“Culture is Everything” - Colin Brown, former MD at Softcat

Want to know the magic behind Softcat’s phenomenal success?
 
Softcat’s story is proof that you can scale at speed, go through a successful IPO and  still keep the magic.

Colin gives us a valuable insight into the ‘Softcat way’ where keeping the strategy simple to ensure the leadership team can invest their time in maintaining their incredible culture really is their recipe for success.

Sam, our host describes Colin as the Custodian of Culture - (Sam should know as he was Softcat’s CTO!)

Enjoy - we certainly did recording it 😊

Show note links:

Empowered Workforce Report - Amplified Group

Meet #fivebehaviors - Amplified Group

We would love you to follow us on LinkedIn! 

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

Transcript

Sia 0:10

Welcome to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group, a podcast for leaders and aspiring leaders, where everything we talk about focuses on extraordinary teams, and where we get to hear from our guests, leaders who share their experiences and insights on how they've built and maintained extraordinary teams themselves. As usual, we're virtual. I'm in the Netherlands. Vicky is in Oxfordshire. However, we don't have Sam as our host. We haven't retired him, I promise you. He's still in VACs. But as he knows our guest today so well, we thought it'd be best to switch things up. So Sam is going to do the introduction. So over to you, Sam.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Great. Thanks, Sha. So I'm absolutely delighted with our guest today. So our guest today is Colin Brown, managing director, or just about retired managing director of SoftCat. I worked for Colin for uh six years. Um I've known Colin for probably eight years now. Um he was my favorite boss at SoftCat. Don't tell Martin, and certainly don't tell Pete because I get in trouble for that one, I'm sure. Um and just a wonderful human being to work with. So I'm really excited to have him on the uh on the podcast today. Uh, we've got a lot of ground to cover because Colin was obviously a great, big, massive part of the SoftCat story and the SoftCat journey. Um he had a stellar career prior to SoftCat. Um probably a good point to bring Colin in and uh ask him to give us a bit of a career history to date, really.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Thank you, Sam. And um I hope I can uh actually stand up to that grand introduction because you certainly can. You've beat me up a little bit there, but um, yes, very briefly. Um as you say, I've just finished uh eight years as managing director of SoftCat uh from 2012 through to the current day, um, which is uh an amazing journey, which we'll talk about in a bit more detail uh over the next wee while prior to that I uh was general manager for services at uh Microsoft UK, so sat in the board of the Microsoft UK team, uh, which was uh an incredible time as well, and then a long time, uh about 18 years at Computer Centre, uh, originally working in uh the UK business, uh, where I was general manager for uh public sector business for quite a while, and then for the last four years of my time at Computer Centre, I was the CEO of Computer Centre Germany, which was an acquisition that we had made, and uh I had the privilege to go and integrate that business and then lead that business for um for almost four years as well. And just to just to um complete the journey, my first uh role or my first job, uh I've only ever worked for four organizations. I actually worked for the Department of Trade and Industry in the civil service for the first four years of my uh my working life. So uh DTI to Computer Center to Microsoft to SoftCat, and uh and that's it in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

And uh just about to take the take the next part of your journey, which will be quite interesting, I suppose. Absolutely. So the where I wanted to start was when you joined SoftCat back in 2012, it was a really interesting time. Um, and you had a bit of a class act to follow, didn't you? You know, Martin was MD, then chief exec, as Peter the founder, uh, moved to chairman and then eventually retired. Um Martin's quite a big personality, and uh, and as you are, and as Peter is, a big part of SoftCat's success. How on earth do you follow someone like Martin?

SPEAKER_03 3:41

Yeah, it was quite a challenge, wasn't it, really? Um, I mean, you you raised an interesting point there that I was following Martin, and actually that was that was um something that I had to sit and really think about because the previous two roles that I'd had, which was going into Microsoft um and prior to that, um Computer Center Germany, those were jobs where I had either fixed something or change a lot of things. So in Microsoft, uh that services business was was was not really in a great state. And actually, uh unfortunately, the first thing I had to do there was like 20% of the consultants were redundant because they're just overstaffed and lots of lots of stuff like that. And in Computer Center Germany, as I've already said, it was an acquisition. So there's a lot of changer, a lot of integration. We rebranded, etc. So then I joined SoftCat, which was this incredibly successful organization that had shown stellar growth for the last five or six years. And uh Martin, as you've already mentioned, was a fantastic leader of the business as managing director, very popular. So um, you know, the first challenge that I had was A, how do I follow Martin, and B, you know, there was very much an atmosphere of it ain't broke, so don't fix it. So I had to come in and think, like, how can I address this? How can I um actually make myself useful and and and make the soft care employees think that I was a great addition to the team, but without actually undoing and unpicking a lot of the very successful things there. But specifically in terms of how do you follow Martin, I think I think the approach I took there really was um, well, don't don't try to be him, don't try and ape what he was good at or known for. And and Martin's a unique character anyway, but but setting that to the side, I think it's a generally a good tip is just to be yourself, be authentic. Authenticity is a word I always come back to. You can't try and be something you're not, so it would be foolish to try and come in and just try and be him. Um, and obviously some of the traits were similar in terms of what we wanted from the business and how we would go about trying to drive success within the business. But I really wanted to be myself, be my own person, um, and and and just try and come across as as my own personality. Um yeah, Martin had a a bit of approach. I think it's probably okay to say that, you know, if you know he was a bit frightened for some people in SoftCat. Um, you know, he's a he's a big guy and he's uh he has a manner about him that sort of makes you sit sit up and listen to him. Uh, I think I'm a much more softer, quieter approach. At the same time, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't a pushover either, and there was some if there was tough decisions to be made, I'd I'd make the tough decisions and did that. So I think I think you know it was taking my time, soaking things up, did a lot of listening, a lot of working things through in my own head, and then eventually looking for ways uh that I could um introduce new things to SoftCat that would demonstrate that uh you know I was a managing director that would do things my own way and in a different way, and and that I was complimentary to Martin, who was very much still in the business. And I actually think that that element of Martin and I being complimentary was actually a key ingredient to the success of SoftCat over the following years.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

From my point of view, that's certainly true. You know, the balance of slightly different styles and slightly different approaches and slightly different experiences was was really positive. And you know, I always tell people I was so lucky to learn from first Peter, then Martin, and then you, you know, what a what a great selection of bosses to have. It's interesting. There was an article, there's an article in the Times today that says, want to survive as chief executive, then take over from a failure. Um, you've proved that it's I mean, obviously it wasn't technically the chief executive role, but you've proved that that's not necessarily the only way to do it.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

No, no, no, fantastic. Certainly different ways of doing it, yeah. And and I think the thing that I had to do was to learn how to communicate and articulate uh things in a way that would work within within SoftCat as well. And yeah, well, I'll give you a little bit of example of that. One of the things that I wanted to get SoftCat to be more focused on, whereas the business had come from very much an SMB focus, uh, I saw straight away that we could easily take the same approach that we that we provided to our customers and the great customer service that we could provide and bring that upper level to enterprise customers. But equally from talking to a few people, I could see that they they thought that was a bit daunting. And you know, that's for the big guys like Computer Center or Cap Gemini or people like that. So I could see that was a bit daunting. So I wanted to introduce it in a way that was you know that would be welcomed by by ourselves guys, and and also just sort of thinking about the demographic as well. The way I introduced that was that you know, we we had a little um a little initiative called uh TARE, which was very current at the time, and that was really the only way is enterprise. So we had this group of people that focused on enterprise. So I think just you know, for me, just trying to articulate and communicate and bring things in in a very soft-cat way, and we talk about the soft-cat way a lot, uh, made sure that my ideas were accepted more readily than they would have been just coming in and saying, right, we've got to do this, we've got to do that, I think we need to do this. So it's it's trying to, you know, it's like anything. You read the audience, you read the vibe, yeah, you try and understand what people like and what they will accept, and um, and then work from from there.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Could you put some numbers on the growth that we went through during your your tenure?

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Well, we we we we regularly um grew at 20% per annum in terms of in terms of uh profit, in terms of revenue, uh, and actually more or less similarly in terms of the people growth. So when I joined, uh we had about 280 people, and we had a revenue of 300 million pounds. Um today there are 1,600 people in soft cats, um, and the revenue is uh just short of two billion pounds, really, and the profitability has shot through the roof as well. Um, so I mean the numbers are just incredible, and and you know, as as we always like to remind people, that's organic growth. We never made a single acquisition. Um, so uh it's it's it's it's it's been stellar really. Um and and you we had three offices at the time, uh Marlowe, you know, where we originally had the headquarters in London and Manchester, and um, and we added we added other offices in um six other cities in um mainland UK and then Dublin uh in Ireland, and then over the last couple of years as well, we've added uh business entities in in uh New York, um Sydney, Hong Kong, the Netherlands. So yeah, it's been it's it's been fun. It's just I mean that the the growth and the and the challenging and pushing yourselves has been amazing, but certainly the um uh the the growth purely from figures has been uh um stellar, hence the uh the share prize has done rather well as a result. It has indeed.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

It has indeed. It's an incredible story, and it was uh a real honor to be a part of it, I guess. As I'm sure I'm as I'm sure you feel feel the same. I guess I kind of felt your role almost was as custodian of culture for SoftCat, really. You know, the Martin Martin's role as CEO was almost a very external. You you were looking after the internal, obviously there's overlap between the two. Um, how did you keep the personality of the business through all of that crazy growth?

SPEAKER_03 10:54

Yeah, and I think I think I think your summary is pretty much correct. You know, Martin, after I joined Martin, quickly moved to setting us up for the IPO, and that was pretty much a full-time job in itself. So I was you know driving the business internally and really you know getting the getting the troops to deliver. Um so I think that the personality and the culture of the business was and is everything. Um we very much um have developed our business right from when Peter started it, um, on the premise that uh if we have the highest level of engagement of our employees, if we have if we have people that come to work with a smile on their face, uh, that work hard, that are productive, that really want to be there, enjoy being there. If we have that, then that will deliver the best levels of customer satisfaction. Um, if we have highly satisfied customers, then they will be loyal to us, which in turn gives you better customer retention, repeat business with those customers, referrals into other customers, etc. And that in turn gives you that revenue and profit uh growth that allows you to reinvest that back into the business and gives you, you know, nice, nice workplace, nice atmosphere, nice environment for people to work in, nice, you know, it gives you that affordability, there's great incentive trips and parties and all the things that SoftCat is well known for as well. And and and and therefore this virtual circle of that then feeds back into this high level of um employer satisfaction and high levels of engagement. So that you know that's kind of the ethos of softcat, and you know, there's a kind of an academic um exposition of that called the service profit chain, but basically it was it was it was old Pete Kelly's you know thesis of just come to work, have fun, work hard, and the rest will just happen. And and I love that. So the culture is uh and always has been the number one thing for soft cat, and the success is the outcome of that approach. And and as you grow, that gets harder because if you're 50 people in one office, uh it's it's much, much easier. It's not easy, otherwise, everybody would do it, but it's much easier to have this great culture and still this great culture and keep it you know coming along. The more you you you grow that business um uh to the point where there's multiple offices, where you where you just get past that line where you actually don't know everybody's name in your business, which is a really hard line to get past, you know. I think that was I I kind of regard that just as a little uh a little exemplar of when you've grown to the size where there are people that you kind of look at them and go, I know you work for SoftCut, but I don't really know your name. And it's it's hard in one way, but it's actually a sign of success in another way. So keeping that culture uh was was very important for us. And and how did we do that? Well, growing growing the um uh the business into new offices around the UK was as I've mentioned before, we did, was one of those things. So you open a new office in in Bristol and then Leeds and then Glasgow, and what you look for there is the opportunity, first of all, for people to get promoted into senior roles to run those offices, which is great because that's a great sign within the company uh that there's future opportunities for people. Then when you do that, that that that office, the Bristol office, the Leeds office, that becomes this little small business that's got this massive growth ambitions, and they want to be as big as the Manchester office or the or the London office, so they have that small business mentality within the overall confines of the of you know the warmth of the soft cat um infrastructure. So you get that where you have this kind of small business culture within a slightly bigger culture, and the way I've always looked as well at those offices is I want the sort of central DNA of SoftCat, this this culture of SoftCat to be in every office, like running through it, like the letters in a stick of rock, you know, a purple soft cat, if you can imagine that through a stick of rock. So I want that to be the central kernel of each office. But equally, I want every office to have its own culture, its own personality. It'd be nuts to try and get SoftCat Glasgow to emulate or be a fact simile of Softcat London. You know, there's a those are completely different ways of doing things, of just being. So you want them to have their own personality, you know. Softcat glasgow became Tartan, you know, things like that. Um, so so just looking for ways to try and keep that culture and define that we're the sort of the small outsiders, which which we were many years ago. But the more you know, the more I was there and the more you were there, Sam, the bigger we got. It's kind of false to say that we were the little outsiders, you know. We we were becoming well, our heads were well above the parapet, so you know we had to address that in slightly different ways. Yeah, at least you get at least the sum of that feeling with those smaller businesses, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Yeah, yeah, that underdog mentality was pretty powerful in the early days. I think we carried a lot of that spirit through, even when we got into the top 10 and eventually the top three of resellers in the UK.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

It's fantastic. And the other the other thing I'd say just about the culture is um without talking about specific things we did, the other thing that I would say is we spent as a leadership team, we spent a lot of our time and effort talking about culture, talking about our people. The luxury and the beauty that having such a simple strategy afforded us, and as a reminder, SoftCat strategy is and was to acquire new customers and to sell more to existing customers. That's it. So sell more stuff to more people is always how I approached it. So the luxury uh of having such a simple strategy uh afford you is that you can spend a lot more of your time when you're together as a leadership team talking about the things that are really important, in this case, your people, your culture. And you know, that thing I always come back to, you've heard me say this a million times, Sam. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Not my phrase, it's Peter Drucker's phrase, but I love it and I'll repeat it. And it's the mantra that worked for SoftCat all the time.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

And it certainly holds true. So one of the interesting experiences that we all went through was SoftCat's IPO in uh November 2015. Gosh, I guess that's more or less five years ago, um, as we speak. Interesting. Um, and that was uh a really fascinating time from my point of view, learned an awful lot. Um, and one of the questions we got asked all the way through was you're not going to be able to keep your culture when you when you go through when you're a publicly quoted company, are you? And all the way through we were saying, we are, because that's the one thing that differentiates us. Um do you think things changed, Colin? And how did they change? Or did we did we manage to hold on to that?

SPEAKER_03 17:32

It's a it's a great question. And as you said, uh in the period leading up to the IPO, which was which is November 2015, so uh, as you say, exactly five years ago. Um, the period leading up to that, you know, the the questions we got from from our staff and from you know our customers, our partners as well, was you know, how are you going to keep that that essence, that a soft cap within this PLC environment? Um, so again, it's it's something that we worked hard on, but actually, I think I think the fact that we made uh we we made that commitment to our employees that we would keep the culture as it was, you know, that as you can imagine, a lot of the questions were can we keep the incentive trips going? Will they allow us to go and spend all this money to go to Argentina or India, you know, on this on this end-of-year trip? And what was what was quite surprising for us actually was that as we got into working with brokers uh and the investors, um the more they understood about our business and what was behind our success, they're as you can imagine, small people who work in in investors and brokers and this kind of thing. So they they got to the numbers fairly quickly and saw that what made SoftCap tick um was our people, our culture, and how we did things. So they were actually encouraging us to keep everything as much the same as possible. So that was that was something that was great for us to hear uh and gave us that confidence to say, no, we're gonna keep everything the same. Um you know when I look back at it, I think um the only thing really that changed from from pre-IPO to post-IPO was that we were unable to be as transparent with our staff about uh how we were performing from a financial perspective. And by definition, we couldn't make them insiders uh into into into how we were trading. So whereas before, and and part of our culture is transparency, we every month we give people an update on how we're performing. Um yeah, we we weren't able to do that. We would have to wait until we've made uh the public financial statements before we could go into more detail of that stuff. So that's the one thing that I that I can honestly say changed you know overnight from from pre-IPO to post-IPO. The rest of it in terms of culture, personality, yeah, we tried our damnedest um to make sure everything stayed the same. And you know, we we we took the same approach to to hiring afterwards, uh, which was hiring all about uh for culture and for and for you know for fitting into soft cat rather than just for having a fancy schmancy person who you know came with this good PR or having a good job tile. So everything else remained the same, and you know, I think that's a testament to how serious we take culture of softcare and that that that we weren't going to let it impact it. So, you know, I actually think when people ask me about did did the IPO change you, I think I'll say no. Uh getting bigger uh as a result of our success is the stuff is is is the element that was more challenging for us. Just how do you keep that culture in a rapidly growing business? That's a natural challenge. The IPO was an unnatural one that didn't really change anything.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

I think that makes sense. But you know, people always used to ask me, you know, has SoftCat changed from the early days? And I guess to say actually it has, it's changed quite a lot, but that doesn't mean it's got worse. I think that means it's got better because as the companies got bigger, there'd be more opportunities for people. I think we got a lot, a lot, lot better at things like diversity and inclusion that maybe we weren't so good at in the early days. Um, I mean, it wasn't on the agenda back in the late 90s so much as it is now. So that's I mean, that's a massive improvement from where we were, I think. I think you've had a hand in quite a lot of that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I I'd like to think so. But I think you make a really good point there. And you know, sometimes when I talk to soft catters who've been there 17, 18 years and they talk about change, I said, yeah, but guess what? The world's changed, you know. Exactly. What was acceptable in in you know 1997 is not acceptable anymore. Or what was as a good thing to do is not is not seen as a good thing to do. So A, we've we've changed, we've grown up and we've matured, and uh, and B, the world has changed anyway. But I and yes, I I you know I think I've uh I've been able to add some focus in terms of uh diversity, encouraging that how we deal with things like mental health within you know within SoftCat and things like that, and just just making you know making sure that we're more open about things like that. So it's it's you know it's

Vic 22:00

a uh it's an ever-changing scenario and and and and you know the challenges will grow and develop throughout the time but i think we are far better equipped um to to to work within that environment now than we were many years ago part of that's part of that's affordability as well you know you can you can afford to have people who are paid to think about diversity and and and you know those sorts of things and the you know the um learning and development function just to how we how we uh integrate people into the business is is now much more mature than it was many years ago as well so it's it's it's it's it's a growth cycle that will never finish really just listening to the the way you're talking and I I think it's something that we haven't really picked up on is apart from maybe Sam's introduction at the beginning we talk an awful lot about the importance of setting the tone from the top and that coming down through the leadership team but it actually being set by the leader and the the way that you talk you are clearly setting an example of which then has enabled the culture to continue as it has yeah I mean that's that's absolutely true you know it's stuff that we talked about incessantly how do you know how do we make it a better place?

SPEAKER_02 23:17

How do we take this kind of nub of core soft count values and bring it up to date and continue it moving in the right direction and you know some of the stuff that as Colin referred to earlier that was acceptable back when we started um you know rapidly became unacceptable and I think we embraced that as a as a business as a group of people um and I absolutely think Colin was key in in in that and you know the the the warmth that emanates from the man is really important and extends down through the organization.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

So I I think people can see when you're yeah I I'll use the word again authentic about this and genuine about this. And and and it it so it's very much important to set the tone from the top it's very much important that the leadership team walks the walk and doesn't just talk the talk. And then as we grew the business in other offices etc that was that was you know essentially we would put a sales manager or an office manager into those um into those new locations and we would make it really clear that they were the custodians of soft culture for that business on a day-to-day basis. We we as a leadership team had overall responsibility for work on a day-to-day basis they had responsibility for making sure that culture was alive and kicking and growing and developing in Glasgow, Bristol Leeds etc so it was it was kind of everybody's responsibility that joint ownership culture yeah yeah yeah it was it wasn't you know uh we were supposed to say we unionized it but you know everybody had a stake in it and everybody felt responsibility absolutely and you know when when we did those other offices the person who set that up was always an existing softcare person take that the Olympic torch of softcare values with them keep that flame burning we talked didn't we on a previous podcast about accountability and obviously you you everybody there felt accountable to to carry that through to those different offices so uh yeah it's it's something you have to instill in your in yourself and in others as well it's really important.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

Absolutely absolutely so one of the things that was a key part of my experience that I guess I took as normal but from talking to other people it really wasn't normal is the I guess the inclusion amongst the senior team you know the fact that one of us wouldn't go off and do something else without consulting with the rest of the team which meant that everybody was pulling in the same direction. I felt that was really important. I guess I also felt there was occasionally a little bit of a downside in that we could maybe take too much time to build consensus rather than just getting on with it on occasion. Would you agree with that or do you have a slightly different experience with that?

SPEAKER_03 26:05

No I I I think I agree pretty much 100% with that and and um going back to one of the earlier topics you know when I when I came into Softcart it was one of the things that surprised me a little bit as just just how democratic we were um you know you know use the word consensus which is absolutely right that's the democracy about you know so either as you say if if if you were the department leader for you know services in your instance that you would come along and and share that with the leadership team I'm planning to do this this is a good idea you know particularly you would want to make sure that the sales organization was was was welcoming of that otherwise you'd you know you'd be going in a different direction. So there was that I think there was just the practicality that made that a legitimate approach. But then there were other things where like well if we made a decision within the leadership team uh we would then often take that to the the broader management team which you know started off as sort of 30 or 40 people when I was there and by the time I left was about 150 people but we would take that to the management team and explain to them what we were thinking of doing why we were thinking of doing it and when we were thinking of doing it and get some feedback on that and get the buy-in on that and occasionally we would change our decision based on the feedback we were getting or just tweak it a little bit sometimes we would take feedback and say okay we've heard that but for the following reasons we think we're going to go ahead and do this anyway and I think what that did uh as you say the plus side of what that did was get people to feel that they were being um consulted and that they had a say and that they had a view that could be heard. The slight downside was you know we discuss it as an LT, we'd bring it to that broader management team and you know we'd maybe get some more feedback and some follow-up so it may add a few weeks to to the journey of of cracking on with what we wanted to do. So whilst that sometimes maybe felt a little bit um frustrating because you know you just want to move on and actually um our agility uh was was one of the things that that set SoftCat apart. But in the scheme of things uh you know even even with that sort of built-in delay as a result of getting the feedback loop and and and that you know that um consensus even with that I still think that we were far more uh flexible and agile um than than than any of our competitors so it it was absolutely the right thing to do I'd rather do that and get people on side and take it with us um and I a word and a word I use a hell of a lot when we talk about leadership the word I use is followership so I think it's really important for followership just to make sure that people come with you on that journey. So I'd rather I'd rather get in the right place two weeks later than than hurry off to the wrong place really quickly.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

So yeah and the and the beautiful thing about that is that once once we've been around the houses with the debate and the discussion people are then bought into it. Vicky you had some terminology for that I think in a previous podcast that we used about that kind of consensus through robust debate. I can't remember quite what was the phrase you used.

Vic 29:01

Yes and actually listening to the way that you were just talking about it there I think it it's absolute best practice for what we help other organisations achieve because what what you clearly have and what SoftCat clearly has is magic. And that was seen you know very recently on LinkedIn with vendor after vendor with SoftCat winning the award so delivering those results but many of the organisations that we're working with aren't quite so I'm going to use the word deliberate in the way that they they run their business and what what Colin has just described there I heard a phrase a while ago that was a recommendation is a decision in disguise and I heard that in in relation to a boardroom discussion. And if decisions are made and you haven't got the buy-in of everyone then you think you've speeded up the decision making but actually you've just slowed down the alignment and the execution so the the the methodology that we bring to our clients we we use the five behaviours of a team and I'm not going to go into that in a huge amount of detail now we'll we're gonna put a a PowerPoint slide into the show notes it's got a a two-minute video that explains it. But ultimately what you're trying to get to of have enough trust in the organisation that you can have that really robust debate and people can say what they really think so that as as Colin has just described you know if something's been put on the table and it's other people have got some different perspectives that actually make that decision better then then that's the best thing for the business and it just it does two things. One it it sets you up for success because you're making a better decision but two you you you're achieving that followership that that Colin was just describing as well. So but there is a deliberate approach to go through that and actually once people have weighed in and that they're not doing the passive aggressive well I'm just going to go do my thing anyway because I think my thing is better then they're much more likely to commit but but I think what you were referring to was we say the difference between commitment and consensus is at least six months because the other the flip side of what you've just described there so my job as a change agent at VMware if I was bringing something new to all of the regions across Europe and you know that they didn't report into me I just needed to influence them then I would have to get everybody on board before we were able to make that change and and head off in that direction. And that in my experience is at least six months and we can't afford to be waiting six months now. So it's okay so it's that compromise between making sure that we've made an environment where everyone can be heard but then making a decision and then saying right okay let's go in this direction agree what we're going to measure and the timeframe that we're going to measure it in and then we'll come back and look at it again if it's not working for us. Can we at least all be aligned? So it's the critical thing is getting that alignment and that followership I think that Colin was talking about.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Cool thank you so it didn't the um amplified group run a survey on this empowerment thing.

Sia 32:21

We did indeed Sam so um we did it while back well we're going to revisit it actually um because the survey brought up some really interesting results so we surveyed over 200 IT leaders in tech because that's where we were focusing and the report which is now called you know how to achieve an agile organization within an empowered workforce that's what came out of it and these are the questions around what we asked were you know are you inspired and empowered is there loyalty and is that rewarded within your organisation is there belief that the best ideas win failures and mistakes are treated as lessons and and basically are you happy and fulfilled in in your job and it was it was an amazing response to that because really what we ended up with is understanding that a high trust culture is so critically important to the success of your organisation really so we're we're gonna put that you know Vicky mentioned there the five behaviors and putting that up on the on the show notes or show tunes as I call them but I I think it's really important to um to put that report out again because everything that Colin talked about there it's about empowering your teams and and then ultimately letting them do what they do best but allowing them to have fun and being fulfilled in the job that they're doing. So we're going to post it up there the report in its full entirety and you can take a look but I think one final note I want to make about the report what it showed us is companies can get to what we called a fork in the road and it depends on how they treat their employees and if they put people first which way that organisation goes they can end up being a tech dinosaur as we called them or they can end up like SoftCat being a unicorn and I think that's all what what everybody wants to be is a unicorn right so let me just confirm that again I'll put that report up on the show notes um and everybody can take a read of it and I hope that um they'll get some inspiration from it.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Brilliant thanks Shawin you've done your tour of duty at SoftCat you have your eight magnificent years um obviously you've uh stepped down officially as of the beginning of August and your your time comes to an end shortly what what what do you do next? What happens now?

SPEAKER_03 34:54

Yeah well the future is unwritten as a as the phrase goes there's um yeah I know I'm really enjoying the fact that it is a little bit unknown and and I've yet to decide exactly what's going to happen. I've already taken up two uh non-exec director roles with two small companies uh they're not quite startups they're more in the scale up um kind of phase um one of them in the tech industry or professional services around um uh adoption um uh etc and the other one very different it's um it's it's it's tech based but everything in the world is tech based these days but it's um it's a focus on mental health and wellness uh which is applicable to individuals and for organizations like a SoftCow and like anybody else uh to help them um uh provide better service to their employees as well that's a company called Teacup um which comes from the old Sir Clive Woodward the English Rugby manager his his phrase about uh thinking correctly under pressure that's that's where the teacup comes from they're not obsessed with drinking cups of tea all day long but uh they might enjoy it I didn't didn't didn't realise that that's that's interesting so I've got those I'm kind of interested in doing I've been doing some some coaching and mentoring uh through this uh a transition phase on soft cat and I've really enjoyed that uh I like asking people difficult questions of of of work art so um I I think I might do a little bit more of that but um I I'll wait for 2021's start and work it out but as I say i'm i'm i've i've got a really nice feeling about just thinking what's it gonna be and i want i want to do things that that that I'll enjoy and that give me satisfaction but also where I think that I can add value to other people or other organizations so that's it's a nice place to be I'm sure you'll be busier than ever if you're doing that.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

It's feeling like that already yeah yeah fantastic um so would you mind and it's hard to distill this stuff down but would you mind trying to give us three takeaways maybe for for our listeners for how you get through that rapid period of change and maintain the the culture and the personality of your organization?

SPEAKER_03 37:03

Sure yeah three as you say it's hard to boil it down to three things but let me try I mean and and mine are mine as as as you've probably felt and experienced through this discussion uh which has been great fun it's all about people isn't it so mine are less about you know business tips or things like that but number one lead how you'd like to be led it's that simple you know just be the person and be the leader that you think you'd like to see in that position and that you can relate to that you can actually feel some some some some collaboration with and and feel that you're getting some assistance from so lead how you'd like to be led would be the first one. And the second one again is it is all about the people you know unless you happen to be in an organization that makes the best widget in the world you know if you're Apple you've clearly got something that everybody wants to buy so that's a bloody good starting place. In most organisations it's actually about your connection with your customers how you make your customers feel it's looking for that you know that's uh Simon Sinek thing about looking for your inner why so with with SoftCat and with most businesses it's all about the people because that's what your customers experience your company through your people so keep your people happy keep them productive keep them engaged make them want to to work hard on on behalf of the organization and then finally the one I just say is and and I kind of probably come to this looking back um and in in this nice in this nice position where I am where I'm thinking about my last eight years in soft care it's really about enjoying the moment enjoying the now your pressures your challenges enjoy those look at those as challenges yeah think about um how you're gonna get over that challenge and move to the next phase don't worry about things because worrying and fretting isn't really going to get you anywhere it'll probably lead you to making bad decisions so just enjoy the moment enjoy the now go with your flow there'll be lots of things that are outside of your control so just remember that they're outside of control control the things you can control don't worry about the things outside of your control just ride the wave and and go with where it takes you and I think if you do that and you've got the right people around you the right people in the bus you'll be successful. Fantastic the um challenges and opportunities thing uh something making you laugh you've got the manager who says don't want to hear about problems I want to hear about opportunities so one of his employees come up comes up to him and says well I think I've got a really big drinking opportunity yeah just maybe that on you know on that note about it as well as like not being too obsessed with success you know I I'm not I'm not a massive rugby fan uh I like rugby but I'm not a massive fan but I listened to a fantastic podcast with Johnny Wilkinson uh a little while ago and and he talks about what success means to him and it's staggering to sort of hear him say that you know when he was when he kicked that that that you know that drop goal legendary drop goal absolutely and then he won the world cup he said in that moment it was just the best feeling ever said 10 seconds later it was wasn't quite as good two hours later it was kind of that's done now and then after that it was more about all right how do we win the next world cup it was all about worrying about what the next threshold was but and he said that he looks back now and just wished he'd been more in the moment and and and not worried about things like that. And I you know I think that's it's a completely different scenario but one of the reasons why SoftCap has been so successful is because we've seen success as an outcome to being in the moment having a great time loving what we do giving our customers a great service and if you do all that successful with the outcome and and so I can really relate to that.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

Do the right thing and everything else will follow.

Sia 40:55

It kind of happens yeah brilliant right sha we should probably talk about hero time shouldn't we we should it's that time again so as I always explain just that uh hero time is there because we in at the Amplify group have a a brand identity and that brand identity is a stick man and he he is called hero because he wears a cape but it's not about us being the heroes but it's about our clients and making them the heroes and the fact that they've recognised that by creating teams and bringing organisations like the Amplified group in to help them unite their teams is going to make that place a better place to work and and really recognizing that their number one strategy is people and that that's actually one of their biggest competitive advantages. So when I say hero asking our guests who their hero is it doesn't necessarily have to be a hero just somebody you admire or somebody that you think of and think yes you know I appreciate what they've done. So it could be in your past or it could be currently but just somebody that you have a huge amount of admiration for so with that Colin put you on the spot um what what would be uh what would be your response to that?

SPEAKER_03 42:21

Thanks yeah it does it does put you on the spot a little bit doesn't it um so I guess what I've got to is I don't really think about having heroes anymore but I do recognize that people do heroic things. That's absolutely true and I think that fits in with with you know how we how you know how we think about um heroism within business really you know we can all do heroic things a really recent example of something that I think is heroic Marcus Rashford the footballer campaigned relentlessly to get the government to turn around this crazy rule about no free meals during um non-school term time and and he's just been you know amazing so I really you know I really bow down to somebody like like Marcus Frashford. And you see so you see acts of heroism every day and my conclusion therefore being that not everybody can be a hero but everybody has it within them to do heroic things. And I think that's we should all look at ourselves to say what can I do that will be heroic? I don't want anyone to think I'm a hero but I'd like to do something that may be seen by other people as heroic just for a little day. So you know to keep it on the music theme maybe it's a bit of a David Bowie thing you know we can all be heroes just for one day. So I I think we should all look at ourselves and think about how can we do something that will be really heroic. And I you know I think that's what I'm kind of thinking about in the future as well is how can I help other people and how can I even if it's just for a for for a little period of time make a difference to some people.

Sia 43:47

That's a fantastic perspective golly and I I love it and that's what I love about this section of the podcast because you do hear from people deep down what they're thinking and and um having making Heroic acts is great. And it's something we can do every day. And you talked about your mentoring earlier at the Amplify Group. We offer mentoring as well. And it's my absolute favorite thing to do. I love it, not just because I can ask difficult questions, but I can actually feel for one day or for one moment when somebody says, You've changed the way I think and you've really helped me. I feel a little bit like a hero. And I'm not ashamed to say that. I really do enjoy it. So thank you for your perspective.

SPEAKER_03 44:30

No, you're probably walking you know just that little bit higher. Yeah, you're feeling good for a little while, aren't you? That is a hero, especially if you do this, that this you just really make a difference to somebody's life.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Yeah, it's fantastic. It feels really damn good to give back, you know. We've all we've all been very fortunate in our careers. Clearly, we've all worked hard as well, but isn't it great to be able to give somebody else a leg up?

Vic 44:54

Yeah, but it's I think it's what drives us to do what we do for for uh you know at the Amplified Group. I think it's it's why we do what we do. We genuinely want to help people and but not just help the individuals, help them navigate the teams that they work in.

Sia 45:10

That's yeah, we used to say, didn't we, Vicky, if we can help one person wake up on a Sunday and want to go work on a Monday, whereas before they didn't want to go to work on a Monday, we've done our job, really.

Vic 45:25

Yeah, and and so often that is because it's not because of the job that you're asking them to do is too difficult, it's because of the people that they're working with.

Sia 45:35

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, yeah. So thank you, Colin. That's a great insight. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

Yeah, really good. Very welcome. Thank you. That was magnificent, Colin. Good, good to catch up. And thank you, thank you for uh uh a magnificent six years of uh of my soft cat career. I really appreciated your guidance and your leadership, and I'm sure our listeners will really appreciate that on uh on this episode. So thank you for listening for to get amplified from the amplified group. Your comments and your subscriptions gratefully received, of course, and we'll look forward to seeing you on the next one.