Get Amplified

Creating Shared Wins: Breaking Down Silos in Tech Partnerships with Dan Waters

• Amplified Group • Season 6 • Episode 13

Share episode

Send us a text

Dan Waters brings decades of partnership expertise to this fascinating conversation about building effective tech ecosystems. Working from sales roles at  distributors to VP of Partnerships at Snowflake EMEA, Dan shares unique perspectives from both sides of the vendor-partner relationship.

The conversation explores how truly successful partnerships require bilateral investment and commitment. "Partnerships are a two-way street," Dan emphasizes, explaining how Snowflake partners serve as extensions of the company, bringing specialized expertise and expanded reach to complex customer engagements. 

Using a compelling car analogy, Dan illustrates how every component must work in harmony, just as every department and partner plays an essential role in business success. 

The discussion culminates with Dan's three leadership principles:  

  • Being present and accountable, 
  • Developing trust through consistent execution
  • Practicing empathy by understanding partners' business challenges. 

Dan also shares a fascinating "Zander letter" concept from Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes' book on high performance, where teams envision success by writing from a future perspective of achievement.

Whether you're managing partnerships, leading teams, or simply interested in effective collaboration, Dan's insights offer a practical roadmap for creating "shared wins" in today's interconnected business landscape.

We would love you to follow us on LinkedIn!

https://www.linkedin.com/company/amplified-group/

Sam:

Welcome to get amplified the podcast about teamwork in the tech industry. It is a marginally sunny day here in Buckinghamshire. Vicky how you getting on over in deepest darkest Oxfordshire? Any snow today?

Vic:

no, no snow, although I heard there's snow in cheltenham on the radio this morning. Um but no, it doesn't even feel like it's gonna snow.

Sam:

I think there's some snowflake on the way oh there, oh there you go, snowflakes on the way down.

Sam:

See what I did there having having clued you in with a dreadful pun, who we got on the podcast today well, I'm absolutely thrilled we have Dan Waters with us today and we've been trying to get this in the diary, Dan, I think, for about two years, so I am so delighted that you are with us today. I'm honestly it's it's a real joy. I can't remember how long I've known you, but it is a very long time, and just when I think of you, the headline I have is Dan just does the right thing and does the right thing with kindness. I've got so much respect for you and I'm so thrilled to see that you were recently promoted and recognised at Snowflake and thank you for for being with us today wow, wow.

Dan:

I think we should just end the podcast there because I can. I can live up to the hype, to be honest. Thank you, thank you both. Uh, yes, we do go back a very long way, vicky and and sam, and yeah many uh great successes and achievements in our fields together as we've built businesses over the years. So real, a real pleasure to to join you today and so sorry that it's taken us so long to sit down.

Sam:

But yeah, I think. I think my main memories of you, Dan, are discussing hair metal bands over over a pint at various different IT conferences around the world.

Dan:

Yeah, ironic really, Sam, given the fact that neither of us have got much hair to kind of show between us, Absolutely yeah.

Sam:

We would have been absolutely rubbish in Poison or Motley Crue, wouldn't we? But there we go, so welcome. It's an absolute delight to have you here. I've been very fondly for my days of working with Arrow when I was at Softcat a million years ago probably. But you're very, very welcome indeed on the podcast. Would you mind giving us a little bit of a potted career history, just to bring our listeners up to speed?

Dan:

Of course. Yeah, thank you, sam. The beginning of certainly my tech career as a 22, I think I was 22-year-old that started out in tech sales a relatively small and probably relatively unknown distributor in the north of the UK called Open Computing. That dealt with SCO and Unix and Infomix and a load of pretty legacy stuff now, but it was pretty cutting edge at the time. I went to join as a new business salesperson one of the first new business people that they'd had in that organization and cut my teeth there working for probably a channel legend that is out there still a guy called Johnny Ellis that was the MD and the owner of that organization. So a lot of great, I remember Johnny.

Dan:

Yeah, I think everyone that's met Johnny will remember Johnny. He's got that way about him. So it was great to start to work with that team and to build my experience in sales. My career has always worked and evolved around a phenomenal partner ecosystem and it was no different in those days. So taking product out to market through a very specialist partner community and I grew there over the years. So I moved into different roles within the organization.

Dan:

That organization got acquired into a bigger organization called Bell Micro that were a big global distribution company, about 6 billion turnover at the time and then I left Bell as it was, having done technology roles, sales roles, sales leadership roles, sales management roles, to join what was then called DNS Arrow back in 2008. And I joined to lead their cyber practice, working on a varied group of cyber technologies, leading a team of the organization to finally exit Arrow in 2021. And as I left the business, as the managing director of Arrow, so coming in as an IC, building teams, leading teams and then leaving as the MD after 13 years at that company. So lots of different experiences. Pretty stellar journey. Yeah, it was.

Dan:

It was, and I very much enjoyed my time there and I worked with pretty much every tech company you could probably name across the board, with the exception of Cisco.

Dan:

I've never really done any work with Cisco, but apart from that, I worked with cloud technologies, cyber technologies, infrastructure technologies, of course, virtualization technologies. That was a huge focus for us in that space and just met so many amazing people at partner level and vendor level who are all either in my network now or doing different things and, having joined Snowflake in 2021, I'm still working with some of that, leading the team for partners across EMEA as the VP and now at Snowflake for over three and a half years, so responsible for all of the partner pillars across our go-to-market, for everything indirect in EMEA. So that's our services partners, our SI community, our ISV community that we call our data cloud product partners and our CSP relationships. So we only deliver on cloud. So our relationship with the hyperscalers is critical. In a nutshell, potted history through distribution and building channels and ecosystems and into Snowflake through distribution and building channels and ecosystems into Snowflake.

Sam:

Any differences between working in distribution and working in vendor land?

Dan:

Yeah, I mean it's different but the same. I mean I've built channels, as you guys know, and built networks and ecosystems for pretty much every tech company out there and from that respect it's the same. We've got to make sure that we've got the right relationships, the right commitments, the right investments and they have to be two-way as well. It's not a one-way street. So partnerships are bilateral in terms of the investment that's needed and you've got to have that trust there. You've got to have those relationships in place. Other than that, obviously, what we do at Snowflake is different in as much as we don't we don't use partners really for supply other than maybe in the public sector space. It's more around you know, delivery and consultancy and strategic advisory and how partners can really accelerate a joint customer's journey to, you know, achieve their goals with with snowflake so slightly nuanced from from that perspective, but the the core basics are very similar.

Sam:

Makes sense. So you use channel and indirect and what have you words? Quite a lot so far in this podcast. Already you know you are effectively building teams with people outside of your organization, which is an amazing thing to do. It's difficult to do, but what does that look your world. ?

Dan:

We are really, yeah, so really the partner ecosystem is an extension of Snowflake in terms of, obviously, technical capability, but also sales reach, vertical expertise.

Dan:

We're fully verticalized at Snowflake and have been for a few years.

Dan:

But when you think about the channel and the partner community at large, they've been working on a verticalized basis for forever. They've got deep expertise around go-to-market, around public sector, manufacturing, finance, legal, whatever yeah, absolutely, and they bring that expertise to to our selling motion at snowflake and it's really important that that we, that we harness that but also support them with that from a go-to-market perspective, even as we have continued to add to our core vertical expertise internally. So the challenge is, you know, connecting that to our sales teams and making sure that it's visible and that it's appreciated and that it's easy to access from both sides. I have seen it before, as you guys will, especially with organizations that are maybe building a MIA from North America, that the partners are not necessarily in the DNA of how they go to market, and so we're being very deliberate in how we position partners in the center of our growth plans and I've really enjoyed, you know, building that in a mirror with snowflake over the past three and a half years do you think that's different in europe versus the us?

Sam:

I mean, I appreciate you've not, you know you've. You've only worked in the uk and amir, but you see into what happens across the globe.

Dan:

I I do. I do think it's very different. I think the need is different, I think the requirements are different. You know we're working across 22, 25 countries in emir. All of them have got unique needs and requirements around how, how customers behave, how partners behave. Obviously you've got the basics around currency and culture and language skills that are unique as well, um, but I think the channel in amir is a very, very special thing and um, sometimes I I don't I don't necessarily think it's um, you know, acknowledged as that for organizations that don't have big amirA businesses, I think in North America.

Dan:

Of course there are nuances regionally, but it is just easier to get your arms around a single territory In EMEA. In many markets they are so partner-driven that you can't address that space without having the right partners, doing the right things and investing in that community deliberately to really accelerate your growth alongside, alongside that partner ecosystem. So I'm thinking of markets like um, like the middle east, for instance, israel, south africa, even into iberia. You know, nordics, I mean, they're all so so partner dominated because of the uh, the skills and the, the trust that customers and the relationships.

Sam:

Yeah, absolutely, yeah no, that makes that. That makes sense. And do you partner with, work alongside co-sell with whatever any other vendors, for example?

Dan:

We do absolutely so. Um, the core pillars of our partner community, as I've touched upon, is the services partners. That probably more more the partners that you would traditionally um recognize. We're doing a lot with the, with the consulting partners and the gsis, because of their advisory capability and their delivery capability and the strategic seat that they have at the table. We're doing a lot with boutique data partners who have got really deep expertise and many of which have built businesses around Snowflake and really have driven growth alongside us.

Dan:

But then we've got a really core group of ISVs that have built technologies to either augment our platform offerings or many of them have built their own offerings on top of Snowflake, using Snowflake as the core platform to drive the engine of their business. So a phenomenal group of ISVs. We share a lot of these, what we call data cloud product partners, with the hyperscalers as well, I think, for instance, with aws, we've got about 300 common uh technology partners that that are working with us but also working with uh, with aws or microsoft as well, uh and they and they do many, many different things. So they they help us get data into snowflake, they help us transform that data, they help us uh from a visualization perspective, get you know data extracted so we can make sense of that of that data. So, at various different stages of of the customer's needs and requirements, there are different technology partners that are adding real value there.

Sam:

It makes sense. So you could end up in a um you know, in in order to make a project a success, you could have four or five different people stakeholders involved, customer, other vendors, services partner, yourselves hyperscaler. It's quite interesting bringing that all together.

Dan:

That's absolutely the case, sam. Yeah, I mean, it's a complicated estate and a complicated community that we're trying to navigate through.

Dan:

So you can really see that you know, from a customer perspective, with the complexity around kind of who they need to sit around the table, you know the job of the SI in that is absolutely critical, because they can help navigate who's responsible for what, pull a racy together around who's responsible for which elements and really help the customer navigate the complexity of what they want to achieve from a data perspective Because, as you said, we'd have the hyperscaler with us. We only deliver with our hyperscalers, so it could be Microsoft, AWS, maybe even Google on the infrastructure side Snowflake from a data perspective, different isvs from uh, from different elements of the solution. Um so so that's a real opportunity for our partners and something that they play an incredibly important role uh with us on that makes sense.

Sam:

Have you ever had any disasters, and how do you fix them? Obviously don't give away any confidences. I'm sure you wouldn't anyway.

Dan:

I mean, disasters may be a little bit bit strong, yeah, but we've had, certainly we've had projects that have stalled or that weren't going as quickly as we'd like them to have, of being or um, things that may have slightly gone off track, or migrations that haven't necessarily been as quick as we'd like to uh, uh, we'd like them to be. So that happens all the time. That's why, you know, trust and and and transparency and relationships, uh, are absolutely critical in in terms of, you know, sometimes having to have hard conversations and difficult conversations yeah, um to keep those lines of communication open.

Dan:

Lines of communication absolutely critical. I mean we have. We have a lot of core core values that we hold ourselves accountable to within Snowflake, and one of those is is go direct. One of those is customer first, one of them is make each other the best, and all of those play into, you know, the partnerships that we hold. You know very, very close to what we need to execute in our day-to-day business. But, yeah, things can go off track. That's not the issue, it's how you get them back on track and how you solve any potential challenges that really are. That's the testament of true partnership, in my view.

Sam:

Yeah, sense, that makes sense, and you know you strike me as a guy who has, for you know all of your career that I've known you been able to influence people that aren't in your direct line of command. You know people who don't even work for you, um, in a good way, I think, um, and I wondered if you had any sort of advice for people who are trying to do that sort of thing, because it's not easy, is it?

Dan:

No, it isn't, and it's not maybe deliberate either. I think you've got to find a common ground, a common goal, a common denominator in terms of, I guess, purpose, what you're trying to achieve. Absolutely, it's about having the mission and the purpose. And then if you have those, if you've got that clarity and that perspective, then you can work on, you know, the vision in terms of how you get there together and how you bring other people on that, on that journey with you. But it has to be a shared, a shared purpose.

Dan:

Otherwise, you know, if you've got very different kind of um goals in mind, getting people on the same page and getting that collaboration and that cooperation is is always hard to achieve. So, um, even if it's not necessarily the same goal, but you at least share a common pathway to success together, then you know you've got a good chance of pulling the support that you need, whether it's in your direct remit or purview or whether it's, you know, extended into another organization or into a different department or into a different leader. You've got that commonality and that shared opportunity. So, but I think again it comes down to you've got to be, you've got to be open, you've got to be transparent and the most important thing is you've got to, you've got to do what you say you're going to do. Right, if you commit something you've got to, you've got to make sure you execute.

Vic:

Yeah, sure it happens, yeah you talked a lot about you having leadership positions. So scott heron. So you talk about Cisco. So Scott's the cfo of Cisco.

Vic:

He was on the podcast a couple of years ago and he said you can only be a leader if people want to follow you yeah and you know from from the outside, looking in, you're the kind of leader that people want to follow, and it's that I think, as sam just picked up from there, is. You can bring people along on the journey with you, even if they don't report into you, or and and and, in a partnership role. That's what you're having to do, isn't it? You use the word earlier deliberate. Sometimes, some of this stuff that we do is so. It's just in our nature. We don't realise that we're doing it deliberately and intentionally. Where's your personal journey gone on from? Oh, this works. I'm going to do more of that.

Dan:

I think you've got to dig deep on some of this stuff.

Dan:

You know, in terms of understanding, um, what you're trying to achieve, but also what your core skill set is, but also be very honest about where you're, where you may have gaps as well.

Dan:

You know everyone's got different strengths and weaknesses and I think, of course, lean to your strengths but understand your weaknesses and then, you know, build a personal plan to to make sure that you've got your own development that you're taking care of as well. I've been very fortunate over my career to have had a lot of investment in me personally and you know that's testament to the organizations that I've worked for in the past that have, I guess, spotted things and invested in development to help me nurture those talents and to bring out, you know, skills that are going to be important for the growth of the organization, but also for the growth of me in my career as well. So I don't take any of that for granted. I think I've been very fortunate to have had that investment over the years. But yeah, you're right, you've got to be deliberate is absolutely key. You know you've got to understand, I guess, what's required and where your strengths lay in terms of achieving your, your goals.

Vic:

So yeah, I'm curious is there anything of you as a leader now to you as a leader 15 years ago? That's significantly different to you as a leader 15 years ago.

Dan:

That's significantly different. I think I try very, very hard. I used to have this when I did one of the sessions leadership sessions that I just mentioned that I was fortunate enough to kind of be put through. We had to do some kind of self-reflection and even some videos around some behavioral patterns that you wanted to change.

Dan:

I I mean, everyone's always very busy, right and, and you know I'm I think I'm busier today than than I've ever been, um, but, and I've got a big team, and I remember going through an exercise where I mean I had a huge team at Arrow and way, way bigger than than I do at Snowflake. Um, but, um, one of the the learnings I found was that I had I talked about having an open mind and having an open door policy, but I found myself, um, you know, potentially multitasking when people talk to me about things, or um, doing emails, whilst I was also trying to take a phone call with someone that may be having some challenges or other. So it was like I don't sometimes you feel like you have to do that yeah it's like an open door policy, but maybe not an open mind.

Dan:

That, because I'm focusing on trying to achieve other things at the same time.

Dan:

So so the active listening active listening piece is really yeah absolutely being making sure that you're present, making sure that you're in the room, making sure that you're giving everyone, not not just your team, but that you know, as a leader within the organization, wherever people need support or they need some guidance or they need some direction, regardless of you know the the role that they play within that organization or externally. Within you know, within my network as well, I always try and make sure that you know. I remember that and I remember that process and I remember just thinking right, just just have that active listening, as you said, vicky.

Vic:

Yeah.

Dan:

Or that you're, you're being available, being present.

Vic:

Yeah.

Dan:

At the same time. You've got to make time for that as well, so it's not like you can just flick to that with the schedules that we've got.

Vic:

You've got to make sure that you're preparing properly, and you've got, you've got the time to do it yeah, I can really relate to that and I really hope, actually, that I'm not the person that I was 15 years ago, because I was a bulldozer completely and making the, making the time to go slower, to give people your time and and you give them your full attention. Um, I actually think this podcast has really helped me because, gosh, for the first few years I was editing it myself, I was just like holy crap, that's up yeah and now sam just looks at me.

Vic:

That's it now. Stop, stop, not, not, not at all not as much as you used to maybe not, maybe not um.

Sam:

What else do we need to cover?

Vic:

Can we touch on because this is such a hot topic in the tech industry silos? Because I think, as leading the partner organisation, you naturally have to work. You see those silos more than anything else and part of your job is to to break them down and bring people together. What's, what's your view on that?

Dan:

silos within an organization or silos within customers or I guess specifically to.

Dan:

I'll touch on the organizational pieces yeah I think it's fair to say, when I came into Snowflake, partners were seen as a bit of a silo actually, and you know you had sales, you had partners, you had SEs, you had PS and as I talked about the complexity of our customers' needs, as they're thinking about, you know how to succeed with Snowflake to drive their business goals. You can't operate in silos. You have to think horizontally. You have to think about what are we trying to achieve together? And pull together that virtual team that operate as a single unit. And ultimately, then it's about making sure that everyone agrees on what the North Star is right and how are we going to achieve our goals together? And that's the only way to to break down silos.

Dan:

But again, it comes down to shared goals, shared mission, shared accountability as well. That that is together and regardless with. You know it's, it's like, uh, it's like a car. You know the, the, the steering wheel, is no less important than the wheels of a car, right, it's. If they're not, if they're not operating together or the car doesn't have a steering wheel, you're not, you're not really going to achieve, um, what you want to achieve in terms of accomplishing your journey in that vehicle.

Dan:

And I think it's the same with you know every, everyone within an organization is there to do a job and to perform a role, but ultimately the success of that organization requires collaboration and partnering and making sure that everyone is pulling together to achieve, to achieve, you know, the end goal.

Dan:

And that requires sometimes, I think, people stepping outside of their comfort zone a little bit and maybe, yeah, accountability for things that may not naturally be in their, in their remit, and just just owning things, just getting things done. And, as I said before, it's one of our core cultures at snowflake is is is get, get it done, just get it done, whether it's whether you think it's your job or not. Your job if you see a need, if you see a requirement, if you see that there's something that needs executing, either go direct and talk to the person that maybe it is their job to do it, or step in and take accountability and make sure that you're bringing people on that journey with you, so that you know silos. Of course, expertise is embedded in silos because it might be a domain or it might be a specific, but I think you know the opportunity for everyone is to kind of level up from that and just partner and work collectively across the organisation.

Vic:

You just used the word level up. Do you think that's the key to it? Because you were talking? The analogy of the car is a really good one.

Dan:

I just made that up as well. It was good, wasn't it?

Vic:

It really worked really well yeah.

Sam:

It'll work until we get driverless cars with no steering wheels.

Vic:

But do you think that's part of it, rather than because you know? We've seen organisations where, like the global account managers or the enterprise sales team, they're like the gods of the organisation, and certainly I've had experiences where, like the partner organization has felt like they're second-class citizens in comparison. So do you think part of it is deliberately making sure that all the different organizations are seen as playing their part and contributing?

Dan:

yeah, I would absolutely agree with that and I think a lot of it comes down to visibility but also, yeah, recognition of of. You know the critical part everyone plays and it might even be just a small part, but at the end of the day, you know, to take the car piece, you know if, if the smallest part is missing, then the car's, not the vehicle's not gonna gonna work.

Dan:

So yeah it's, I think, as you say, leveling up and um, being accountable, but also being accepting that everyone plays a part in that, in that journey and in that result and in that um, uh, you know, hopefully win within the, the organization yeah, really critical.

Vic:

Thank you, sorry, sam, I interrupted. Have we lost you? We lost him. I've never lost him on a podcast before you back. You're back Hello.

Sam:

I lost you for a minute.

Vic:

We've never lost you on a podcast before.

Vic:

What did I say? Sorry, Sam Sorry.

Dan:

I wasn't sure if he had just fallen asleep. That is open.

Vic:

I thought you were going to say that it's really sure if he just thought that is open.

Sam:

I thought he was mad.

Dan:

It's really weird, doesn't it, when somebody freezes. Now it just all stopped for some reason. But there we go, Never mind.

Sam:

So, as we bring this to a close, Dan, and thanks for your insight, you've covered a huge amount of ground. Have you got any key takeaways for us?

Dan:

um, I guess, as it pertains to the roles I've done and the leadership positions that I hold, I think, okay and we talked through a lot of this, this already through the session today um, you know, be present, um, as in terms of if we're thinking about leadership and what that means and what I've learned through my journey, so being present and being accountable and being available Absolutely Develop your trust, and you do that by, you know, doing what you say you're going to do and being consistent with that Boringly consistent with execution, I would say is absolutely critical.

Vic:

Yeah.

Dan:

And also, you know, being empathetic as well and thinking about.

Dan:

You know, putting yourself in other people's shoes and thinking about what their position may be and coming up then with the, you know a shared win is, especially in the world of partnerships is absolutely critical.

Dan:

You know, at Snowflake we are very uh, our partners are very critical for for what we need to achieve, but they've they've got businesses to run and they've got people to to support and they've got wages to pay and they've got businesses to to support.

Dan:

And we've got to always remember that their partnerships are a two-way street and we're we're in this together and I think sometimes that is maybe forgotten about a little bit. You know, especially in the vendor community at large, and having been on the other side and having been a very large partner at Arrow and supporting lots of partners through that and obviously lots of vendors through that, lots of vendors through that, I think you know it puts me in a really good position to understand that but also never to forget that now that I'm leading the charge from an ecosystem perspective at an amazing tech company like Snowflake, so I think that's what I bring to our ecosystem, that I've been in their shoes and I understand what's needed to drive, you know, successful joint businesses, as we think about scale and opportunity moving forward. So I'm not, I'm not quite sure. That's three things. There's probably a few things in that.

Sam:

But I think that that all makes sense. You know, the fact that you have been in the shoes of the people you're trying to work with now is really important.

Vic:

Yeah, massively.

Sam:

I think so.

Vic:

Something really stuck out for me, Dan, and I think it might be the title of the podcast, and it was shared winning yeah yeah that sums it up really nicely yeah, absolutely no, I completely agree with that yeah.

Sam:

Cool. And have you got any books for us?

Dan:

well, I, I did. I did have a look through that and I do like to read. I read quite a lot of books, but one that stood out for me in 2020, Jake Humphrey started doing a podcast.

Vic:

I love Jake.

Dan:

Humphrey, the High Performance Podcast with Damien Hughes, and then, off the back of all this collection of high performance podcasts, they put a book together with some of the standout podcasts that they'd done and really it really resonated with me. There was eight habits of the world's most successful people. That is talked about in this book. But what I love about it is it brings in just serial winners and success stories from every industry you know, from Formula One drivers to, you know, tech tycoons and everyone in between. And just looking at the commonality and the shared traits and the shared habits of uber successful people is just really interesting to, yeah, to talk through and to and to read through. So I got a lot of that, a lot from that. But there was one element to it which was around something called a Zander letter, which I found incredibly insightful, and this was from a professor in the. I think it was in the boston music school, and, and this professor zander had um, realized that his, his students, were systematically failing in in their exams because of the, the stress and the uh, the overheads that the exam scenario put upon them. So what he did was he got them all to to write a letter to themselves, which was dated for the end of the term and it was basically a letter to say how they'd achieved an A in their given musical subject. And if that letter was written and it was achievable and he believed in what they were writing, he'd just give them an A up front.

Dan:

And really, if you look at how that translates to business, it's really about setting goals for yourself and putting yourself in a future state that you've already gone through all all that. So you've already got a business plan in your head, you've got an achievement plan in your head and you're projecting yourself into the, into the future, to a state that you've already achieved those goals, because you know what it takes to get there. And, um, I've been working through that with, with, with my team. I find that to be a really powerful lesson to you know, just think through what, what's needed, and to make sure nothing is left unturned in terms of how you're going to achieve those goals to the point that you've already achieved them in your mind. I find that a really important lesson. So lots, lots of great insights from that book.

Sam:

Definitely recommend it so a really interesting way around of doing it Vicky. You're familiar with that book too.

Vic:

It's a really interesting way around of doing it and, vicky, you're familiar with that book too. I'm not familiar with the book, but I'm a massive, massive fan of Jake Humphries. In fact, my last post that I posted on LinkedIn was a quote from him. That was something about how much of an impact a leader has on your mental health and how much impact it has on your life. I just find him really inspirational because he's such a down-to-earth guy, isn't he?

Dan:

find him really inspirational because he's such a down-to-earth guy, isn't it? And he struggled with, um, confidence and kind of yeah things over his career as well and kind of overcome them and really got to a really great place. So he's, he's an inspirational guy, I think. So the people that he talks to and the, the contributors to, to the podcast, are just, uh, phenomenal.

Vic:

So yeah definitely one to to take a look at if you haven't read it yet yeah, no, thank you, but also the point that you make about the Zander letter. I think one of the biggest things that we have to help leaders with is so many leaders are so focused on the end result. They're always just looking at the numbers, yeah, and instead of looking at actually, what is the plan, what I'm just? I wrote down the words that you said that you know what it takes to get there and they don't have that bit. And because you're constantly focused on the end instead of what is the plan, how are you going to do that? That's that's where we get lost completely. I was with the team yesterday. Exactly that problem they're not spending the time in the looking in the right place they're not planning it out.

Dan:

Yeah, yeah, you know, and really the result should be the outcome of a consequence.

Vic:

Consequence of yeah, that's right, yeah, yeah, exactly exactly so yeah, thank you, that was amazing no problem, brilliant you guys.

Sam:

It was, uh, I know, trying to do it for a long time, so really that's great absolutely brilliant to uh to to get there in the end, and fabulous to catch up with Dan. It's always a pleasure, even if it's been a few years, yet a few years yeah yeah, absolutely so. Thanks very much. Really appreciate that you were. You were a wonderful guest, fabulous to have you on board, and it just remains for me to say thanks for listening to get amplified from the amplified group. Your comments and your subscriptions are gratefully received.