try and improve together, then you're gonna get way better results out of your team, because everyone's looking to improve it, it goes back to what we talked about earlier, if you're not improving in business, your competitors are so effectively made you go backwards, you know, it's all about improvement, all about that, you know, that growth, mindset improving. And then the second philosophy that I'm really big on is this philosophy of ultimate responsibility. And what that means is that every task, every team, every business unit, and then the whole company with a CEO, someone is ultimately responsible for everything. So if you're running a project, and as a project manager, they're ultimately responsible, they might have 10 people working on that project with them. But at the end of the day, something goes wrong, they're responsible. And it's not about blame. It's not about blame. It's about having responsibility, so that we know that there's one person that's going to make that final decision that's moving that project or that thing forward. And if you mix in the servant leadership qualities, with some accountability, and then that constant improvement with radical honesty, then I've just found that creates a really good environment for a growing team.

Mick Spiers: 32:50

So there's three really key takeaways I take there, BIll, the first one, I love what you said, you pay people to do their job, but they volunteer to do their best. And I think that sums up a lot of what's happening in the world of quiet quitting, by the way. So quiet quitting is something that's heavily misunderstood, by the way. Here in Australia, you're in Australia as well. It was reported by the media and debunked where people said, Our people are still working even more hours than they were before. People aren't quite quitting. Quite quitting is exactly what you just said, you pay people to do a job, but they volunteer to do their best, the difference between doing their job and doing their best that is what quiet quitting is. Are they fully psychologically engaged in the workplace and doing their very best work? Or are they just showing up and doing the bare minimum? That's what quiet quitting is all about.

Bill Nikolouzakis: 33:36

Yeah, great. It's disengagement, isn't it? They're not engaged.

Mick Spiers: 33:38

Yeah. And then the second one, you mentioned before, there is not about you didn't use this exact terms. I'm going to use it now. It's not about having a pillow environment. Radical candor is about this is great work from Kim Scott, this is about having those challenging conversations. But coming from a place of care, it's coming from a place of care. You care about that individual so much that you're going to give them this feedback, despite your fear of the uncomfortable conversation that you're about to have. So having that psychological safety, having that openness, where people can have high candor, low fear, and have those conversations because they come from a place of love and care. And then the third one around ultimate responsibility, right. So where's the accountability? Where's the ownership, having that one person, they don't have to do everything, but having that one person that see something through to conclusion. I think that's three lovely takeaways there. Bill.

Bill Nikolouzakis: 34:32

I think one of the most important parts of being a leader is being able to have difficult conversations in a respectful way where everyone comes out of that discussion better, not worse, right? Not feeling bad about themselves.

Mick Spiers: 34:44

Yeah, good one. And it doesn't serve or use the term it doesn't serve anyone to not have the conversation. And that doesn't serve anyone to have that conversation, disrespectfully. And then the middle ground is exactly and it's having that respectful conversation that must be had. Yeah, really good. Tell me what does servant leadership look like to you on a day to day basis, Bill?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 35:06

Yeah, so you know, one thing that I think honed in my servant leadership skills COVID Because you know, it was when it before COVID It was pretty easy to to pull someone aside you know, you walk past them, you're like, I haven't spoken to Jenny in a while. You need to grab her and you're gonna have chapter gender you grab a coffee or something. I think COVID what that made me do anyway is structure a lot of that because I wasn't walking past Jenny anymore, I had to actually make an effort to call otter. So I have my normal meeting cadence that I've got. So you know, normally the way I normally work is team meetings early in the week, Monday, Tuesday, the middle of the week one on ones, you know, end of the week check ins, so, and they're checking for me, well, it became a structured process, not a, you know, gonna walk past, Jenny or whatever. So now it's, you know, a phone call every single time. And really being structured is important in servant leadership, but also just understanding your employees each individually is so so important. So you know, each leader, you know, having a really deep understanding of each person within their business, giving them flexibility, but also having high expectations. And those things can be worked together, you know, they can work together. In fact, I've found that the more flexibility I give, the more expectations I can have. Because they understand that yeah, hey, I've got this flexibility now, so I have to deliver. So I think that they're willing to important parts of how I deliver servant leadership. And I've talked about this a couple of times now. But it's that fine line between empathy, being there for someone, caring for them, and making sure that we're all working together to get the results we need as a business, right? Servant Leadership isn't an affront to capitalism. It's not like, you don't want to make money, it's in fact, the opposite. You want to do better as a business. And by doing better, you understand that the only way you're going to do better is by improving your employees. I love a quote. So I'll throw another one at you now. And Richard Branson says your clients aren't the most important thing your staff are, you look after your staff, they'll look after the clients. And that's so true, you know, looking after your team, making sure that they feel valued and part of the process, and then they'll look after the rest of it.

Mick Spiers: 37:12

So there's a few things I'm taking away, Bill, and I want to kind of build a story here, a little bit of everything that we've been talking about from the very beginning. And one of the key things here is think about the conversation we had at the start about bringing people around you that have got complementary skills that you don't have, right, so you're out there, you're employing these people, because they know how to do something that you don't know how to do. Otherwise, you wouldn't have employed them, right. You're employing them for their brain, you're employing them for their skills, you're employing them for their experience. So why on earth would you bring them into the building and just start telling them what to do, they almost should be telling you what to do in their field in their area of expertise. And then what I'm hearing as the story builds, Bill is that you're then intentionally and taking your point that COVID may be pointed you to make it even more intentional, that you're then intentionally going out of your way to show people that you care about them, because no one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. So you show intentionally showing that you're caring about them. And then you're going out of your way to create an environment where they can do their very best work. So you're bringing in people who got the skills that you need, you're showing them that they care about you, because they will return that in spades. And then you're doing the things that are needed to give them the environment where they can do their very best work. How does that sit with you?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 38:30

Yeah, no 100%, you know, finding the right people is difficult. So if you do find that right person, and you run the right recruit person, you know, they're the right person, or the very high chance they are, then why on earth wouldn't you give them the reins to what they need to do to make it successful. And then it's your job as a leader to have the right accountability measures in place. And that goes all the way from, you know, when you're first recruiting them, setting expectations, making sure your job roles are tight, making sure you're built the KPIs in a way that are most suitable to you in the business. And, you know, we're saying KPIs should be a mix of financial metrics, you know, you've got to do this thing to get that thing. But it should also be what's important to you. So if you're a services business, for instance, if you haven't got NPS or some other client satisfaction rating tool as a KPI, you really should, in fact, most businesses should, but especially if you're in the services industry, you know, we the bond conveys in the law, firm Marilla, her main metric is NPS. That's the main thing we talk about in our one on ones, and then you know, the showing him that you can be it can be done in a lot of ways. Yeah, first of all, you have to genuinely care, like you have to, this is not a business process, you know, you should care about them, not only because they're gonna give you great results, but because they're humans, and you obviously have some affinity for them. But also, you know, I just think about how I run my regular meetings, and even in our one on ones the first question and I can just tell all my clients about how to run the one on ones. The first question I ask is not what's your biggest challenge? But the first question I always ask is, How are you feeling about things right now? Not how you doing? How are you feeling about things right now? First of all, it's an open question. They can answer it really positively. If they're feeling positive about things without positive, if they're feeling negative about things, they'll tell you what's challenging, and it just gives them the opportunity to talk and to be open and to tell you how they're feeling not just how they're doing from a numbers perspective. And again, it's not touchy feely, you know, I'm not doing that because, you know, it's Kumbaya. We're gonna go do some yoga together afterwards. It's, you know, even though so great, but it's really about how am I going to help them be the best they can be? And I need to understand where they're at emotionally to be able to do that.

Mick Spiers: 40:42

Yeah, really good, great opening question. And that's not the first time that you've said those words as well, that you're helping them to be the best they can be. Right. So yeah, it really good. Bill, another question I want to ask maybe to close this out, before we go to the Rapid Round. There may be people listening to this and going Yeah, I've heard about all this. I've heard about Servant Leadership, I want to give it a go. But I don't know how to start, how does someone dip their toe into the water?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 41:08

Look, first thing I always say is, you know, getting external help and engaging me, I'm more than happy to help. But if I've always if I'm doing it, and this is the way I did it, you know, I'm self learned with everything that I do. Just go out and have an interest in it, learn about it. You have to, if they're listening to this podcast at the start, you've talked about it before. What other things can they listen to read watch on the subject, there's some really, really good YouTube videos around the subject, and just get a really good understanding. And then your next step from there is okay, now I know exactly what servant leadership is, I know, I have an idea of how it's going to work in my business, how do I actually execute on it? You know, what does that look like in practice, and I know, You've asked me a couple of times about what I do with it not thrown around a few things. And maybe they could use those as as a guide, a starting point. But really, you need to look at, you know, your industry type of business lifecycle stages, there's a lot of things, you got to look at the kind of people that you're managing. And then you know, if you're a CEO of 10,000, employee company, and your CFO and CIO, are certain type of people, maybe you need to do less of the, you know, some things than you do with an employee who's maybe you know, Gen Z just come out of high school, university. And maybe you need to work with them in a different way. So it's very, very specific. But to start with a principle of, hey, I should care about these people. And if I care about them, they're going to do better, and then just learn as much as you can.

Mick Spiers: 42:30

So the takeaways I'm taking, they're basically like a learn to reflect. So we're going to learn, we're going to go out there, and we're going to practice it a bit. And we're going to reflect and notice what happens and a little bit of adaptive leadership there. So making sure that you're having a look at who is in your team and what will serve them best because a 20 year veteran CFO has got different needs to three year graduate engineer, for example, right? Okay. Yeah, very good.

Bill Nikolouzakis: 42:55

Yeah, this goes back to just to anything in business, you need to adapt and improve and customize the approach. The reason I was talking about data and being data driven as a leader, not because you know, there are a lot of reasons you'll be dodging, but the most important one is to find ways to improve, you know, so if you don't measure something, and something goes wrong, how do you know what went wrong? And how do you know how to improve it. So just being adaptive, and testing and learning, you know, I hate people that talk in absolutes, I hate people to say, this is what worked for us in the past. And all that is just nonsense to me, you know, you've got to measure it, and things will change even then. So you're gonna have to adapt something that worked last month may not work in six months time. But you need to adapt and

Mick Spiers: 43:35

So yeah, adapt and learn, that's a great takeaway learn. right there. It's like a daily experiment. And you're going to keep on working on your craft every day. And even what works for you today might not work for you three months from now. So you need to be adapting and changing as you go along as well. Yeah.

Bill Nikolouzakis: 43:53

And you should be like, super happy when you prove yourself wrong, you know, like, or someone else's proved you wrong? Because it means you're improving, right? It means if someone proves you wrong, it means they found something that you could do better. You should be tapping them on the shoulder, you know.

Mick Spiers: 44:04

Yeah. good one, Bill. All right. So that's probably a good time now to take us to our Rapid Round. So these are the same four questions we ask all of our guests. So firstly, what's the one thing you know, now that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 44:16

That being nice and doing the right thing or two, sometimes two different things, you know, sometimes being nice is not the right thing to do?

Mick Spiers: 44:24

Yeah, let me throw that one home a little bit more, because we touched on before. And this is the same thing, right? So let's say that you got a member of your team that's done a presentation. And you know what, it wasn't their best work, it wasn't their best work. And they might even have a repeated pattern of making the same mistakes in their presentation. Time and time again, being nice in Bill's word would be have the person comes off the stage and applaud them and go, Wow, that was just so amazing. You're really good presenter, is that going to serve them? Because they're going to serve them that they'll then go and repeat that mistake for the rest of their life? Do the same little idiosyncrasy or whatever it is, that's impacting their presentations for the rest of their life? Or is showing care to be able to pull them aside and go, You know what, I did a really good job there. And this part was good, but you know, every time you transition, blah, blah, blah, blah, you're doing this. And it may be that conversation that someone needed to have with them, for them to be aware of that mistake that they're making so that they can correct them. That's the difference between nice and care.

Bill Nikolouzakis: 45:28

Yeah, and there's the perfect example of actually doing the wrong thing by someone, I would say that your inability to have that discussion with them is you have done the wrong thing by them. You know, and I think I use the term a lot, you know, the right thing, and especially in sales teams, I mean, if you're a salesperson, and you don't believe that the client across from you is worse off, if they don't buy your product, you know, the right thing for you is to do everything you can to help them buy the product, right? So it's just the right thing in businesses use a mindset. And it goes, that's such a good example of, you know, in the past, I would have done that I would have probably, you know, just not wanting to upset them, and maybe try to find a way to, you know, try and improve their presentation without actually having a difficult conversation. Whereas now, I know that, you know, doing it in a really respectful way, by pulling them aside, analyzing it, you know, giving the points, you know, in a respectful way to help them improve the right people will take that in the right way. The wrong people don't, but you don't want them anyway.

Mick Spiers: 46:22

Yeah, perfect. All right, perfect, Matt. Now, what's your favorite book? I'm gonna guess it's Jim Collins. Good, great, but

Bill Nikolouzakis: 46:28

I love reading, I watch movies for fiction, and I read nonfiction, that's my thing. But I'm gonna throw one out a be a number of people that have told me about this one. But one of the first books I read, and I reckon I've read at seven or eight times is a tiny book, but it got me so passionate about business, and it's screw it, let's do it by Richard Branson. Every time I'm feeling a bit unmotivated, I picked that book up, you can read it in a night or two, and just such a fun, I love his spirit. I love like someone that just wants to be, you know, hardcore, successful, but also just fun loving, and you know, and not like, does the wants to do the right thing by his people. And that's the kind of philosophy that I subscribe to so.

Mick Spiers: 47:05

Yeah, good one. All right. So what's your favorite quote?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 47:09

Yeah, I guess it's that I'm going to say that. I've already said it to you now. So think of another one. But that, you know, employees, your paid employees do their job, they volunteer their best. I reckon people are sick of me telling them that when managers talk to me about one of their team members, that maybe isn't performing, I bring that out a lot. But honestly, it's a massive part of how I think about leadership, that one quote, drives a lot of my decision making.

Mick Spiers: 47:31

It's my big takeaway from today's discussion for sure, Bill. And because of everything we said before, it sums up leadership. It also sums up what's going on with quiet quitting when it goes the other way. So yeah, really good. And finally, if people want to know more about you, or about levels and about the work that you do, how do people get in contact with you?

Bill Nikolouzakis: 47:50

Yeah, LinkedIn or Instagram, just BillNiko10, @BillNiko10 is my call, or you can go to levelsgc.com and see me there. So you know, we do keynote speaking, training for corporates, and keynote speaking for small businesses and corporates. And then we do sort of executive coaching and growth consulting. So the consulting, like I said earlier in the larger businesses or larger small businesses, that makes sense. And then for the small business owners and the executive coaching.

Mick Spiers: 48:18

Yeah, great. Well, thank you, Bill Nikolouzakis, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for your wisdom, your experiences and your insights, really appreciated our discussion and I know the audience will as well. Thank you so much.

Bill Nikolouzakis: 48:30

Thanks so much for having me. Cheers.