Keith Rowe - Don’t just talk. Question, Listen, and Watch! - 10 Lessons Learned

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Now we say, Oh, equality,we're not born equal.
We're different shape,we're different sizes.
We have different coloring.
Our color palette is completely different.
Our hair color is different.
Our color of our eyes is different.
The color of our race,importantly is different.
Our skin, our race, theseare things to celebrate.
The French say 'vive la différence'.
They're to celebrate, not to denigrate.

(00:22):
And yet what are we doing all the time?
We we're confusing sameness with equality.
We're saying we need to be the same.
We don't wanna be the same.
We're not the same.
So please let us be whatwe are and celebrate it.
Hello and welcome to 10 LessonsLearned, where we talk to sages and
gurus, leaders and luminaries fromall over the world to dispense their

(00:46):
wisdom for life and career in order toprovide you shortcuts to excellence.
My name is Robert Hossary, andI'm your host for this episode.
Our guest today is Keith Rowe.
Having joined the workforce asa 16 year old Keith Rowe, went
on to become the Television andElectronic Technicians Institute of
Australia's apprentice of the year.

(01:08):
From there, it was the obligatorynational service, graduating from the
Army's officer training unit as a secondleft tenant, or if you're from another
part of the world, a second lieutenant.
And completing his two year obligationas a troop commander within the Royal
Australian Signal Field Regiment.
Back in the civilian workforce.

(01:29):
Keith moved into sales and marketingwith EMI, lucky enough to be
offered an opportunity of a lifetimewith his appointment as inaugural
National Sales Manager for settingup of a Toshiba EMI joint venture.
Now, that was the forerunner forToshiba Australia's operation.
Eight years later.

(01:50):
By then general manager for ConsumerProducts for Toshiba Australia.
He stood down to form his own company andto pursue consulting and training work.
Keith also set up the Australiandistributor for Casio as their managing
director, the recovery of Sanyo's marketposition in the early nineties, as
general manager for sales and marketingand the restructuring of the Sharp

(02:15):
Corporation of Australia as a corporatedirector and group general manager.
Keith has taken his renowned'Knack of Selling' program to
wherever it was demanded acrossa Australasia and Southeast Asia.
He has conducted workshops inclose to a hundred locations from
Sanyo's International headquartersin Osaka, Japan to a scout hall.

(02:37):
Uh, this will be an interesting story to ascout hall in Outback Australia involving
well over a thousand participants.
He has worked across a wide span ofmarket sectors, including computers,
sporting woods, jewelry, homewares,telecommunication, electronic components,
and too many others to mention here today.
Keith Rowe is an activespeaker, trainer and writer.

(03:00):
He has published over a hundredarticles and has an evolving book
series, which you can find on Amazon.
Hello Keith and welcome to the show.
Hello, Rob.
So a scout hall in the outback.
Yes, it was a small group.
It was a telecom retailer actually,and they wanted their, the people
trained in fronting the customer.

(03:22):
And this is the case witha lot of technical people.
They're very happy being geeks.
They're very happy, tearingthem back off a laptop computer.
Very comfortable.
Yep.
Like you place them out thefront of the store in front of a
customer at all hell breaks loose.
They just go to pieces.
So the training wasessentially selling skills.
And as, uh, as I've never advanced beyondjust basic selling conversational skills,

(03:45):
well, I mean, the location,uh, is what really got me.
because I, I have beento the Outback once.
Now mind you, I've lived in Australia forover 50 years, but I've been there once.
and definitely not to train anybodythat's an interesting story.
Keith, what we normally do with our guestsis we ask a, question, and , every guest

(04:05):
we've asked has found it fascinating.
So I'm gonna ask you the same question.
What would you tell your 30 yearold self if you had the chance?
Well, Rob, that is awful.
Long time ago.
. I mean, we're talking thereabout the mid seventies and that
reflects the situation where wewere forming Toshiba in Australia.

(04:25):
I was jumping on and off aircraft.
All I saw day today were meetingrooms, the inside of hotel rooms.
I was flitting to and fro from JapanI was flitting around the country,
setting up branches and employing people.
And meanwhile, I back home.
Our third child had been born.
I had three little children at home andI was working horrendous seven day weeks.

(04:45):
Uh, if I could have that allover again, I'd give myself one
very special piece of advice.
And that would be to create a bettermix of home life and work life.
Get some balance in there.
And, uh, as it turned out, uh, a few yearsafter that, about four or five years after
that, I actually did advise myself that.
Because one of my kids, my oldest soncame home from school and he said,

(05:09):
Dad, I've been selected to play inthe junior cricket team at school.
Did you ever play cricket?
Oh, okay.
Now that hit me right in the heart.
That was like a day in my heart becausein my school years, I had lived for sport
and I'd actually played representativesport and had to forgo that.
I had to forsake thoseopportunities to cut a living.

(05:32):
To get out in the workforce.
And so I had not play cricket betweenthe age of 17 and 34 as it turns out.
So I got him involved in cricket.
I got his little brotherinvolved in cricket.
I decided to make a comeback with thelocal club in the local competition.
My wife became the teams scorer.

(05:52):
She, by the way, was coaching netballand then getting my daughter involved in
representative netball at the same time.
So it made an obligationfor me to free up weekends.
Weekends was strictly for family.
I took that decision a few years too late.
I should have done it when I was 30.
But Keith, You did take it, you did takeit a lot sooner than a lot of people.

(06:14):
And I think that's great advice that,you know, having worked overseas
and missed an enormous part of mychildren growing up, I, I empathize.
I wish that I had told myself that.
That's a very important lesson.
Well, that's brilliant advice.
Let's move on to your 10 lessons.
We'll start with lesson number one.
Now, I was excited when I sawthis because you, you and I share.

(06:38):
a passion for this particular lesson.
And I won't say anymore.
I'll just read the lesson and letyou explain it because I'm all
giddy with, happiness that someoneelse shares the same thought.
So, lesson number one, the expressionknowledge is, power is now redundant.
Knowhow is now the power.
Talk to me about that Keith.

(07:00):
Well, yes, it is very much a hobbyhorse of mine and it always has been.
And knowledge is a funny thing.
It's important to have it, not necessarilyto use it, but it's important to
have it because it creates an aura.
People see a knowledgeableperson through their attitude.
It reflects in their attitude, their levelof enthusiasm, the level of confidence.
And a a person possessingknowledge just has that natural

(07:24):
ability to mesmerize people.
They're wondering how much morecould this person possibly know?
But it's subject to dreadfulmisuse and I will get to that.
Having the knowledgeis the important thing.
But people don't want to be toldwhat they already know, and they
certainly don't want to be toldwhat they don't want to be told.

(07:46):
So the discipline of using theknowledge effectively is very important.
Now we don't have to go back veryfar to where that was the vouge
expression knowledge is power.
Because a knowledgeable person, weregarded as that person who knew
everything, you know, they knew stuff.
Then along came the internetround about the nineties.
Along came the online environment,knowledge became more accessible.

(08:09):
Suddenly that knowledgeable person wasn'tthe person who knew everything that that
person who knew how to find out stuff.
So the definition tended to change.
Welcome to the modern era, aschool age, a preschool age.
Children can access the world ofknowledge, the encyclopedia of the world
in microseconds, as long as they've got asearch engine and an internet connection.

(08:33):
So it's gone throughanother morphing phase.
So we've got to the point now where wetreat knowledge is something you just get.
It will.
But if you want knowledge,you just grab it.
You search on your computer, you thumbyour phone, you thumb your, you do what
you like, and you've got the knowledge.
So it's an at will thing.
So knowledge itself isnot the power anymore.

(08:55):
But what has remained is the needto use it intelligently, to use it
thoughtfully and tactfully becauseknowledge is only relevant to how
much knowledge the other person has.
So you have to respectively,assume that the other person may
or may not know more than you do.
So what comes back, we'll talk aboutthis a little later, I'm sure we're

(09:16):
gonna talk about communication and theneed feedback, but at this stage, it's
about having the respect to do that.
And I've got a verygood story to tell here.
Please, please.
Across the world, and it comes back tocricket, funnily enough, because across
the sporting world, one of the mostrevered commentators in all of the cricket
playing nations, we're talking fromEngland to middle Asia, India, Bangladesh,

(09:39):
Sri Lanka, Pakistan, across to the WestIndies, down to Australian New Zealand.
The most revered commentator thatever lived was a guy called Richie
Benno who died just a few years ago.
Richie was a former captain of theAustralian cricketer team, the national
side, and in his television commentarypost, he surrounded himself with

(10:00):
knowledgeable cricketers, most of whomhad already in their past been skippers
of the national sides and the fatherlyadvice that he gave every single one
of them when he welcomed them to thecommentary booth was simply this.
This is television, this is not radio.
Don't let that microphone seduceyou into thinking you have to

(10:23):
describe everything that's going on.
Don't bother telling peoplewhat they can already see or
what they probably already know.
And the most important thing youneed to learn about being in this
commentary box is the value of silence.
And, you know, that was incredibleadvice to be giving these people, because

(10:43):
generally they wanted to just pontificateabout their knowledge of cricket and
bore the socks off the listeners.
So that was a lesson Igot from Richie Benno.
Well, let me, let me just interruptand ask you, how did you get to
understand that it's the knowhow,it's the use of that knowledge.

(11:04):
Yeah.
Look, it came about always in myIn line assignments in management.
I was always keen on training and alot of it actually conducted myself.
But one of the things that you tend tojudge this in a commercial sense, uh,
the word competence sort of wraps it up.
You judge, you judge anevaluate on competence.
And competence is, is kindof like a ladder of learning.

(11:26):
If you can imagine a ladderthat's got four rungs and on the
bottom one you've got this personwho's just starting out, right?
They're the unconscious incompetent.
They don't even know what they don't evenknow, and they're quite oblivious to it.
They take on a bit of training,they advance a little bit, they'll
step up the next rung where theybecome the conscious incompetent.

(11:48):
They still dunno what they're talkingabout, but they're now conscious of the
fact that they've got a lot more to learn.
So they dedicate themselves toit and they move up the ladder.
They then become the conscious competent.
They're now competent.
They know what they're doing, but they'reconscious of having to think about it.
They're now at that stage.
They know what they know, theyknow it's probably enough, but they

(12:11):
have to consciously think abouthow they apply it so they're not
at the top level of competence yet.
Step up the next one, and theybecome the unconscious competent.
But in other words, what'shappening now is they don't
have to think about it anymore.
It's all happening automatically.
They're totally confident.
They have the, the confidenceand the enthusiasm.
They're at the top rung of the ladder.
So I guess you've gotta have theknowledge to attain the level.

(12:34):
But you've gotta havethe knowhow to retain it.
I love that.
To stay there.
So having the knowledge to get there,having the knowhow to stay there, it's,
that's brilliant.
And I used that in, in training.
Yeah, no, I, I love that, Keith,that is a brilliant explanation.
and, I will repeat it.
You've gotta have theknowledge to get there.

(12:56):
You've gotta have theknowhow to stay there.
Love it.
Think it's brilliant.
But let's move on to lesson number two.
EQ trumps IQ every time.
So emotional quotion trump'sintelligence quotient every time.
Tell me your story behind that.
Well, well, basically we've talkedabout knowledge, so we're talking

(13:19):
if you expand that and, and involvethe knowhow, you talk about the
cognitive ability now to apply theknowledge, to apply reason to it, to
apply logic to it, to work out stuff.
And it's terribly technical.
It's almost mathematical.
And if you do an IQ test,what are you faced with?
You talk about numericsequences and stuff like that.

(13:39):
So it's all relating.
We don't wanna get into thisleft and right side of the brain
thing, but this is where it's allworking on one side of the brain.
It's all on the reasoning andand logical side of the brain.
And that to me is, iswhat IQ is all about.
And if a person has got a reasonableIQ, then they will be seen as being
a knowledgeable sort of person.
But the real value of knowledge is tohave that emotional intelligence because

(14:04):
without being philosophical about it,you know, we're on this planet with
nowhere the reason but to get on allthose other people are on this planet.
We're born one day we die.
What sort of legacy do we have?
Some people will set records, somewill make music, some will write
books, some will lead behind legendaryperformance, accomplishments and so on.
Most of us, however, the onlylegacy we will lead behind is

(14:26):
the thought that for God's sake,we mixed with all these people.
We treated them fairly and equally,we helped them wherever we could.
We made some sort of a contribution andif I want anything on my damn tombstone,
that's what I'd like to see written there.
So it's how we relate to the other people.
So if we can use the knowledge thatwe do have, not in a smart alec

(14:46):
format, but in a persuasive waythat helps other people, that's
when emotional intelligence cuts in.
The best way I've seen it portrayed is.
Like a pyramid, a triangle.
The pyramid of human understanding.
I've seen it called where the baselevel of the pyramid is getting
to know yourself, know where youcome from and the way you think.

(15:06):
Step up a notch to thesecond layer in the pyramid.
It's understanding that other person,getting the feedback and having the
awareness to know what that other personis thinking and where they're coming from.
And when you can tie those twotogether, you will hit that peak of that
pyramid, which is the magic empathy.
That's only then that you'reexhibiting emotional intelligence.

(15:28):
And the model that Goldman cameup with many, many years ago, I
think it was back in the 1920s,describes it pretty much that way.
A guy who ultimately became a friendof mine in the US, Tony Alexandra once
, coined the phrase, he said, Uh, I tryto live my life by the golden rule.
You know, do one unto others asyou would have them do unto you.

(15:48):
He said, but it doesn't work in inconversations and it doesn't work in
selling and it doesn't work in debatingand it doesn't work in negotiating because
the person doesn't want to be done unto.
As you wanna be done unto,they wanna be done unto, unto
as they wanna be done unto.
Oh my God, this is liketalking to myself here.
Keep going.
I love this.

(16:09):
Well, we do have matchinghaircuts, so on, so maybe it
is just a mirror on looking at?
Or
it could be Keith.
It could be, And this is for, foranyone watching this on YouTube, I
think you'll get a laugh out of itfor our, uh, listening audience.
Um, watch it on YouTube.
Well, Brothers In Arms.

(16:30):
If you look at how this has been handled,this, this whole issue of emotional
intelligence over the years, way back,I think it was back in the century,
started to go with some work on, onpersonality styles, but it wasn't until
Carl or Jung, depending on where youcome from and how you pronounce names.
In about the 1920s, he did someserious stuff on personality style

(16:54):
and like most other ways of ofunderstanding human characteristics.
Two vectors were used when they cross,they form four quadrants, and that
allowed him to compartmentalize styles.
Now, the most recent studies havedealt with the only observable
one, and that is behavioral style.
So I wanna know somethingabout a person's personality.

(17:16):
Yes, you can duck online andget a, a rudimentary critique
of your personality by tickinga few boxes or choice questions.
But to do it properly, you wouldneed a clinician to work on it
and conduct a serious survey.
If you are conversing with somebodyor selling with to somebody or
negotiating with somebody, youcan't say, Look, stop here.
I wanna send you off tothe local university.

(17:37):
I want you to do a personalitystudy, and when you get the
results or all the assimilationsand everything, bring it back here
and I'll know how to talk to you.
So obviously that can't be done so.
Did anybody manage to come up with anobservable way of, of understanding
particularly behavioral style?
Because that's the one thingthat people do have a dominant

(17:58):
style in how they behave.
And you've probably heard of thedisc system, d i s C, which is the
most common of all the formats anddominance, inducement, you know, and, uh,
submission, compliance, blah, blah, blah.
I came across a different version of that.
It was called the social style gridback in the seventies, and it was done
by a couple of us, uh, professors,David Merrill and Roger Reed, and they

(18:23):
came up with, uh, a way to measureassertiveness and responsiveness.
That more assertive person is one whowill sort of lean forward in conversation
and fit their opinion more readily.
The less assertive is the one thathangs back a bit reserved almost aloof.
Then the vertical line you've got.
A totally different thing.
Responsiveness.

(18:43):
The responsive person is theperson who's emotionally involved.
The people issues they cry at sadmovies, whereas the non sociable
person at the top there, the lessresponsive person is rather aloof
and matter of fact about things.
When you cross those, you getfour quadrants and they define
so accurately the characteristicsof a, of an individual.

(19:04):
So that study of behavioral style issomething that has since been used.
It's been used to put togetherboards of directors for companies.
It's been used to put together,I guess marriages even, It's been
used to put together managementteams and I've no doubt that it's
probably even avoiding wars somewhere.
So behavioral style has become one, oneof the most expressing ways of having

(19:27):
emotional and intelligence and trainingit and having people understand it.
And it's.
About getting individuals tobe putting people in boxes.
It's about simply having themunderstand that we're all different.
We're so unique, We'reabsolutely unique people.
And you must not assume that theother person is gonna see things.

(19:47):
Exactly.
As, as you see them.
They're not gonna regardit the same way you do.
They're not gonna valueit the same way you do.
So I use it in training andwe do the putting in boxes.
Yes.
But I, I always quantify the whole thing.
I qualify the, the endresult, the outcome as being.
Don't worry about the boxes.
Just go into the conversation.
Go into the negotiation.

(20:08):
Go into the debate, appreciatingthat that person won't necessarily
receive the way you do.
So never make that assumption.
That is emotional intelligence.
Yeah.
And that is such an important lesson.
assuming that someone sees a problem, anissue, a situation the same way you do.

(20:30):
One is the height ofarrogance and two is dumb.
I mean, I will just straight out say it.
It's, it's a ridiculous place to be.
Because as you point out,we are all different.
And that little anecdote about,, the golden rule, treat others as
you would have them treat you.
I couldn't agree more.

(20:51):
We are all different.
Not everyone wants to be treated the wayyou wanna be treated, so think about that.
What a brilliant lesson.
What a brilliant lesson.
Lesson number three, The newbusiness opportunity customer service.
Now hang on, Keith, We,we have customer service.
What do you mean it's anew business opportunity?

(21:11):
Well, it's new in the contextthat, Let's start with the
definition of customer service.
Okay?
On the one hand, you'vegot an expectation.
The customer has an expectation.
On the other hand, there's a levelof delivery against that expectation.
If we exceed their expectation,we've got a satisfied customer.
If we fail to reach that, to achieve that,we have a very dissatisfied customer.

(21:35):
True.
Now, it's mathematical.
It's an equation.
It's a simultaneous equation.
So what that a lot of the big corporateshave been doing in terms of customer
service, they've determined that it's mucheasier and cheaper to lower the customer's
expectation rather than investing,upping their delivery of service.
Well, doesn't
hang on.
Doesn't that come from that oldadage under promise and over deliver?

(21:59):
Exactly.
And that's, that's agood way to summarize it.
You've just summarized everything Iwanted to say for the next 35 minutes.
So now I can cut this fairly short, Rob,because when, when you are looking at
that, that customer service expectation,there's some classic examples.
Let's start with the banks.
Now I'm gonna be a little facetious here,and I'm a little tongue in cheek, so
don't take it at face value straight away.

(22:20):
I will summarize, but have alook at the banks there once was
a thing called a bank teller.
A lovely lady or gentleman who knewour children's names, they counted
out our money on the counter for us.
My God, they even paid us someinterest on our hard earned savings.
Look at us now.
Along came the atm.
We were happy to stand out in the rain inthe queue, waiting for our turn to do the

(22:44):
job ourselves, draw money which we owned,upon which we are earning no interest,
and then even accept a transaction chargefor being good enough to do it ourselves.
That's the banks right now.
Fortunately, they have seen thelight a little bit after the
horror of all their branch closesand the uproar that it caused.
They now seem to have a concierge at thedoor and they're taking a different tack,

(23:06):
but leave the banks around for a moment.
Let's go to the grocers.
The supermarket there oncewas a thing called a grocer.
They wore those lovely dust coats.
They would select thegoods off the shelf for us.
They would put them into environmentallybrown paper bags for us, and God help us.
They even carried the car for us.
My God, where's the grocer gone?

(23:26):
Now we go to the supermarket,we select a trolley.
Somehow they've programmed thattrolley to take every direction
except the one we wanna go.
And when we finally do get to to thecheckout, we've gotta scan it ourselves.
And if we don't do it quite right,somebody will come up quite ill
mannerly, never say pleased.
The machine will say, I'm gonna have toget an exasperated staff member over here

(23:48):
to do this for you by the local things.
So that happens.
That's something the tip of the iceberg.
Next, we're gonna have radio technology,which will automatically read what's in
our trolley, automatically bill it as wewalk past to our bank account, through our
phone, and take it to another dimension.
And I haven't even startedon the service station.
I dunno that any of your listeners areold enough to remember when you could pull

(24:09):
up at a service station and the kindlylady or gentleman would come and fill the
tank with fuel, check the oil, check thewater, clean the wind screen, and then
take you inside so you could pay for it.
But what is, what's the connection?
Well, how is this a newbusiness opportunity?
Well, well, while this this ishappening, The new opportunity arises

(24:31):
where there are still some productsother than the commodity level.
Mm-hmm.
, which need to be sold.
Then people need to find the solution.
They need to have a product recommended.
Anything, medical, technical,mechanical things where you, you
need to understand the solution andhave an appropriate product allocated
to it, but still room for selling.

(24:52):
Now, within those industries whereit hasn't been commoditized, that's
a fantastic opportunity becausemost of the bigger players are
downgrading their level of service.
Downgrading the expectation.
There's a very easy opportunity to standtall and be the one that lifts the level
of service and it can be done affordably.
So a lot of my trainees have walkedaway from my session shaking the head

(25:15):
saying, Look, this old guy's not with it.
This is how the world works.
These days.
They've come up with a new businessmodel because they had to reduce costs
and it's all within their businessplan and it's working for 'em.
This is all great.
But then by the time we're finished,most of them leave the room thinking,
My God, I get back to my storeor my workshop or my whatever.
I think I can make an opportunityout of this because that big

(25:38):
fella down the road is doingexactly what we just talked about.
That's an excellent observation.
If you look at business today,It is all cookie cutter.
A lot of companies arepretty much the same.
Your, your eCommerce is prettymuch the same platform everywhere.
In our current environment, particularlythe online environment, you're constantly
searching for a point of difference.

(25:59):
Yeah.
In a technical type otherthan commodity type sale.
That obvious point of difference ispersonal intervention, personal head to
head, face to face, voice to voice help.
And that's a point of difference.
And quite often it's theonly point of difference.
It becomes impossible todifferentiate some of these deals

(26:20):
because the product looks the same.
Yeah.
They even use the same photographin their online libraries.
I mean, there's no pointof difference whatsoever.
So what happens by default price becomesthe only point of difference, and all that
does is demolish the profitability of boththe branded supplier and the retailer.
I'm not taking sides against theconsumer here because the downward

(26:43):
spiral of pricing is obviouslygood for the consumer, but it
decimate the business model.
It decimate all the, theplanning of the business model.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That point of difference may be theonly point of difference in the future.
I hope that that resonateswith our listener.
I hope that that point is not lost, andI would recommend very strongly to pause

(27:04):
this podcast, go back, and, listen tolesson number three again so you can
fully understand what Keith is saying.
It is an opportunity.
Okay, well let's move on to lesson numberfour because it can be contentious, but
I think I understand what you're sayinghere, so I'll, I'll let you explain it.

(27:26):
So, lesson number four,discrimination versus equality.
They're totally different things.
Yes, it's going to be contentious.
Let's start with the whole issue ofpolitical correctness or as it as
it's called the, the PC offensive.
Now the truest thing about that is theuse of the word offensive because it

(27:48):
is downright offensive because it'sbeen taken so much out of context.
Because somewhere along the line,if you look at discrimination,
the, the Oxford Collins Dictionary,the definition of the word is the
differentiation between two or morethings, between two or among more things.
That's, that's all it is.

(28:09):
That's discrimination.
But we've somehow got it in our mindthat all discrimination is evil.
And indeed, a lot of it is,and it's gotta be quashed.
I'm, I'm off for that.
It's, it's gotta be absolutely quashed,but equality's a different thing.
Now we say, Oh, equality,we're not born equal.
We're different shape,we're different sizes.
We have different coloring.

(28:30):
Our color palette is completely different.
Our hair color is different.
You and I don't have an issue withthat because we haven't got any.
Our color of our eyes is different.
The color of our race,importantly is different.
Our skin, our race, theseare things to celebrate.
The French say 'vive la différence'.
They're to celebrate, not to denigrate.
And yet what are we doing all the time?

(28:52):
We we're confusing sameness with equality.
We're saying we need to be the same.
We don't wanna be the same.
We're not the same.
So please let us be whatwe are and celebrate it.
Don't go insulting it.
And the biggest issue with thatis some of the terminology used.
I'm sure a lot of it's taken out ofcontext because there's certain words that
in, in, in their own way are offensive.

(29:14):
And I think you and I at some stage havediscussed that aspect of it as well.
But I just don't like the factthat there seems to be some
confusion between equality.
We're not born the same.
We're not supposed to be the equal.
But humanitarian terms,generally humanitarian term,
we need to be treated equally.
That's what this is all about.

(29:34):
So I'm all for equality, whetherit be gender, race, color, size,
shape, disability, you name it.
We need to be treated fairly andwe need to be treated equally.
well, let me pick up on, on that.
Maybe then it's the useof the term equality.
I mean, I'm with you with discrimination.
Discrimination the, the pure meaningof the word is to discriminate, is

(29:57):
to, separate two different things.
I understand that, we have changedthat terminology in society,
and we'll talk about that later.
Maybe, maybe not, but the, theword equality, I think if we start
using the word equity instead ofequality, that might be a better
solution because, you know, Icome from a privileged background.

(30:20):
I understand the privileges that,that I have, have been afforded in
society, but people who haven't comefrom that privileged base, they need
more help to get to the same level.
And that's equity.
Yeah.
It doesn't mean that they'rebetter, it doesn't mean I'm better.
Very good point.

(30:41):
Equity is a good choice of words.
We're, we're both equal because we're bothhuman, but we need to have an equitable
society where everybody, This is my, ownpersonal soapbox, so, if you're gonna
write in, write in to me because it'sabout, you know, this is my thoughts, but
we need to have an equitable society thattreats everyone according to their needs.

(31:03):
look, you're really touching one ofmy hobby horses now too, and that
is the, again, without being toophilosophical, we know the start of life.
We damn sure know the end of life.
Yes.
We're only really talkingabout the journey.
If we can make that journey,Closer in equity for all of us.
So at least there's some opportunitydrawing close to equality along the way.

(31:25):
That's gonna be an enormous gain.
But we're so far from it.
We are.
But we're disappointinglyso far from that.
And, uh, the disadvantaged, in manyrespects, even more disadvantaged
than they had been in the past.
But in some of the cases, gender,for example, we'd made progress.
I mean, the glass ceiling isstill there in, in certain area.
We know all that sort of thing.

(31:46):
But we are making some progress startedwith the suffragists over a hundred
years ago, and it's still gain momentum.
So hopefully we'll get over that one.
But we've got bigger issueswith spiritual belief and bigger
issues with racial belief.
So they need a lot of work.
It does, and it's a topicthat we can discuss forever.
I do wanna move on, but I do wannatouch on this one point, because you,

(32:09):
you mentioned, Political correctnessand how it's being usurped by
the discussion of discrimination.
I do agree with some of that, becausethere are people who willfully
use terminology to profile, to, dowhat they need to do to encourage
that hatred and that rift andthat, disintegration of society.

(32:30):
But, I will also say, I've come to realizevery recently that the choice of words,
and many of our speakers have said this,and I know that, Keith, that you would
probably also agree with this, thatthere is power in the words you choose.
Yes.
There's a lot of powerin the words you choose.
I remember as a young school boy, andwe're talking in the seventies here

(32:52):
in Australia, the language we usedis totally different to the language
I would even think of using today.
The jokes we told , I wouldnever even, catch myself talking
that way or telling those jokes.
Course don't, They wereblue, but they were,
they were insulting than of them.
Very insulting, racially profiled.

(33:12):
Yes.
To different, ethnicities, differentraces, and, it's the removal of
that language from the vocabularythat changes your mindset if you
keep using the derogatory terms.
If you keep using.
I'll give an example.
I refer to indigenous peopleas indigenous people, First
Nation people, Native Americans.

(33:34):
I don't refer to them by the, the commonterm that is being used that changes
your thinking about these cultures.
This is my opinion anyway,But that's why when, when you
said pc, that's where I went.
There are times when I believethat we should have some political
correctness, but not to the, not tothe extent where it, it's gone mad.

(33:56):
Some of it is, is touching on the absurd.
Uh, we, we, we know that, but thephraseology, I'm pleased with the changes.
I'm very, very pleased with the upgradingof the, of the use of the phraseology.
But if I were to create a mottofor, for everything that I stand
for there, I would say integrate.
And celebrate.

(34:16):
Yeah.
Rather than isolate and denigrate.
Very nice.
It's almost that simple.
And that's a catchphraseI used in my latest book.
And, and to me that encapsulates prettymuch all the way I think about it.
Just, just say that one more time.
We'll move on to the next lesson, but Iwanna leave this one with that saying.
Integrate and celebrate ratherthan separate and denigrate.

(34:41):
Fantastic.
Absolutely Fantastic.
Okay, Lesson number five.
Be skilled at having conversations.
Now, Keith, we all knowhow to have conversations.
Why do we need to be skilled at it?
Well, again, I've gotta go back to basics.
The communication model.
Remember I said at some stage,no matter the complexity of the

(35:01):
communication, at some stage in it, itgets down to one person delivering a
message, another person receiving it.
And if we wanna know if it'sbeing received, correct, we've
gotta have some feedback, right?
But we can avoid the need for feedbackin the way we present conversations.
And I, break them in two halves.
The, presentation skills, the outwardbound skills, and the receptive skills.

(35:24):
And, and quite frankly, I think thereceptive skills are more important,
but with the outward bound skills,I break it into what I call the
threes verbal, vocal, and visual.
So let's just take amoment for each of those.
Verbal skills are the words thatwe use, and I'm not talking about
having a, an English school mastervocabulary at, at, at will, Not at all.

(35:46):
Because we wanna be appropriately talkingto people at an appropriate level.
I'll give you an example of this.
A product manager who workedfor me some years ago, he's
quite technically brilliant.
He used, used to look after productslike camcorder and in the days of video
recorders, that type of equipment.
And he was quite brilliant.
But he had a lot of trouble with publicspeaking because in that role he was

(36:07):
often, having to make presentations,talking to groups of people.
And he had come from a, a fairlydisadvantaged background, a rural
background, a rather poor family.
And probably during preschool years,he had picked up some habits, the
wrong verb forms, for example.
He would say things like, I comeinto the room and I seen him there.
He done it, so I give it to him.

(36:30):
Right.
So what using the wrong tense thewrong form of verbs and so on.
And you could see when this washappening, you could see the
audience absolutely be cringing.
They were judging him.
They weren't judging him onhis technical brilliance or his
knowledge of, of the industry andthe products that he was presenting.
They were judging him purley, onthe way he conducted his English.

(36:52):
The way he expressed himself.
Now we got together in one of theusual performance appraisal sessions,
the annual salary review thing, andwe talked quite openly about this.
And he finished up writing downfor all those action verbs to
be, to give, to do and so on.
He wrote down the correctverb forms, the correct tense.
Today I do.
Yesterday I did, I had done, andhe carried around his pocket.

(37:16):
Until he got it right,until it became instinctive.
Now, that guy, I'm sure was still asbrilliant as he ever was in the job that
he does, but he's probably not beingunfairly judged for all the wrong reasons.
Look, it's not any particularstrata of something.
It's just being compatible withyour audience and not giving them
an opportunity to judge you wrongly,because it affects your credibility

(37:40):
and the whole way you do things.
And the other thing is jargon.
Now I work with geeks.
I mean, most of my trainees are thesebrilliant technical guys who fall the
pieces in front of a customer, mind you.
But they, they're absolutely brilliant.
Technically.
And jargon flows off the tongue.
Everything's bits and bites, huh?
And to the customer, itmeans absolute gobbledegook.

(38:02):
They'll be talking technical termsthat they, they're quite familiar
with, but they don't necessarilyget it a hundred percent right.
And some of their customers maywell have a PhD in that discipline.
They could get caught out very badly.
So my advice to them is forget the jargon.
Come up with case studies and,and, and friendly storylines to

(38:22):
explain the meaning of things andget away from the technical terms.
And on top of that, don't use slang.
There's no need for profanity.
The English language has got enoughwords in without having to swear.
So just use a little bit of disciplinethere out with the jargon, out with the
slang, out, with the profanity and inwith the gracious use of the language.

(38:44):
So that's only the verbal.
And we get to the vocalwhat about the vocal?
We can change the whole moodof a conversation by accent
tone, timing, even volume.
You know, if we want to talk aboutsomething secretively, perhaps even
intimately, we lower our voice.
That's got a lot of effect onsomebody's heart of hearing, isn't it?

(39:05):
So the first rule is we're notchasing the Shakespearean Tellus here.
We're not on the stage performing.
Make sure people can hear you, make surepoints aren't getting lost because you're
not enunciating them loudly enough.
The other thing is talkingtoo quickly unless you work at
McDonald's and a young teenager.
Then don't come up with a hundred.

(39:28):
It's, it's a critical issue.
And, and if we get to talk onreceptive skills, I talk about that
as feature of listening because ifwe get excited about something, we
invariably talk faster and we'll losethe person we're trying to talk with.
It's far better to have a, a moderatedtone, a moderated speed, and keep it

(39:50):
consistent and then you'll be understood.
The most important ones yet to comedo, do you know what its, the most
important word in any language isthe pause and the secret to a pause.
If you are a public speaker or, mc orwhatever you're doing, the pause is the
most valuable tool you'll ever have.
Because a pause will always do two things.

(40:12):
One that captures the attention.
People think, Oh my God, Imay have missed something.
The silence gets it.
I may have missed something.
Or alternatively, Oh boy, I thinkthere's something important coming up.
So they, they're recognizingthat that pause is causing that.
Did I miss something or amI about to miss something?
And it attracts attention.
The greatest attention getter inconversational mode is the pause.

(40:33):
It's the most, valuableword in the language.
That's great and, I would stronglyadvise anybody listening to start
honing those conversational skills.
Well, we'll take a quickbreak at the moment.
we'd like to thank ouraffiliate partner Audible.
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(40:55):
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(41:17):
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Once again, that'saudibletrial.com/10lessons learned or
lowercase for a free 30 day trial, andthe link will be in the show notes.

(41:38):
So today's guest is Keith Row, And we'llget back to Keith with lesson number six.
Keith, lesson number six says, Don'tjust talk question, listen, and watch.
We've had a lot of guests who talkabout the importance of listening,
but I'm a little taken aback withquestion and watch, when you throw

(42:03):
that into the listening mix, doesn'tthat not take away from listening?
No.
Well, no, it doesn't because thequestion will, will attract, uh,
what you have to listen to andthe, the question will define what
you need to, to be listening to.
But let's, let's take it back.
Again, you've gotta giveback to that feedback thing.
But as far as questioning skills areconcerned, I was taken aback when I

(42:25):
first started doing serious training inthis mainly selling oriented training.
But even so, when you talk questioningskills, I, I, you set the trainees down
and I would say, Look, turn to yourpartner next to you and ask them as many
questions as you can, which they cannotanswer with a simple yes or no answer.

(42:46):
And they stutter and they stammer,and they might get to one or
two until I introduce something,which ironically comes from an old
English author, Rudyard Kipling.
I usually get this in the wrong order,but he said something like, once I kept
six worldly men, they taught me all Iknew their names were what, and when
and where, and why, and how, and who.

(43:07):
Any question that you ask, startingwith one of those words cannot be
reasonably answered with the yes one no.
And if you're throw in which itactually makes seventh, another W words.
So when you have the W words, andonce I do that, they will turn to
their partner and almost indefinitelybe asking questions that can't
be answered with this, or no.
These are what we call open questions.

(43:29):
And the open questions are designedto attract information, to get
responsive, valuable information,and to, I guess, promote the
continuity in the conversation.
So when we do want to get a response, yesor no, we use a direct question, don't we?
That's how you.
Isn't it Right?
And they're the activeverbs like is does at time.

(43:50):
So having the ability to ask those openquestions to get information, then the
ability to dovetail at the right time, theright place, you know, the conversation,
the direct question to get a response.
The feedback you want is the trueart of conducting a conversation.
The true art, as you would know ofconducting an interview as well.
So that really is the wholething with questioning.

(44:13):
And there are certain types of questionswhich are absolutely invaluable.
They say you shouldn't answera question with a question.
That's what politicians do.
But it's not.
So answering the question with aquestion is a terrific way of taking
a particular topic and putting itto bed and then getting on with
the rest of the conversation.

(44:35):
So there are techniques in there,and I've got at least half a dozen
follow ups of mine that are a type ofquestion that will allow you to steer
the conversation in a non manipulativeway, and you can use those techniques.
Listen to,
I'll listen in a minute.
I understand the question.
Why do I need to watch?

(44:55):
Well, the ultimate lie detector?
What happens within the, the, thebody is that the subconscious brain,
apart from control of all our motorschools and so on, it controls
pretty much everything that we do.
Now, Rob, I'll ask you now, forexample, To cross your arms.
You probably can't seesomething but cross your arms.

(45:16):
Most right handers would do that.
With the right hand over the left,now I'm gonna ask you to uncross them
and cross 'em the other way around.
And some people can't even do it.
They gotta think, Howthe hell do I do that?
No,
that's exactly the same.
No, Yeah, , I wouldhave to, Yeah, I got it.
I got it.
No, I got
it.
You achieve that.
The very next time you go cross yourarms, you'll do it the same old way

(45:37):
because your subconscious brain isprogrammed to do all that, and your
conscious brain cannot control it.
So, Body length will give out signs thatreflect the true response that you have.
It is a virtual lie detector and therehave been some brilliant books written.
I one by an Australian guy, Allen Pease isquite famous, his work on body language.

(46:00):
But once I use this in the trainingsessions and I get involved in some
of things like territory, space,eye contact, all that sort of thing,
once they experience it, they say,My God, I can't believe, like I've
been living in an invisible world.
Why haven't I seen allthese things happening?
And quite often you can read an entireconversation without even, uh, speaking.

(46:20):
so you cannot totally master thosehidden forces within body language.
Ok.
It's a lie detector.
It's a lie detector and it actuallyis, if you stop and think about it.
that was less than number six.
And , I think very valuable anddefinitely skills that you need
to learn and practice and hone.

(46:41):
Let's move on to lesson.
No, just before we do on, sorry.
Just one thing that I think can't be,and that is hearing versus listening.
Now, hearing is a biological thing.
The truck goes past whether you wanna hearit or not, you hear it, the body hears it.
Your hearing system, if itworks and you don't have a
hearing, disability, it hears it.

(47:01):
Listening, however, is askill that can be learned.
And the reason for this is thatwhen we talk, we talk at something
around 150 words a minute.
Our brain is capable of taking in speech.
And processing it at upto 700 words a minute.
So there's a massive voidto fill, and that leads to
boredom and lack of attention.

(47:22):
We also have a, a window ofattention of about 45 seconds.
And if it's not stimulated, we dieat boredom and we stop listening.
So the differentiation means that wehave to concentrate on our listening,
and there's a set of listening skills.
Everything about not interruptingeverything, about maintaining the
eye contact, all those positivesthat you should do to become a good

(47:42):
listener and being a bad listenercan actually be quite offensive
to whoever you were talking with.
And I'll just give one example causeI don't wanna string this out, but one
example is what I call pencil listening.
You're talking with somebody and suddenlythe eye contact goes, they start writing
on a bit of paper or tapping on a tablet.

(48:05):
And you are trying to talk to them.
You're trying to tell themsomething and they're completely,
they're not even maintaining eyecontact and that's very offensive.
After a while, you wouldactually stop talking to me.
Stop giving them informationbecause you're too offended by it.
When it's so simple that if Isaid, Rob, these are important
things you're telling me.
I really do need to make some notes.
Do you mind if I just make a fewnotes while you describe that for me?

(48:27):
Once you seek their permission, youcan do no evil, but unless you do
that, it's just plain affronting.
And that's just one example ofpositive listening that a lot of
people just simply aren't aware of.
There are a number of littlesecrets to good listening like that.
Absolutely brilliant.
let's go on lesson number seven.
Persuasion is a matter of style.

(48:48):
Conviction is a matter of process.
Keith, over to you.
Correct.
No doubt in what you do.
You've met many, many people.
I'm sure that they haveyou hanging on every word.
Sadly, I'm not one of them, butI'm sure you've come across many
of them and you can't help butwonder I'm, Oh, this person, I'm
just hanging on their every word.
What is it that they're doing?
Is it, do they have a degree of charm?

(49:11):
Maybe.
Maybe they, they're blessed with alittle bit of charm and they've got
that persuasive manner about them.
They, they might have a, a goodvocabulary and a wonderful style about
them, and I call that persuasion.
As opposed to conviction.
Conviction is just a process.
For example, if you wanna convincesomebody of something, I might for
example, say I've got a good technique,which is called the fab technique.

(49:33):
And Rob, it's a terrific technique.
Now that's all I've said, Rob.
It's a terrific technique.
You'll then pause and say, Well, hang on.
How I know that?
Ho hum.
You know, tell somebody who cares, right?
But if I were to use a technique, aconviction technique that not only makes
a claim or a promise like that, butsupports it with a, a feature, then.

(49:54):
Supports that with an advantage.
What advantage does that give you?
Then in turn, does that advantagegive you a personal benefit?
And if I string that together andmake it, it's just a simple sentence.
It starts with the word.
Because this is a great process becauseit will keep you convincing in that

(50:14):
you will always offer the advantage.
It will make you even moreconvincing because you'll then
convert that to a personal benefit.
It will make you even more convincingif you add an example on it.
For example, I've just done thatsentence in that format that I was
talking about, giving you a reason totake on board what I'm saying by taking
it right out to a personal benefitto you and an even giving an example.

(50:36):
Now that's a very common conversationaltechnique and it's particularly
pertinent to public speaking, wherequite often you are up at a lectern.
You've got a massive audience out there,and apart from trying to see their
reactions, you can't get feedback.
This is a wonderful way toeliminate the need for feedback.
You don't make a point unlessyou take it to the nth degree.

(50:57):
Now, in its basic form, it'scalled the fab technique, but in
it's more sophisticated form, Icall it the conviction thread.
And it's what I train a lot of the,the sales people and managers to do.
And that's the process.
So you combine the two, that persuasivemanner, you've got that use of language,
that you have that ability to present,that you have, and you put it into
a a little train line of conviction.

(51:19):
And the key to it are the linking wordsbetween, to convert it from a promise
to a fact is the word because, and usethe word, because you can use your own
terminology in, in doing this, but theword because is the critical thing.
Because such a common word becauseit's used over and over again.
And because it doesn't offend anybody,because they hear it all the time.
So the word, because it's not affrontingbecause they hear it so often.

(51:41):
People are used to hearingit repetitively, so it
becomes the starting point.
You don't tell them something, butyou want them to know unless you add
because you give them the why factor aswell as the how, which, when and so on.
Give them the why factor.
Yeah.
in my sales cadet days, we weretaught to listen to, , w i I fm

(52:04):
what's in it for me?
That it exactly.
Okay.
Lesson number eight.
Do you think versus, do you feel.
They're very differentthings, don't you think?
Or do you feel they're the same?
? So let me just explainwhat I'm getting at here.

(52:24):
. This stems pretty much from a lotof my sales training material,
but it's a conversational thing.
It applies to any damn thing at barbecueor picnic, wherever you're, when you
press for a decision, people knowthat they've gotta make a decision.
That's a certain amount ofstress involved in that.
And if you apply it negatively,like using the word don't, don't

(52:44):
you think that's a good idea?
Couple of things happen.
First they get their back up, they think,Well, he doesn't think I believe it.
They could think he thinks I'm an idiot.
Why is he talking to melike that, don't you think?
Implying that I don't know anything.
So if I were to come to you then and say,Well, do you feel that's a good idea?
I'm not asking you or pressingyou for decision, I'm asking

(53:05):
for you, for your opinion.
Yeah.
And people are more than happyto give you their opinion often,
whether you want it or not.
So, So if you're trying to take, get atake on how a conversation's going, a
debate or a sale or whatever's going on,a negotiation statement, you're running.
Get a feel on it.
It's actually got a terminology,it's called a trial close.
Not, not trying to close the sale.

(53:27):
You're trying to get feedback.
You're trying to get afeel for, feel for it.
So that technique.
Is so friendly and, and it willattract either a positive or negative.
They're not necessarily gonna agreewith you, but you'll get the negative.
You'll even get an objectionin it's nice friendly form and
you can handle it without any,you know, antagonism going on.

(53:47):
So that's a conversational thingthat I even taught my grandchildren.
I'm not joking this, thisis an everyday thing.
This has got nothing to do with, withcommerce or selling or negotiating.
This is an everyday conversational thing.
If you wanna have a, an interactiveconversation and get the appropriate
response, use the word do use theword feel, Don't use the word don't,

(54:09):
and don't use the word think becausepressing for a decision creates
stress and creates unpleasantness.
Asking for an opinion is simplyfriendly and it's simply polite.
It's a style of in conversing.
So rather than saying, what do you think?
You say, how, how do you feel
about that?
How do you feel?
So even even if you don't use the donand you say, What, what do you think?

(54:34):
What do, Hang on, I gotta thinkabout this . But if you say,
Well, what do you feel about that?
It's asking tell you mylife story for God's sake.
Because it's friendly asking in afavorable, friendly manner for my opinion.
Certainly give it.
See, our lessons come from everywhere.
This is a very simple shortlesson, but it's so powerful.

(54:56):
Oh yes.
It's, it is so powerful.
It's a life skill.
It's not a negotiating skill.
It's not a, it's a life.
All right.
Well,
let's move on to lesson number nine.
and this is one that I'm notgonna comment on because I, again,
it's like your first lesson.
I totally agree with this.
There is a difference betweenleadership versus management.

(55:18):
Now, I know some of our audiencemight go, Yeah, I know, but
I ask you, do you really know
? Okay, well, let's, let's just break it down a little bit.
The, the issue of leadershipversus management.
If you, if you've got an action plan,you, you know, commercial team, right?
And the managers out running it,he'll tell you the how I want it done

(55:38):
and where I want it done and when Iwanna done, and what equipment to use.
And, and he's chasing an outcome.
It doesn't inspire you necessarily.
It simply gives you a set ofinstructions that you need to follow.
The difference between a manager doingthat and the leader is simply this, the
leader will explain why we are doing it.

(55:59):
The secret is in the why, because it'sthe why that inspires and motivates
you to do it and to do it well.
So the secret there is in the whynow, if you go back in time, we've,
we've tried to characterize this, thisleadership thing so many different ways.
It's embarrassing, but.
X and Y.
You remember the days, it's called X, theautocratic and the Y was the Democratic.

(56:22):
And then we went to a situationalleadership where we decided we
should adopt either a parentto parent relationship or a
parent to child relationship.
All these wonderful things came out ofHarvard over the years trying to define
what leadership was really all about.
And to be quite honest, someof it was quite embarrassing.
But I've got a very good case studyin my own background because I did

(56:43):
do a little stint in the military.
I was a a platoon commanderand I had a responsibility.
Fortunately, it didn't come tobe not in an action environment.
I didn't go overseas, but I was certainlytrained with the maintaining the life of
these people, these 30 young soldiers.
When you talk all autocraticleadership, we poo poo it.
We say there's no room for that.

(57:04):
You know, we've gotta have ameeting, gotta get consensus.
Japanese were masters at that.
They'd always get a consensusbefore the decision.
So there was never a bad outcome atthe end of it cuz they'd all agreed
before and that was what they, I think,remember they called it Nemawashi
.And that was the secret behind their brilliant production engineering.
Involve everybody in makingthe decision then nobody can
conflict with it when it's done.

(57:26):
So autocratic leadership, howeveryou come under fire, you a platoon of
soldiers, you suddenly come under fire.
Do those soldiers lying in the mudreally want you to call a meeting?
Do they really wanna puttheir two Bobs worth into the
meeting and give their opinion?
Of course not.
They want you to stand up, barkorders, get the machine guns
positioned correctly, get the firereturned, and protect their lives.

(57:49):
If we were in a building together andthey caught fire, we wouldn't want
somebody to say, Let's have a meetingand we'll determine what we're gonna do.
You'd want somebody to stand up, pickup a chair, smash it through the plate
glass window and say, Follow me people.
That's autocratic leadership.
So in times of immediacy, danger,desperation, and extreme need,

(58:12):
autocratic leadership does have a place.
The true leaders, the person who can putthe two together, know exactly when it's
caused for an autocratic approach andwhen it caused for democratic approach.
And in most commercial environments,the democratic is the way to go.
There's no question of it.
Because there's, there's so manyadvantages to it, but too many

(58:33):
people dismiss the autocraticstyle as being redundant.
It's not, There's a, thereare circumstances where
it's absolutely necessary.
So those are the, the two stylesthat, that I've sort of got used to
working with and differentiating.
And a lot of people ask me aboutthe difference, how do you see the
autocratic style versus the democratic?
And that's pretty much how I explain it.

(58:54):
Immediacy, danger, extreme need, threat.
Whenever that is present, itcalls for an autocratic approach.
Somebody wants somebody to take the lead.
Well, we spoke about, the different typesof leadership, you mentioned management,
but I wanna make it very clear.
Management is process driven.

(59:16):
Management is a howto, leadership is why.
Why?
It's all about the why.
Yeah.
All right.
Well give the reason.
The reason the the why gives theinspiration and provides some motivation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Without doubt.
Well,
that leads us to the 10th andfinal lesson, and then I'll
have one more question for you.

(59:37):
But the 10th and final lesson, thelong term challenges of preserving
relationships are, I don't know whatthey are, Keith, because I can't say
that I've had a long term relationship.
And what is it that you mean by long term?
Well, this can be long termrelationship in business.

(59:58):
Your clients, long termclients can be a long marriage.
And I've been, Not really,
Huh?
But, And ironically, it was in a businesssession that we actually strayed on.
We almost turned it into a marriagecounseling session because I wanted

(01:00:21):
to talk about the, the viabilityof a business in this state.
It's retaining clients.
Client retention is whatbusiness is really all about.
Yeah.
It's the two measures,The essence of business.
And we started to equate it, and I hadmixed, a mixed group of trainees, ladies
and and men all mixed up, and we straighton to a marriage counseling session.

(01:00:43):
They said, Well, does it equate to,you know, relationships of female male
relationships or anything in between?
Does it interpersonal relationships,does it equate to that?
And I thought, well, let's havea look at it because it goes
through stages, doesn't it?
And we distilled out of all this,this round table discussion, three Ls,
and I put 'em up on the whiteboard.

(01:01:03):
How does it start?
It starts with lust.
What does it grow into?
If you're lucky, it grows into another L.
Love, and that's sustainedfor a long period of time.
Eventually that wanes a little bit,you know, and that becomes loyalty.
So you're morphing through threestages of the relationship.

(01:01:24):
So we broke that back down and we put thatinto the context of a client relationship.
Now the lust is, lust in the personalrelationship is not quite the same as
your first day on a new job or yourfirst interview with a new client.
Certainly not, but there's adegree of excitement there.
There's, there's the newnessand the excitement of it.
So there is still a lust phase.
Once the relationship isformed, trust comes into it.

(01:01:47):
A genuine deeper thing comes in, youcall it love comes into it, and that
can sustain over a long period of time.
If it goes on long enough, youget to the point where it's, it's
a bit like that competence thing.
It's almost automatic and it'sheld together with loyalty.
There's such a degree of loyalty andtrust that everything else is forsaken.
So if you get a problem withthat relationship, and I.

(01:02:09):
I, I'm no marriage council.
So let's keep it on the business level.
If you've got a an issue with that,you can have a look at what stage the
relationship's at and have a look atthat L pallet and see which one of them
might be deficient and apply that one.
Do you need to put abit more lus back in it?
Do you need to re-energize it?
Put some excitement back in it?
Do you need to consolidatethat, that trust in the

(01:02:30):
relationship, the love component?
Or have we just become a bit stale andwe're just relying now on the loyalty
and maybe we've gotta inject somethingelse and you can look at it, which
L's missing and put that l back in.
So we came up with a reasonable form.
It's not ideal.
It's certainly
No, no, I, I like it, Keith.
But what dawns on me when I hearthat, and I think it's, a great

(01:02:53):
way to look at relationships.
And I'm just talkingbusiness relationships.
I mean, I know it works everywhere,but let's just keep it with business.
I look at business relationshipsand I look at the, the situation
we're all in now, the so-called,quiet, quitting, great resignation,
whatever the hell you wanna call it.
And it makes me think that maybeyou're missing an L because if we

(01:03:16):
don't get to loyalty, then there'sresentment that's gonna be built
up, which could lead to loathing.
Well, it could, it could be theone negative it, it really could be
important things you were saying here.
Rob, no, I I'm gonna add that onelow thing that puts a new, puts
a negative connotation in that
it, it does, and I don't mean to dothat, but I'm just taking what you've

(01:03:40):
said and looking at the situationnow, why are so many people leaving?
So I'm looking at it from thecontext of, our society today.
why would people leave their jobs?
Why would they do that?
So that, that's where I, I'mgetting the fourth L from, That's
where I'm getting loathing from.
If they're not looking after theirrelationship, by using your three

(01:04:02):
Ls, maybe they're causing thatfor, or maybe they've just got
a bad leader or a bad manager.
Well, another L is leadership, of course.
Yeah.
But invariably, if you go ferreting deeperin there, there'll be a leadership issue.
There's absolutely no doubt there'llbe a leadership issue behind.

(01:04:22):
So, uh, and, and we, we really don'thave, I guess, the time to go into a lot
of the, the details of that leadershipthing, but I do cover it in the book.
No free commercials, but it isin great detail in the book.
And if we put another L in, puttwo Ls in or put in loading,
which requires leadership to takeit to loyalty how'd that sound?
Lust, love effective leadership, loyalty.

(01:04:46):
We'll put a fourth in.
Love it.
Thank you for that.
Let's, this final question to you,Keith, what have you unlearned?
You know that unlearning is alot more different difficult
than learning, don't you?
That's why we ask the question.
Anything that you have unlearnedis just as valuable as the
lessons that you have learned.

(01:05:07):
Well, there's one thingthat I, I might have.
Possibly even unlearned it by now.
But one thing that plagued me fora long time, I had this intrinsic
belief that everything that youneed to to do must be rational.
There must be a reason for it.
There must be a rational reason to do it.
Everything was determined bylogic, had to be a reason.

(01:05:28):
But what I've learned, particularlysince I've become a professional lay
about, since I've retired from thefull-time workforce and started to
realize that's an enjoying life thatdoesn't involve working, I've now come
to the belief that perhaps I shouldunlearn that that belief is ill-founded.
Because some of the most enjoyablethings you will ever do in your
life have no rhyme or reasonor logic associated with them.

(01:05:50):
Absolutely not.
They're done for the pure pleasure andenjoyment, not just of yourself, but the
pure pleasure and enjoyment of others.
And it doesn't involve reasonand it doesn't involve logic.
I think I've nearly unlearned it..
Haven't done it yet.
So that's what I really wanna get rid of.
Haven't learned it completely.
Hmm.
That's a very interesting one, Keith.

(01:06:12):
And, and it's unique.
We've never had that before.
. That is a very interesting one.
Well, look, I, I want to leave theaudience with, with this anecdote.
Keith and I, worked togetherbriefly in the eighties and
when we developed this podcast.
I had Keith in my mind because Iremember being a young manager and

(01:06:36):
Keith saying, you know, something tome, which today is, like a cliche, but
I had never ever heard of this before.
We're sitting there, we'rehaving a discussion, and Keith
says, Work smarter, not harder.
And I just thought, this man, the guru,this man is, you know, is the sage of

(01:06:58):
all sages because I'd never heard it.
So when we were putting thispodcast together, that's the
anecdote that came to mind.
That's how I felt.
And I'm sure that when we were discussingit, we said there's a lot of lessons
that people have that through experience,that young rising leaders have never

(01:07:19):
heard of that don't know, and that couldchange, the course of their career, the
course of their life, or what have you.
And I'll tell you, Keith, it didchange the way I started to think.
It made me more strategic.
It made me more aware.
Of how to be a betterbusiness professional.

(01:07:41):
So I wanna give you on air credit forbeing a catalyst for 10 lessons learned.
So from me to you, Thank you.
Keith.
Good.
Very nice to hear.
So we'll leave it at that,but before I sign off, what is
it that Keith Rowe is doing?
Where can we find your book?
What's happening?

(01:08:01):
What's it called?
Okay.
There is the book I coin, the, theword, it's, Inter Personality, which
is indicating interpersonal skills.
The whole purpose of the book.
It does adopt a lot of my earlier sellingand negotiating material, but it's, it's
aimed at quite a different audience.
It's all about conversational skill andit's aimed at addressing the threat that

(01:08:24):
we now face, that those skills are beinglost because of the transition to online.
And it's been accelerated by Covid.
My last meaningful book was releasedin 2019 just before the arrival
of Covid, and along came Covid.
We started working from home.
We started shopping from home.
The transition to online happenedat a rate of knots, so I thought

(01:08:45):
I had to do something else, but Ithought this time I won't just make
it for the selling fraternity, theprofessional, uh, type publication.
I make it for the widercommunity cuz I see lots of
kids out there who need to, to.
Rack up a few miles with conversationalskill and practice and so on.
So that's the purpose of the book.
I'm, I'm trying to avert the threatof losing this wonderful thing we

(01:09:07):
have called interpersonal skills.
Yeah.
No, I think it's brilliant.
I would advise all our listenersto definitely go and get a copy.
It's, it's a great read.
And with that, Mr.
Keith Rowe, would like to thankyou for being our guest today.
And
My pleasure.
I really enjoyed our conversationand hopefully we can have another one

(01:09:28):
about a few other topics later on.
Well, thanks for the opportunity
. It's our pleasure.
So we'll finish here today.
You've been listeningto 10 Lessons Learned.
Our guest today has been KeithRowe, sharing his 10 lessons that
took him many years to learn.
This episode is supported, as always,by the Professional Development Forum.

(01:09:50):
Don't forget to leave us areview and comment on the show.
Tell us what you thinkabout today's lessons.
You can even email us atpodcast@10lessonslearned.com.
That's Podcast one zerolessons learned.com.
Go ahead and hit that subscribebutton so you don't miss an episode
of the only show on the internetthat makes the world a little wiser.

(01:10:14):
Lesson buy lesson.
Thank you, and see youat the next episode.

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