The power of culture when building a Beautiful Business with Imogen and Carla, founders of FizzPopBANG

Carla Cringle and Imogen Pudduck are founders of FizzPopBANG a brand employee engagement consultancy. In this episode, they join Yiuwin Tsang to discuss the power and importance of culture when building a beautiful 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.

Transcript

Yiuwin Tsang: 0:00

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. Okay, so we're talking about the power of culture in building a beautiful business. And so the first question I've got for you both is why is this so important when it comes to building a beautiful business? Now, I think it's one of those obvious things to say that culture is really important and we kind of say it but for you two working in this space and doing the work that you do, why do you feel it is so important?

Imogen Pudduck: 1:23

We started 10 years ago and 10 years ago we were about to enter a secondary recession, which kinda feels quite apt at the moment cuz we're about to enter another dip of recession. So it reminds us that change never goes away and it's always happening and history repeating itself. And 10 years ago, culture was one of those topics that people sort of talked about but it was still one of those sort of fluffy things that people felt like they should talk about, didn't really know what it was and I remember setting up FizzPopBang and going and talking about brand and pre-engagement and the power of culture and it feeling like it was something that was either a little bit fluffy or something that no one was really sure how to do, or we'll do it when things are a bit better and we're coming out of recession. So actually the message isn't any different today. The difference is we have this huge opportunity cause people now do realize the power of culture a lot more, especially having gone through a pandemic where for most people they've had to ensure that everybody works from home. And how do you build a culture when everyone's not sat in an office together? And at the time when we first started, there was a government report written by a guy called McLeod. The government commissioned it because what they had realised was that some businesses were bucking the recession at that time. So I think it came out in 2009, something like that. And they were interested in these businesses that of course there were lots of businesses that went by the wayside and that were really struggling, but there were some businesses that were totally bucking that trend, and they weren't just doing a little bit better. They were doing four times better financially in their performance, which is quite an incredible statistic. So not only were they just surviving, they were thriving during that difficult time. So they commissioned this report just simply to find out what was going on and could the economy learn from those businesses and what would they do? And what they found from that was the common thing was that they had highly engaged people. So not only were those businesses doing well because maybe they had a great product or it was a particular apt time for those products to thrive. It was actually not those things. It was the fact they had really engaged people that completely believed in what they were working for and had an environment that allowed them to flourish and do the best and I suppose also fights during times when they were difficult. So for us an engaged culture isn't just people who love what they do and tell people they are up for the challenge when things are quite tough. So I think that in itself shows why culture is so important. And I think it's not just a feeling of walking in and, and this is a great place to work, it's actually that the business results speak for themselves. So there's that great quote that Richard Branson talks about, which is 'culture eats strategy for breakfast' and that is totally true because no matter how great a business plan you have, if you don't have the people behind you to make it happen, and the culture that encourages behaviours to help you be successful, then you aren't gonna achieve your plan and your performance that you really deserve or that you really want to try and achieve and your culture is only as good as your lowest denominator. So, in 10 years things haven't really changed, it's just that actually what we've seen is that the conversation is higher on people's agenda because they felt it during the pandemic, for example, of why that's so important.

Carla Cringle: 4:27

Yeah, I was gonna say, I think to build on that as well, that we're double compounding the effect of how important culture is right now. Because we've had two years-ish of Covid where people have gone, well, actually, I haven't got time to invest in my culture. I'm trying to save my business, or I'm trying to work out how do we logistically work from home and, and actually some of those things that they may have put in place before around having a brilliant culture might have started to slip aside and actually there's been a whole focus around, well, how do we now try and work in a hybrid working environment or activity based working? We saw people in a Early September last year going, right, we need to invest in our culture again. And suddenly now, obviously the economy and the threat of recession and prices rising and all of that, people have gone, Ooh, right, maybe I shouldn't invest in my culture and actually then you're looking at three years with doing nothing around your culture. And actually that is at your biggest risk because your people will leave. We've all heard about the great resignation where supposedly everyone's trying to walk out and the next phenomenon, which again isn't new, but just got a new snazzy title is the Quiet Quitting. So that's people who are actively disengaging but they're doing that from behind screens so you can't see that they're clocking on at nine, they're working till five, but they're not going above and beyond, so they're not truly engaged and I think for us a culture where people are truly engaged is really important because they'll be living and breathing your values and they'll be going, okay, this is a business that I feel connected to and I feel that I want to help it survive. So I think those businesses that do decide to put a pause on their culture, firstly, you can't ever put a pause on culture cuz it carries on whether you want it to or not. But actually I remember going into a couple of businesses as Imogen said, and them saying, well, we'll invest in culture when we've got some money. Well, actually the most important time to invest in your culture is when there's unrest because that's when you need your people, your most. And actually, I don't think you need to invest a huge amount of money in your culture. There are creative ways to do it, but it's about time, it's about thought, it's about consideration. And also one other thing was around the new generation as well. So I think there's a generational divide where particularly coming from I'm a little bit older than a millennial now, so my generation, it's almost like we'll suck it up and get on with it and I think that actually that isn't the expectation of people anymore. So, people are coming into the workplace with an expectation where they perhaps have had a couple of years of being stuck in it, stuck at university, paying fees, not really getting a great experience at university and they don't feel like they're owed anything, so they come into the workplace and think, well I want to have a job that I believe in and that I've got a purpose around. But actually if within six months, if you don't meet those expectations and give me what I want I'm not really that invested in you at that point, so I'm really happy to leave. So I think that also compounds it is this new generation of talent coming through that have higher expectations and they really want an organisation with a purpose. So and brilliant culture. So it is really important for all those reasons of retaining your current talent, but also attracting that next generation.

Imogen Pudduck: 7:33

I think that's the thing that we've noticed in the last 10 years change so dramatically is that shift in expectation. People want experience now, and I think the pandemic supercharged that in terms of people realising that life is short and how they spend their time is super important. And new talent is their expectations are super high. And there was an amazing statistic that came out. When we first started, it was a third of people were engaged in their business, which was a really low statistic. And these are people who go above and beyond every day to help you achieve your goals so that discretionary effort is super important. It's really important to know that isn't about extra time, it's about extra effort and commitment and connection to your business. So, if people say, Why do I really need discretionary effort? I could just get people to do their jobs, but if everybody did 10% more, that's a huge amount of goals. It's that marginal gains idea. And now the statistics came out only a couple of weeks ago from Gallup, it's only 9% now. So it just shows that people are less willing to give that discretionary effort and engage in their business. So that's why culture is super important cuz it's enabling those people to feel a connection and to go above and beyond. And money can't buy experiences. So people are jumping ship because of being of offered great big salaries, but it's your culture that keeps people rooted because it's offering something that money can't buy and it's appealing to those things that are more important than money.

Yiuwin Tsang: 8:50

Yeah, it is really interesting. There's a couple of points I would like to pull out from what you both just said then. The first one is around that the younger generation that's coming through and I think it's easy sometimes to forget that I imagine I'm making some assumptions here, but we're relatively close in terms of the generation that we came through, so I feel like I'm one of the last to get, you know a student grant, for example, payment towards my education. You know, rents were reasonable and some of the really clever people managed to get on the housing ladder. People are a little bit later on, but there are people in my kind of age group who missed that boat and they're really struggling to get onto, for example, the housing ladder and they're just a year or two older, either side of, of my age and your circumstances and your, I suppose your privilege in many ways warps your view of things and as you say, there's a lot of people and I was guilty of this as well my previous job where some of the youngsters would come through and you'd think why is your attitude not in the same place as it were and how can you just move on to another job? But it's understanding that their circumstances are very, very different to our own. And then how do we build that engagement? How do we take that on board as they come through. And then the other bit Imogen as you were saying about that discretionary effort that comes through. And we only have to look at the NHS, don't we, in terms of how much additional time, effort, and energy goes into providing the workforce. It wouldn't work if it wasn't discretionary effort, the people within NHS give because they believe in what they're trying to do in the great greater good as it were. So just following on from that then one question. With the organisations that you've worked with, can you feel that difference? Those kind of workforces, the teams where you have got the engagement, where you have got that, that kind of buzz and the extra mile is just what they do versus those organisations and teams where they do what's needed. And it's a like the bare minimum. What's your experience there?

Imogen Pudduck: 10:30

First in my experience would be you can feel it the minute you walk in the door. It is so palpable if someone has a great culture. And often we go into businesses that we think they're gonna have a good culture cuz you think of them as a brand, you see stuff. We always do a bit of research before we go in, you have a look at what they're saying about themselves and you think, wow, this is gonna be a great business. But more often than not, you walk in and you go, okay. This isn't what they're saying it's gonna be. And that's really interesting cause we thought that, imagine if you then went and worked there. And that's one of the greatest problems that people have is that they go in thinking it's gonna be a particular thing and it's often not. And it is a real feeling of you walk through an office if they have an office, and you can feel it in terms of are people having great conversations with each other? Is it a very quiet office? And quietness doesn't necessarily mean they're not engaged, but there's just a sense of is it what this company is saying that they are in terms of the environment they're offering?

Carla Cringle: 11:20

Yeah, and I was gonna say, I think there's a few things that you notice when they're really getting it right and are really important for that new generation as well. So I think the first one for me is putting purpose front and center of everything that you do and involving your people and creating that purpose. So whether that's your values and how you behave or what you stand for as a culture in an organisation. Don't just sit there in a room as a leadership team and go, oh, this is what we think and project it on everybody. It's a really important time to involve your team in coming up with what that means for them and getting them to think about their own individual purpose as well and how they align. So I think that's probably the first one. And then the other thing I think is super important is Actually offering people meaningful career development. So not just about that next progression, because most organisations are much flatter than they have been in the past. But actually understanding what are the individual's passions, what do they want to achieve out of life not just in terms of this role and this company, but beyond that and trying to think about how can you provide them with experiences as part of your culture that match up to their aspirations as well. And then finally, I think there's a whole thing around connection, which, again, in a virtual environment means different things, but actually trying to provide that level of team connection and purpose and fun and that energy that you get. So it's not saying everyone's gotta go back into the office. We don't have an office and we don't actually intend to have an office. But having those meaningful get togethers at purposeful times and we love to call it activity based working rather than hybrid working because for us, it's not about a certain pattern of days, but it's about certain activities where we believe that actually it's much better that you get people together and you get that energy in the room. But I think those three things really help to create that culture. And to cement it. And to allow it not to be you as leaders always creating it because actually you can only do so much. Culture perpetuates itself, and I think we said before, you know, it's only as good as your lowest common denominator. So as soon as you've got one person starting to destroy that culture, then you need to pick up on that, and you need to make sure that isn't happening. So those meaningful team get-togethers and that purpose I think is super important.

Imogen Pudduck: 13:36

Probably Most people who listen to this will have read Daniel Pink's 'Drive.' but we most definitely sign up to that as being, if you can appeal to intrinsic motivators, purpose, mastering autonomy, those are the things that help cement the foundations for a great culture. And your purpose doesn't have to be something real. You know, you can make chocolate biscuits. You just have to have something that people believe that the work they're doing is important and that they are in it together. And so they're all aiming for the same thing. It doesn't have to be eco-friendly or a real purposeful changing the world. You can change the world of biscuits and everyone who makes chocolate biscuits. who makes everyone happy. So it's from that point of view and as guys of mastery giving people drive and autonomy, getting out the way and letting people have freedom. So, as I said, getting together for when it really counts, not because you're watching people to make sure that they are not just putting their washing on during the day, and not doing any work. So yeah, it's having that in mind, that helps create a great culture.

Yiuwin Tsang: 14:28

Do you feel like the the leader's role in culture then is more as a kind of a guardian of the culture, if you like, rather than an enforcer of it. And just making sure that it is going in the right places, it's covering the right I don't wanna say the word behaviour, but I suppose it is in the sense that, you know, are people living it and people, yeah.

Imogen Pudduck: 14:46

I think behaviour is really important because setting your expectations around what behaviours you believe are gonna help fulfil your values, will help you be successful, not only in living your brand, which is what makes you different to anyone else but also lives up to the values that you believe are important to help that brand survive. So I think it's really important to talk about behaviours because that's what you see every single day, and you as a leader are the most important person to, I suppose, not only look after it, but also role model them and really truly show them and help people understand when they aren't showing them and demonstrating them, and they're off course. So yeah, I think we would probably say leaders are one of the most important, in fact, they're one of the drivers so yeah...

Carla Cringle: 15:28

I think their role as well is I think it depends on the circumstances. I think when things are going well, actually, it's about them supporting and unblocking trouble and also providing them with a level of energy as well. So, what can I do to spark your passions and your energy and allowing them to run free. But when things are really tough, actually as a leader, that's when you need to stand at the front and really do need to lead a bit more from the front and provide that bravery and that explanation and a bit more direction. But I think generally as a rule is about unblocking, supporting and having honest conversations.

Yiuwin Tsang: 16:07

That's a really interesting point that you raised as well there, Carla, around how your role as a leader shifts and moves depending on the circumstances that the economy, that the society might be in and there are times when you do take that forward leadership role, and then there are times when you almost step back and allow people to flourish into that grow into their constitute parts of the company's culture, of the organisation's culture so that they get a chance. to flourish, to get a chance to express themselves, to get that opportunity to grow and develop themselves as individuals and as well as being part of that team. And again, to the point you made earlier during this whole discussion the power of culture when things get really tough as you say, cuz I think coming back to the new generation coming through as well it feels like the social contract has changed. There isn't such a thing as a job for life anymore. And maybe, it's a bit old fashioned, but when you look at somebody's CV and you think, oh, they've had four or five different roles over the last three or four years, it's not actually that unusual. And there's often good reason for it. And I guess what we need to work out is how do we not necessarily make them hang around for longer, but how do we ensure that the interaction that we have with them when they're part of our team is a really worthwhile and meaningful one.

Imogen Pudduck: 17:14

Yeah. And I think you hit the nail on the head around leaders getting out the way and letting people flourish. I think that's one of the things you notice most when you go into businesses, stops cultures and businesses achieving what they need is those leaders, with the greatest intent often, but, they just stand in the way. And they may have a quite fixed mindset, more often than not and we know as business owners of a small business, it's your baby. You grew it from the start. You were there at the beginning. You are so protective over it. And when people come in and start to change, it can be really hard to step out the way and let people flourish. But, that's really the only way that you can grow your business and allow it to become more than you had thought it was gonna be, which is why we're always so involved with your team, particularly around values and behaviours, cuz they may tell you things you didn't know. But it's terrifying, as a leader of business. But it's one of the main drivers of engagement and we know, having been in so many businesses, you can feel it if there is a business leader who is standing in the way it can cause so much. It can, we call it the blem. It just causes things to get stuck and people leave managers, they don't leave businesses. So you may have the most beautiful business, but if you have someone that you work for, we all know we can all think of a dreadful manager that we've worked for. They are the people that. There's the reason on the whole that people leave businesses. So I can't remember who told me, but someone once said that we're all in a mill owners in terms of our leadership style. So we're somehow born with this innate feeling to tell people how they should do things and to crack the whip and here's a load of stuff, you must do it the way that I want you to do it. And I think that comes from wanting to keep hold of control and things being done a certain way cause it makes us feel safe as leaders. But the trick to it, and the businesses that we see that flourish the most and who really have cracked it, are where that leader has a growth mindset still. They are constantly learning and they're not afraid to say when they don't know the answer or when they want to try and learn how to do things better and particularly small businesses where you've got a leader who has become a leader from starting a business with an idea. They're people with the growth mindset who are willing to listen to their teams and to try and evolve are the ones that really crack it.

Carla Cringle: 19:17

I was just gonna pick up on your point as well about getting the most outta people's experience through the time that they're with you. And I think that's a really important point is that actually you don't really want to have people with you for life anyway because your business grows and changes and the types of skills and people that you need and I think obviously you will have some people that grow with that business and are part of it for a longer time, but I think it's really important to note that actually, if you've got somebody with you for a year or two years and they bring their whole and they feel that they can connect with the business and they feel that they've got a purpose and that they're really part of that culture and they give everything and they get lots from the organisation. That's great because we don't live in a hierarchical world, the days of sitting there and waiting for partner or your next kind of VP type role. It doesn't exist in most organisations now. So actually and even when we were at Red Bull we had an incredibly flat structure for quite a big organisation. So we created something, we've done this with a lot of businesses since, but real kind of alumni program, so there's this, people leave having had an amazing experience and they leave as ambassadors and they talk highly of you. We've got lots of people that have worked either at Red Bull or at FizzPopBang, who we've stayed in touch with and they bring business, they bring good contacts, they bring good conversation. You stay friends with them essentially. And actually, years down the line, they may come back to you. And we certainly have seen that in a lot of the businesses that we work for where people have gone off and got different experiences and then come back with those experiences as an ambassador and future alumni to bring some fresh thinking. So I think it's not to say that you've gotta always keep those people if it's not right for their journey or if it's not right for your journey. But it's how you have those conversations and make sure that you are honest about that. When the time comes will determine whether they remain an ambassador, or an alumni really.

Yiuwin Tsang: 21:06

Some people wear it as a mark of pride, don't they? X Googlers often on their LinkedIn profile of X Google on there. And to your point as well, Carla, about that, it's almost like that ripple effect, you might have somebody, they have a fantastic experience with you and it's either a natural end or perhaps things don't quite work out, but the romanticist in me thinks that person may well go on, go for a drink down the pub with some friends who's looking for a role or wants to know about a certain organisation and say, I used to work with such and such, over at FizzPopBang, they were amazing. I'm so gutted it didn't work out for us and that kind of employer brand I suppose you could call it. But beyond that, it's just, it's all the more powerful when it's somebody else saying it about you and your organisation than it is you saying it.

Imogen Pudduck: 21:47

And your internal brand ambassadors are the people that you're aiming for through engagement. When Carla and I both worked at Red Bulls, how we met, we would bore our friends senseless if we ever saw them, because we'd be working for Red Bull you know, every hour possible just by our choice. We would bore them about what a great place it was, and we still do, and we left 10, I left 10 years ago. I still talk about it as a great place to work. And that's ultimately what you want to do. I think people are fearful of that. People are fearful of having a conversation about the end. The trick, of course, is you don't wanna lose your talent early. You don't wanna lose them for the wrong reasons because you haven't done something that allows them to flourish or they feel like there's a barrier that isn't there. But ultimately as you evolve together, if it feels like it's time for you both to like Carla said, it's not working for both of you, then I think it's okay to have those conversations. It's just, as a leader, it be scary to do that sometimes, and that's why good conversation is we do so much work about trying to help leaders have good conversations with people because it shouldn't be an annual thing, it should be something you do all the time. So you really get a sense whether someone is coming to the end of their time.

Carla Cringle: 22:49

And that's why going back to the real honest career development conversations, I believe that the best companies have those regularly. You don't go, what do you wanna get out of your career. What do you wanna get out of life? So those conversations then aren't a surprise because you are talking about in five years, I want to, I dunno, be doing yoga on a, an island, or I want to be doing this passion thing that I'm starting to do now. And so you know that that's coming and you are having those honest conversations and whilst they're with you, they're giving you their a hundred percent. But also, it is not a surprise when it comes to that point that actually they might be doing something else, or you might need a different skill set internally. So I think it's honest conversations on both sides is really important around that.

Yiuwin Tsang: 23:33

Definitely. And think you brought the point up there when you start a business, when you found the business a lot of it is blood, sweat and tears and this kind of passion, there's a bit of a hero complex, I think it's called, like the big red leader, making decisions based on gut feeling and things like this. And then as it changes the business has to be run differently. You move out of that entrepreneurial survival mode and then you start moving into more, typically, into more of an efficiency mode. How can you do what you do really well and start widening your profit margins, doing things really efficiently, getting more out of the resource that you have. And then the next stage I think is you go into more of a performance driven, performance measurement model. And I think the final part is where you have this autonomy piece of everybody doing what they need to do and playing their part as they should do. What do you two see with the work that you've done around growing pains and these tipping points that you often see in culture? Cause I think you're right. You mentioned it before, the way that you used to do things might not work as well as they did before when there were two or three of you when you get to five or six of you and stuff like that. So talk us through that. Talk us through these key cultural tipping points.

Carla Cringle: 24:35

So I think the first one is when you have more than either founder or the founders join. So I hark back to we sat there and we came up with our brilliant idea of what we were gonna do. Weren't quite sure what it was, but it was fun. And we were sat around a kitchen table and had the world at our feet. Not much more than that, but when that next person joins you already have a culture. So you already need to think about somebody else. So that's your first bit. And I think then you need to just think about, how you involve them, and how, if it is two of you, or if it is one of you, how much of their involvement you want and how much you're willing to share. And I think at the start it is quite easy, it's quite exciting. And I think then the next cultural tipping point you add one or two people, but it's when you get to be we always say about the size of a football team. So when you can no longer physically sit around that table. And I know that today, obviously we don't sit around the table that much, but that certainly is a tipping point where you need to start thinking much more about investing in people in terms of like training and development stuff. Also just making sure that you are doing things to understand how everyone's feeling, much more around engagement surveys and those things as well. And then I think you start to get, it's probably about twenty. There's your next tipping point where you're starting to become a proper business. You're trying to, as you said, become more efficient, align things, but that's a really important stage to make sure you don't lose who you are. Because I think, we see loads of businesses where they've grown really quickly and big businesses are going, oh, we used to do that back in the day. And it was really easy and it felt really fun and it felt, and I think that is a point where you can really start to lose your culture because you start to go right, we're 25 people. We need to have all of our health and safety stuff sorted. We need to have all of our processes and need to make sure that we operating like a big business and that's what you spend all your time doing. But actually you've forgotten about all those things that were brilliant about being small. So I think at that point it's really important to bottle up who you are and what you stand for as a culture and make sure that that feeds through all of your more growing up bits. So if you are going to, go through getting your policies and procedures and all of that stuff sorted, wonderful. But make sure that you do that in a way that is linked to your core purpose and your values and who you are. And you don't just go and buy a block of that stuff to tick the boxes, as it were. So I think that's a really important growth pain point and one where people can get probably just do it quickly and then look back when they're at 50 or a hundred people and think, God, I wish we'd done it differently. Cuz it can really change your culture Then. And then I think your next cultural tipping point is your hundred really. So you're really seriously thinking about actually really investing much more in your infrastructure. You really should think about having someone who's responsible for your culture. And when I say responsible for your culture, I don't mean the person in HR who's doing all your forms and processes. I mean, someone who's really thinking about people's development. What does it mean to be here? What are the skills and the behaviours that we want to embed? How, how do we set ourselves apart as an organisation? And it should be someone pretty senior. I see lots of organisations who grow and they get almost like your office manager turned HR which can be great in terms of that more startup phase. But when you get to a hundred people, you really need someone. You don't need someone doing all your forms and your grievances. You can outsource that to a lovely, wonderful HR outsource provider. What you need is someone who's sat there at the board table talking about what's our people strategy? Which talent do we need? What skills do we want? How are we gonna grow and attract the best people in this organisation? So then I think the final tipping point is about 250 people, and I think Richard Branson famously says he will never grow part of his business from a business unit for more than 250 people. So even though he has massive businesses across huge sectors, he never lets it grow beyond 250 people. And so they have a red thread of their values that sit across all the Virgin organisations, but within those 250 people, they define that culture and work out what that means for them. Because once you get beyond that, you don't have a culture , you're part of a bigger machine and you will create those subcultures. So I think it's quite an interesting point to just not feel like if, if you're in a huge organisation that you should have one single culture, you'll have similar things. But actually allowing people to define what that means for them is really important at that stage.

Yiuwin Tsang: 29:05

I guess that's part of how individuals within teams self-identify in many ways as well. So, I mean a company I used to work for in Bristol. We were up to about 150 before I left. One of the later stage tipping points, I suppose, on your model there. But the different teams within the organisation almost had subcultures themselves and some of them were, I felt very appropriate for their role in the organisation what they had to do. So, for example, the finance team had a particular culture in terms of how they operated and the ways they dealt with different things that came across their desks versus, for example, the Sales team culture, not particularly healthy all the time, but they almost had different cultures that helped support what they needed to do. And I can see that being quite appropriate again for these organisations that do grow to that size. The idea that there is sub cultures that still reflect the core company culture but still operate within.

Imogen Pudduck: 29:56

Yeah. I think you wanna make sure as Carla said you wanna make sure it reflects your values as a company. So whatever that subculture, it doesn't matter, as long as people are living the values and the behaviours can change depending on what's appropriate for the team, but also it has to reflect your brand, as Carla said, that's your personality and how you do things and how you make decisions so your values are informed by your brand and your behaviours are informed by your values. So whatever subculture is, it doesn't matter. It can be tailored, but as long as the common thing is what's gonna make you successful as a business.

Carla Cringle: 30:27

Quite often you will involve your whole company in coming up with your values or your purpose and then actually at a team level or a smaller subgroup level, you then go, well, what does that mean for us? So actually, how does that mean we in sales want to interpret them and behave and what does that mean for how we interact and how we socialise and how we call each other out and have good conversations. So I think that as long as you've got that common thread, it's then down to the individuals to work out their own ways of working that work for them. Because you don't wanna prescribe that. And different personalities will take that and interpret it in different ways and I think that's really important that they own it.

Imogen Pudduck: 31:08

It's all about individuals. So, we work with some businesses who are tens of thousands of people at, and a lot of the work we do with them is try and unpick some of the stuff that they've done that they should have done. So, when they were smaller and actually we encourage people with small businesses to do it as soon as you possibly can, start to bottle up what you are and who you are and your attitude to life and what's important to you and your values and pavers. Cause if you do it now, you can evolve it and you should evolve it regularly. But it will mean that you're not asking those questions when you are already a hundred or 200 people and it's become an issue because these are the things that will hold you in good stead as you grow bigger. And you have to make decisions about are you turning this way or that way. And on that, try not to create rules for the masses. That again, is a big problem that lots of businesses get to. I think it goes back to that inner miller. We go, right, everybody, we should do this because that feels like a good business decision and everyone's gonna have Friday off, or we're gonna do summer rules, or we should do jean's, dress down and none of those are a problem, but you've gotta work out what it is that really is gonna help live your values and behaviour and not create rules for masses. Think about individuals. It's okay to have individual rules based on what's right for that person. And it requires a bit of bravery because you go through questions of is it favouritism. Are we not being fair with people? And as long as you are clear about why you're making those decision, that's fine. Be careful of making rules for the lowest denominator again, because as we said before, your culture will be based on the lowest denominator in your team, if you only create rules for those people, you're not creating rules that help your real top talent, the people that are really driving your business, and actually you're more likely to disengage those people so they end up leaving.

Yiuwin Tsang: 32:44

Sure. No, that makes total sense.

Imogen Pudduck: 32:46

One other thing, overcommunicate, I mean, I think that's the thing we've learned as well. Again, we go into companies and probably communication as everyone would guess, is one of the biggest things that you have to try and solve when you get big, but we also know ourselves having set up FizzPopBang never assume everybody knows what you are doing as a business. As you recruit more and more people, that feeling of what you are trying to achieve and that purpose gets watered down. Your values and your behaviours and your brand gets watered down, so the more, if you feel like you've communicated this stuff to people then just keep going because actually you probably haven't as much as you think. So we're always regularly surprised by even our own team who are like, no, I didn't really know that. And you're like, wow, I feel like we've talked about this so much. So it's just always over telling people and over involving people and not assuming everyone knows that they understand exactly what you're trying to achieve.

Yiuwin Tsang: 33:32

Yeah. And, and I suppose from a leadership perspective, but if you get this feedback, there can be no harm to be done by over-communicating and having that feedback coming back over. A super interesting guy that I met through another client. He's set up a company which is all about research and it's all about finding your ideal customer proposition, your value proposition for customers and his statistic that he roles out is that if you spoke to 10 people within your organisation, why do people buy what you do? You will get 10 different answers and if you spoke to 10 different clients, why do they buy what you do? You'll get 10 different answers. And what you need to do is you need to come to a position where you are telling people why they are buying what you do and that is a reason why they're buying. And it reflects back into your, your own culture and right back to the beginning of our conversation about this this expectation point when you walk into an organisation that does the talk but they might not do the walk when it comes to culture, where you feel it immediately as you step into the office that it isn't right. There's a book that I read recently called 'Solve for Happiness,' and it was. Really simple equation that this fellow had come up with, which was, your expectations versus your experience is how happy you are. So if you've got really high expectations, your experience is really low, then you're gonna be really unhappy and the closer they are, even if you're able to surpass and the happier that you will be. So I think there's probably something we can take from that in terms of that culture, what can we do that really sets our stall out? That really does do that. And I guess it comes back to your point around bottling up what it is your culture and as you say, easier to do that at the beginning than it is further down the line and really understanding what it is and what that means. Cuz I do love the point that you make about how it waters down. It gets diluted as every person comes back through. So it's almost, you need to be able to go back the source to bring it back up again to bring the concentration back up again.

Imogen Pudduck: 35:13

And I think everybody regularly having a say into your values and what that means and how that, as Carla said, different teams saying, right, these are our values. What does that mean for us? How does that play out? Then it brings it to life. So again, you don't wanna have values just stuck on your office wall. That don't really mean anything. The companies we walk into that have a great culture, People could tell you what behaviours and values are important to them, even if they don't say the actual correct words that you have in a PowerPoint somewhere, you get a sense of it because it's their own interpretation of it and that shared connection is what drives a great culture. So,

Carla Cringle: 35:48

and you have those conversations as well and honest conversations based around the values as well. So Simply you celebrate success against them. So you bring them to life through everything that you do, which is, I think people forget how important that is. If you've got a value around curiosity, that should emanate how you approach your training. It should emanate how you approach, just projects, everything that you do. You should really try and think about, well, what does this valley mean in this situation, and how can we really bring it to life rather than just pay lip service to it, which lots of organisations still do, I think around values.

Yiuwin Tsang: 36:25

I think they do. The word gets thrown around a lot, but that whole piece around authenticity and it does mean so much on so many different levels. I'm really conscious of the time, but I do want to cover this one point cuz I do love this idea that you brought around serendipity as a prevailing thought within your business. Tell us what you mean by that.

Imogen Pudduck: 36:41

So serendipity was something that we have probably had from the beginning because Carla and I had never set up a business before. We'd always worked for brands. And when we left wanted to have a business that did good, even if it wasn't about necessarily changing the world or being, more sustainable or eco-friendly or whatever. We wanted to do good in the world, but that was super important to us, but how we did it was really important and we both hadn't come from really a sales background, so we were quite nervous about doing the whole hustle and things like that. So we just very quickly realised that how we treated people as human beings, and that's now one of our values is a really important part. And I think that's the same for every business. Like I said before, you can sell any type of product, but it's how you do that business that really is the thing that makes the difference. So for us, it's about being authentic. It's about surprising people. It's about treating people like human beings and so much of the work we do with big Corporates is about reminding people that they are humans. There's this old-fashioned view and I say old-fashioned cause it is, but it's still around, which is you have your work face, you come into work and you put a particular mask on and you don't show your whole self and you go away and actually nowadays we know a big part of, particularly younger generations is about bringing their whole self to work, so bringing, particularly around mental wellbeing and things like that, bringing that whole self is important. And work-life balance has been around for so long, but life balance is such an important thing. So serendipity is just about being authentic and treating people as human beings and doing things even if there isn't a business outcome. So you know, we do it in everything that we do with our clients. We've met some amazing people over the last 10 years and so many people have now become just good friends with us because it isn't about what you can get from things. It's just about building brilliant connections by just being a good all-round human being.

Carla Cringle: 38:34

I think it also stands its test when things aren't going as well. So I think if you've got a client or a team member where the relationship isn't going as well as you would like for whatever reason, then serendipity is also really important. It's how you treat them in that scenario. We'll determine whether you feel that you've done your best. We always say, have we done our best? Have we been kind, have we been human? And actually, it doesn't mean you can't have tough conversations, but if you do it in the right way I believe, like we always say, we believe that that in the end that good will come of it. So I think it's important that it's not just when things are good, but when things aren't quite as good. Serendipity is super important. Treat people how you wanna be treated and it will come good in the end.

Yiuwin Tsang: 39:18

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.