What the Best Leaders do Differently

In the latest episode of the Manufacturing Leaders’ Podcast, Mark Bracknall is joined by Ian Kinnery who shares his journey from leading multimillion-pound operations in the motor industry, including serving as managing director of the largest Mercedes-Benz car and truck dealership in Europe, to becoming a business and leadership coach.

Following a significant personal breakdown that reshaped his perspective, Ian now works with business leaders to help them navigate the pressures of growth, leadership and personal wellbeing.

The conversation explores the difference between management and true leadership, with Ian highlighting the importance of vision, self-awareness and genuinely understanding the people you lead. 

He shares practical insights for leaders looking to create healthier, more sustainable businesses, including simple mindset practices that can shift focus and improve performance. 

This is a thoughtful discussion on leading with intention, balancing ambition with wellbeing, and building businesses that have a positive impact on everyone involved.

Whether you're leading a growing business or looking to become a more effective leader, this episode offers valuable takeaways on building resilience, leading people with purpose, and creating long-term success without sacrificing your wellbeing. 

Click here to connect with Ian on LinkedIn.

Please like and subscribe - it genuinely helps grow the show and, in turn, helps push the industry forward.

Theo James is a Manufacturing & Engineering Recruiter based in the North East, helping Manufacturing and Engineering firms grow across the UK. 

If you’d like more information about Theo James, feel free to get in touch with the team or Mark anytime.

You can call us on 0191 511 1298. 

Transcript

Welcome And The Ask To Share

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome to Episode of the Manufacturing Leaders Podcast with me, Mark Bracknell, my director of Theo James Recruitment. Today we welcomed Ian Kinnery, a highly successful business scale-up coach. I couldn't wait to have Ian on. I know how highly respected he is in the community. And I also presume and knew this would be a very important therapeutic session for me personally because Ian works with business leaders and entrepreneurs, and it's exactly what it was. Ian has had a truly remarkable journey in life. He was a very successful business owner. Unfortunately, that led him to severe burnout and breakdown. He's used that as fuel. He's used that to understand what his why is. That is working with leaders to make sure they don't go through exactly what he did. And we talk about that in detail. We talk about the importance of leaders having a why, having a vision. And without that, it's now impossible to get where you need to be. We talk about it so much in this episode. We talk about the importance of people, emotional intelligence, and leaders needing to really understand people to get the best out of them. We also talked very tangibly about tips and strategies as leaders to get out what's in your head and understand the wins you have. And just the importance of leaders having some training, whether that be actually an official trainer or a leadership coach, but if not, training yourself and trying to make sure that you are on the right path. So as a leader, as a manager, this is definitely going to be an episode that's going to challenge you, it's going to inspire you, and it's going to get you hopefully out of your head, which if you're anything like me, you very much are. So please, please, please help me um grow this channel. We are growing a community within the manufacturing and leadership industry. So massively appreciate any like, subscribe, comments, and sharing this as well. So thank you very much. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy the episode. A massive one welcome today. Today I'm delighted to welcome um Ian Kinnery, a business and uh a scale-up coach who is renowned in the area, very respected, and can't wait to uh to to have a good chat to him today. Normally, um we have a good plan session. We're going to do this pretty much off the cuff, which I'm I'm really looking forward to. Um, so welcome Ian. How are you? I'm excellent, thanks very much. You yeah, very

Leadership Versus Management

SPEAKER_01 2:17

good, thank you, very good. So the the first question is the same question I do ask everyone that comes on, which is what does it mean to you to be a leader?

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Uh for me, being a leader is a uniquely human art form. We lead people, we don't lead anything else. So it is about um it is about people. Uniquely, I would say. Um, I call it an art form because it's a bit science, but it's it's really about I think about trained intuition. And leadership also implies a destination. If you just want to stay in the same place, you don't need a leader, probably need a manager, but a leader is taking us, leading us to somewhere. So that implies vision, destination, and forward motion.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Excellent. And I I I completely agree now, and I can't wait to get into that some of that with you because there is a distinction, isn't it, between a manager and a leader. It's not just a it's not just a a phrase. There is a difference.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

It is, yeah. And if you if if you read the books, you know, there's lots of debate about it. Um, a lot of which is is unnecessary semantics, but there is the difference. And I think the difference is it's about people, and although manager is the most important three letters in the word manager are the first three. Um, and again, leadership is about leading us somewhere. So a prerequisite for a leader is to know where he or she is leading us.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah, yeah, and and yeah, and and and and that is so important for the team, isn't it? And I think everyone I really wanna wanna sort of pick your brains in that type of stuff because I do think people struggle with it. Um, before we do, I'd like to just uh to take a bit of an opportunity just uh to ask you what your kind of why is in terms of you know why you do what you do, um, and and feel free to add any context in in terms of your background

Burnout And Finding A Why

SPEAKER_01 4:40

and and what led you to so I guess that is probably the question. What what led you to to want to work with leaders? What do you say?

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Um well, you know, I I've been fascinated by business since I was a kid. My dad had his own business, but my dad died when I was 14. So I thought I would go into his business, but by the time I was old enough, that had gone. Um so I was really fortunate after I finished university, I became a graduate management trainee. I happened to fall into the motor industry and don't think cars. Uh I started in the truck business, um, which was again really, really fortunate. I mean, big trucks, big money, big characters. Um, it was a lot of fun, as you can tell by the look on my face. And, you know, the fact is that I loved it. I wanted to run a truck business uh dealership. And at 29, I was managing director of a multi-million pound business um in Birmingham. A few years later, a couple of years later, I ran the biggest Mercedes-Benz car and truck dealership in uh Europe. And at the same time, I was trying to raise the money and buy and build my own Vauxhall dealership. Seven or eight years later on, uh, the business was doing well. I was doing crap. And to cut a long story short, I had a breakdown and I was literally a basket case. I woke up in a mental hospital uh one day. And, you know, over time I got better and I carried on running big businesses. So my why now is well, I've got I've got two, if I'm honest with you, Mark. The first one, the primary one, is to stop business owners and business leaders going through that roller coaster, because there is no pressure like the pressure of being responsible for even 10 families and their income. And and unless you've ever done it, you can't really envision that. So that was my initial why. Um and of course, there's a a lot of time passed. I've been I've been a business coach now for 21 years, but the other thing that that really drives me is my fundamental belief is that a business that's well run benefits everybody. Whereas a business that's badly run hardly benefits anybody. So a business that's well run benefits the team, the owners, the customers, the stakeholders. So without wanting to be too woo-woo about it, that's my bit of the world that I'm trying to change. And you know, I sit down every at the end of every year over Christmas, I'll just sit and think about how many people are looking forward to a better year because the environment that they're working in is better than it was because that's what I'm helping them create.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Amazing. And and and I think you know what, I think what's amazing that is you've taken uh an awful experience that you've gone through, and you've you've you've used that as fuel, but you that you've created your own vision, you know, while the back of that, and and that is so important because not everyone does that, you know. Other people might have just just sat well, some people might have kept going, and I think that's probably you'll see in lot of the leaders, they'll they'll almost forget that process and and and be a roller coaster happen all over again, thinking it will be different this time. This new business will be different. But uh, but actually to use that to what you've done, I think's uh incredible. But uh but I also imagine it it puts the importance of a why for you so highly because you know how important that that is for you, so it must be for for other people. But to like you say, and and I knew this episode would would throw some emotions for for me because obviously I guess I'm your target audience in terms of the type of people, and you're absolutely right. And you know, as a leader, you have so much responsibility for other people's families. You know, uh literally my mind when you said that mine went mine went straight to COVID. The announcement when we were literally staring on the barrel at the time of potentially looking, you know, looking at the pipeline, potential business closure, or but you know, I literally had to make a list of who I was gonna dismiss first, and it was the worst day of the worst night of my life, didn't sleep a wink. Thankfully, things um were fine and we were in a fine spot, but I wasn't to know that the time that that night thinking I've got to sit in front of people and tell them that they're probably gonna be out of a job or they are out of a job, it's just a worsen. And I think people, I think employees don't not appreciate that, I just don't think they know because we don't tell them, do we?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

No, and and and even if we did, you know, my my my partner's just had a uh a knee replacement, and I might imagine how painful that is.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Yeah, can't live it, can't we?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Imagination's limited, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

And and and and I think I I honestly think employees, and I was probably exactly the same when I work with someone, not they don't care, but they they they just presume that's part of the gig. If you take on that responsibility, you you you take it on, and and you know, not how dare you! There's an element of that that there's not a real appreciation for it. So I think what you do is it's brilliant because I completely agree. I've been part of good businesses, I've been part of bad businesses, and it affects the way you live and it affects actually the mood and how you show up as a parent, how you should show up as a husband, all that.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

So it is it's more than about business, yeah. You know, it really is about life itself.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And and I think probably more so now, leaders are under so much pressure because businesses are leaner than they ever were, they're under pressure, they're they're they're you know, they're getting squeezed left right and centre, they've got to make decisions. Their senior management team is probably shrank, so it's there's probably more on them, they're spinning more plates. So it's never been more important, I think, to really to think that you know, to ask yourselves these questions that you know, I'm sure you're gonna you're gonna talk through. So I come, I think it's it's it's fantastic well timed. Tippy when you're I mean, I know they're all be different, but when you're working with leaders or businesses, what's the first thing that you like to tackle, or what are some of the first

Coaching Starts With Destination

SPEAKER_01 11:35

questions you like to ask?

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Um well, it is different in every case, you know. I I don't the one thing I don't do, Mark, is every client is different, every uh intervention is different. It might follow a pattern, but to this day, I've never met after 21 years, I've never met two people that are starting in the same place and want to get to the same place. Yeah, and and everybody comes with their own individual baggage, if you like. So it it's very much bespoke, but the at the at the very beginning, really, what I want to know is, and it comes back to how I defined a leader, you know, where do you want to go? Yeah, because no matter how good a coach I am, if you don't know where you want to be, I can't help you get there. So I need to to understand and I have a process to understand where you and the business are, you know, how you think, what you've tried that's worked, what you've tried that hasn't worked, and by extrapolation, I'll know what you haven't tried. But what I really want to know is where do you want to be? And and very often the answers I get are woolly.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

And if you don't know where you want to be, not even I can help you get there. You know, when when when you jump in your car, if you just put south in the sat nav, it will take you somewhere, but not necessarily to your destination. In fact, it would be a miracle if it did take you to where you wanted to go. And that's the way many of us run our lives. One of the reasons I believe that business owners get like a hamster on a wheel running faster and faster and faster, is they've never really committed to where they want to be.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

If you don't know, how do you find out? If that makes sense, yeah. Um is it a feeling or is it do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Like what well, largely, yes. I mean, I was gonna say without again trying to sound woo-woo because because I I think what I do isn't isn't about woo-woo, it's about you know hard facts, it's it's um a hard science, but it really is looking internally. Ultimately, the goal of of coaching is self-awareness because that's a superpower. And we all think that we're self-aware, but really we're not, you know, and and to answer your question, and it takes time, you know, you've got to look inside at yourself and understand what is it that that that really floats your boat, and it won't be what other people have told you, you know, for for years. Um I mean, as I say, my dad died when I was very young, and I think one of the things that I missed in my life was that that guiding figure. So I remember um I was a young manager in a big business, and we had a meeting in Hull, and my boss's boss's boss came into the meeting, and I remember him saying, if you do anything and it's not for money, you're mad. And I thought, well, he's a really successful person, maybe that's the bit that I'm missing. So for the next few years, I know I was consciously chasing the money. What I didn't realize is that that goal didn't suit me, yeah, and so I was misaligned, I was chasing the wrong thing for me, and don't get me wrong, I made a lot of money, I spent a lot of money, but it didn't mean anything, it didn't fulfill me, and it was only really when I started this business that I realized it it don't get me wrong, I need money, I use a lot of money, but that wasn't the driver. Helping people was the driver, and the minute, funnily enough, I focused on helping people, the money came in, yeah, and that was fulfilled. So I think oftentimes, oftentimes we follow, and I call it well-formed outcomes, we follow things that don't suit us. You know, I've got two clients at the moment that are both very similar, they've just started with me, and they keep talking about money. But I don't believe that that's their real driver. Now, if I can help them reframe that and find what they're really looking for, a couple of things will happen will happen. They'll be happier and more fulfilled, and the money will come.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Yeah, yeah. I come I I I could not agree more. And look, I'm someone who I'm I'm not driven. I was uh when I first started out, but I'm not driven by money. But I think sometimes you've got to realize sometimes you've got to be in a business or in a role for long enough to realize that yourself to some extent, if you haven't got someone like yourself guiding the way. But actually, when you realize what your satisfaction is, and and for me, that's always been making a difference to people. Do you know what I mean? And and and I think as soon when you realize that you carve out a role within your business to be able to do that, that's when you find true happiness. And like you say, hopefully that the the rest will come. But it it's a it's a I've never most people I meet, this is probably controversial, but most people I meet who are chasing the money are miserable, they are, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

And but but I think that you know one of one of my coaches said to me, and it's it's a phrase I repeat pretty much every day, he said, Ian, we know what we know, but we don't know what we don't know, and it's what we don't know that always costs us. Now, if I go back to my case, I knew how to run a business, I didn't know how to run myself, yeah. And that's what cost me. And and the irony is that no matter how bright we are, none of us can know what we don't know. Yeah, because we're using the same piece of equipment. The only way we can find out what we don't know, and in this case, what we don't know might be what really drives us. The only way we can find out is through a conversation, and I call that a coaching conversation, and and as we start to uncover what we don't know, then we can start to build up that knowledge, and it's not just the knowledge, it's it's the action, yeah. You know, because coaching's not about the transference of knowledge.

People Skills Drive Business Performance

SPEAKER_00 19:05

If if if you want to know the stuff, just read the books, it's all there, but knowing and doing are two different things.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Well, why should businesses be prioritizing? Because I think a lot of businesses, and let's take manufacturing because obviously that's a sector I work in, a lot of them will prioritize you know the the cost materials, that the supply chain, they'll you know, they'll look right now. They're looking at costs. Why should they look at their leaders and how effective their leader leadership is? And then when they're looking at their training budgets, for example, why should leadership be important to them?

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Well, to me, and and I think engineering and manufacturing are interesting because I think a business is a machine, we we create a business as a machine to do something. Now we've got to know what that something is. Um however, all the component parts of the machine that we're building are people. Simon Sinek said, if you don't understand people, you don't understand business. And interestingly, engineering, manufacturing, typically those people know how to build a machine, but not a machine with people. Now naturally the way the way we work as human beings is that we follow a leader. Without a leader, typically we have chaos. Now, leadership, as I said at the very beginning, is a human skill. So in the same way, if I put it in engineering terms, if you're building a machine, you can't you can't um build an engine without knowing about lubrication, for example, you can't build uh a company without knowing about people. And that's the leader's job.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

How and I agree, how involved do you think a leader who should be in the people? Because some the there's that argument in terms of how close should you get to your staff? Should you know them personally? Should it be transactional? How do you get the best out of them? What's your what's your opinion on that? What do you say? You know, you're looking at a an operations manager who you know has 35 people who is who's managing at the time. How how close should those relationships be, do you think, to get the best out of them?

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Um it's a great question. So I'm gonna give you a great answer. It depends. You know, um there is always always that debate about. Are you getting too close to your people? Um but really that's that's kind of a false dichotomy. You need to be close to your people because you need to know how they how they work, you need to know what's important to them. I can't I very simply I can't help you get what you want if I don't know you well enough to know what you want. So a leader needs to be close and they need to have the ability to not let the personal relationship blur the um business relationship. Yeah the boundaries and absolutely and it will depend, you know, it will depend on our relationship, who you are, who I am, and you know, if if if I had a team of 35 it leadership isn't uh what the American I hate the expression, but the Americans call it a cookie-cutter exercise. One size does not fit all. And part of the skill of of leadership and managing is knowing how I need to um address any particular interaction with any particular individual at any particular time. You see, one of the reasons that that running a business is so uh either fascinating or frustrating is that if I go back to the machine analogy, you know, a cog is a cog. It it won't change, and the laws of physics don't change, but you're not the same person that you were when we first came on this call, nor am I. As human beings, we're changing all the time, so you know, saying one thing to somebody now, you can't guarantee the same output by doing the same thing next time, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Or or with a different person, so and with a different person, which proves that you know there's there's there is the machine element to it, it's like a science, isn't it? But also it's that emotional intelligence piece to understand and reverse and to adapt to to what they've got going on because you don't know what someone's dealing with at home and you don't know what their history is and how they've had a certain situation.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

You don't know what the last person said to them. Yeah, exactly. You know, somebody I can't remember who it was, but somebody said, Imagine how difficult physics would be if particles could think.

Theo James Recruitment Message

SPEAKER_01 25:01

Yeah, apologies for interrupting this episode with a very quick announcement about my business. Theo James are a specialist talent provider, specifically to the manufacturing and engineering sector. I'm incredibly proud of what we've achieved since our inception in 2015. We specialise in roles from semi-skilled trades right the way up to our TJ Exec search arm of the business, both on the contract and permit side. We offer both bespoke one-off campaigns for heart-of-fill roles or a full partnership service where we become an extension of your business. For any information, please get in touch with me or the team. I hope you enjoy the rest of the episode. Thank you. In terms of a lot of people listening to this, obviously will be leaders

Accidental Leaders And Letting Go

SPEAKER_01 25:45

um and will be coaches. There is definitely an issue with manufacturing where people get promoted on on merit because they got the job, but they don't necessarily had the training experience in in leadership management. And there'll be people listening who have sort of just had to sort of do what they can to get get where they are. Do you see that sometimes where does does that hinder someone's progression to be able to get to that next level as well?

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Oh, all the time. And fundamentally, Mark, I only work with uh entrepreneurs, yeah. And I call them accidental leaders. You know, people go into business for all kinds of reasons, but um, you know, maybe they're a great engineer and they want to do it for themselves, and then they set up an engineering business or they set up a manufacturing business, and then what they find is got all my time's taken up with people problems.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

And really, had I wanted to be with people, I'd have been a school teacher or a doctor. I wanted to be an engineer, so that happens all the time. I call it accidental leadership. But for the business to survive, for the business to prosper, being a uh a skillful technician, manufacturer, engineer isn't going to get you there. You know, I I don't believe that um the the the head of Microsoft spends much time writing code now, do you?

SPEAKER_01 27:25

No, but no, you you you're absolutely right. And and you know what's interesting, I think a lot of leaders beat themselves up because as their job changes in a business, let's say the business grows, there's some guilt there. I felt some guilt there that I did I didn't do, you know, so used to wearing many hats, and I and I wore that as a badge of honour for four or five years, that I did everything and I answered it. I felt I felt some real pride in being able to put out every fire, but then there comes a point where that that is what tips you over the edge, and that's what that's where you get a burnout. And I went through that massively because and it was almost trying to find myself again, going, okay, well, I know I can't do that anymore. I've got to hire the right people and get out of the way. And thankfully that's what I did. But then you almost I went through a phrase where okay, well, what's what's my role here? You're kind of used to the the plaudits of being the one that that you know brings all the food in, and and that and then suddenly, what is it? That that's a that's a difficult time's leave, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 28:23

It it really is, and and you know, you were lucky that you could think outside the box or or either by yourself or with with influence from people, but yeah, we have to pivot. And I think certainly I know I did, you know, the fact that I was a managing director, I was responsible for everything from the profitability of the business to whether there's enough toilet paper in the ladies, and I loved it, yeah. Um, but it wasn't sustainable. Yep, and I paid the price for that, and that's how I learned. Yeah, you know, hopefully, what I can do is help people learn to why to pivot and to pivot before they hit the wall.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yeah, yeah, which is obviously why the importance of that why comes in. Yeah, because you need to understand what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

That situation is still exciting, you know, it gives it gives a buzz. And what I find is that even as we elevate leaders, you know, when something goes wrong, their natural temptation is to dive back into the detail, yeah. To put the welding mask on, or to do the selling themselves, or to whatever it might be, because that's that's familiar. And it takes fundamentally it takes courage to lead. You talk about COVID, you know, that's what a fascinating time that was, because it really tested

COVID, Courage And Attitude

SPEAKER_00 30:05

the ingenuity of leaders like nothing else. And yet, and I'm really proud of this, you know, when we went into COVID, like yourself, what was it, the 20th of March or something?

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yep, yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

And you know, my diary was full, everything was, and then suddenly the doors literally closed. Yeah, yeah. So what I did was I rang all of my clients and said, Well, the good news is I'm gonna carry on coaching you, unless you tell me not to, but we're gonna go online because we can't meet face to face. I'm gonna carry on invoicing you. If you can pay, pay. If you can't, fine, just let me know. Everybody stuck with me. Everybody came out of COVID without a word of a lie. Everybody came out of COVID with a stronger business than they went in. And I remember at one point, I was sat, everything was on computer, uh, everything was on Zoom, and you know, I had um LinkedIn open on the other screen, and and I saw a picture of an ex-click, and I just dropped him a line saying, I hope everything's, I'm seeing you for a while, I hope everything's going all right. And within minutes, I got back this tirade about how cruel the world was and how difficult it was. And I'm sat looking at it thinking, well, hang on a minute, he's in the same line of business as the client I've just spoken to. He's going gangbusters, and yet this guy's crying into his beer. What's the difference? Yeah, and I would love to say the difference was me, but the difference was the attitude of the customer. You know, he'd I'm not gonna say given up, but was was left to his own devices. The guys that stuck with the process were continuously learning, continuously growing, continuously pivoting their business, and as a consequence, one came out of uh COVID going gangbusters, the other one, well, to be honest, I don't know if it's still in business. Really? Right, just for what I'm saying is it's it's really all about attitude.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Well, if um I you know, if ideally they come to a business coach like you, if someone hasn't got the luxury or for whatever reason can't, let's say like two, but they just can't, what should they be doing? What questions should they be asking themselves? Would you advise any strategies? Is it something they should be writing down, weekly, monthly? That's a what how do people get started to really get out of the out of their own head, I guess? Because as leaders, we're in our own head more than we should be.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Well, I think we're all in our own heads more than we should be, yeah. And um or

Wins Diary And Circle Of Control

SPEAKER_00 33:05

maybe being in our own heads isn't always good for us, you know. And one of the things that I've learned is, and this is a very, very simple technique, we are hardwired to look at the bad. Yeah, to worry, uh, yeah, to see the negative. Have you got kids?

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Yeah, two kids. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

How old?

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Six and ten.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Okay, so if if they come back with their school reports and they've got seven A's and one F. I'm probably talking old old money now because I've switched it around, haven't I? Yeah, but I I understand the old one, the new one. But if that's the case, the one that gets the most attention is the one F. Yeah, why's the F? Why's that? Because it stands out. Yeah. Now, you know, that that's natural, that's understandable. But as human beings, we are hardwired to see the negative. We call it negativity bias, but actually it's an emotional trait. Um somebody said that there are six or seven emotions, can't quite remember now, but the majority of them are never negative, anger, disgust. Now, those emotions evolved to keep us safe. That's why we don't eat rotten meat, that's why we don't eat uh sorry, drink stagnant water. Yeah, however, sometimes that predominates and we only see the negative. Now that's that's not a great place to be. And of course, if you're head of the business, all the good stuff happens elsewhere. You get all the complaints, you get all the things that have gone wrong. So your view of the world is skewed. So a very simple technique is to take a notebook and commit to let's say once a day, it might be twice a day, but make it a habit of jotting down to pick a number, three, five, seven wins of the day. So, what's a win? Well, a win is anything you want it to be. So it might be for me. Well, I've been coaching all morning, it's quarter past twelve, and I've only had two biscuits. That might be a win for me, it might not be for you, that doesn't matter, it's for me. But the act of just writing down whatever you choose, three or five wins regularly retrains the brain to look at the positive rather than the negative. Years ago, I explained this to a lady I was working with, and to be honest, I'd I'd I'd forgotten about it. And some months later, she wrote me a letter of thanks, and I didn't realize, but before I started working with her, two business advisors had told her to wrap the business up. You'll never make anything out of this. The business is still going. A son now runs it, she's retired, and she wrote me a letter of thanks. And one of the things that she referred to was I call this a wind's diary. And she said, you know, thanks to the winds diary, that got me through because I could see the stuff that was going right. And as a consequence of being able to see that and not just focus on the bad, my confidence started to build.

unknown 37:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

So very, very simple technique.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Great advice, great, great advice. You know what's what's funny but frustrating is that um so I went for a stage of doing that and it massively helped. And then I went for a great uh business touch where it's been pretty good for a little while, and I've stopped doing it because I felt like I didn't need it, but but I do. Do you know what I mean? Like you have to keep doing it, keep doing it. You do, it's like it's like exercise, you know. Well, I'm I'm I've stopped exercise. Yeah, great analogy. It is, yeah. It's like hygiene, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

You've got to do it every day, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

And look, as leaders, again, part of the gig is we're not gonna get many people going well done. It's expected that that we we we do our job with the best ability because you know we have we don't get appraised and we don't have managers, so uh yeah, it's um I think sometimes you just need to feel a certain way as a leader, and so I think that's tremendous advice.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

I mean, I had a client say to me last week, he said, Well, I did this, and nobody sent me a note of thanks. Yeah, yeah. And and I did what you just did. I start laughing. He said, Well, why are you laughing? I said, Well, people don't, yeah, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

We do to them, that's the gig, but not the way around. Yeah, and that's uh it it I guess it's a bit like being a parent. Yeah, it is. There's the the the surroundings between between leadership and parenting is uh is is is mega, so I can't completely agree. Uh great advice. I've got a few closing a couple of closing questions, if that's all right, and um nothing too heavy. Um, but just I guess the first thing that that that springs to mind. What's um what are the best the best leaders do differently in your experience, the ones you work with? Are there any traits that you see?

SPEAKER_00 39:16

I think it goes back to the the the the question that that you asked. I think the very best leaders understand their people and care. Um you know years ago I worked for a uh my chairman, the guy I worked for, was and this was an interesting lesson, it was an absolute so-and-so. I mean, I've I've had um planning meetings with my team, with the chairman there, and he's thrown his briefcase at one of my managers. My managers were scared stiff of him. I was but um understand the difference. I didn't like him, I wouldn't choose to spend time with him, but I really appreciated working with him. Yeah, and for years I thought those two seem that they don't balance up, but I didn't like his methods, but I absolutely believe his main intent was for me to be better, yeah. And and somehow I understood that. Didn't like the way he was doing it, but I look I look back on that not as one of the happiest times of my life, but as one of the fastest developing times of my life.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great advice. Um, what advice you give to uh to a to anyone really? But so I was gonna say found out to anyone who's currently feeling overwhelmed right now.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

Um go back to pen and paper, I would probably suggest the wind starry. If it was a um, and that's a kind of medium to long-term solution because we start to build up confidence. But whenever I've had somebody, and sometimes I do have emergency phone calls, somebody's overwhelmed, and I just say, well, take a big sheet of paper, draw the biggest circle you can, and in that circle, start to write the things that you're concerned about. Yeah. Now, when you've kind of unloaded, and there'll be loads of things, you know, the price of fish, the price of energy, the government, the state of the road outside, there'll be all sorts of things. And then in the middle of that big circle, draw a smaller one and start to put in that circle the things that you can control. See, the big circle represents the circle of concern, but when you start focusing on the little circle, the circle of influence, things change. You don't forget about the stuff that you're concerned about, but they're less relevant. And you start focusing on the stuff that you can control.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

Yeah, you know, you know what's fascinating about this, uh, I don't mind sharing the uh so my my son's six, and and he's um he's quite anxious, quite an anxious little lad, uh, very deep and and and and a worrier. And and I and I was at that age, and I still am, you know, I still have that type of that in me. Um, but I guess I've learned mechanisms to to deal with it. He hasn't. And I went to a um a free think to school yesterday, which was like um a workshop for parents who who want advice for that. And the advice for a six-year-old is the same as it would be for a for anyone, and it's exactly that they suggested worry time, which it was so interestingly is exactly the same where we were suggesting to him that when something happens in the day, just to park it, don't think too much about it, park it for worry time at five o'clock with us, and we've got 10 minutes where we just talk through things and then we talk about what that worry is. Is it something we can is it practical? Is it something we can we can deal with and we can effects, or is it not? And maybe if it isn't, we sort of we'll let it drift away. And I thought what was wonderful about it is it's the same advice you give to it, we give to a six-year-old, you give to a sixty-year-old. We're all built the same from birth, aren't we? We're all human beings. Yeah, exactly that. And we all have these, like you say, these emotions and but you know, that are built to keep us safe. He's scared of he's scared of irrational, uh irrational things like the rain. You know what I mean? But he's six and to him, it's real. And we're as you grow up, you're you're scared of things which are a bit a bit more rational. Business business owners, you're probably scared of your business failure. and not being able to you know to to fund whatever you need to fund but it it's the the techniques you use to deal with it are exactly the same aren't you and you know the the fact of the matter is that um people aren't logical they're psychological yeah rational we we're not rational beings we're emotional beings that can do logic but fundamentally we're driven by emotions yeah and emotions aren't rational yeah there is stuff you can do about them but fundamentally and that's why Simon Sinek said if you don't understand people you don't understand business yeah a wise man but it's um well look yeah I just want to thank you massive for this it's been I've really enjoyed it I knew this would be a therapeutic session for me because um I'll be talking about yeah exactly it's uh and it and it was and and I just think you know I always reflect to this point to what you know what have I learned from this this this episode because I always learned something and so much in this one and it's just been a nice reminder of actually of why I do it you know why why I do what I do because it's it's it's hard some days you know you know yourself it's really hard some days and I I love it and I enjoy it and I've never done it coming in but I think the importance of understanding why you do it and actually I completely agree with that people side if you don't care about people I I don't think leadership is the right role because you have to care about people to get the best out of them and you can not just pretend to care you've got to really care. Oh yeah because we we we we can sense yes lack of sincerity 100% 100% that exact exactly that and I think that's where that's where I've seen leadership evolve more so over the last 20 years actually where there's less dictatorship less transactional it's more of more emotional intelligence which I think is brilliant and I think this has been a nice reminder for a lot of leaders who might be you know driving the car thinking I've just feeling really burnt out that actually I just need to take 10 minutes a day sometimes just to shut my phone off to to no distractions get a pad and paper out and write down you know today this week what what have I done that's done

Keep Your Why Visible

SPEAKER_01 46:10

that's made a little bit difference and and they're the times where exactly that you keep repeating and repeating it and it it the satisfaction you get from that's amazing. So thank you it's been tremendous um what's the best way for people to contact you would you say is it is it email is it LinkedIn what's uh well either my email address is on the website and and it's very easy it's ian at kinnery.co.uk uh there's only one so if you google me you'll find me and my phone number's on the website my phone number's on LinkedIn whatever's convenient for people yeah excellent I know so many people who have um who have been coached by you and are coached by you and speak extremely highly so you're you're um you know that it's a no-brainer if anyone's looking for someone just uh to really coach improve your time so so thank you I really appreciate this you're welcome can I just one last suggestion yeah yeah if you know your why and you lose sight of it because we all do that I do that just think about how can you be constantly reminded so what for example what I used to do was uh I would get testimonials from clients like the the lady I was talking about with the the winds diary and I'd put them on a wall and have them framed and whenever I felt lost I'd you know I'd I'd lost sight of my why because sometimes when you're up to your arse in alligators it's difficult to remember that the objective was to drain the swamp I would just go and read that wall of testimonials.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

So what could you have on your desk that's a reminder of your why for example great advice I've actually got uh not at the minute but I did it add a screensaver on my on my phone so every time I picked up my phone it reminded me.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Yeah great advice excellent and a lovely way to end perfect thank you very much and good talking to you thank you so much for listening or watching this episode of the Manufacturing Leaders podcast please just like or subscribe it really helps grow the show and obviously improve the industry if you want any more information about Theo James as I mentioned midway through the episode please get in touch with me or the team I would love to talk about how it can help you directly or your business. We are more than just a recruiter and I know people say that but it's something I'm incredibly passionate about. We are in business for much more than just a bums on seats approach. We want to help people grow we want to help improve their lives and ultimately I want to work with businesses and people who share the same values as we do and that's something I'm incredibly passionate about. So please if that is you and you are passionate about that dream role or passionate about your people please get in touch with me or the team I would absolutely love to talk a bit more detail. Thank you very much. Speak soon