A Job Done Well - Making Work Better

Debunking Workplace Myths: Boost Your Performance at Work

• Jimmy Barber and James Lawther • Season 2 • Episode 37

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In this episode, host James Lawther and Jimmy Barber discuss some common 'corporate myths' that hinder performance at work. 

They explain that while targets will drive performance, it necessarily result in the performance you want, the fallacy that senior management has all the answers, and the misconception that long hours equal productivity. They also highlight the value of small, tactical improvements over big strategic projects, the benefits of treating suppliers as partners, and how introverts can make exceptional leaders. The episode wraps up with a reflection on social media perceptions versus reality, emphasising the need to focus on genuine rather than perceived performance. If you have any 'corporate myths' that you'd like debunking then please get in touch!

And we also learn what James has in common with Pedro Pascal, and it's not highbrow French films!

Got a question - get in touch. Click here.

Speaker 2:

Hello, I'm James. Hi, I'm Jimmy and welcome to a Job Done Well, the podcast that helps you improve your performance enjoyment at work.

James:

Good afternoon. How you

Jimmy:

I'm doing well. James, how are you?

James:

I'm doing fabulously. Thank you very much. The sun is out. It's a beautiful day in. It's quite unusual really.

Jimmy:

I dunno. Every time we're doing a podcast at the moment, you are fabulous. And the weather's fabulous.

James:

Yeah. If I tell

Jimmy:

Yeah, exactly.

James:

it anyway. What are we talking

Jimmy:

Are talking about corporate myth because we think that there are certain things that people and organizations believe that aren't necessarily true that hamper performance distract people, take people's energy. And we thought that we would share our perspectives on some of those key corporate urban myths, Anyhow, before we get into that, James, what have you been up to?

James:

Well, I have got another film

Jimmy:

Let me guess. It's, it's French

James:

to, it was actually, yeah,'cause I'm a bit highbrow. It's French. It was called, I forgot.

Jimmy:

now. You're making it up. You're making up. What have you made up now?

James:

It's, it's called the marching

Jimmy:

Okay.

James:

a sort of French version of, oh, you know, one of those Billy

Jimmy:

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

James:

Town Boy does good, but very good. Anybody who's interested in, interested in classical music and Northern go and

Jimmy:

You know, you know, we don't have a big enough audience for that person to be part of the audience. I'm just, just saying, I, I think you make up these films because while I say that, I did actually go, when you started going on about a thousand beavers. I I was sure that you made that up for your own amusement.

James:

you

Jimmy:

I did actually go and check and it is true.

James:

And it is a

Jimmy:

It is.

James:

and it's very popular

Jimmy:

It's cult. It's a cult film. It's a cult film. You were not lying. I just thought you were doing that. Just amusing yourself.

James:

between you and me, mate. Where highbrow and cultured. So just going back into that then, so we had this conversation yesterday, once we were preparing for this podcast and I said, oh, you should go and watch this film. Do you know what, what? Jimmy went and watched instead last night.

Jimmy:

The last of us,

James:

which is a

Jimmy:

no, you don't need to explain to it.'cause people who listen to this know what is

James:

Yeah. They know.

Jimmy:

as as opposed to your French subtitled, highbrow bullshit.

James:

I try and instill some culture into this show. Right. Go on then. How about you? What have you been up to then? Oh yeah. You were watching some

Jimmy:

Apart from

James:

you?

Jimmy:

watching Pedro Pascal, the man, he's one of these men that women love and men want to be.

James:

Oh,

Jimmy:

So it is worth checking out. It's, it's, it's the cross. You've had to bear James. I know,

James:

Yeah. Yeah, Pedro Pascal is a man I can relate to.

Jimmy:

Corporate myths. First one up. James, your personal favorite

James:

Ah,

Jimmy:

Targets Drive good performance.

James:

Yeah, this is here we go. the annual, here's your target. This is what you've gotta do. Here's your bonus, off you go. Guaranteed to drive good performance. That is

Jimmy:

Yes. The belief that people have is that if you set a target, people will have ambition. They will try and reach that target, and that will deliver you success. It's a fantastically lazy and inept way of managing performance, is it not

James:

All right, well, well, I think so, but we should just unpack it

Jimmy:

okay.

James:

bit rather than me just brothing. So why do I think it is? It doesn't work. So first of all, if you want to drive performance, giving somebody a target incentivizing that with a carrot and stick, they will invariably hit the target. So that I wouldn't dispute the really unfortunate bit is it, is, is it the target that you really want to hit? Because what they will do is they will hit the number that you've given them, which is not necessarily the same as the outcome that you want.

Jimmy:

Well, I think that's the the problem, isn't it, James, that people don't always know exactly the outcome that they want. They might know, they might know a direction of travel, they might know they want to improve, but setting a target implies absolute clarity on exactly what you want and exactly what level. I think that's crystal ball gazing a lot of the time.

James:

Well, and also Numbers are a proxy for performance and not actually performance. And what do I mean by that? So if I was to say to you, oh, you've got to worry about your health yet, target is to improve your health. Well, that's quite difficult to measure.'cause what we're talking about when we're talking about blood

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

are we talking about stamina? Are we talking about statins? Are we talking about a number of cigarettes you reach consume? It could be 101 things your health, so what people do instead is they pick something, usually something that's easy to measure, like in this instance, your weight, and they target you on your weight. And then of course people rush off to try and improve their weight and well, as we all know, there can be some fairly disastrous consequences in that sphere. So weight and health are far from the same thing, but the same thing goes on in business. Yeah. I worked in a call center for a while and we had two

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

One was effectively a measure of

Jimmy:

Yes.

James:

how much time can you get people sitting at their desk ready to take to answer the phone? then the other one was really, it was one of a question of planning effectiveness. You know, when you've got people sitting at their phone, how

Jimmy:

Yep.

James:

But of course these two measures fought against each other. So know one group of people running around, shouting, get on the phone, get on the phone, they get'em all on the phone, the utilization would go down'cause there weren't enough course to, for all the people. So the planning people would run around going, get off the phone, get off the phone, it actually absolutely madness. Yeah, but you see it

Jimmy:

Ultimately what you're trying to do is run an efficient operation and give good service. But as you say, the proxies that you're using in that example are just, all, all the wrong things. I think the other thing that relates as well is what's the actual level of performance you want to get? And I remember running a, sales team and we had agreed what the annual targets would be. And, we found after a few months that we were smashing these targets. So we were doing our monthly reviews and we had, your favorite rag status. We had green, green performance across the board. We were,

James:

well come on

Jimmy:

we had to do is we were beating performance on some of these metrics by so much that we made them purple stars. So we had red, amber, green, purple star, but the point being. We set the level completely the wrong level. So we think it's like, this is the level we need for budget. This is an ambitious level. But then when you start to do the work, you realize actually that's an easy target. This is what you set for the whole year. So you're stuck so you don't stretch performances you think just actually means that everyone, well, I only need to do that well'cause I can beat the target without any effort.

James:

Oh yeah, and I've seen that loads of times. I've seen people, you know, I dunno, maybe it be claims cost or whatever, it's, but they hit a level. And they hit the level come October, and then they stop for the year. And why do

Jimmy:

Yeah,

James:

Well,'cause they think, well, I'm get the same target

Jimmy:

yeah,

James:

so I'll just put some in the

Jimmy:

yeah. Don't overachieve.'cause then they'll just up the, up the target. So I think the, if we were saying, does setting targets drive behavior? I think your answer would be yes it does. If we're saying, does setting targets mean that you get good performance, I think you're in the lap of the gods with that one.

James:

So here's my question then. What is a better thing to do than set individual

Jimmy:

Great question, James.'cause let's not all be smart answers and just slide things off, but what would we do? Well, You are, you are the numbers man. James, what, what would you do?

James:

Well, I would think about what your overall purpose is. There. We go back

Jimmy:

Yep.

James:

Yeah. I would try and put a basket of measures around that, not just one. then I would measure performance against that. And I will give, if you must target people and yeah, I give them joint targets to hit that level of performance, which will therefore reduce the amount of

Jimmy:

Yes. And the two things to add to that, I think the setting an overall goal for an organization, a unit works really well.'cause everyone gets interested in how you're improving and if that is linked to the organization's purpose, happy days, then you're getting the right direction. The other thing I would say is if you've got a measure, just aim to improve it. Aim to improve over what you've done and that ethos of continuous improvement will drive you to be more successful. So, we can s slag off targets and we can tell you a better way of doing it.

As well as recording this podcast, we help individuals, teams, and entire organizations achieve outstanding results. If you'd like to find out more about how we can help you, please get in touch email, either jimmy@ajodowell.com or James at ajo dunwell com.

Jimmy:

What's the next one then James?

James:

Right. The next one, this isn't gonna go well for us. People in authority have all the answers and know best.

Jimmy:

So let's just unpack that a little bit the corporate myth is that seniority, the more senior you are, the more you have knowledge. The more you have experience, the more you have authority and power, and therefore, you know best. So, I. Two things. One, senior people should just be, you should just do what they're telling you, so you should follow their orders. And two, we, we hold them in awe. So, I could never be a senior person because they know all the answers and I dunno all the answers.

James:

yeah. Yeah. And you've got two people who believe, or two sets of people who believe this. First of all, the people lower down

Jimmy:

Yep.

James:

Well, that's bad enough, but what's really bad is when the people at the top of the chain think they are. It's all knowing and all

Jimmy:

Well

James:

and at which point it starts to get really quite

Jimmy:

it does and, but I have to confess, as somebody who was relatively senior in a few organizations, one of the things that I did very well, as you can testify to everything I said, I said with amazing confidence. People then mistake confidence for knowledge and believe that's the right answer, I remember going into one organization where when I joined the new team, I picked up the newest person on my team. Had been there for 13 years. Right? And when I started to say we should do X, Y, or Z, they just went off and did X, Y, Z. And I was like, no, no. I don't really mean do X, Y, and Z. I mean, tell me what's better than doing X, Y, or Z. But they didn't challenge because they thought I was senior and I knew all the answers. I, I didn't. They had loads of knowledge, they had loads of experience, but they weren't sharing it with me

James:

Well, so why though? Hang on there. So you know this person, they are the boss. They've been promoted. If they didn't know the answers, they wouldn't get promoted. So why is it wrong to believe that

Jimmy:

Well, I don't think you're necessarily promoted'cause you know all the answers. You're often promoted because you have the potential to perform well at the next level up. They're not the same things always. So I think the. Best leaders that I've worked with and what I ended up trying to aspire to be is somebody who is open to listening to people's views. Because if you are running a team of 20 people, why does your one experience, your one set of knowledge outweigh the 20? So why not try and make the 21 people. Come up with the answers, come up with a way forward. And that's where I think it is a real limiting belief, both from senior people and people not willing to be open and tell senior people what's really going on.

James:

Yeah, one of my, one of my favorite management quotes, this isn't a Deming one, you'd be pleased to hear. A chap called and he said Senior managers know very little about an awful

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

whereas junior managers know an awful lot about very few things and it really is, you know, the devil is in the detail. In organizations, the more junior the person, they may more they know about that detail. The real trick is for the senior manager to just have a little bit of humility and realize that they don't know all the the

Jimmy:

So listening to those junior managers who know a lot of stuff listening to them, I. Then also if you're a junior manager, sharing that information. And I think also the other side of this corporate myth is we both found it, is you hold senior people in awe. I could never do that job. And then as you get closer and closer to senior people, you realize they're only human. And actually I could do that job and we both reach reasonably senior levels in organizations. So if we can do it, anyone can do it.

James:

Yeah, that's absolutely true

Jimmy:

So in, summary senior managers do not know all the answers and should listen and have a bit of humility. Junior people and organizations should be open and share their opinions and their ideas with senior people, and they should also believe that they could one day do that job as well. Right.

James:

Very good. What's next?

Jimmy:

So next one is problems are a sign of weakness,

James:

And so the other side of that coin really is about, you know, thinking that you should reward success and punish failure if you're a

Jimmy:

yes,

James:

Or to put it another way, green is good. is bad. I used to work with a guy and we used to Yep, go back to the red

Jimmy:

yeah.

James:

used to come. He used to say, don't bring me red, bring me green. Do you know what he

Jimmy:

got Green

James:

Green? Just

Jimmy:

S S performance. S performance. We changed the definitions, we changed the triggers, we changed the thresholds. We changed what we measure, but it's all green.

James:

It's All. green Yeah. You'd have to be terminally stupid, wouldn't you? And the point for me here is that. You can't fix something unless you admit it's broken. So if you're not prepared to say something's red, you're on an absolute hiding to nothing from the get go.

Jimmy:

But when things go wrong, James,, ultimately it, it's such an opportunity to learn and do better. But if you. Things going wrong. Problems as issues as weakness. You're closing yourself up from learning straight away, aren't you?

James:

Yeah, absolutely. And this of course actually ties back to the one we started off with, with try about targets drive good performance. Yeah. I will hit the target by any means whatsoever and not admit I've got problems. All these things

Jimmy:

Well, I think also the other, the other part of this at this, this myth is it, it really stops the ability to test as well as the, the ability to learn, doesn't it?

James:

Yeah, because how can you. Set up a test and see what's going on if you aren't prepared to admit there's a problem. And that one of course actually links back to the thing about people in authority, knowing all the answers,

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

you know, because if they knew all the answers, you wouldn't have a problem, would you?

Jimmy:

No, I think another part of it though, in the being open to learning and and things going wrong is I had a team that I insisted did test before they went live. But they didn't really test in a way that was open-minded.'cause everything had to work. So if you set yourself up to, to test success, always. You know, you, you're setting yourself up to for, for a problem, aren't you?

James:

Yeah. And I do think there is something cultural in the organisations about this. I think when I started my career I was a development manager in a beef burger factory of all things. It's very, yeah, glamorous job, but as a development manager, you test everything Yeah. You start with a new formulation, you test it. Will it work? Will it go down the line? Does it go through the packing machines? Is it the right size? Test, test, test, test, test. But that is the way you look at the world and that's the way you start to think about it. But interestingly, when I started working for banks and things like that, they really didn't see that like that at all.

Jimmy:

Quick question for you, James. Do you still eat beef burgers?

James:

I do, although I will give you a

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

If it says value on the product, meets value in the product,

Jimmy:

Oh,

James:

I will leave you without

Jimmy:

value on the product? It's value. Does that mean that it is? Shit? Can you just like.

James:

No, it won't be shit. It's just you probably don't wanna think about it so

Jimmy:

Oh, so you've got, if it says value on the product, it means it's got toenails in the product.

James:

No, not toenails. I did once work with a meat buyer who got very excited. He said he got his new product for us. He wanted us to test it. And what was it? He said It's pork head flaps. head flaps. Okay. So we've got the port head flaps delivered and it was three tons of pig's

Jimmy:

Ooh,

James:

Anyway, When you grind it up, no one

Jimmy:

Well, I feel I, we've digressed.

James:

think we should move on. Yeah. All right,

james_5_05-21-2025_144401:

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James:

Yeah. All right, go on then. So next

Jimmy:

So the next one is that your suppliers are there to make a profit at your expense.

James:

Now I took over a job once and I had a quite a large outsourcing operation working for me. And the bloke I took over from said, it's really easy what you need to do. Just make sure you've got your foot on their throat. If you've got their, your foot on their throat, they can't, wriggle, can't move. You'll have them. So that's how you manage supplies.

Jimmy:

I think one of the challenges here, James, and I think a lot of people like your former colleague do believe in that there is, that there's a, a real win-lose relationship with suppliers, whereas actually I think you've got to look for more win-win. Opportunities. Now if you are talking about suppliers in the commercial sense, which almost certainly you are, the reality is they do have to make a profit. So if you try and screw them into the ground so that they are making no profit out of you, your service will suffer. At some point, they'll, there'll, there'll be a payback.

James:

a, if it's a strategic relationship, as in

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

a lot of shit from them, that's what we, by

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

and they go bust. You kind of got a problem.

Jimmy:

Now it's different. If you're buying paperclips at a unit price, that's one thing, but if you're buying a service, you want to build into the delivery of that service a fair profit for your supplier. I'm interested,

James:

But I'd go further than that. There is another phrase, well, one of the management gurus probably from the eighties, I can't remember which one shows me age, but the phrase was companies don't compete, supply chains

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

And the point being, it's not about you as an organization, it's about you and your suppliers and probably their suppliers and how the whole chain delivers to your customers. And when you start to think about it like that and thinking about how you can improve capability in your business, actually working with your suppliers to constantly improve is really quite important. if you've got your foot on their throats, you won't be able

Jimmy:

Yeah, and I think that people do waste a lot of effort in the, win-lose battle with suppliers rather than looking at them as partners. Being fair with them about, the value exchange that you've got in terms of the service and the cost. I think also if you treat them as part of your team, you can often, expect more, get more from them, but you often have to give more as well. So I think there are the opportunities to really create, win-win and not waste your effort and energy on battling with suppliers and improve performance.

James:

There's no episode for us there. Win-win versus win lose. We should probably move on Well what next? I like this one. You should focus on big strategic projects and not small tactical

Jimmy:

Yes. Organisations are constantly doing big transformations, big technology projects. How many organisations out there have an AI project at the moment?

James:

It's funny you should say that. I had a, a friend of mine or colleague contact me the other day and he said his organisation he's trying to talk them back from it. They wanted to do an AI project. Why the hell they want to do an AI project? It's be like saying you want to do a rubber band project

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

It's just about, you know, chasing the latest thing. It's not really about the technology, it's about what's the problem you're trying

Jimmy:

Exactly, and, and AI as a classic is a solution looking for a problem. Whereas to be successful in AI project, as we've heard previously from from Alex, go back and listen to that episode if you want, but Alex will will tell you that you've got to have the basics in place in terms of your infrastructure. You've got to have your data clean, and you've got to have your people on board. If you can't make a success of it without having those things in place, but don't matter, we'll still do a big AI project without having the basics in place.

James:

But you've got two things at play here as well, haven't you? So number one is you've got sort of fear of missing out. I need this new technology, I've gotta be this big. Yeah. But you've also got the fact that people think it's the big stuff which makes difference. Not the

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

but you go back to our point about, you know people at the bottom of organization understand what's going on. The place to make lots and lots of change in your organization is fixing all the

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

that doesn't

Jimmy:

And we are supporters of organizations' ability to make transformational gains by making small, incremental changes to how they operate. Optimizing what you do today. I mean, it does bring up James one of our favorite stories of the British cycling team. So, Dave Brailsford, who's a now a legend in sport and business circles. He had a whole philosophy about marginal gains when he took over the team. In 2003, he was the performance director. We had won one gold medal since 1908 and had never won the Tour de France. He took over and they obsessed about every tiny detail, whether it was the type of massage gel they used or the type of shirts people wore. Everything was about marginal games, and he did this over a a number of years. If you fast forward between 2007. 2017, we won 66 Olympic goals and five Tour de France. So completely transformed performance beyond all, all imagination, just by marginal games. And the same applies to every organization we've worked for.

James:

Very good. Do you know where the Tour de France is? Just outta curiosity. They do some great movies out there.

Jimmy:

They're all subtitled though.

James:

Yeah. Move on to the next one. The action is at head office. what do I mean by this

Jimmy:

Gone.

James:

So if you're gonna build your

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

you need to do is you need to be in the corridors of power. You need to be, you know, walking round head office. You need to be shaking hands with the big knobs. That's where the action is. That's where you need to be seen. And sadly, there is some truth

Jimmy:

Yes.

James:

but. we've said, because all the devil's in the detail, and it's about how your organization works. The action is really in reality out in the outposts. So it'll be in that sales offer or be in that co contact center. That's where the real action is, and that's the place where you go and you improve things. Whereas if you just spend your life walking around head office with fancy PowerPoints, you don't actually ever get a thing done.

Jimmy:

And unfortunate James, I have to say that on this corporate myth. There is some truth in it. I think the action, if you want to improve performance is on the front line. I think the action, if you want to improve your career often, often is in head office. And I know that there have been points in my career when I have been less visible in. Head office, London, wherever it is, and things have passed me by and I've missed out on things. So unfortunately, I think there is some truth in this, but I think you can get a better balance than some people have who do spend all their time in the corridors of power with their PowerPoint. Go out, learn the stuff, improve the stuff, and then go back to the corridors of the power with some successes behind you.

James:

I worked for an organization once and they had a major office right down deep in the southeast, deep southeast. They also had offices all around the

Jimmy:

Awesome.

James:

They also had an office which is oh, right up in West Yorkshire. Yeah. A long way. Yeah, A long way from the center of power. But they employed loads and loads of people there and they spent a huge amount of money. And there was a guy at a reasonably, IM senior job in the head office. And he had never, once in 20 years ventured, I don't think. I think he ventured all of the Thames, to be honest with you. And it's just amazing this that you can manage it all from head office by looking at PowerPoint.'cause you just

Jimmy:

No, and that's very true, and that is a good point. There's one thing for managing your career, but yeah, you do have to get out and see it. Okay,

James:

Then next one.

Jimmy:

So our next one is that long hours mean that you are more committed and more productive.

James:

Eh, now that's an interesting one. That one is very closely linked, I think, to the whole debate about should you work in the office or can you work remotely?

Jimmy:

Three days a week in the office means that you are more committed and more productive. They, you're right, James. They are very close cousins, aren't they? What do you think, what's your view on that?

James:

So I think there is an element of, oh, well it comes down, they're all

Jimmy:

I.

James:

aren't they? It links little bits to the, the action that happens in head office. So it's all about getting your face known and being seen to being a, do a good job, whether you're doing a good job or not. I think it's a little bit toxic, actually. Sort. I have workplaces where you expect it to be there 50 hours a week, and then people just, the brain shuts down. They can't manage

Jimmy:

I used to work quite hard, but there came a point at the end of the day and I used to be doing some emails, for example, and I'd realized I was out writing absolute bullshit. And at that point, I'd stop. I think, if you carry on working, your quality is absolutely gone. You might as well not be doing it. So I used to go home and, recharge at that point. But I think the, the presenteeism in the office, I think going into the office for certain tasks, I mean, having certain one-to-ones. Some of the team meetings, solving complex problems. They can be done better face-to-face at times, but doing it in, in a very blunt, blanket way, you've got to be in the office three days a week. That's nonsense. Surely.

James:

No. There are a lot of stories about Best Buy in the u

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

the retailer, and they had this thing when they talked to, they called it a, a. Results only work

Jimmy:

Right.

James:

And really their attitudes was you can work from wherever you want. You can work at ho home in an office, in a coffee bar or at the beach, but they really didn't care. And they also said you could keep your time as much as you wanted. But instead of managing the things that people were doing, the key thing was, well, what are the

Jimmy:

Yeah,

James:

they're getting?'cause if they're getting the results they're getting, do I really care how they're

Jimmy:

exactly. And I think trusting people to get the outcomes and output that you want, I think is, a slightly different way of looking at it from, I'm gonna force you to be, do these hours in this way, have these breaks, have this number of days in the office. I think you treat people like children, you're not gonna get the best out of them,

James:

yeah, very true. And actually interesting. I hadn't thought about that, but that links very much to the old question of trust. How much do you trust

Jimmy:

Yeah, and I think all of this, three day a week, X number of hours in the office, all this sort of stuff, I think it shows a lack of trust, and it's all quite old fashioned thinking,

James:

Yeah. Well that's interesting then. So those ones actually, I think those ones all linked together in one way or shape or form.'cause it's all about power and ego and how much you trust people. Couple of other different ones. Have to be extroverted to be a good leader. What do you think of

Jimmy:

Well, I think there's a, a few things that's probably worth mentioning here. I think the belief that leadership is all about noise and jazz hands and who's going to be the loudest, I think is complete.

James:

That's what made me a

Jimmy:

Yeah. It's complete fallacy. Yeah.

James:

my jazz hands.

Jimmy:

It is complete fallacy though. I, I think understanding the difference between introverts and extroverts in terms of the, the definition that's often used is, is also about where people get their energy. So extroverts get their energy from being around people.. Introverts get their energy from within, from themselves, so they need their time to energize themselves. There have been some great leaders who were introverts to name three.

James:

Go

Jimmy:

Barack Obama.

James:

Yeah.

Jimmy:

Yeah, Warren Buffet.

James:

yeah.

Jimmy:

Bill Gates, did you know all three of them were introverts who were outstanding leaders in their, in their, in different ways.

James:

Sat back and thought

Jimmy:

Yeah. And, and that's one of the key things though, James, is that introverts will often be more reflective and think through things and come up with better answers than extroverts who tend to be a bit more decisive. And we mistake decisiveness for, for being good. I think, I think as an, if you're an introverted leader, I think respecting the, the skills that you have, your ability to listen, your ability to think things through your happiness, to empower people because you're happy to let other people have the, the limelight and reflection time. I think they're all important opportunities that you have that some of us who are extroverts don't have. So I think this one is a complete fallacy, and I say that as a, as an extrovert. so the final one, James, is that what we see on social media and from a work perspective on LinkedIn, people being successful, having lots of followers, winning lots of awards, they are highly successful people and are doing better than I am.

James:

You know what they

Jimmy:

What's that?

James:

Old proverb, a hollow drum makes most noise.

Jimmy:

That's very true, James, because people are more and more taking to social media to tell us how great they are and how busy they are and how successful they are. People are reluctant to share their more troubled and vulnerable moments. The question about awards is an interesting one. Did you know James, that there are companies who will help you if you pay them? Obviously, they will help you source the awards, write your award submission, and ensure that you are successful. So

James:

Well, I'll go better than

Jimmy:

con in.

James:

I have been approached probably like a couple of weeks ago. I got this email saying, qua Point Consulting, qua Point being the name of my business. You have won award and award for excellence in the petrochemical

Jimmy:

Well done, James. What do you know about petrochemicals? Fill up your car regularly.

James:

Well, just unbelievable.

Jimmy:

I was listening to the rusty Entertainment recently, and they were saying that in the entertainment industry, I. There's obviously lots of awards like BAFTAs and Oscars and all that sort of stuff. Some of the awards, not all of'em, some of them depends on how much you invest in the award body, which tables you buy, how many, how many seats you buy, as to how, yeah, how like you are twin. having said that I used to encourage my teams to enter awards because I think there is something positive about reflecting on your successes, but that's very different from doing it for the sake of winning an award.

James:

Yeah, it occurs to me actually having been through that list, there is something that links all of it

Jimmy:

Go on then. What's that?

James:

Which is this whole, well, it's perception versus performance. a lot of these things, I think all of them, it's about how you perceive things to

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

Yeah. Do you show up at head office all the time? Have you entered re a award? Are you always showing green? Yeah. Have you got your foot on your supplier's throat?'cause it makes you look

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

All of these things about looking to do a good job, but looking to do a good job and actually doing a good job are two totally different

Jimmy:

Uh, And I think you're right, James, but I think I'd go a stage further than that, which is people build these perceptions and they hold these perceptions as their realities and they behave within them. And that is part of the reason for doing this episode was we wanted to really talk about. These are some of the perceptions that we see people have and we have ourselves have held through our careers and actually share some contrary views to that and some ways of doing things better than perhaps the perceived ways. So,, there is a big difference between perception and the reality of life and performance.

James:

Very good

Jimmy:

Hopefully people have listened to this episode and they have learned something about perception and maybe can choose a different reality for themselves. And if you have some corporate myths. That you would like James and I to have a look at and have a discussion on, then just drop us an email and, and let us know.

James:

Yeah, and if you need any recommendations on great French films, I'm your man.

Jimmy:

Yes. Everyone's going to be watching a French film rather than the zombie apocalypse. Although it did give me bad dreams. I'm not gonna.

James:

Well, they maybe did its job. Super nice to speak to you later now. Cheers now.

People on this episode

Head Shot

James Lawther

Co-host
Head Shot

Jimmy Barber

Co-host