Get Amplified
Podcast series GET AMPLIFIED where we’re going to be talking about everything to do with working in the tech industry from staying ahead of the pace of change to fulfilment and well-being.Hosting the series will be Sam Routledge former CTO at Softcat who will be joined by Vicky Reddington from the Amplified Group. The team will be joined by leaders in the tech industry who will share their stories. We are going to share things we wish we knew 20 years ago. This is not rocket science but, we are going to highlight many of the things we do subconsciously and with a more conscious approach, done with intent and purpose can be hugely impactful. We will break it down and make it practical! Like everything we do at the Amplified Group, we will keep it real, it will be relevant and it will be lively!
Get Amplified
“I was a terrible leader, until....” Stuart Fenton
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Former President of Insight and CDW, and now CEO of Quantiq, Stuart Fenton shares his story of how he has learnt to become the leader he is today, building Quantiq a company that he would want to work at.
Stuart shares how putting your people first, ensures you retain incredible talent who pull together to undoubtedly deliver extraordinary (and sustainable) results.
Learn more about the Five Behaviors of a Team here: Meet #fivebehaviors - Amplified Group
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Welcome to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group, the podcast for tech industry leaders and aspiring leaders focusing on extraordinary teams. We're delighted to be back for a second season. We have some seriously exciting guests for you. As always, even pre-COVID, we've been virtual. I'm at home in Bucks. Vicky's in deepest, darkest Oxfordshire. Sia's over in the Netherlands. And I'd like to take time to introduce our guest today, Stuart Fenton. So Stuart is an IT industry luminary. He'll tell us a little more about his journey later. I suppose, Stuart, you and I were effectively competitors when you were at Insight and I was at SoftCat. Stuart now runs a fantastic business called Quantic that he'll tell you about shortly. So, Char, do you want to give us a bit of background on uh what we're talking about today and why we've got Stuart with us?
SiaCertainly I will, Sam. I'm really excited to be back in series two. So today we're going to be talking about building and maintaining a great culture, which in turn leads to delivering great results. So, as a team, in other words, what we're saying is how do you get the entire organization working together as a team? And I don't know Stuart very well, so I'm really interested in his perspective on this. Uh so um, yeah, looking forward to today's episode.
SamBrilliant. Good stuff. So, Stuart, perhaps you could give us a bit of background on yourself and your you know the journey that I referred to, clearly as we were competitors, as you can probably tell, we don't like each other.
Speaker 4But I was interested with the term luminary.
SamI was wondering it means you're a shining light of our wonderful industry.
Speaker 4I just thought you were going to say I've been around a long time. Um so the 100,000 foot view is really, you know, I I studied um technology and um set up my first business whilst I was studying. And I set up a first business kind of in a garage doing software, software development, etc., with a with a couple of other students, and that business evolved into an IT reseller. And at the time there was this thing called Microsoft Windows, it was very new and shiny, it was Windows 3, and there were applications for it, but not many. So I set up a company that and I was effectively importing some great software from the US and reselling it in the UK. And I did that for a number of years. We got up to a number of millions of pounds worth of revenue. We were one of the biggest players at the time for Microsoft Office and all the other associated things, and I sold that in 1995, and then from 1995, largely until 2013, I worked for two very large public entities. One we now know as CDW, although it was through acquisition. So I did um I did eight years um running Europe, uh Canary for a company called Microwarehouse, uh, which grew and it was about two and a half billion at the point it was sold and broken up, and CDW got most of that. Uh, and then from 2002, um, for about 11 years, um, I became the president of effectively all the international operations at um uh Insight, which was at the time Insight was uh just in North America, so the the US and Canada, and to an extent, Canada was really just an extension of the US. So they'd done an acquisition in the UK. The UK business was was um struggling a little bit, a little bit dysfunctional at the time. It had gone through a couple of acquisitions that hadn't gone well. And I went in, I think at the time it was around 171 million pounds worth of revenue. Uh and we set upon uh a process of growing that business and doing acquisitions. And and when I left in 2013, the international business that I looked after, which included all of Europe and all of Asia, was about $2 billion there or thereabouts. Um, and we were in uh 22 countries, uh, of which 20 of them I looked after. Um, so you know that's the kind of hundred thousand-foot view, and and and you know, it was leading and transforming those organizations and going through um painful things. And actually, that was the experience that took me on my next journey, which was um having looked at this company implementing an ERP and realizing that for years and years I'd sold technology, I felt that you could get closer to the client um and actually do things more meaningful, much more services-oriented. I felt that there was a possibility of doing it better. When I was aware that that business was coming up for sale, um I worked really hard to buy it, and then it by which time it had shrunk because of a variety of reasons, and I bought the company. And for the last six years, I've taken what you know that business from from largely zero to the largest you know privately owned Microsoft Dynamics partner in the UK, around 250-260 people will turn over 30 million pounds, about 40 million dollars. Next year, we'll do 50 million dollars will be one of the biggest in the space. So that that's my journey. But the last bit is is my company, whereas up to the most of it would have been working for two big American firms and dealing with everything that that entails.
SamSounds interesting. So while you were setting up a software development business in your garage, I was in an a mate's garage starting bands and trying to be a rock star, so probably around about the same set of time. Amazing what you can get up to in a garage.
Speaker 4Well, you you can't see it right now, but I do have a fender strat and a and and a guitar and and a couple of you know guitars and a piano. Uh and I was in a band, uh a really hideously bad jazz band for a few years in that time as well. That's funny. So next time, if we ever get to meet post-COVID, yeah, we can have we could have a jam. Exactly. I'll put the piano on my shoulder and come over because I'm horrible on the guitar.
SamFair enough. Fair enough. I'll stick to bass. Four strings is about all I can manage, I think. Brilliant. Um, so thank you for that. That's really good background. Vicky, do you want to add a little bit of context to today's uh conversation?
VicYeah, brilliant, thank you. So this podcast came about because um I think you did the the suggestion, Sam, because Stuart had posted something on on LinkedIn about no guilt, um, which we're gonna dig into a little bit, yeah, a little bit later. But then hooking up together, really understanding that Stuart really leads from the front and is a great example of of the leadership and building the types of organizations that that we are helping other organizations aspire to be. So what's I'd really like to learn from Stuart today, and what I hope we can dig into is is really why putting that emphasis on building the great culture leads to to delivering great results. And you know, the example that that I often giving presentations is three years ago, I realized that my aspiration of gardening and my vegetable plot needed some structure and needed some organization. And I put an immense amount of effort in to put some raised beds in and to put a framework in place, and that immense amount of effort actually meant that I broke my fork because the soil was that hard. But but in building this framework of five raised beds, what that has enabled me to do three years on, I'm I'm just reaping the rewards of the growth of them. The harvest that I've had this year, when I went to my raised beds in February and thought, right, I'm gonna start here, it took five minutes of weeding and I was off on the growing. And I think that really relates back to the culture thing because if you can get those right foundations in place, then you reap the benefits of it versus just concentrating on getting those numbers in at the end of the quarter, which so many organizations seem to do. So I'm really interested to understand how you've done that, Stuart.
Speaker 4So, I mean, to be clear, for large amounts of my career, I was rubbish at this and absolutely dreadful. And the companies that I worked for were rubbish at it. And, you know, my career had gone through this period of being an entrepreneur, setting up a business, and and and working for an American company that frankly at that time didn't highly value its staff at all. Um, people were lucky to have a job. I remember even thinking that people were lucky to have a job, you know, they should just do what I need them to do. And I think that you go through that journey, and I had a sort of the first epiphany I had was reading a book by Jack Welch back in very early 2000s, something like that, and it was called Straight from the Gut. And he talked about, you know, he has his right hand and his left hand, and his right hand man is his HR leader, and his left hand man was his um uh finance leader. And you go, you know, at the time, your HR leader was it, your right hand? Really? Um, and and then he talked about you know the culture of organizations, and and it really did bed into me, and what that bedded into me was process. He so everything you've talked about about structure, about things about having a cadence of meetings and communication and open communication and standing up in front of your team and telling them what's going on and sharing the results. And I think that that that was my first journey, and then um, but it didn't get you know, I I was still probably a bit too fierce and a bit too, you know, quarterly focused with the numbers. And I think again, that is the nature of you know American public companies. And and we were we measured absolutely everything, and if you know stat number 73 was off, you'd go around and have some fierce conversations. Um, and it may not have actually been the right thing. So I think that second phase came through towards the end of my tenure where you know you start asking yourself a question is do I like working here? That often people don't. They don't enjoy it and they just kind of they just endure it because of some perceived benefit. I when I left Insight, I I didn't enjoy my last couple of years, variety of reasons, you know, and none to cover here. But when I said we were gonna set up this company, we looked at this company that we were gonna acquire the the assets of the remainders of, and we said, look, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna have to do this really properly. And I I you know, I got a couple of people to help me, you know, it wasn't on my own. Um, you know, we said, look, we we want to create a company that we would want to work at if we didn't own it, and that was a real game check. Well, what does that mean? You know, that because the company we were buying clearly didn't feel that way, and we said, right, we're gonna have to do everything. And it that notion defined everything we did thereafter, all of those foundations, but there has to be something, a single value that we as owners had to have with the business, which having worked for other people and other organizations and seen what good looks like, and often seen what bad looks like, um, and often it's more bad than good. What we wanted to do is be authentic. And here's where it sounds really naff. We'd worked for people, I've certainly worked for someone in that latter period, and and or worked with them, probably is a better way to say it, and that said all the right things, but there was absolutely no authenticity, you know, you'd have that conversation, say, Sam, you're a terrific person, we really want your team to do well, really value you and everything. Go back to the often say, Well, Sam's not performing, he's at the bottom of my stack ranking of one. Stack ranking, yeah. And and actually, Sam, you know, if you want to hire Johnny over there on the right-hand side because he's really fabulous, Sam's got to go. And and it created a culture of you, some people are at the bottom because they're still developing, they're still working, they're still, or they haven't coached, it's not their fault often. They need the help, yeah, and or you've recruited badly, right? And and that that came to a big part of our journey. And I think that that's that was the you know, it was how does it how do we make it meaningful? Um, you know, no one's perfect. I'm I'm a million miles away from perfect, but that was that overriding thing, which was how do you make a company you'd want to work at? And from there, it was um it kind of defined all the things that we did with Quantic. What Quantic is, is we we implement systems, ERP or CRM systems, and it's my basically we leverage the Microsoft platform, Microsoft Dynamics, and associated products in the stack and associated ISV solutions and bring business process solutions and platform and Azure solutions to our clients. Um, and um to do that, you need a lot of very, very clever people, um, and that can be engineers and consultants, and they need to go and talk to the clients and be passionate about their business to make sure that you help them, those those people who are your clients, uh make their business better. I mean, you we can't endure, we can't enter their organization, do our project, and leave it worse. I mean, you you have to do a better job. But to do that, then your people have to believe that the outcome is important. So we we set up a whole thing about creating an organization where we would put our people first, we'd put their well-being first, we would we'd be really open, honest with communication, we'd have no barriers, you know, no offices, everything, you know, everything was open. That was that was the approach. And then we talk about our clients as you know, in and we created terms to say, look, you know, we're here to make their organization better. And and therefore, unlike our competitors, we're not here to earn consulting dollars. That is a byproduct of making their organization better. So we really focused on what the what the end result was rather than the journey. And I and I think that's really what's helping, you know, to make it whether it's the a great company to work, I don't think we're a great company to work for, but we aspire to be a great company to work for. So, but also to be a great partner to implement the systems that they get the thing that they paid for or or hoped for. Um, and that doesn't always you know work out 100% of the time, but that is the goal. And I think it's having those values and believing it from the top, that that's the foundation, you know, for your for your vegetable garden. But but you know, that is that foundation of what we created. And I think to be fair, I don't know if I'd done that before.
SiaYou know, Stuart, sorry, sorry to interrupt, I was just gonna say that you talked earlier about that you weren't particularly good at this in the past, and and that's kind of why we do this podcast, because we're talking to people who are maybe just coming into being a leader and and want to be aspiring leaders. And and Vicky and I had the same conversation. What what are our core values, which was spirited, inspirational, and authentic to your point, and what we were asking for is that of our client, which is kind of a little bit of a strange way of doing and and that makes sense.
SamLife's too short, isn't it?
SiaYeah, but wasn't that great to be able to make that decision?
Speaker 4We've walked away from opportunities where we have felt that the client, you know, I don't know how you're gonna record this, but I'm gonna say anyway, but the client might be an arsehole. And and we would walk away because with you know, no one wants to work with an arsehole, no one wants to recruit an arsehole. So so we've walked away from them. Or in one case, we were in the middle of a project and the client became one, and and we turn around to them and say, look, you know, it's quite clear that you're not focused on getting this over the line, you're focused on something completely different. We don't know what it is. We're going to step back and you know help you find another partner. And we've done that on a couple of occasions when it's quite obvious that the values of the client aren't in line with your own. And I have the luxury of being my own business of being able to say to our team, look, this isn't going to work, we're going to make that decision. And they're kind of this would never happen. You know, why would you walk away from you know from business? Yeah. Why would you walk away from a million pounds worth of revenue? The reality is not a million pounds of revenue, actually, it's heartache, stress, anxiety, and and actually it's just not worth it.
SamPeople leave over stuff like that. You know, it's it's not just about your business being a great place to be. They're if they're working in somebody else's business, they've got to be happy and comfortable in that business as well.
Speaker 4We were recently working on a very, very large project, a very, very large project, and it had the potential to be enormous. And we walked away um because you know, very recently, because of this problem where you know what we were exposed to increasingly was uh the best way to describe it is you know, madness of you know, you're you're doing something, you're delivering what they asked for, and they then they are they changed their mind what they asked for, and then they change their mind again. And you say, Well, this is look, we've documented what you asked for, and now you're asking for something different. That's fine. We can we can change track, but you know, that that's a painful journey for you. You're gonna have to re-redo things. And you know, the client got very upset and was very rude, and actually was very abrasive to to some of our people. We we actually we said, look, yeah, this isn't gonna work for us. Um we'll help you find somewhere else, we'll do the handover. Um and the client was incredulous, absolutely incredulous. You you can't walk away from us, you know. And actually, what we found is this this was this endemic in this organization, which we hadn't really experienced at the outset. Um now, you know, our business, we're running today, I know, somewhere around 175 projects. Um and and I'd say, you know, all of them are absolutely you know fine and those relationships are great. But you get one or two every now and then, you will do. You don't you don't discover it until sometime, and life's too short to take that pain. So we had this thing where you know we put our people first, and if you know, if we put our people way before the client in terms of hierarchy of importance, um, including you know mental fitness, you know, you know, workload and the like, and it doesn't mean that we're not really busy sometimes. And and when you've got a client that's working in line with you, you can work really hard and you can you know really break down barriers and do some really cool stuff. And and that was what we wanted to do. We wanted to create that feeling on every project. You know, what we found was the biggest thing to get right was recruitment. You know, that was a huge thing when you're building a team. Um, you know, we do we use the psychometric testing, that was really important. If you build the right team and then you manage your lead them and communicate really well, then and you value them, then your culture kind of follows. Your culture is not something you kind of design, it's not doesn't work like that. You don't put in a piece of paper and say, we, you know, this is what our culture is going to be. You just put in some foundations to what makes somebody a good makes it a good environment, whether it's you know, we do free breakfast in the office and a coke, you know, cupboard full of free cokes and all that kind of stuff. Does that these are small things, but they're just part of a picture?
SamYeah, that that doesn't make a culture in and of itself. It just what once you find the right people, once you set the right tone, it helps. Nobody's gonna join you just because of free breakfasts.
SiaNo, and you mentioned earlier, Stuart, about HR being the right hand man. And I think the important thing here is you know, when when you're recruiting, you do have to recruit against culture and values because they're sustainable, to Vicky's point. Um, just recruiting against a checklist of skills, you're probably gonna have the wrong person, and that person's gonna leave, or they're just gonna fit, or more importantly, they're not gonna do their best for you because they see it just as a job.
Speaker 4Yeah, we we use the psychometric testing that really helps us um identify um that skill set and and and those characteristics and behaviors. Uh, and you can't get it right all the time, clearly, because you know we still have some turnover stuff, but uh our our view is we get it right more often than not because we go through that process of trying to find people who are diligent, methodical, thoughtful, um uh and and and whilst you know it's impossible to sort of say uh you know we don't want to recruit an arsehole and therefore we use things like you know psychometric testing to help us do that, I mean it does help. I mean, yeah, if it's not absolutely correct, but we've mapped out what we think are the right behaviors. And you know, if you if you think about um go back to Jack Wilch, I don't know if you ever you know talked about his his grid of behavior and results. I don't know if if you're familiar with it, it's a fantastic grid of behavior and results. And I love the fact that you know he said good behavior, you know, and you go through lots of scenarios, but the one scenario that's always gets people make you know, bad managers make them bad wrong decision, which is you know, mostly if you've got somebody who's giving you fantastic results, but their corporate their employment behavior is absolutely dreadful. And he said it's the most difficult decision, and most managers failed to do it, but they shouldn't stay because behavior is more important. And and I love that statement, and I and I believe that we we live it. Or if we have someone with bad behavior, we address it head on until you can fix it.
SamIf you can't is it the net Netflix phrase, no brilliant jerks, I think it's Netflix.
Speaker 4Yeah, yeah. Well, I've I've I've not heard that one, but you know what that I mean, that's the same thing, right? And yeah, exactly. You know, it's um we we do call it the arsehole, you know, which is we just don't want to recruit one, we don't want to have them. You know, arguably if there is one in the company, it's probably me.
VicNo, but what I've just heard from you, Stuart, is about practicing what you preach. And it's very clear, you know, you you said it at the beginning. So many organizations we've experienced where they write the values and they do a really nice marketing campaign on it and they're up in the kitchen, but actually they're not real and they're not being lived, and they're not being demonstrated by the leadership team.
Speaker 4Well, we we have this, we have values as well, and we have a mission statement and that. And I and I look at our values sometimes and do even feel that whilst the team brought them out, you know, it's you know, we inspire, we care, we reward, and the reward of our own people for doing a good job. Genuinely believe that when you ask people what does the company stand for, whatever words they come out with, as long as they're you know they mean it, that's fine, you know. And and and therefore they can they can describe our values any way they like. You know, do we inspire people? Yes, sure. Do we reward them well? Yes. Do we really care about people? Absolutely. But if they turn around and say, you know, we're a great organization and you know we're we're all about mental fitness or we're all about exceeding our clients' expectations, whatever, that's fine. That's fine. It has to be authentic. And at Insight, we spent an awful long time in a room coming up with what we felt our values were. And I felt that at the time they were aspirational.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 4Whereas the values I think we have are actually just a reflection. And that's got to be the difference. You know, if you have aspirational values, what's the chance you get there? And they they might, you know, in Insight changed their values to a different set of aspirational um uh values that you know people may or may not get behind. But it you know, it doesn't feel authentic when they like it that you know you if I think about SoftCat, for example, where where Sam spent you know a good chunk of his career does, you you you look at that and you think, well, actually, those that that company is authentic, it's fun, it's hard working, it's probably a little bit intense, uh, but they put their customers first. Um now their values will be described very differently to that. But actually, as long as I believe it, because I've been a customer and I've seen, you know, I've seen, I've seen that's probably close enough, that's good enough, and it is a fun place, and and and you know, the people do seem to enjoy it, you know. And if there is a high turnover, it's only in that formative period as there, you know, people are coming up to speed going through that. Thereafter, the tenure, you know, the tenure really lengthens, and that's because those values are mean uh are meant. Um you know, it's fascinating. I I'm not suggesting for a moment we've done it right, we just started from the that original notion is we want to make it a great company that we'd like to work at. And and and funnily enough, that's actually all you need.
SamYeah, that makes makes so much sense. And you know, that that's you you you mentioned soft cat, and I think it's you know right to do so in that in that context. That's exactly what Peter wanted when he set the company up. You know, he'd worked places where he had had a difficult experience and hadn't enjoyed it, and it just felt that you could do it somewhat differently. And you're absolutely right, the whole thing about treating your employees right, your employees then treat your customers right, and you end up with a decent business rather than starting from a standpoint of we're gonna make X profit or Y profit, or um it it really seems to work. It appears that it's not rocket science, and I'm given to understand that there's now a you know Harvard business school module on all of that stuff, so it's you know, there's actually some business theory behind it now, as well as just being the right damn thing to do.
Speaker 4You know, I I look at my past and I know that I you know I I haven't been um you know really focused on this as much as I could have or should have in the past. And I think I probably did it in really, really well by comparison to others. Um, but there are there are there are moments I can look back in my career and think, geez, I wish I'd done that different, or I'd not said that, or I I'd acted in a different way, or I valued that person in a different way than I than I did. You know, I mean, you know, as long as I I suppose as long as I get it more right than wrong, it's okay, but that's actually not good enough anymore. And it's it's about trying to be consistently, you know, the best um that you can be. And and for us, the culture has been critical. I mean, I you know, I I I don't know if we would have been as successful as we are without the culture because it's retained some just astonishing good talent.
SamAnd yeah, it's not just for and people who are really committed to the direction of travel.
Speaker 4Yeah, and actually that that whole notion of culture is not me sitting around and writing it out and saying this is how it's going to be. It's actually that culture is now pervasive and it's created from within the organization. Because the people that have joined or developed over a period of time, they they live and breathe that same culture, and they're the people who turn around.
SamI mean well, it becomes self-sustaining, you know. Culture to some extent can't be something that you that that you as the the boss enforce. It has to be something that you know you can set set the tone, but it's got to come from everywhere at the same time, hasn't it?
Speaker 4It has to come from the top. The culture can't be it has to be authentically led from the top. But then set the tone from the top. Yeah, but uh yeah, exactly. But uh over time, it is it it then comes from everywhere um uh uh from all parts of your organization. There are cases of bad companies or companies that with notion of bad culture who who can do well. Hey, Microsoft had it you know massively successful for years. There was a a leader of the business, and he and I famously fell out, and it was on LinkedIn actually, Kevin Turner, who was the um uh uh you know um chief of the Walmart guy. Yeah, yeah, chief operating officer, and you know, everyone was terrified of him, absolutely terrified of him. And he'd come over and rip everyone you know to to shreds. And I remember him, he he did a post on LinkedIn about you know culture and stuff, and I just said to him, Why was everyone terrified? And absolutely hated you, and my meeting with you was the most violently aggressive meeting I've ever attended. And and you know, he he you know, he kind of apologized, but in in a in a way that those people tend not to. And he's gone. That that that that whole culture of organized that those people have gone, and you look at what Satya has created, yeah. Look at the share price, look at the value of the business.
VicYes, that you say it's not culture, it's people, because it is, it's people. Yeah, that makes it it's overused, isn't it?
Speaker 4The term culture, isn't it? It's overused sure people really know what it means. Um you know, it's about practicing, it's about every day doing the right thing. You know, we have this thing whereby we say, look, everyone who works for you, and uh if you're a team leader, should have a one-to-one every month, at least every month, and if you're new more frequently. And here is the content of what that one-to-one should look like, and and that's really important that everyone does it. How many people have worked at companies where their manager has never sat down with them one-to-one and gone through their personal performance, their personal situation, how well are they, how well are they doing, what does success look like, you know.
VicFor them personally.
Speaker 4For them personally, that's they just don't well do it. And then as a team, you know, you sit down as a team and you talk about what are the what does success look like, what are the what are the things all of that is is a people focused organization that that communicates well, and it's so uncommon. In fact, I got a lot of that from the Jack Welch book that I read around tooth and podcast, straight from the gut. He thought about the people and I you know, I I I really think that you know, if you do things right by your people and by your client and and you treat them, you know, respectfully and with a cadence of engagement, you're okay. No one's gonna be perfect, no one's gonna get it right. I can't say every person who works for me absolutely gets that one-to-one every month. It might be this person's missed it for six weeks or something.
SamYeah, it slips sometimes, but at least at least you've got that aspiration and that drive in that direction.
Speaker 4It's a rhythm. That's what it actually is.
SiaYeah, I think that's a great description. Yeah, one of our clients actually, I I sat down with the CEO and I was talking to him about culture and what they want in. And the one thing he said is, I know about the five behaviors, I know that this is a methodology that works, but he said, I now want us to act on it. So every day I want this to be something that we live and breathe and that we do recognize it. So I think that's really important for a culture. As you said, it can be an overused term unless you really just act on it and are conscious of it every day, that you're, you know, inspiring others and you're being that good leader.
VicI think that's really it's self-sustaining, then, isn't it? Which exactly what you're doing, Stuart.
Speaker 4Yeah, and and you know, and I I would say I've had some really tough conversations with people who work for me, even at even at Quantic, over the time, and they'll say, you know, I'm not sure how inspired I felt after missing that particular objective or what have you. Um as long as you're as long as you're more often doing it right, that that's important. It it comes down to being honest and open communication and and all those kind of things. And but I do come back to you know, that book was the start of my journey, and I've read lots of these books, and and in the end, they all kind of blur the same thing, they all do, but collaboration is a key part of successful, that's for sure. Which I think also, you know, you can't collaborate if you're an a Netflix jerk. Yes, yeah. And I and I would have been, you know, if you ask people about you know me back in the inside, there's a there's a recruiter that we all the whole industry uses, Mark Sumner, Robertson Sumner, really, really nice guy. And he always says, Oh, you know, Stuart, you've got such a fierce reputation. And I say why. And it's actually a handful of people that I haven't been the way I would like to be with. You know, and and you know that that that's that that was a terrible mistake. And I wish, you know, I I you know, you should go back to them, Stuart.
SiaYou should do that whole, you know, knocking on the door and uh admitting your past mistakes, like some kind of relationship cancelling.
Speaker 4Well, you know, um to to to a degree I I have done that. So my the the CIO and who look looks after managed services in my business, I fired him from insight. And there was a thing that failed, and I held him responsible for it. And then when I set up Quantic, I went to him and and he disliked me intensively after that moment, um which is kind of understandable, I guess. Yeah, yeah, and and and I didn't deal with it in the most perfect way at the time. And I went to him and I said, Look, I'm sorry, you know, I it was a project that didn't work out, and you know, I didn't, you know, take I didn't do the right thing, and um you know, and I know that, and I want to work with you again, and um, you know, I think that these are the things that you did brilliantly well, these are the things that you do do brilliantly well, and these are the things I'd like to work with you. And you know, he's been with me on that journey for six and something years, and he's still with a fantastic story. He's still with it. And I'm sure if you've got him on here, he's a fantastic person, but you know, he he would he would tell you that it didn't feel good um um at that time. So I think to your to your point, I've done that, not in every case, you know, um, not in absolutely every case, you know. I there was there's one person I particularly didn't get on with, and I just wouldn't want to contact them. Um but I didn't behave in a in a way that I would like. But I know now, if I were to approach that now, I would approach it very differently. You know, and I I mean here I am in my 50s, um, early 50s, I'll hasten to add, but I'm in my 50s, and and it's taken me this long to recognize to say that you know, if I had done these two or three things earlier, you know, I I I would have been either A, more successful or or um B, you know, better to work with, and uh, which would have been which would have been better for everybody else.
VicIt's so it's wonderful for you to share this because that's that's the purpose of our podcast is to share this and this hindsight that we all wish we'd had.
SiaThe one thing I wanted to um talk about was you you mentioned um earlier your assessments, your testing, and you know, I think they are absolutely critically important, and that's what we do. What we do is we have a process and we start with that because if you can, to your point a second ago, if you can understand your personality type, really understand it, and then understand the other person's personality type, we've come across people where we we say, Oh, we just couldn't get on with them, but there's got to be a reason behind that, and it's usually because maybe they've just got an opposite personality type or exactly the same. But if you learn how to adapt yourself and to face them and say, Why aren't we getting on? What's going on here? I can I can guarantee you'll find a way of working better together. Um, and we we do that every day with our clients, it's really quite fascinating.
Speaker 4And and and you know, that exercise. I mean, you we did something um a year ago, it must have been three years ago now, where we got the leadership team in a room. And and I think we have a very good leadership team. Certainly for the size of organization we have. I think I've got a world-class uh leadership team, but there are very different personalities, and we we used you know this this this person I've used for years, Kevin, to to help us sort of align our behaviors and how we approach things, and then you could see where there was conflict, where people were were very different, and and and this is how we changed how we used the psychometric testing to make sure that you were looking for people who were not who were less dictatorial and more collaborative in their approach. And you could do it, you can you know some people you you you can tell them that you know you this behavior isn't going to work and you need to change. People often can't. Um, but this we we identified something, and and it was a really fabulous moment. And what we realized that the person who was quite different on our team to the rest of us actually never took bad feed, never took feedback badly. So we had this thing where you know something was a little bit prickly, a little bit fractious, but no one wanted to address it because no one wanted to offend each other because we're a nice, warm, and cuddly collaborative team. Through this process, we we realized didn't think feedback like that. So everyone then told him we went, No, you're fair, that's fine. Yeah, yeah, I need to change. And immediately problems went away. And and it's fascinating. And I think if if if if if your organization does that well, it was a super simple exercise that probably helped our last three years grow faster because we were under we were able to give each other better feedback. You know, typically a sales organization doesn't get you know doesn't get on with any other part of the organization. Every other part of the organization is a barrier or a hindrance to the success of a sales organization. That is that is always the way exactly. You know, sales people who often are sales and kids well shamer qualification in sales, they're the least qualified people to do the role for which is considered a profession, right? Whereas the operations guy often has you know operations skills and certifications and ISO 9000 and all that kind of stuff. There isn't in sales, and so what we realized is that relationship between them needs a lot of work, and and that was really important, and that's what we uncovered through those processes. So if Amplified does those kind of things, it's huge.
VicWe absolutely do, we do, and and actually the thing that's just come back to me that I was thinking about was talking about you being fierce. Actually, one of the most important things is to be able to give people feedback, and part of what we do is about learning about how to give feedback and holding people accountable. Because if you don't do that, and they just get to the end of the day and you fire them and they don't know why they've done it wrong, you've not you've not given them the chance to learn.
Speaker 4It's not fair, is it? No, we're not we're huge fans, we're huge fans of the deficit model. Are you familiar with that one? No, no, so we we we we we use the deficit model, it's really important. So deficit is an acronym. So D stands for describe, so describe the situation. So I can describe Sam. You're not achieving your uh uh your goals, and as a result I wish you stopped picking on me. That's easy. I'm not gonna pick you not achieving and then E is evidence, so then you provide evidence, and on these six occasions, and here is the data evidencing that you've not achieved what you set out to achieve and you've covered it up, and then F is feelings. I'm gonna tell you how I feel about this. I I feel like I can't trust you, Sam, for these four reasons because you're you're actively working against it. I is the implications of this, which is you know, if we can't solve this, Sam, we're gonna have to part ways and you're gonna have to leave unless we can get through it. C is contribution, my contribution. So I come say, my contribution, Sam, is I've not brought this to you early enough. I've not explained that my concerns here, I've not shared with you that and then you the last I here is intent. What do I intend to do? Well, actually, I want to give it a chance. I want to I want to see if by being really candid with you is that we can get through this really quickly because often everything is down to a single moment, a single decision. Relationships can change on a dime. You know, that it takes the biggest, boldest, bravest, strongest person to admit that they've made a mistake and say, How do we work together and solve the problem? And then the last T is turn it over. So that whole first bit is me talking to Sam. Sam's not allowed to come back, and then T turns over. And that that is a fantastic model for giving Frank uh uh feed.
VicYeah, it's really good.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's in the um it's in the leadership challenge, uh uh a book, the leadership challenge, fantastic book.
VicRight, thank you. We we use um radical candor. Have you heard of that? Have you seen the video on that?
Speaker 4I haven't seen the video, but I've read.
VicYeah, um the video of it is just five minutes. Um, but but and and my pricey of it is if you've got parsley in your teeth, you want someone to tell you. If you're doing something wrong, how on earth do you learn unless somebody tells you?
Speaker 1Yes.
SiaAnd we talked about those models, didn't we? They're they're all very similar, right? You know, ours is the foundation is trust. Then once you've got trust, then you can have conflict, you're open, you're robust discussions, you've all got a voice, and then you can commit to the idea or the project, and then you can hold each other accountable, and then you get the best results. That's the five behaviors. Fundamentally, it's the same thing, it's about understanding that you're all human, that you have sometimes some weaknesses, and that you can call them out, and you're not going to feel uncomfortable with each other because you've got that foundation of trust. So it's all um it's all built on something that we say is not rocket science.
SamYeah, but it it isn't, it isn't rocket science, it's trying to distill down stuff that you learn through experience through the pain of doing it and getting it wrong and getting it wrong again, and then get maybe getting it slightly less wrong. And you know, if you can distill that down into a set of phrases or a terminology or a toolkit or something and hand it down to people so that they can't make the mistakes that I certainly made in the early part, and probably the the more recent part of my career as well, that's got to be good, isn't it? Yeah, you've been very you've been very open about uh about some of the ways in which you've behaved and some of the mistakes you you made. You know, I've done some of the same, exactly the same stuff. I'm sure we all do.
Speaker 4I think I think if if I I think large most organizations need help. That's the truth. And and the what you provide is a mirror, right? So you provide a mirror. You provide a look, let us reflect back to you on what we see. And here are the three or four or seven coping strategies that you can use. And and I've been a big fan of that. Now, you know, I I think that the kind of skills that you're bringing to organizations today didn't exist five, six, seven, you know, ten years ago. They just didn't exist because because it wasn't it was there wasn't a a simplistic approach for dealing with this. You know, when you would bring in McKinsey or Bain to look at your business problems, they would turn around and say, Well, actually, you're marketing to the wrong client. Or or you know, they they they would use these incredibly clever geniuses who who are sort of 22.
VicOvercomplicate things, yeah.
Speaker 4You know, a partner would come out and say, I can absolutely see your problems, we can really help. They get all these kids who straight out of university with degrees for MIT, who analyse your business to the end degree and come back and say, actually, uh, the answer is 42. And and you'd be looking at that, you know, that that's the um that's the meaning of life.
VicHitchhiker's guide to the gas. Hitchhiker's guide to gas.
Speaker 4Yeah. So but the answer is 42, and you need to do these 42 things. And it it never was, right? Yes. And and and up to a point, I mean, you know, at um uh microwarehouse that became C DW, we brought in we brought in McKinsey, and this is back in the late 90s. And these people were really smart and they analyzed business. Now I remember I remember hilariously, we um we we used to do lots of direct marketing back in the day. People used a lot of direct marketing. On every catalogue was a different phone number. Why? Because you couldn't always trust the salespeople to tell you which marketing piece the customer was reacting to. So you'd do it based on the phone call data and say, you know, this this many this this number was dialed by this many people and this, and you got all this data, and McKinsey came along and said it's far too confusing. You need one number, and that would change the you'd say, Well, actually, this is gonna kill your business. And and from an analytics point of view, they they were quite right, it was an expensive process, of course.
VicThey didn't understand the business there.
Speaker 4Yeah, no, they didn't understand the business, and and but in exactly the same way they didn't understand the business, they actually didn't understand the people, and they had no clue that actually fundamentally the problems were the leadership team all hated each other at that moment in time, but not just like a little bit. I mean, violent, and they were all backstabbing each other at the time, and it was it was uh horrific, and and and no one trusted anyone. Everything was about undermining the next guy, and you'd speak to one person who was undermining the next, and yeah, you know, I was in Europe, we we'd come over to the US and and and you'd hear all this stuff, and you'd go back and go, My God, you know, that's really dysfunctional, and and then wonder why the business wasn't successful.
VicMcKinsey brought a book out last year, and I'm trying to remember the name of it, it's down on my desk downstairs, but it it's about transformations, and they're basically saying in their last 20 years of doing transformations, 80% of them will fail if you don't put an equal focus on the people that you do actually on the transformational things that you're doing to the business. And they said you don't, and it's not about outsourcing this people thing to HR, it's about the leadership team embedding that in everything they do. And I so they they've come around. I think so.
Speaker 4As I was leaving Insight, they brought in Bain to do one of those examples. And it was exactly the same. They used all these surveys and everything. And luckily I left as it was happening. And one one of Sam's colleagues, James Baker, was kind of.
VicOh, yes. I know James.
Speaker 4Yeah. James was dealing with it. And at the end, you know, the answer again, it was one of those things. And the answer's 42. And off they went, and they left and everything. And I spoke to the lead partner and I said, What do you really think the problem is? Because I don't think it's 42. And he said, No, no, it's this guy here. He said, He's the problem, but he was paying the bills, so we can't do anything about it. And fascinating. And he said, But you know, ultimately we're there to make money. So and so so I I you know, I do believe that what comes down to people. I think what you do is is everybody, every team needs somebody to reflect back to them and say, This is what you really look like, and these are the four or five causes for it, and here are the three or four coping mechanisms. And I think that I think every organization needs, and even organizations like ours, I think we do it well. We still go through a process regularly of bringing um the same. We we use the same consultants, it sounds very similar. We use the same regularly to come in and say, actually, this is this, you know, here is the problem. It's the mirror. And and and and yeah, exactly. And it can be, and it but it doesn't manifest it quite so directly, uses uses exercises to then manifest it, and you know, and I remember him saying that we're gonna do this exercise, we're gonna we're gonna do this, and we're gonna build this and build that, and you through that process we'll learn. And we got to the end of the process, and he said, You guys can't work together. You got that this was a pride company, you guys can't work together, and actually we realized that you know there was a problem with two people. We we didn't make those changes.
SiaYeah, we we do it through exercises as well, and we were only talking to somebody the other day that was saying, like you do, bringing somebody from the outside like us in is much easier because you you just can't see it when you're in the middle of the storm.
Speaker 4That's right, and also there's no emotion, right?
SiaSo if you come in, exactly. They can hate us, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4Yeah, exactly. And you're not in, you know, exactly. Emotion is a really terrible thing, and and and we can't eliminate it from human beings, and we don't want to. But sometimes you need someone to come in and say, look, you know, actually, these are the six things that you know, Sam, you need to do differently, otherwise, you know, you're gonna destabilize.
SamHe's picking on me again.
Speaker 4And and you know, and I think that we've had that, and and much of that feedback has been, you know, in in my past has been pointed to me, and that you know, that I am, you know, I was very, I'm very direct. You know, I tell people exactly what I think. And I've learned over time that you know there are better ways to do it. You still tell people as you talk about it, you know, that that that candor, um, but but you you do it in such a way with structure. That's why we use the deficit model, you use the candor. Yeah, it doesn't really matter what you use as long as you remember it. And I, you know, I you know, I've I've I I stick to what I know um and and it works. It does work, it doesn't mean it's easy. In fact, you know, can you have to keep working at it? Yeah, yeah. So so you know, you you you you absolutely do. And I think that creates the culture, you know. So um you know in any organization, if you if you want to um create an environment of trust, you then have to demonstrate trust. You have to give people responsibility and and then collaborate and communicate with that rhythm of engagement to understand that that is the right thing to give them that responsibility, um, uh, you know, and empowerment. And I think that you and you have to take risks. You have to you have to take risks, but you have to make sure that people understand what their what success looks like. And if you can show people what success looks like is you build a team and you keep a team and you and you deliver good outcomes to the client, and and here are the three, four metrics that we use. Funnily enough, profitability is our lowest metric, right? And that's what mystifies our competitors who are focused a hundred percent on build, build, build, but I'd I'll sacrifice margin to keep a client happy, and I I could care less about it. And yet we probably make more margin and in a percentage terms than our competitors because we get it right first time rather than get it right the seventh time.
VicFascinating.
SamYeah, yeah, yeah. That makes that makes an awful lot of sense. So, Vicky, you guys have got a system to kind of check in on this stuff and help customers with it, right?
VicYeah, so the the pull survey um is something that we do, and actually um we've just done it for another c client recently, um, company wide, and when we showed it to the HR team, they said use Stuart's words actually, they said, This is we we've got a mirror now to take to the leadership team. And we can see where we've got and and the common themes running through was was quite fascinating. I've been doing it, I've been absolutely loving it because the insights it's given us has just been incredible.
Speaker 4So you can tie that with a net promoter score. I still come back to the net promoter score being, I think it was Dr. Fred Reichman, some chap years ago, who came up with the surveyable service.
SamMade a blooming fortune off it.
Speaker 4He did, he did, but you know, and he captured everything into a single metric. And I love that. The problem is once you've got that single metric, you don't actually know where the problems are. So you you can find out that you've got a really no low net promoter score, but you don't know why. We we did um we did NPS insight, and um you'll be broadly familiar with the scoring, you can go plus and minus, and we're familiar with it with politicians uh all being negative. And we did we did one, and yeah, one country was you know plus 20, plus 30, plus 40, plus 50, whatever it. And then we had one country, I'm gonna name the country, um, Switzerland, uh, and and it was it was minus 80. Wow. And it was like minus 80 was the net promoter score, which is basically everyone wants to kill themselves and leave. And and and but it didn't tell you why. So something like the why, and it's one married to the other, you know, one metric, and the other gives you where the problem is. And that is really important, and we've got the context of that, so it's gonna be really great to be able to take it back.
SiaSo and the di the difference with the the uh I'll I'll pronounce this differently because obviously Vicky being from the north, she says pulse. I don't know how you say it now, but the pulse survey that we did with the client, what we what we did is not only just do that net promoter score piece, the the tac, you know, the very tangible tactical scoring piece, but we we actually tailored the questions very much around what they were trying to get out of it. So, what was the entry, what are you really trying to learn here from the people that work for you? So we spent a lot of time um actually tailoring those questions so that we could really get to the bottom of what was happening in there. And I think that's the difference between doing a standard pulse survey that everybody, whenever you ask a company, do you have a pulse survey? They say, Yeah, we do. We do it all the time. But actually, when you dig down, that pulse survey means nothing because there's no real detail in there. So what the pulse survey that we have and we do with clients is very much tailored to their needs, um, and then you get a very different result.
Speaker 4You're also always going to find something. There is even the most perfect organization isn't perfect. Yeah, is always something that you can learn from it. And then the reality, I'm uh you know, we we used to do big surveys in these big American companies, and you'd we we asked a thousand questions and it became a sea of information that you couldn't actually. So then you then you go to the NPS that gives you your single metric, and and you need something that can you can you can focus on and identify a handful of the most important areas very quickly. And I think that if if if you know if the pulse survey does that correctly, then you can act upon it. There's nothing worse than having a survey that has there's 273 things that you need to get done by by next Friday to be secure.
VicThere's three things that come out of this.
Speaker 4That's right, and and and you know, you know, whatever the top ones are and whatever the most impactful ones are, and some things you can't fix, right? You know, you can't always fix everything. Um, I you know, I find I find that fascinating. It's great that you can provide that service. I'd say, I'd say doing that well and then reflecting it back to the leadership team in such a way that no one wants to hear the kids are ugly, right? So anyone who's a manager or a leader, you know, wants to think that they're doing a good job. Even they might even acknowledge they can do certain things better. They don't actually want to see something that says your kids are ugly, that something's really terrible. They don't really want to do it. And so the way that is handled is incredibly important. And if that's what you do, you know, if that's what you can bring to companies, you can make a massive difference in a short period of time.
SamYeah, I guess I guess if you're you're an external agency, you have you have the ability to call someone's baby ugly as the terminology.
VicBut the critical thing for us is if you think about our focus, which is building high trust cultures, the critical thing is you don't take this information and and then go into blame culture. You take it and go, okay, what do we learn from it? How can we help each other get better? And it's so it's the approach to it that's really important.
SamRight. So would you give us would you give us three takeaways on what you've been through your culture?
VicAll of that.
Speaker 4Okay, um, I I I I think I think that if you if you if you go say put your people first, um I think that's really important.
Speaker 1Yeah, we agree with that.
Speaker 4We we we call it team, put your people first. Um be open and honest with your communication. Focus on collaboration, removing hierarchy.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 4So if you put your people first and you open communication and you focus on collaboration, you can't go too far. I love the idea of you know, organizations have a hierarchy, which is really a hierarchy for getting stuff done, but it isn't necessarily a hierarchy for how people work together. Yeah, I you know, I spent most of my career with an office and and you know, at at Insight, had this enormous office with a meeting table in there, and you know, if you know, it was the big room and all this kind of stuff. And now I just puke when I think about it. I sit on the open floor and a hot desk with everybody else. If I need a meeting room, I go to it. Awful. And I would I was guilty of doing it. And I you know, people say this rubbish about all my doors always open. Bullshit, you should have no door.
SiaSo it brings us right back to the very start. That to me, anyway, in my head, is our tagline is transforming talented individuals into extraordinary teams. You can be the biggest and the best talented individual, but unless you can work together with the rest of the team and put the effort in to get to know them, to work well with them, to make it all happen, you won't have that extraordinary result at the end of it. So it's it kind of brings us full circle, which is really interesting.
SamSo, Shah, I think we should we should probably do Hero Time.
SiaWe should, yeah. And I I guess because this is series two, and hopefully the people from series one are still listening, but maybe we've got some new listeners. Um, I'm gonna explain why um Hero Time. So we created Hero Time based on the the actual image that we've got, the brand that we've got for Amplified Group is a little stick man and his name is Hero. And the whole premise of it is that we're actually making our clients the heroes because they're recognizing that their teams are really important to them and what they do within their organization and how they keep their organization fit is really important to them. So they're the heroes. Um, but we thought with the podcast, what would be lovely is at the end of each podcast, we ask our guests to tell us who's your hero of the moment.
Speaker 4Hero of the moment is my wife because you know she is juggling the kids, she's juggling you know, other things going on in her life. We've got kids going to different schools, you know, you've got one you're homeschooling, and she's you know doing that. The other one we're trying to organize with his science project, which is in front of me, perfectly produced. And and you know, without her, I couldn't do the things I do. So, of course, she's my hero at the moment. And you know, today I'm actually having to do some of the tasks that she does, and I find it bloody difficult. And she makes it all these things seem rather easy. So um, that's my hero of the moment, but it would it would be different on a on a different day. I mean, she'll always be one of my heroes because if she hears this, that would have to be the case. But I'm not an idiot, I'm not an idiot.
SamSo thank you, Stuart. That was truly fascinating. What an episode to kick off the new season of Get Amplified. Um, thank you very much. Cheers for being part of it, and thank you to our listeners who've rejoined us for series two, and we hope you'll continue to follow us.