The Success Nuggets #64- Gill Tiney Love Can Fix Business

The first thing Gill tells me is that pirates invented insurance.

This catches me slightly off guard.

We are not discussing pirates. We are discussing business communities, loneliness, leadership and, in some vague way, the future of society. Yet somehow, within minutes, we are talking about eighteenth-century pirate ships.

"It's all in the book," she tells me.

I make a mental note to look it up later.

Conversations with Gill rarely travel in straight lines. They drift through history, sociology, education, psychology and business before arriving somewhere unexpectedly practical. She has the curious ability to make a discussion about global systems feel like a conversation about your next cup of tea.

What strikes me most is that Gill appears to have spent a significant part of her life trying to answer a question most people never stop long enough to ask.

Why have we become so disconnected from one another?

She talks about technology, social change and the gradual replacement of human interaction with convenience. She remembers outside toilets and tin baths in front of the fire. She remembers neighbours who knew one another. She remembers a world where connection wasn't something that had to be scheduled.

None of this is nostalgia. Gill isn't one of those people who believes everything was better in the past.

Listening in, I begin to realise that when Gill talks about collaboration, she isn't really talking about business at all.

She's talking about belonging.

The business language is simply the vehicle she uses because that's where she happens to spend her time.

Underneath it all is a much older idea.

That human beings are not designed to do life alone.

That most of our problems become smaller when shared.

That being heard is often more powerful than being advised.

She tells me about leaders who don't listen. About organisations where people feel invisible. About individuals carrying stories and struggles nobody around them can see.

Then she says something that stays with me.

"Sometimes people just need a damn good listening to."

As our conversation draws to a close, she quotes the anthropologist Margaret Mead.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

It's one of those quotes that has been repeated so often it risks losing its meaning.

Yet somehow, hearing it from Gill, it sounds less like a quotation and more like a working plan.

And perhaps that's what makes her unusual.

Most people quote ideas they admire.

Gill appears to be quietly trying to build one.

 With thanks to One Golden Nugget and Maxwell Preece for editing, support and artwork

Transcript

Welcome And The Big What If

SPEAKER_02 0:28

And your host, David Abel.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Jill Tiny, partnership architect, social investigator, joins us today. And since 2007, Jill has been working at the fault lines between people and power. In a world where 1% hold the wealth, free energy is possible, and we still dig up the planet, more people are obese than undernourished. And we're getting more faster, louder, with less and less meaning. Then today we ask, what if? What if the future doesn't just happen to us, but we collaborate it into existence? So take a breath. Let's welcome Jill. Hello, Jill.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Hi there, David. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 1:12

Very good. Lovely to see you as always.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Beginning with the world

Convenience Culture And Health Costs

SPEAKER_03 1:18

in progress. If I was to go back just a few years to when I was small, my granddad had an outside toilet. We shared a bath between four or five of us. Yeah. How have we managed to get in the world today where we've gone from scarcity to convenience? And what's that, our sense of gratitude?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Yeah, so much has changed in such a short period of time. When I was a kid, uh, I remember going into school one day, and we've been out in the playground and we'd come back, and the teacher had moved all the desks around, so we're all sitting next to somebody new, and the uproar was like, Oh no, where's my seat? And who am I sitting next to? And the teacher's like, I know, I know, sit down, calm down. Who likes change? And I put my hand up, and obviously, I'm like, I'm you know, well, I put my hand down. And she said, Nobody likes change. I'm like, well, I kind of do. I think it's fun, it's exciting. But generally, overall, I'm the odd one out. I don't know many people that go, woo, change, let's go. And I think a lot of us have been like that. As technology has taken over from the humble email all the way through to AI, we've kind of gone, oh, interesting, but not for me just yet. Thank you. Obviously, there's always the few early doors uh adopters, but most people are a bit worried about it. And it looks like joining the dots looking back to those days when I too had an outside toilet as a kid. We had to have a tin bath in front of the fire, poor me, where's my violin? Um, all of those things, and in a very short lifetime, we are now getting AI to care for our elderly and do all sorts of things that we wouldn't drive around our streets with us as passengers, drive our buses, who knew that these things were going to happen. And I think there's change, and there's change for change's sake. And for me, the things that are changing that are convenience for us, even the simple remote control on the television is now our voice to change what's going on, but it's actually slowly killing us because we're not getting out of our seats, we're not exercising, we're not doing all the things that we used to physically have to do, which actually kept us healthy. Is it any wonder the NHS going under? Because mentally, physically, this convenience, this new world that we live in, is not conducive to us living our best lives.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

So, do you think we're solving problems faster than we create them, or we're just edging ourselves into some sort of extinction?

Press Pause On Technology And Needs

SPEAKER_00 3:47

I think it's a mindset. I think you're right. We are creating more problems at the moment because our mindset is all over the place because it's happening so fast. And I think that's what's freaking people out. I think there are some amazing solutions out there. There are things out there to support the carbon footprint that we can do really, really easily. Electric cars, and it's a bit like be careful what you wish for. You know, Henry Ford said if I'd asked people what they wanted, they'd have just said a bastard horse. And we don't necessarily know what we want. I just think we need to press pause occasionally to go, is this bright, shiny object that's glimmering at me and I think it's the right thing to do? Is it just jumping on the bandwagon? Or do I really need it? Should I be actually embracing what's going on? And yes, some people should and can embrace, and some people should and don't pause and step back. And I think that's where the problems lie is the consideration of who's this benefiting? Is it just the person that's made the app that's going to be making loads of money, or am I just wasting my time spending more of my precious time looking at my phone rather than talking to somebody else? There might be an app that can get me to connect to millions of people around the world, but actually, am I better off having that one-to-one conversation with a real life person?

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Yeah. I think one of the things I love about how you talk is you're, I call you a social investigator. You're you're so well researched in history from agricultural to industrial revolutions

Spiral Dynamics, Division And Loneliness

SPEAKER_03 5:20

to the modern day. People are definitely trying to find the common good, or now we're just we're just more fragmented than ever before.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Well, I always hearken back to Clare Graves and Donbeck, who theorized about spiral dynamics and how society operates. And it they demonstrate very clearly how we're in this upward spiral and how initially at the bottom level of the spiral we were in survival mode, you know, caveman days, we know how that works. Then it was the Lord of the Manor telling us these are the rules if you want to live on my land. Then there was the aristocracy, then politics, blah, blah, blah, World War II, all the way through to the space where what's in it for me and the Yuppie movement and Margaret Thatcher days, and everyone was becoming more and more selfish and insular. And all these incidents that have happened along the way have meant that we are divided. The pandemic, what happened? We had to be divided, or did we have to be? That's another podcast. But all of these things have separated, technology has separated us. How many people are working at home alone on a little keyboard, having the occasional interaction like this, but fundamentally got no one to hug, you know? And if you are deprived of common physical, mental, emotional connection, and a connection where you look somebody in the eyes and you see their soul and you know who they are, that's where the world will break up. That's where we are not doing ourselves a service. As the figures show, the stats show more and more people are dying by suicide. And that's this pandemic of loneliness that we're suffering from. And the spiral dynamics guys worked out that we were going to come to a place where we would be self-organizing because of an ability to be able to self-organize that they didn't even know existed, called the internet. And that's what we're doing now. So I think the potential for good is huge, like never before, because all good people can connect up with other good people, all good people that are on a mission, have a purpose and want to change the world for good, help those that can't help themselves. We are all slowly, slowly, slowly coming together like this massive magnet. And those that are just out for what's in it for me, what can I get out of this? How can I make sure that I'm all right, Jack? I think those are fewer and fewer people in reality. Sadly, most of them seem to be in power at the moment. But I think good people are out there, and I'm the eternal optimist that we just need to start bringing them together where we can collaborate together and make a massive shift for good.

SPEAKER_03 7:59

COVID really shook it up, didn't it? Because for the first time we got to look as what we missed humanity. We missed our friends. We didn't need our cars anymore.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Yeah. I was just gonna say this is the thing, we're all in this together. And you talked about COVID, and that is so critical for so many people that we were given an opportunity to press pause on our lives, weren't we? And some people went, Oh, I'm not gonna do that anymore. Even if it was to do it, but do it differently, so that they could empower their friends and their family to be part of their lives again, rather than work, work, work, work, work, work, busy, busy, busy. And it's like, no, how many lives do you want? You only get one. You've got to work, you know, you've got to find something that fits for everybody. And if we hadn't had COVID, I always say, God bless COVID, if we hadn't had it, how many more lives would

COVID Pause And Jill’s Collaboration Path

SPEAKER_00 8:50

have been ruined by not being able to press pause and realise what was most important to you?

SPEAKER_03 8:54

I love your perspective on social history as well. 2007, you became a referee that put relationships back together in business, a coach, but probably more than that.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

I think the collaboration stance has always been there. I remember at four years of age at nursery, I wanted people to come together and play. Don't be on your own, come and come play with us over here. So it's innate in there. But I was a primary school teacher before I became a coach. But uh my empathy gene was on overload, whereby I had children in my class that were going through awful times because of where they lived and who their parents were and things. So I was suffering the stress of watching these poor children and only being able to do so much as their teacher. So I said I'll have a term off. My husband had a business and we had a business coach. I managed to get what I thought was the best business coach around. He was amazing, and he was the one that spotted in me, Jill, you should be a business coach. You mean I can do that? And he said, Well, look, you've been in business for the last since 1988 you started. So now we're like 2005, something like that. He said, You know business, you understand business. Why don't you go and teach it to other people? So it was the same as being in a class and waiting for that mic drop moment when people when people get for themselves, oh, you mean I can do oh, brilliant. They they kind of work it out, and that's what I loved with being in a classroom with children is that when they spot what they have worked out, and then I did the same with uh adults, and as you know, steps to success was born because my theory has always been lots of little steps. Don't look at the massive goal and freak yourself out, just take lots of little steps. You might have that goal up there on your vision board, or you've written it down, or you told somebody out loud what you really want to do, but actually, all the little steps in between are going to be good ones. It's the journey, right? We know that you know, if you watch Strictly Con dancing, you know about the journey. So it felt natural. And for the first time in my life, I was a square peg in a square hole. I was in a fur-lined rut, and I absolutely loved it. And it wasn't until 2012 that the idea of connecting people, supporting people as a bigger venture actually came together because I worked with my competition, another business coach, and we ended up becoming

Pirate Rules And Self-Organising Communities

SPEAKER_00 11:18

business partners.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

That's what we're liking to hear. What does be more pyra mean?

SPEAKER_00 11:24

It's an excellent book you should go and read by San Alende, who's spoken at our events, as has his business partner. It's a book about pirates, but how their way of working is very similar to how we could be working today because they had a society of their own. They were the first people to accept uh same-sex marriages. They invented insurance. There was nobody on a pirate ship that was in charge, interestingly. It wasn't the captain or the first mate. Everybody decided the house rules before they set sail. So everybody was gathered and they had the pirate code. And every ship had a slightly different pirate code, but the essence was there. So if, for example, you got injured in a fight and you lost an arm, there would be so many doubloons that you would be getting as a result of that. So there was insurance involved, and they were the inventors of it at that time that you paid into. So there were so many things about pirates that were like fair, equitable. Um, they didn't want to fight. I mean, this book tells it all. Sam has done his research so well, but then if you take that into today's society, we do not have a fair society by any way, shape, or form. So I was thinking, what if if you had a community online or we started off face to face, whereby you kind of created your own rules, so bit by bit by bit, we've just kind of come together and we said, Well, what if the foundation was love? That's a bit of a soft word, surely, in business. But no, hang on. It's that superpower. Ask Button's the Fuller. He talks about ephemeralization and how love is our superpower, it's the strongest thing in the world. We all can get access to it, can't touch it, can't see it, can't smell it, but it's there and it's the strongest thing that will make people do the weirdest things and have the most power. But what if our community was based on love? What if our community was about connection? Not you do this for me and I'll do this for you, but what could we do for each other and how can we help each other? Not a what's in it for me, but um a collective collaboration where actually this collaboration can help loads of people. Let's pass it on, let's share it, let's do it to a different audience. Let's so many different things can be done when you start bringing clever people together, but not just any clever people, the ones that have the passion and the purpose and the mission and know what they want to do. And it's like, well, let's show off about you, because that's a brilliant idea that you're doing. Let me tell as many people as possible because I think that's fantastic. And when you kind of have been a bit of a networking tart that I have in the past, you know an awful lot of people. So you can actually connect people up with just the right person, not necessarily their ideal client. That's not what it's about, but people that will support you and help you to grow. And bit by bit, we share it with each other, we teach each other, we support each other in the good times and the bad. We're allowed to go, I've had a rubbish day. Oh, it's been awful. Rather than, hey, business is fine when it's not. We can be human and we're human beings first and foremost, irrespective of all the labels that we love to put on each other. Um, we start from the beginning and then start to build it up. So no one's in charge, it's self-organizing, and we pull out the best in people, we challenge each other and we make sure that we look after each other and we've got each other's back.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

So are you if if pirates are the prototype?

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Are you a rebel building a community for a system?

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Maverick more than rebel, I think. A rebel. So my business partner, and one of the reasons we split up is he wanted to have a revolution. And I said, no, revolution to me creates bloodshed and people getting hurt. So I'm all down the love route. So he went off and tried to have a revolution, and I'm carrying on the same mission that I was before about love. It's about how do you describe it? It's about being your best you. It's good people coming together to make a difference. And if if it's just one day making someone smile, because you have that attitude of I'm looking out to make people's lives better, then that's job done.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

How can organizations take this blueprint

Making Collaboration Work At Work

SPEAKER_03 15:40

into safe spaces? And or are you witnessing that as well in parallel?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yes, we are attracting people that have communities themselves that are doing a very similar thing. And rather than going, oh, you're doing the same as me, so you do it over there and I'll do this over here, we say, no, no, come in. So I get involved with their community and they get involved with our community and vice versa. But there will always be people that don't get it, and there will always be people that don't want to get it because they're so focused on their mission, making more money, making more money, usually. But those that have been hurt in the past, those that have seen hurt people, those that are just not satisfied with what's going on, you know you can make your millions and then go, hmm, is that it? What's missing? Well, then it is all of those things coming together, the the connection with love, the connection with yourself first. Because if you don't know who the hell you are, how are you gonna love another person? How are you gonna collaborate with another person? If you don't know what triggers you have, if you don't know what your uh limiting beliefs are, then to be successful in collaboration is gonna be pretty tough. And the the good news is when you do understand all those things and you are in a collaboration that might go wrong, because we're human, you've got the tools at hand to put it right and get that collaboration over the line and get it finished. And when more and more people can do that, then the world will be an easier place rather than let's have an inquest, let's have a report, let's try. We've made a mistake over here, let's see how we can analyze it. Well, it's done as you go in a proper collaboration, and then at the end of it, you look back and go, what went well, what didn't go well, let's do this again. Uh, and you can put things right. It takes time. There's no, I'm not out to get a million new members tomorrow. That wouldn't work. It's just people that feel like this is a cool place to hang out, and then they start to see the magic happen when just bringing good people together, good stuff happens, and you can see that all over the world if you're looking for it.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

Tips for anyone listening who is maybe going through it that wants to find their way out.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

I think find somebody that um works with people, you can't do it on your own, you can't see your own faults. I did a lot of personal development, um, and I've had one or two good teachers in that area that have kind of said classic questions like, so how's that working out for you, Jill? And I've kind of gone, oh God, things that I've done from four years of age that I can now go, oh, that makes me a people pleaser. That means I've been bullied in my life, that means this has happened, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, it's obvious. But if you think you're ever done, you're not. So you have to keep on at it because there's more and more. We're we're onions, aren't we, us people? There's always more stuff to discover. So you just have to keep on working at yourself. Explore, explore you.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

I believe that there's more versions of us, and I never want to believe it. You know, there's another version of Jill coming maybe tomorrow, maybe in two months. What would be visibly different if we managed to make that huge mass

What A Kinder Future Looks Like

SPEAKER_03 18:46

change? What would be visibly different in our daily lives?

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Well, it's at two levels, three levels probably. The societal level is we wouldn't have governments and politics in the same way that we have it today. It would be a self-organizing from a place of that person's homeless, how can we change that and how can we help them? And I think most people have that in them to be able to do that. In business, if everybody was doing business from a place of love, like the organization we support, B1G one, you can use that in your marketing, you can use that in so many different areas. So if having that kind heart, that caring, that empathy is part of your mojo, then you want to buy from a business that's like that as well. I am not registered for Amazon because I don't like their politics and what they do. It's finding those shifts that we can make. So business can make different shifts by coming together and being a business for good. We are the backbone of the economy in this country, in the UK, probably most, the SME world, we can make a massive difference. And it is by coming together. That's the only way we're going to be able to do it, is coming together and collaborating and keeping the culture and keeping the values strong and aligned. And then when you take that right down, here's who you are. So if you're getting stressed about this or anxious about that or worried about this, whether it's on a global scale or personally, you will find you change when you surround yourself with the right people. And the right people are kind, caring, loving, want the best for you, and want to help you. And there are a lot of those people out there, you'd feel like they're not. But as soon as you allow yourself to be vulnerable, you'll find them in the right communities for the right reasons. It is happening as we get every day, it's happening.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

But if you can whisper one message to

The Leadership Skill Of Listening

SPEAKER_03 20:30

the next generation of leaders, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 20:33

When you're talking to somebody in your organization, sit in their shoes for a little bit and see where they're coming from and understand that if they are angry or upset, there's usually more to it than just they've had a row with the guy in the desk next to them. There's more to it because we've all got our baggage that we carry with us. So if you can just spend a moment and give them time to be heard, as one of our members says, you need a damn good listening to. So if leaders learn how to listen with empathy, then the solutions quite often come themselves. And I've done this in practice for myself. When somebody has listened to me, listen to me, and listen to me, and listen to me, and listen to me. I'm taught so much that I found my own solution. And I'm like, you're good, I'm off. I'll go and sort it out. And they've not said a word, literally not said a word, but I was allowed to say things out loud. So I would say for the leaders for the next generation, learn how to be a good listener.

SPEAKER_03 21:35

Love that line. You need a damn good listening too. I've I've been on the other end of that, and I think it is the ones who let you just maybe just rant and let it out. Don't take it personally is a great line.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

But the other one is uh oh uh with respect, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, there's they've still got no respect there. If you have to say those words, there's no respect. It's like, I'm not racist, but just stop it. Just you know. Stop pretending and be your authentic self and be kind.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

Yeah, you got it. Compassionate and kindness. What grabs your attention? What like you can't help yourself? Oh my god, I must buy this or research this.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

For me, when I see somebody on a mission and it's a goal that could affect the whole world, and they're maybe just starting, they just had this idea. And we've got two or three people in our community that are like, I've just got this. And I'm like, what is it? What is it? Tell me what. And I'm just my brain is firing on how can I help? What can I do? Who do they need? What's the thing? And it's just it inspires me because like they're doing that. Wow, how I can't

Big Missions That Ignite Action

SPEAKER_00 22:40

play small. I've now got to go and lift my game because they're being incredible. So that's what always captures my attention. If I was talking to somebody on LinkedIn and they go, Well, I had somebody who was like saying, Oh, I've never told this to anybody else, but what I'd really like to do is, are you crazy? Why are you not doing that? That's brilliant. Let's do it together. And I know I can't do everything with everybody, but at least I can encourage them and I can connect them up to people that can support them. So that's I've probably connected you up to one or two people that have inspired me. So therefore I want you to be able to help them and support them as well. So yeah, that's what when they want to they've got an idea and they've got a big mission. One of the guys I got a company, the world's greatestexperiment.com. Check it out. I mean, it's brilliant, absolutely brilliant. And it's tough. What he's doing is incredible. And five years down the line, we're all going to be looking at him. Everyone will know about him.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

I fully endorse that. And uh you know, for yourself and Alan, your husband, what's next? What do you hope? What do you hope to be there?

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Well, I feel like I would like to be doing this until I'm 106, at least. And I don't want to be the face of Collaboration Global, but I want it to be there and I want to be its nan in the corner giving advice and wisdom. I just want to see it grow and be nurtured and looked after. So that's that's me. My husband, oh, he's he's getting into semi-retirement enjoying the grandchildren. So um he's always in the background uh supporting me, which is fantastic. But if he thinks I'm going to retire with him, maybe not just yet.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

Keep going for anyone listening out there who's retired at 67.

Closing And How To Find Us

SPEAKER_03 24:15

Don't go and sit in front of the TV. Because it's the fastest way to the end.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

You're right, absolutely right.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Okay. Jill, it's been wonderful having you on. Do you have a one golden look at the life?

SPEAKER_00 24:28

I think I always go back to the quote by Margaret Mead, who was an anthropologist back in the day, a woman doing men's work when she wasn't supposed to be. Uh, and it's uh never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

Jill, thanks for coming in.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Thank you. I don't often get to talk about myself, that's she.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

And for the audience, if you've ever felt that the current system is exhausting you, using you, quietly making sex things socially, environmentally, spiritually. This episode was an invitation to imagine something else and to build it together. And we'll see you again.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Join David and his incredible guests next time on the Success Nuggets podcast. And to find out more, visit oneGoldenNugget.com. Thank you for listening.