Amazing Teams Podcast
We started this podcast because we love teams, especially amazing ones. Michael Jordan said it best, "Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." This is what we're all about!
Our mission is to help others build amazing teams by having authentic conversations with remarkable people who are building amazing teams. We will explore the tactics, strategies, and frameworks that have helped them succeed.
Amazing Teams Podcast
How to Really Move People - and Why Being Nice Ain’t It, with Stephen Lord
In this episode of the Amazing Teams podcast, we sat down with Stephen Lord, discuss the unique role of a Scrum Master, emphasizing the importance of kindness, empathy, and building trust within teams. He shares insights on treating developers as creative artists, fostering a positive team culture, and implementing gratitude practices to enhance team dynamics. The conversation offers actionable steps to improve workplace culture, highlighting the value of listening, authenticity, and recognition. The episode concludes with a heartfelt reflection on the power of appreciation in the workplace.
We dive into:
- A Scrum Master serves as a guide rather than a director.
- Developers should be viewed as artists, requiring a creative environment to thrive.
- Humor can lighten the atmosphere and improve team dynamics.
- Culture is shaped through everyday interactions — not just policies.
Tune in for Stephen’s insights on leading with empathy, fostering creativity, and building truly amazing team.
Resources:
- Connect with Stephen on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Point74
- What is Scrum Master?
- Ted talk: How to start a movement
Stephen Lord (00:02.754)
I'm not a developer. I've never written a line of code. But the way I look at them now, after working with them for 15, 20 years, is that they're artists. It's a creative process. You know, you've got to think that these people create stuff. It's all in their own mind. They've got to build it all up. They need time. They need space. They need a good environment to work. They need to know what they're doing and why they're doing it, really.
Doug Dosberg
This podcast is brought to you by Heytaco, the only peer-to-peer recognition platform that uses tacos to help teams around the world share gratitude. I'm Doug. I'm Una. This is our podcast, Amazing Teams.
Doug Dosberg (00:51.022)
Hey everyone, welcome to season three of the Amazing Teams podcast, where we explore all things that make work better. Today, we are excited to be joined by Stephen Lord, Scrum Master at Point74. Stephen, welcome to the podcast.
Stephen Lord
Thank you guys, thank you for welcoming me on. Very excited, can't wait.
Doug Dosberg
Of course.
Una Japundza
Stephen, can you tell us a little bit more about your title of Scrum Master? What does the Scrum Master do?
Stephen Lord
Of course, of course I can. It was originally a very developer-heavy phrase that was used in Agile, part of the Scrum methodology. Scrum Master is basically a servant master role. You don't tell people what to do, you show them the path and take them on that journey. So it's very different from a project manager, very similar in certain aspects, but the main difference is I don't tell anyone what to do. I'm rubbish at telling people what to do.
Stephen Lord (01:45.614)
I like showing the path, like saying, look, this is where the company wants to go. This is where we have to go. Let's get there together. You know, this is the way, let's go on together. And that basically is what a Scrum Master does in a bit of a controlled environment. Because in development, you know, you've got a nice two-bit timeframe if that's what you're using, and you can really get some focus in and protect the team. So it kind of ticks all the boxes for people.
I know we talked about this earlier about kindness and caring and it's so rare in the modern world to have people that you get paid to be kind, you know, and I know we'll talk about it later but don't confuse kindness with niceness and that was something I wanted to just throw back at you and there was something I read about it and it was a, I think it was a kind person tells you if you've got some salad in your teeth, a nice person doesn't. And that to me is the difference between kindness and niceness.
Una Japundza
Why does the nice person not tell someone they have salad in their teeth?
Stephen Lord
Because they're nice, they don't want to upset them. It's that cruel-to-be-kind type of thing. You've got to tell the people the truth in a nice way, not in a nice way, in a kind way. But there are certain scenarios, and you know, I'm putting myself out here and saying, I'm kind, not nice. I'm nice as well. You know, if someone's got salad in their teeth, do I tell them, well, it's a bit awkward and I feel a bit, do I want to do that? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes I just go, I'll leave it.
Stephen Lord (03:20.138)
Usually it's my wife and I don't tell her, and she's hilarious because she then says, did I have something in my... No, no, he didn't. Sorry. So anyway, that's Primemaster's bit is interesting because it's working with developers, and Doug, I know you're a developer, and you, well, you do everything. And as we said before, a bit legendary. So I am still a bit awestruck here. So I might witter on for a bit. So please stop me. But developers, I'm not a developer. I've never written a line of code, but the way I look at them now, after working with them for 15, 20 years, is that they're artists. It's a creative process. You've got to think that these people create stuff. It's all in their own mind. They've got to build it all up. They need time. They need space. They need a good environment to work. They need to know what they're doing and why they're doing it, really.
So if you put a room of artists together and said, right, you're all going to paint and you're all going to do this and I'm going to tell you exactly what to do, what would they do?
They don't just walk out like herding cats. So that's the way, you know, I'm not on a mission to do this, but everyone I talk to always says, look at developers like artists, treat them as creative types. And that's exactly what they are. know, personality-wise, might, you know, introverted. That's the classic stereotype. Some aren't, but the majority just want to get on and, you know, be left alone and do some good stuff. So that's the way I wanted to bring to this that we need to look at people as people in the workplace, you know, not just hate the word resources, you know, have we got enough resources? Have we got enough capacity? It's not that we're going to have skill, you know, are they motivated enough? Do they want to get out of bed and work for us, or work for the project, or do whatever? So that is a long story short. So you shouldn't have asked me a question. How long?
Una Japundza
We've got plenty of time. Doug, I'm curious, does that resonate with you as a developer and an artist?
Doug Dosberg (05:14.446)
Of course, yeah, I've had the opportunity to work with some really great Scrum Masters over the years. And the thing that I found interesting about them is their ability to just be really good at bringing people together and facilitating conversations. I see them as very motivational people that kind of, they come into the room, they get people talking, they get people asking questions, and being curious. I've seen the Scrum Master role be a very important role in my previous life. So yes, it does resonate with me.
Una Japundza
Stephen, you and I didn't talk about this, but I'm so curious. Scrum Masters seem to be leaders, but with no really authority, right? No one is obligated to do what you tell them to do. So you recently started your new role at Point74. You come in and there are these developers and they're like, who is this guy and why should I listen to him? How do you get followers to listen to you and, you know, and do their best work when you kind of, they don't have to.
Stephen Lord
No, but talking to Doug's point, if you've worked with Scrum Masters before, it tends to be when there are problems. So when a team's maybe not functioning as well as it could, maybe when there's a lot of waste in the system, they don't really know what to there's lots of handovers and there's lots of friction in the system. So you tend to bring a Scrum Master in. And I know we've talked about this before, Una, but it's talking to them about their favorite subject. Their favorite subject is themselves, right?
Just tell me about your day. Tell me about your work as a team. I tend to treat a team of people as one. It's like an organism. There are all sorts of moving parts and all sorts of this and that going on. And you can then, if you start talking to them individually and then as a team, you can then start seeing how people react to each other, how they want to do. No one wakes up and wants to do a bad job, right? 99.9 % of people get out of bed. They want to do a good job. I want to feel good about what I do.
Stephen Lord (07:13.464)
So if there's friction in the day, if there are things that aren't right, know, especially when you people are doing stuff and they know it's wrong, but they're told to do it. We have to do it this way. You have to follow this process. And again, with creative types, you want to allow them that freedom to create and to do what they think is right, but obviously within guardrails. So Point74 being a classic case of a company that's wildly successful.
It's grown within the food industry massively. I've got some stats on it. We can cover that later. But they had a problem. They've just been bought by a private equity firm. They've got some investment. They need to scale. And with all these owner-led companies, it's really hard to scale because the owners have been doing everything, and they've had to work really hard. Get a bit of investment. What do you do? We'll just carry on doing what we're doing. We'll wind that handle a bit quicker and then a bit quicker, and then it's going to work because it worked when we were five, ten, fifteen people.
Now we're 90 people. What do we do? So that's when we tend to come in and just talk to people. No, we don't talk to them. That's a lie. We listen to them. And if you listen to them and they feel that you're listening to them, and you reflect back to them. So when you do that, this happens. Okay, right. And this happens. Right. And then the best thing to do, and this is brilliant, usually they're working in their own worlds. You know, and they throw stuff over the fence and then stuff gets thrown back and then particularly between development and quality or IT, you have all these, all these things, right, you can't pass me a ticket until I've got this ticked and this ticked and we have to have a cross check and we have to do this and get them talking together. Well, why do you need? Oh, because it means, oh, okay, so if I put this on the ticket, or if I do this bit, right, and that, you know, just bringing people together and like that.
You get people together, you get them talking when they're not screaming at each other, if they are, hopefully they won't be. And just get them to talk and treat them like adults, you know? Like I said, nobody wants to do a rubbish job. So treat them like adults, get them talking and listening to each other, and showing them the way really. And the other thing is, I know I did think about this a lot since we chatted, Una, I think you've got to bring some humor. You've got to be a bit lightweight. know, nothing is ever that serious.
Stephen Lord (09:35.852)
I mean, it's, you know, I don't know a good analogy to use, but nothing's ever that serious that you can't have a bit of a laugh and a joke. And what I wanted to do in this is...
Una Japundza
I'm so excited for this.
Stephen Lord
I couldn't not wear the hat, right?
This, yeah, we'll come onto that later. But that is just fun, you know, it's just something stupid. And as long as you don't mind making a tit of yourself to want to use of a better word, you know, to be bit self deprecating, don't take yourself too seriously, and just do it for the greater good. And I know there's not enough of that. And it comes back to that generosity of spirit and kindness again.
Stephen Lord (10:17.326)
If I'm talking to you and I want to make your life better, why wouldn't you try things? That little experimentation type thing. Let's just try it for two weeks. Let's change this thing. Try it. If it doesn't work, we're not lost to anything. Let's try something else. That's the type of spirit I like to instill in teams, and just treat them as a thing. They're just a big organism that's trying to get shit done, really.
Doug Dosberg
Yeah, I totally agree on the having fun with it. When you said that a person popped in my mind, Ben Charbonneau, who was a great Scrum Master who I used to work with. And he was great because you never knew what he was going to show up in or what he was going to do. One memory that I can't let go of is him showing up in full-blown like exercise gear with like a headband, and he had everybody at our meeting doing pushups just to kind of get the blood flowing and you know, it's kind of like breaking the ice and it's getting people feeling good. he was really good at that. So I totally agree about adding a little bit of humor into the role. I think that's a great approach.
Stephen Lord
I'm not too sure on the pushups. But I agreed. Sounds a little too much.
Doug Dosberg
Yeah, I have to ask the plant behind you, is that real or fake? It looks really healthy. In fact, it's kind of like a tree. It's not even a tree, right? Is it real?
Stephen Lord
It is real.
Doug Dosberg
What are you giving that thing?
Stephen Lord (11:49.934)
It started off about that big. This is kind of like a garden room. So it gets really hot in the summer, and I think it must be a tropical plant. I could write this is dull. I'm going to go and get it.
Doug Dosberg
Now we're staring at this has got to be a six. okay. That's, that looks like a sibling.
Stephen Lord
So I cut three things off it, it in there, and it's just grown. This bit's grown. So there must be something about this room. When I started, I was only five foot six. When I started in this room, now I'm six four, so I don't know what's going on.
Doug Dosberg
That's the room.
Una Japundza
Sounds like a very healthy room you would be working out of.
Doug Dosberg (12:33.247)
That's amazing.
Stephen Lord
Yeah, yeah, it's nice. And this is just something else. We had this like a wellbeing thing in my previous company, and everyone who volunteered to do it, because you have to take time out of your day or your week. We got together and we started to do this, know, team health type thing, know, wellbeing. We got a doll of everyone made, which is personalized to them. And that's the, you know, it's those little things, the random acts of kindness. If you can get those in, to a team. I haven't started yet in Point74. I don't really think they know what they've let themselves import, but you know, we'll go with that. But if you can do things like that, random acts of kindness, know, gratitude, and it's going to come back to gratitude. And I think the best thing we ever did was put Heytaco in, in exclamation, because I've left, and a few people who put it in a book, but it's still going strong. You know, when it's a good thing, when it's in the culture, and they post regularly on LinkedIn about it, and I'm still there going, I helped put that in, you know, it's...
Una Japundza
Stephen, how did you have that insight about the importance of kindness and gratitude? Was it something that was instilled to you from your parents, or did you through your work experience learn? People could use a little bit more of that, or something through?
Stephen Lord (13:47.63)
Um, I don't know, I think I've always had this empathy, isn't it? I've always had a lot of empathy, and you know, I'm reasonably old now. So when I was a lot younger, the world was a different place, and empathy didn't really exist. So I always thought, why are people being so horrible to each other? You know, and you fit in, and you do that. And then when I started work, I thought, well, I've got to be strong and I've got to be, you know, you don't show emotion and you can't help people. You've got to go.
And then it was, I don't know, must've been a light bulb move. I think it was, I used to work in IT support, and I was originally very strict on it. And it was all, no, you can't do this. And, inside, I was thinking, why can't they just have a new keyboard? You know, I'll just do that for them. And then ultimately you, you learn that you can't do it in IT because people take the piss. Cause if I give you a new keyboard, yeah, I'll give you one. Then someone looks at each other and goes, why's she got a new, I want to, it's like, it all balloons out, and you know, it's all chaos.
But what you find is you can be yourself in this role because it's such an open-ended facilitator role. know, there's no real rules around it. And that's what I love. You know, don't tell my boss, I hate being told what to do. I really do. I always have. But in this, you just, you make your own world. You can make your teams be the shape you think they should be in. And people tend to go with it because you get results. You know, you think if you can apply empathy and kindness to a team and to get them working even though they don't know they're being empathetic and kind to each other, you get great results. know, and Doug, I'm sure you've seen it. If you've worked in teams like that, you know, if teams share a common purpose and share a common goal and know why they're doing stuff and they help each other out, you're 75 % of the way there to get quality stuff out the door. You know, knowing that why. So that didn't really answer your question, did it? But, maybe I'll come back and I'll wittering. Right, I'm wittering now.
Una Japundza (15:45.646)
No, no. You're good. One thing that made me think as you were talking about the importance of bringing the team along, sounds like what you're doing can be applied to outside of the engineering team. It doesn't have to be connected to development. And what you did at Exclaimer, just even with the culture and the gratitude, it was applied to the whole organization. So sounds like the skills that you have and what you bring to a development team goes far beyond launching products.
Stephen Lord
I think, yeah, that's pretty much spot on, but you have to have a testing ground. And when, I'm going to say this and it's hilarious, when you go to a party and you talk to people, right? I don't go to many parties and I don't talk to many people, right? Let's put that out there now. But when you go to parties, they say, what do you do? And you say Scrum Master, and they finish laughing and go, that's a made-up title. And then you tell them what you actually do, you know, from a day to day. I have not met anyone yet that hasn't gone, we should have that in our, you know, that would really work in our company because we could do this, this, and this. And I say, well, why don't you have it? Because we didn't know we needed it. And that is a, that is a real, real problem for this route, but that's not your question. I can't remember what your question was. I've gone down this rabbit hole.
Una Japundza
It wasn't even a question, it was more of a thought. It was more of a thought, right? It sounds like you're doing an exclamation. You did a lot of work that probably would traditionally fall under HR, right, or people and culture, what you and Ellie did with gratitude and culture. So you were taking on the organizational development, not just your engineering development, which I think is kind of interesting. But it doesn't all have to live with HR. It could live with someone like you who extends their skills outside of the immediate team they're working with.
Stephen Lord
The worst thing you can do is put culture into an HR, you know, bracket it into HR. It's not. Culture comes from how you treat each other every day. How each interaction from everybody, that's the culture. It's not because someone puts some words on the wall and you will go, yes, we're great at teamwork. But that was my original point was that it's a really good proving ground because engineers have got the Scrum Master title.
Stephen Lord (17:50.082)
You know, and you can go in and do that facilitation piece. So when you know you're going to get it working, everyone then goes, hang on a minute. I want a piece of that. You go, let's have a chat, you know, and that's how it builds out. So you've got to start small. You've got to, and that's exactly how we started it in Exclaimer, but we, I remember one day I was reading the management three dot zero stuff, and they said, you should have a gratitude box. And the engineers at the time were not angry, well, they were a bit angry and a bit aggressive, and that's fine. And they won't mind me saying it because, you know, I did hundreds of retros with them and they all calmed down and just generally hated me.
But apart from that, I thought, let's, let's give it a go. So I went up to the most difficult developer I knew, you know, almost awkward, and the one that would say no. And I said, I'm thinking of doing this for the development team. There were only about 15 of us at the time. And he said, yeah, all right. And I was like, okay, we might have something here. So.
This was pre-COVID. We had a box in the middle of the office, little cards to write on. We'd put them in the box. And then at the end, every Friday, we'd get them out, share them out, and you'd read them out. So we did this, and they got it. They got it pretty much straight away. And I was thinking, this is some sort of weird source. What's going on here? And then we built on it. And what we ended up doing was, if I'd written something, Una, thank you so much for fixing my pipeline. Great. You would then get to keep it.
So some people said, no I don't want it, but some people were happy not having it. Others collected theirs. So the ones that people didn't collect, we put all over the walls. So we had them literally, I think I counted about 800, all over the walls, all up the stairs. And every time you walk past, you just see a new one. It's something different. And it was like, okay, that's cool. But the people that collected it, I talked to one of them, and it was this particularly awkward person again. One day he said, when I'm having a bad day, I open my drawer and I just look through them. And I thought, this is great. We've got something here.
The rest of the business wasn't that interested. So then ,when COVID hit, obviously, the box is in the office, and we're all at home. And I'm thinking, I haven't got arms that long enough, and I'm not going back into the office, and you know, doing all that. So I looked around, I'd looked at Heytaco before for another company, but it hadn't worked out. So I thought, let's do this. So I talked to another guy and said, should we try this? Okay.
Stephen Lord (20:13.42)
And then my God, it just went mad. It went absolutely mad because we carried on doing it in engineering. But the difference was that you don't just put it in the box. You see it there and then bang, you've got it. interesting. Build out an engineering and within a week, the rest of the company was like, we want some of that. That's when it all went. That's yeah, it just went mad. And then after that, once you've softened them all up, you can go and do anything with them. They're in your hands.
Doug Dosberg
Yeah, it becomes a much more powerful thing, almost like a movement when it begins and starts on the ground level rather than top down, implemented. And then, you know, people are told to use it. It's just a totally different tool at that point. So this is a very common story where it starts within a small team, usually a tech team, and then it rolls up from there. I'm curious, since we're talking about it, what was the optics from leadership about it in the beginning? They probably had no interest in something like this, right? Because it wasn't implemented from the top down. Does that sound about right?
Stephen Lord
Yes, they just let us get on with it because we had built this culture, and it was like, right, we were trying things all the time, not necessarily on this scale, but just different things. And it was kind of like that. It started going. And then my boss encouraged that type of thing anyway, he gave me a free rein, and that's one of the people I want to say about gratitude, because it's that whole environment. You know, if I have loads of ideas, some of them are a bit stupid.
And that's another gratitude I'm going say about some early, but anyway, we'll come back to that. But when you meet people that, you know, the type of manager I need is someone that says, okay, give it a go. I'll take responsibility for it. You know, me, and they'll say, just give it a go, and I'll go and do it. You know, that's, that's the whole thing. So the leadership outside of it weren't that interested. They couldn't really care though.
Stephen Lord (22:09.612)
But within engineering, we knew it was all right. And then once it started rolling out, it's amazing how many people then started taking credit for it. And, you know, this is, this is great. And then we did a load of stuff about, because what we did was take the values, which were written by the upper management, but we then put those into tacos and, and add weekly things where whoever gave the most tacos because of this, you would get an Amazon voucher or something like that. We built it all the way up.
And talking about dressing up, I have dressed up as Marge, Mario in a suit. So we've done all that, but yes, that's the fun. And it's okay to be a bit maverick, I think. And I think to do this type of stuff, you have to be a bit maverick and to lead and take things on that might fail. And you look like an idiot. It's like, okay, it didn't work. You know, the number of times I've done that where it hasn't worked out, I can't count.
Una Japundza
If you don't try and fail, it's really hard to find something that does work. Right. Cause then you'll wait for the perfect thing, and you'll never find a perfect thing. Cause even with Heytaco, someone might look at it and like, that sounds so ridiculous. I'm going to look like a bozo if I start sending tacos to my team. Right. There's a lot. There's a lot. We don't want to look like idiots in the workplace. Sometimes you've got to put that hat on and just give a taco and see what happens.
Stephen Lord
The plant's in the way of the hat now, so I can't get to the hat.
Doug Dosberg
That's so funny.
Una Japundza (23:34.382)
Stephen, a question for you. When you and I spoke, you said being selfless is underrated, and it's important to put your team in front of you, oftentimes. What do you think helps people become more selfless? Because obviously we're all human and we want to think about what's in it for us, and how can we all build up being more selfless?
Stephen Lord
I think you have to have a safe environment in which to work. I think in order to do the greater good, you've got to see that no one's taking the piss, no one's taking advantage of you because that's the worst thing that can happen. know, especially if you're selfless, selfish people will just take, take, take. They won't give back. So you've got to make sure you're in an environment where that's not tolerated, but it's not tolerated by the whole team. You know, it's that expectation setting, you know, don't set expectations of the team,don't set rules, but you know you're there to help each other and to have their back. I think going into a team, if you can show people, I'll do that. I'll take that off you. It's a thing I always say to devs every time I go in is I'll try and take away as much as I can from you. That's not coding because you're paid to code, right? They're your skills. That's what you love doing. All this admin, all this political nonsense.
All you want to do is know what's next. What can I code on? How many customers are using it? You know, how is my stuff getting out in the world and changing things? That's what I try and do. In so much in Exclaimer, I took on doing facilities because it meant if I did that, it meant the IT team could then work on DevOps, which meant we could get the stuff out quicker, which meant we could build the pipelines. You know, instead of we had a classic situation where they would look after, is your infrastructure, you know, with all this mail flow going through it, but they were always responsible for the office.
So we had one time when there was potentially, there's your problem. And one of the toilets was blocked as well. So someone came up to them whilst they're fixing his problem, we're going the toilets blocked. And I was like, this can't go on, we can't do this. So part of it is taking it off them. And then they can say, okay, well, if he's prepared to do that, I'll, I'll really dig into what I'm good at,
Stephen Lord (25:46.51)
and do that. And it's always playing people to their strengths as well. Comes back to that kindness thing. Play them to the strengths. Weaknesses, don't worry about. We'll get somebody in to make up for those weaknesses. You know, good admin, why are you doing admin? You know, why are you estimating? Why are you logging your time? That's mad. Just get on. It's all about outputs. Look at the outputs. Make sure you're delivering value to the customer. Can't go wrong.
Una Japundza
I love that you're also willing to go first. Sometimes people will say, well, I'll do that when the other person does something. So we kind of wait on the sidelines. And no one wants to go first. But sometimes you have to go fix the toilet, go do the thing. And then people will realize, OK, this person's serious.
Stephen Lord
100%. And there's a great Ted talk, and I'm going to get the name wrong. And if you've got American listeners, they're going to roast me. Sasquatch Festival, something like that. If you have a look, look it up, Ted talk on, and it's basically one guy starts dancing, you know, in the middle of this question. yeah. Leaves him alone. That is the thing because you need three people, right? So a lot of the time, you just make sure you've got a couple of people that I'm going to go, but I know you've got one. Right. You're going to come with me. Fantastic. And then pretty much then everyone goes.
But yeah, you have to be prepared to put yourself out there. And it's not easy. It's never easy. And it's horrible. But you've got to do it, right? Because you want to improve. And you want people to improve. And that's the key. I think that's the key to life. Just try and get people to do the best they can.
Doug Dosberg
Agreed.
Stephen Lord
Not rocket science, isn’t it?
Una Japundza (27:16.514)
We somehow make it rocket science.
Doug Dosberg
So, for season three of the Amazing Teams podcast, we are focused on making work better. Let's do something for our listeners. And between us three, let's create a list of 10 actionable things that people can do right now today, to make work better. And I'll start by saying adding Heytaco to their, to their life. We all know that that is obviously number one right?
Una Japundza
It definitely makes work better, I mean, obviously,
Doug Dosberg
Una.
Una Japundza
Okay, I'm gonna follow with connected is just say thank you to your person in the front, you know, front desk at a doctor's office to the cashier, just them in the eye to say thank you wherever you go.
Doug Dosberg (28:07.15)
That's a good one. It's so impactful. Just simply saying thank you. Agreed. Stephen
Stephen Lord
First of all, I didn't know there was going to be a test, so...
Doug Dosberg
I apologized. First thing that comes to mind.
Stephen Lord
And you're counting these by the way, can we get to eight, and then it's all right.
Doug Dosberg (28:24.494)
That's fine.
Stephen Lord
One of the ones I've just written down. Celebrate the wins.You know, they come so very little, very little. They happen very rarely. You know, big wins, celebrate the little wins every day, you know, look for those things, just look for the little things. And it follows up with the say thank you say well done. So there's two or give me two there. So there's so well done for people.
Stephen Lord (28:47.918)
It doesn't cost anything.
Doug Dosberg
Yep, that's a good one. Celebrating, kind of in the same theme as both of y'all. Something very simple that I think a lot of people overlook and that is just simply smiling at people. It's an invitation, right, for conversation. The co-working place that Una and I work at, there's a lot of people that smile, but there's also a few that don't smile. And those people, just don't want to, you know, you're not going to go up and talk to them if they're not smiling. So just simply smiling at people is a quick way to engage and to just put some positive energy into the room. So that's my second one.
Una Japundza
My second one is ask more questions. I think curiosity is so underrated. So instead of just talking and saying what you think, ask a clarifying question of a colleague or just ask them, hey, why do you think this is the right idea? Or what made you say that? Just ask one more extra question in a conversation a day, and you're going to learn so much.
Doug Dosberg
That's a really good one. I truly believe that makes work better. And Una, you've kind of inspired me about curiosity and being more curious, not only in our work and our customers, but in the people that we work with. And so I think that's a really good one.
Una Japundza (30:04.366)
Stephen, you're next.
Stephen Lord
My next, this is, this is fun. This is hard. This is good. Listen, I think I say this listening, active listening. When you're talking to someone, get all the distractions out of the way because you know on this you can see and half the time you're in a meeting and someone's doing this you're not really listening. But when you're, when you're this, you teo are my sole focus. You're the most important things in the world to me today at this moment, and you'll get my full attention. And if you can do that with people, then why wouldn't you? How does it make you feel? Wow, got all the attention. Fantastic. So listen, active listen.
Doug Dosberg
Love that one. Should we keep on going or?
Una Japundza
Let's do one more round because I just have one.
Doug Dosberg (30:49.902)
Alright, Una, you started off. You start off round three.
Una Japundza
Okay, my third one is say what you're gonna do and then just do it. And if you need a change, then say that and adjust. Managing expectations is so easy. And yeah, if you're kind of slide and whatever, just like if you're gonna be at work at nine, say you're gonna just be there. If you're gonna finish a project, just finish it. And if you can't, say hey, something came up, I'm gonna do it tomorrow, right? But it builds so much trust with your colleagues when you just say I'm gonna do this and then you actually do it.
Doug Dosberg
I love that one.
Stephen Lord
100 %.
Doug Dosberg
That's a good one. Unless you wanted to go next, but I've got one on tip of my tongue here, Steven. And that is simply just delighting your colleagues. This is something that many businesses they focus on, delighting their customers, but that starts internally, right? The teams and companies where they focus on delight, and maybe delight is a core value. When it's happening internally, that's usually when it radiates to the customer, and it's a full kind of effect, full spectrum. And so, yeah, for me, my third item here that people can do today is to just simply try to delight your colleagues.
Una Japundza (32:04.076)
I like that one, like bring donuts into the office.
Doug Dosberg
Exactly.
Una Japundza
It doesn't have to be something crazy.
Doug Dosberg
It really doesn't.
Una Japundza
Think of other people and try and make their day.
Doug Dosberg
And that's a great one. You know, it's sometimes delight involves a little surprise. So yeah, surprising people with donuts is a great one.
Stephen Lord
Keep them guessing.
Doug Dosberg
Keep them guessing.
Stephen Lord
I did the one I've got is to be authentic. And that's, think that's why I like working with developers because they'll call you on bullshit straight away. If they smell it, it's like sharks in the water. The minute you're dishonest or disingenuous, you'll be back down to earth. So you can never, you can never, you know, hit the heights because they'll always keep you grounded. And yeah, they'll call you on it. And I love that. I think that's great. You know, just, just be authentic and you've got no problem, you know.
Doug Dosberg (32:52.81)
Agreed, and that was great. We can keep on going, but I think we should probably move on. I don't want to make Stephen work anymore.
Una Japundza
Work out the sweat over a test.
Doug Dosberg
He grabbed the pen, he's making notes.
Stephen Lord
I made all these notes in case you want me to.
Una Japundza
Well, you have all these notes, Stephen. Is there anything on your notes that we haven't covered that you just want to share with people listening?
Stephen Lord (33:18.414)
I, the only one, I did write down that we haven't done. And I'm not great with this. So don't take me as some sort of saying I'm not. It's checking with people is it comes back to that. But yeah, I think we're all around the same thing. Just ask people how they are, you know, you can have the usual stuff, but really ask them. And a great inspiration for mine was a guy who used to work on the call him out as well later on. And he said, always ask someone twice how they are, you know, how are doing? Great, no, no, how are you doing? And usually on that one, people go, oh, and they'll tell you. And that's the, it goes back to being authentic, really wanting to know about people and really caring for them, you know, showing you care for them. And that's, that's a great way doing it.
Doug Dosberg
Yeah, I think that's worthy of emphasizing. Ask people twice how they're doing, right? That's such an actionable, great idea.
Una Japundza
Yeah, the first time it sounds like a greeting. That's how people greet each other. Yeah. So you're like, fine. Like you just have an automatic response to, I'm good.
Doug Dosberg
No, how are you really doing?
Stephen Lord (34:23.681)
Yes. If you do it to someone or someone does it to you, it's really horrible because the second time you go, how am I? Well, yeah, all right, but it's a bit rubbish. And you go, my God, that works.
Una Japundza
Okay, can I add a nuance to that thing, to that Stephen?
I think the way you ask how you're doing is also important because if you ask it with how are you really doing, then the person listens like, I guess I'm good, maybe I shouldn't be good, right? And if you say, but how are you really doing? Right, then it's like, I can't say that I'm feeling shit today. So it has to be neutral. Otherwise, with the way we ask, we can lead the person to be like, I mean, maybe I should be more upset than I am, but I'm really not that upset, right? But in our voice, we can tell people what we feel like they should be feeling.
Stephen Lord
Yeah. Now you've got me thinking about it, if I've said that before and made somebody say something they didn't mean, my god.
Doug Dosberg
Well cool. Let's, let's talk about gratitude. As you know, Stephen, our podcast here is a Heytaco podcast and with Heytaco everyone has five tacos to give each day to recognize their colleagues for something they've done or to simply just put show some appreciation and put a smile on someone's face. Stephen who are you giving your five tacos to today and why?
Stephen Lord (35:45.282)
This was a hard one. This was a hard one because I've got a great wife and three great kids and that's four used up straight away. So I thought, no, that's cheating. That's cheating. So can I put family as well?
Doug Dosberg
Absolutely.
Una Japundza
They're your tacos, Stephen.
Stephen Lord
They'll always ground you. However, you know, however far you get in life, they'll always keep you grounded and say, Dad, stop being a nob or something, whatever they'll do.
I've mentioned Ellie Campbell. Ellie, you know Ellie? She is fantastic. She was, we were doing this, we were doing all this, culture stuff. She came in, she's a bit like a whirlwind. She's an absolute whirlwind. She's brilliant. And you get her in a room and you start talking about ideas. My God, you know. You have to go, no, right, calm down. And on the back of that, there's also Jim Turner, and we all work together at Exclaimer. And I always, always said, right, you two need to not get in a room together without me because otherwise they'll be like burning the place down or seeing, seeing how they can arm wrestle bears or do something like it was, it was such a good time, you know, cause it was nothing was off the thing. And we did some stupid dressed up as Father Christmas, and we did all sorts of stuff around gratitude, you know, around the Heytacos, around the Christmas type thing. So yeah, those two people, inspirational.
My old boss who gave me that, who was basically the container to allow me to do all this stuff, to put me on the Scrum Master path, and kind of build out what we built out in Exclaimer was Dan Richardson. And he's great because he just used to say to him, should we do this? Have you done it before? I hadn't done it before. I said, yes. He said, did it work? Yeah, and I hadn't, you know, he allowed me that.
Stephen Lord (37:26.926)
That level, I don't know how he did it, it was mad. And our Costco runs were legendary. We'd always get loads of cakes from Costco. So I would always stack them up. He would then come along and go, you haven't got enough. We'd double it. We'd go in there and everyone go, there's too many. Say, don't complain about too many cakes. It's brilliant. It was, it was such a good time. It was such a good time. And then the last one was, was someone I used to work with years ago. Sadly, he's passed out. His name is Lloyd Carby. And he was an inspiration because he set the bar, and whenever you did work, you knew you had to get to that bar or exceed it. If you wouldn't even go there with, with nothing, you know, if you got over the bar, you'd get a, yeah, that's all right. And if you got the, yeah, fantastic. I've got there. Fantastic. If you didn't, he wouldn't want to know you. So, you know, he taught me loads, and it's always do your best. Always do your best every day. Just keep that bar high because
It's all about when no one's looking. How high is your bar when no one's looking? And you know, people get away with stuff. I can't do that. I can't do that. My bar has to be five. Because otherwise, I've got Lloyd in my ear going, I can't do it. So they're my five. You know, it's a bit of, a bit of a walk through my world. But yeah, it's good people. And there are tons of other people I've worked with who probably all should get a taco, but you can only have five, which is…
Una Japundza
Just for the day though, they reset tomorrow. Remember? You got five more. I have to tell you guys, this is my, I mean, we talk about a lot of interesting stuff on the podcast, but the five tacos is always my favorite part. It's like, I get chills when people talk about, you know, tacos, I mean, Lloyd, right? He's no longer with us, and you still think of him every single day. Wow. That's amazing.
Stephen Lord
And it's that thing and the way to make you even more chill, even more, you will have influenced people like that, and you still can. And that's the frightening thing. know, when people come up to you and say, do you remember you said this five years ago? And I go, don't listen to me. I'm an idiot. I'll just make it up on the spot. And they go, no, you said that we did it. And that's the thing to take. And this is to your listeners as well. Every day, you can be affecting somebody's life in a really positive way if you choose to. And it's all a choice.
Stephen Lord (39:36.878)
You know, it's all about quality.
Doug Dosberg
I love that a lot. Well, Stephen, thank you for coming on the podcast, sharing your stories and your wisdom. We really appreciate you.
Stephen Lord
You know what, it's been great and I could have wittered on for hours and hours, but you know, I love what you guys are doing, you know that. And I wish you all the success in the world, and you're gonna get it because it's a great product, it's been great.
Doug Dosberg
Thank you.
Una Japundza
Thank you, Stephen.
Una Japundza (40:05.304)
Thanks for listening. One of the important things about building a team is gratitude. If you're looking to add more gratitude into your team, check out heytaco.com. We are clearly biased, but it really does work. Use the code amazingteams to receive 15% off for the first three months of your subscription.
