Carla Cringle and Imogen Pudduck, founders of FizzPopBANG, a brand employee engagement consultancy, join Yiuwin Tsang from the Beautiful Business team. In this episode, you'll find out FizzPopBANG's top three engagement drivers that will supercharge your business...
Carla and Imogen are on a mission to make the world whistle on their way to work. 10 years ago, they left their jobs as Head of HR and Head of Brand at Red Bull to set up FizzPopBang. Through the work they did at Red Bull, they realised they had the same goal to harness the power that passionate and energised teams can achieve, creating true employee engagement and brand ambassadors through a high-performing, authentic culture.
Carla Cringle and Imogen Pudduck, founders of FizzPopBANG, a brand employee engagement consultancy, join Yiuwin Tsang from the Beautiful Business team. In this episode, you'll find out FizzPopBANG's top three engagement drivers that will supercharge your business...
Carla and Imogen are on a mission to make the world whistle on their way to work. 10 years ago, they left their jobs as Head of HR and Head of Brand at Red Bull to set up FizzPopBang. Through the work they did at Red Bull, they realised they had the same goal to harness the power that passionate and energised teams can achieve, creating true employee engagement and brand ambassadors through a high-performing, authentic culture.
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of the Beautiful Business Podcast. I'm Yiuwin Tsang part of the Beautiful Business Team, and this week I have the joy of chatting with not one, but two special guests, Carla Cringle and Imogen Puddock, founders of FizzPopBang, a brand employee engagement consultancy. Carla and Imogen are on a mission to make the world whistle on their way to work. What a lovely thing. 10 years ago, they left their jobs as Head of HR and Head of Brand at Red Bull to set up FizzPopBang. Through the work they did at Red Bull, they realised they had the same goal to harness the power that passionate and energised teams can achieve, creating true employee engagement and brand ambassadors through a high performing authentic culture. Joined now by a team of experts, FizzPopBang helps companies across all industries unlock their potential by engaging their people through culture, learning, and leadership. I hope you enjoy the chat. When we set up this interview, you talked about how there are drivers of engagement and specifically three key drivers that haven't actually changed despite everything that's happened in the world over the last few years and they haven't changed. They've just supercharged. So talk us through these. What are these three drivers of engagement that you see and that you feel so strongly about.
Imogen Pudduck:So the first one is a business that lives and breathes its brand and its values. And I think it's important that when we talk about brand, brand can be one of those words that turns a lot of people off and a lot of people listening will totally get it. There are an awful lot of people that don't and feel like brand is something that's very inauthentic and it's, you know, something you put on your website that actually kind of is what you want it to be, but it isn't actually that authentic to you. And I think nowadays if you look at any brands, it's all about building communities where people feel a part of it. So it's really important that it's authentic to you. So all a brand is, is you bottled up into being something that is your attitude to life, how you make decisions, your personality. These are all the things that will set you apart from your competitors and from other people and give you a sort of human based business. So that is what a brand is. It isn't so much - course, it's lovely to have a beautiful pantone colour and fonts and you know, an amazing office. But, but all of those things really don't matter unless you've bottled up what it is that's at the heart of who you are, your purpose and your story, and the things that make you you. And then you have to then transfer those into the values and behaviours that, that drive people. So, so how does that translate into what's important to you as a set of values that will drive behaviours that will make you successful and that will then help you make decisions as a business? So that, that one is, is really super important. The second is about creating belonging. And what that means is, again, putting human back into a business, so people we know stay at businesses where they really feel that sense of community and a place to be. So there's the most important thing is to have a two-way voice to involve people into the business and allow them to feel like they have a say into it. Not only is it great for their own development, but it also gives you great ideas. You don't have to as a leader, then have all the answers and you're creating things that really resonate with people and will help boost things like creativity and ideas and no matter where they sit, they don't have some marketing role. We had this at Red Bull. Anybody who had a great idea, wherever they sat, and that would be about changing and making things better. So if you sat in a finance team, you could look at the way things are done and and improve it, and that's really important. Otherwise, you are creating one size fits all rules, which doesn't allow people to shine in the best way. And the third one is leaders at all levels. They are one of the main drivers if not one of the most important because they are the people who allow people to flourish and create the culture that you really need. So you need leaders who are prepared to be a little bit vulnerable, to have a great story that people share with you, and to, crucially, role model what it is that you want people to be doing. Cause you can often have really dysfunctional leadership teams, which always surprises me that we have such businesses with so many dysfunctional leadership teams and they talk about wanting to have good values and behaviours, but then they just won't do it themselves and that is the most important thing for people to look up to is other people actually. Is that guy doing what he's asking me to do? Cause otherwise you just won't have people following them at all.
Yiuwin Tsang:Brilliant. So the three drivers that businesses lives and breathes at values And you talked about how important it is to bottle up what those values are at an early stage. So I'd like to explore a little bit in terms of, I suppose, how can teams do that? What kind of exercises can they do? What kind of practical things can they do as a team that involves their team and brings them together? Cause I can, I can fully appreciate the importance of it cuz it's almost like your guiding light, it's a direction of travel that you're going in. So if you, if you get it even slightly wrong at point zero, then by the time you get to point 100, you are miles off. So, what's the practical things that I can do to try and pull out some of these things, we're going through at the moment with my team, with my company and I'm really looking forward to the session, but at the same time, I'm kind of thinking, Goodness me, we could go anywhere with
Carla Cringle:Yeah.
Imogen Pudduck:It's quite scary.
Yiuwin Tsang:Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Indeed. So, what would you say, what kind of practical tips would you give...
Carla Cringle:Well, the first tip I would give is to not sit there with a list of values words and get people to select them because there's so many businesses that do that. They come up with like this, a dictionary of words and go, 'Right, what do you like? What do you think is us?' And they start at the end point. So never start there. And if you can do that, that's your big win. The second win is to involve as many people as you can, and if you're a huge organization, you don't need to do that all at once, but you can do that in smaller cafe sessions or groups in teams and distill all of the input together. And so there's a couple of exercises that you can do when you are trying to bottle these things up with your teams. And one of them is getting them to tell some stories about the organisation, so some of the best experiences that they have had with customers or culture and bottling that up. So getting that and making sure you don't bottle that down into single words. Again, you capture the energy around those because brilliant set of values has words that have come from the mouth of your people. So it's got the energy, it's got the kind of the anecdotes in it. So make sure you capture all of those. Another set of kind of stories and things you can do is you can get people to think about a time when they were at their best. So because ultimately your values should be about who you are, but they should be aspirationally, you know, how can we collectively be at our best? So telling those stories again and capturing those stories, you'll find there's loads of rich insight that comes out of that. So you should have your brilliant stories and anecdotes of the business and your team and your culture and your customers, you being at your best or being at your best with your team, and then some stuff around your brand cuz all of those feed in together. So there's some really lovely brand essence wheels that you can do or some questions around your brand and thinking about what does your brand and your identity and who you are stand for?
Imogen Pudduck:If you just put into Google brand essence is what every big brand does. You know, we did it at Red Bull. You just download something that just asks you questions like, what do people think of you when you're not in the room, which is the true test of a brand. You know, what do you stand for? And you just distill it down. So it's a really simple, nice tool to use.
Carla Cringle:Yeah. So if you can combine those three so brilliant stories about your business, stories about being at your best as an individual and things around your brand, if you've got all of that insight, that's a brilliant place to start and then you start kind of crafting out big themes and wordsmithing and you know, all of that, but never start with that wordsmithing it's at the end. So at the beginning, because you will lose all of that energy and you know, these exciting stories and you know, all of that stuff that really does make you, you.
Imogen Pudduck:I think also choose values and words as colour said that have momentum around them. So, as she said, energy is really important. Try to be careful about choosing things. Just feel very moral and good because in reality, if you have to tell people to be respectful and accountable
Carla Cringle:integrity.
Imogen Pudduck:Which are the old fashioned values. So served a purpose in times where you had to tell people to turn up to work and not shout each other and, you know, make sure that they were working nine to five. They were great values back in Victorian eras when people behaved really badly at work, but nowadays, you want values that really help you move towards your goal. So try to resist picking things that just feel morally good, because actually if you have to tell people those things, you're probably recruiting the wrong people in the first place. Pick things that really reflect you, that have energy and momentum behind them. Try to just go with the flow because we are all problem solvers, particularly founders. And all you wanna do is come out with the answer and you just gotta trust going through that and coming out with the principles. Cause at the end, you need to pick someone who makes the final decision because otherwise you get caught up in people arguing over words. But I think it's okay just to have things and test and learn from them. So your very first point was it's quite nerveracking cause you dunno where it's gonna go. That's true. Often we see really beautiful things coming out of things that you wouldn't have thought about yourself as a leader. So go with the flow and trust the process, but also you can evolve it, you don't have to have the perfect answer at the very beginning. Yes, you risk. I know you talked about it might then go off to your trajectory might completely change, but actually more often than not, it doesn't. So allow yourself to have it being evolved and sit with it and change it and we always encourage people to have a set of values, but then have behaviours that sit underneath it that qualify what that means. And you can evolve those. Endlessly as you change.
Carla Cringle:So if you're a big organisation, try and involve as many people as you can through the, like, cafe sessions or, you know, team meetings or whatever, and, and pull all of that input together. But as you go through the process, you then don't need to use all of that input to kind of come up with your themes, but you don't need to like get all of those people to sign everything off at every stage. So then you would have like a group of champions who are representative, like a much smaller group who then get involved in the theming up of the big key areas. And then ultimately that wordsmithing, which is when, you know, if there's always one person who gets hung up on one specific word and you know, but you can't do that with a huge group, but you need that huge group to kind of filter it down.
Imogen Pudduck:Yeah, it's exactly, that's a filter.
Yiuwin Tsang:Yeah. Just to say I'm blatantly that person that gets so that's really reassuring and, and super helpful on a personal level, but everything that you're saying there comes back to that word human and having that authentic connection with people and what better way than have these stories and these anecdotes? It reminds me of a leadership session that we did where we had to tell our experience within an organisation using a picture timeline. So not allowed to use words, we had to draw pictures of what it's been like since we joined to where we were and the key events that had happened during that time. And that was a really lovely exercise. Cuz again, it's, as you say, it just brings out. Brings out the meaning beyond those, those kind of hygiene words of like you say, integrity. I had to explain to my 11 year old son what integrity meant this morning, this very morning. He said, we were listening to the news. And he said that word keeps on popping up, Dad, 'integrity. What does it mean?' And I was quite proud of myself for saying this, and I said, Integrity is when you do the right thing, even though nobody sees you do it. And I was like, I got it
Carla Cringle:Very good.
Yiuwin Tsang:Yeah. And he was like, What do you mean by the right thing? I was like, time for school,
Imogen Pudduck:(Laughs)..... . Yiuwin Tsang: Yeah. Yeah. So, so just to, just to kind of come off that in terms of being human and move on to your second key driver about creating belonging and putting that human back into business. What would you say to founders and to leaders within their organisations as to how they could go about doing that.
Carla Cringle:I think one of the best ways is to recruit people that are different to you. Don't try and recruit people in your own image because, and I speak as a leader of business where it would be very easy to recruit people who are exactly the same as me, and that would be lovely for a while. But then you suddenly very quickly realise there's no cognitive diversity at all in your business, let alone any diversity. And you just come up with the same things all the time and you have no challenge because you're, basically, just all saying the same thing. So, recruiting people and having people who have at least cognitive diversity as in different outlooks on life and different perspectives and different backgrounds, is the thing that will really create a sense of belonging, even though everybody's quite different because you're all aiming for the same goal. So if you had that shared ambition and have people who have come at it from different perspectives, it can create some amazing discussion and great.
Imogen Pudduck:And, and while we talk about belonging, it's absolutely about having a two-way voice. So you know, creating discussion, ongoing conversations, but putting things out to the business to help people solve that. That is a way that people feel like their role is not just about the job they do, but also about the business they're involved in and we sawthat at Red Bull so much. You know, we, innovation was just such a big value for us, and it was put out to everybody to feel like they had the say in how things were being run. And they didn't always choose everybody's ideas I'd hasten to add, but you always had a sense that you could make an impact and had a chance to have a say. And, and only by doing that and having that as a permission every day, it wasn't just that you'd have that as a, an ideas box or.
Carla Cringle:Yeah
Imogen Pudduck:a business planning, it would be every day you'd have those discussions with your leader and your teammates about how to improve things.
Yiuwin Tsang:Fab and, and I guess having that diverse range of voices, diverse kind of backgrounds, different experiences as well. You 're building almost a cognitive bandwidth of your team, you know the diversity within the team in terms of their experiences, their inspiration, their ideas, their own kind of cultures, where they come from as well, I guess. And it gives that, that breadth that you need across your team to do really, really well.
Imogen Pudduck:Yeah, and we are big strengths advocate, so we talk an awful lot about strengths. It's such a positive tool. To have, because you are no longer just talking about your weaknesses as individuals. You're actually going, What are we all different and all brilliant at? And I'm brilliant at this, but I'm really rubbish that, but maybe you guys are really great at that and actually not so good on the stuff that I'm brilliant at. Just having those conversations, you suddenly learn so much about each other. And so you come together over your differences. It's such a powerful tool. So, so yeah, if you are thinking about trying to do something, I'm not a huge psychometric profiling lover. But we love strengths and strengths is just such a powerful tool because it's such positive language talking about differences and really creates that community together. And we know that high performing teams are made up of differences otherwise you'd just be really good in one area and not another. So
Carla Cringle:I was just gonna say if anyone did wanna look up the tools to do strengths profiling the two to look at Gallup strengths finder. And you can just buy a book actually. And it's got a code in the back, which is I think is about 20 pounds. And you can do the profiling at home and get your report. And the other one is Strength Scope. You do need to go through a qualified, certified practitioner, but we can do that for you at Fizzpopbang. I'm like, you know, if you wanted, if you're interested in that. Strengths is a really brilliant tool to just understand you and your team a bit more.
Imogen Pudduck:Such a good dialogue. I mean, I hear people talking about, 'Oh, I overplayed that strength, so that's why I behave like that.' So when they were having a difficult, challenging conversation, they could then carry on that and go, 'Well, I'm sorry, I felt like I overplayed that a bit' rather than I just behaved really badly and upset you. You can have a conversation because you are showing why you had it. And it shows there's so much more to it. It's such a positive tool. So, I think creating belonging is about having those challenging conversations, but all driving for a shared ambition.
Yiuwin Tsang:Yeah. And almost counterintuitively, as I say, kind of having that diverse recruitment strategy as you're building your team, getting different points of view as opposed to getting everybody who has the same point of view as you, which I probably do need to add as well. I think if I recruited loads of people like me, it would be absolutely insufferable in my...
Imogen Pudduck:(laughter) me too. That's why Carla and I work so well. We come as a pair because we're so different in our outlooks. We have the same values. It's hard to find a good business partner. But when you can find someone who's genuinely different to you but has the same values, it's dynamite. So we're trying to recreate that.....why we talk about brand and HR being best friends, we are both from that background. That's kind of what our business is made up of. And you can have those two different diverse thoughts, you just create something that's different and that's the magic, isn't it? Rather than everybody just being the same and having a, a slightly weird, lovely time.
Yiuwin Tsang:Laughter.) Yeah. I don't think it'd even just be slightly weird if it, but here we go. You'd get nothing done if it was just me running the business. We 'd have nothing done. So...
Carla Cringle:big ideas though.
Yiuwin Tsang:Let's not go there... Good. I'm pretty sure my business partner would be she would have a lot to say if it was a company full of Yiuwin's.
Imogen Pudduck:It's another podcast, isn't it?
Yiuwin Tsang:It is, yeah.
Carla Cringle:What would happen if you didn't have your business partner? Yiuwin Tsang: (Laughter) yeah, Okay, so, the last one of your drivers around leaders at all levels and having that kind of genuine kind of role modeling to create trust. And for me it's that last bit there about creating trust with your team, with your customers, with your clients, with your partners at that level of trust. So again, What would your help and advice be around company leaders becoming these role models? I think you've gotta really start at your first line manager. So we always kind of say, I think Imogen referred to our tier, the organisation. It tends to be, and this is a massive generalisation, but people who are immediately in touch with the end customer have higher levels of engagement because they see the impact that they're having on the business. And it tends to be that people at the very top are more engaged because they understand the purpose and the direction of the company. And then in between that you've got all these people that actually make most things happen or get stuck, so that's the tier where whenever we go into a really big organisation, that middle tier of line leaders, starting with your first tier of line leaders is where we start. Because actually, if they're having great conversations with their team and having honest conversations and creating trust, then it goes upwards. And I think you do need to have role models at the top doing that. But actually the bigger impact will be further down the organisation cuz that has the impact on your customers. So, so I think focusing on giving people the skills and the tools. Quite often you find that people are promoted up from sat next to their, you know, bezzie mate and then suddenly expected to manage them. And actually that's where a whole host of things kind of crops in. And then maybe avoiding some conversations cuz they used to be friends with them, you know, they don't wanna step out of line or they go the other way and become, you know, power hungry and kind of, well now this is how we're gonna do it. So I think giving that skill, that toolkit in a really easy human way. And we spend a lot of time with organisations designing that first line needed type program for them to just give them those tools is really important. But also making sure it's aligned to all of your values and your purpose as we've said before. So doing it in a way that is you and your organisation, not just, you know, textbook cuz there's nothing worse than a textbook line manager coming at you with their, you know, list of things that they want to talk to you about. So yeah, I mean that would be my top tip really. I think
Imogen Pudduck:I was just gonna add, Yeah, I think you know, leaders, everyone thinks that you're born a leader and you have to come out as the first perfect product. But actually all great leaders just work at it. They work out what type of leader they wanna be. They think about their strengths and they're really aware of it, but they're also really aware of what they're not good at. And they build a great team around them, as we said before. And they are able to show a bit of vulnerability. They're not the final product. They have that growth mindset, as anyone that obviously has heard of Brené Brown. But if you haven't, then check that out around leadership vulnerability. It's that idea that it's okay to show a bit of your human side and that you are not this perfectly formed leader at all times. Cause actually that shows that you are a human being and people are much more likely to follow you if you can show a bit of vulnerability, particularly during tough times. We found that during the pandemic when things were really tough, we weren't sure how much vulnerability to show at that point, but we decided we would just be really open and honest. And that, I think held us in really good stead so there's that great, I'm very paraphrasing cause of time, but a really good Nelson Mandela quote, which is 'during the best times you stand behind your team and you let them shine and in the toughest times you lead from the front.' and I think that that is so true and it's a never ending learning curve to become a great leader, but it's super important. People lead leaders and managers that don't need businesses.
Yiuwin Tsang:That's great and such, such lovely advice as well. It keeps coming back to that human piece as well.
Imogen Pudduck:Yeah.
Yiuwin Tsang:Which I'm in all day on that because I think certainly post pandemic during the pandemic as well, ironically, we lived our lives looking at people on a screen like we are today. Yet, the human connection really came through and I think we've had this conversation in the past before, you know, the days of putting on your power suits and going to a fancy restaurant and taking people, you know, those instances still happen, but they're not as meaningful as having that connection and likewise with with your team and with people as they join your team and as you recruit having that human connection unlocks that discretionary productivity and effort. You know, it means that people kind of hang around. It means that you have this I suppose there's a bit, a renewed contract with them in many ways. This new renewed kind of social contract with them that goes beyond just pound, shilling, and pence in terms of their, in terms of their paycheck.
Carla Cringle:Definitely you wanna stand shoulder to shoulder as someone that you really believe what they are trying to achieve and that you are in it with them. So not someone that's just gonna be a bit removed and you're not sure really what they stand for. They're the big boss, you know, it's just so, so old school. I think now leadership is so, so much more.
Yiuwin Tsang:Yeah, I think so. I'd like to think that from a leader's perspective, from a business owner's perspective as well, it becomes more meaningful to you as a purpose in your life and the reason why you do what you do and why you grow your company, because you've got these authentic relationships, the authentic connections with the people that you care about rather than, they're a number on your payroll. Yeah. It just means a bit more. I am so conscious of time, but I'm, I'm really keen to cover this last bit off. This whole, the concept of perpetual change is a way of life.
Imogen Pudduck:It's a small concept
Carla Cringle:we'll paraphrase,
Yiuwin Tsang:I feel like we're gonna have to invite you back for another one, so we can go deep into this one. So talk us through it then. What's this about? Not letting things go back to normal.
Carla Cringle:We started talking about this because, you know, there's always been lots of chat about change and we've, you know, pre covid we did lots of stuff around change and resilience in organisations and, and then Covid hit and that was a real change, right? And the world, you know, just, it did change for everybody in so many respects. And I think one of the things that, that happened during that is that prior to Covid, Businesses tended to have a process of, you know, they would forecast what they were gonna do, They would then plan how they were gonna meet that forecast, and then they would execute it. So, and then when they had changed, they would go, Right, well, we need to re-forecast, we need to re-plan, we need to re execute. So it was kind of the mindset that they were in, and it was. It was broadly quite rigid, but obviously with change is kind of the backdrop of that. I think what happened during Covid is that all the rules went out of the window. I mean you know, just thinking about Fizzpopbang, before that we were primarily a face to face business, so we would go in and do culture and training and leadership with businesses face to face. We didn't have an online presence and overnight that all stopped and we suddenly had to reinvent, you know, take the major pillar out of our business and go, Well, how do we now, you know, do this? And I think you know, that that was the same for businesses, you know, all over. And I think what then happened was that businesses then had to approach things really differently. So instead of that kind of forecast plan, execute mindset. It was much more around, right, let's explore. We don't know what the future holds. We dunno what tomorrow holds. We dunno what, you know, the next five years holds. And then let's experiment. So let's, you know, we as a business and with lots of our clients did lots of hackathons and we kind of went, what's the big thing this. Kind of in our mind at the moment. Let's just experiment. Let's just try that one small thing that might make a difference and let's just go with it. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Test and learn. And then let's invent. So actually it's take some seed of the things that are, are working and let's invent. And so I think it's for when you think about change, I think it is, there's a lot of businesses that had to do that during covid. And then were going, Right, okay, well now. Now it's coming to an end, right? How can I go back to that, that safe way?. I've bit exhausted by this last two years, and now I wanna go back to my, you know, I didn't mind change, but I want to do it in a plan. So forecast, plan, execute kind of mode. And actually the businesses that will be really successful are the ones that keep that hackathon mindset, keep that kind of explore, experiment, invent mindset. And so it's, you know, there's a whole piece organisationally how you want to kind of keep that mindset up. But with that comes an energy that you need to have around your teams as well because it is a different way of operating and I think, you know, when you've got your more rigid structure, there's an end to it. Whereas I believe that you need to do is to equip people to have that, that change and that energy mindset, but also give them time to, to pause at the end of it. And we read an article a couple of weeks ago, I think it was Ariana Huffington talking about, you know, having 'Thrive time' at the end of those go for your project or your sprint or whatever it is, you know, there's a lot around agile here and then you pause and you go, Okay, like this is time to have a bit of thrive time. It's a bit of time to, it might even be a day off or it might be go and do something that just gets you inspired again for a couple of hours, but creating that time to allow yourself to pause, because I think during the last two years everyone's been on and you know, they've sort of come to the end of it and they're exhausted and then they've gone on and we're gonna throw a recession into that as well. So so, so everyone's like, Oh, before you get burnt out, it's about how you manage that change and as leaders, I think we have a responsibility to enable people to understand that there is a new way of doing things. But also to help them take care of their energy through that new way of working and to support them with that as well, and to give time to, for the energy moments and for the pause moments as well.
Yiuwin Tsang:I guess there's a bit of again, that kind of communications management, that kind of cultural management.
Carla Cringle:Yeah
Yiuwin Tsang:it's just such a way of putting it. It reminds me of a phrase I probably wheel out way too often that people are more comfortable with old problems than they are with new solutions. And it feels like it's that kind of shift almost in mindset, in the approach that could yield some really exciting, it sounds like, would yield some really exciting results. But it's how you take your team through that process and how you have them on board in order to shift towards that method of working.
Carla Cringle:Yeah, agree.
Imogen Pudduck:And I think it goes back to what we talked about at the very beginning was that there's no pause on culture. So those are the businesses that will thrive, which will embrace that changes just part of life and will continue investing time and effort into their culture and to engaging their teams rather than waiting. Because if you wait until things are over, chances are there's gonna be another big piece of change coming along right behind it anyway. By then you're lost all your talent. So yeah, no pauses on culture. Actually the toughest times are the bits where you really need to focus in on making sure it's the best place to work, a destination place to work so people don't end up leaving cuz of big salary offers.
Yiuwin Tsang:Thank you to Carla and Imogen from FizzPopBang for sharing your experiences and your words of wisdom. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with you and I really hope the listeners enjoyed listening to our discussions.