Frameworks for Leadership Success: Transforming Your Approach To Business With Chris Brindley

Episode Transcript
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Chris Brindley (00:07):
That's when I realised that managers get paid
for the hands and leaders getpaid for the brains.

Charlie Reading (00:13):
Welcome back to the Business of Endurance
podcast.
This is the first episode ofseason 10.
Who'd have thought?
10 seasons, wow.
And today's guest, chrisBrindley MBE, isn't just one of
Britain's most decoratedbusiness leaders.
He's a master of sustainablesuccess, resilience and high

(00:34):
performance thinking.
Named Britain's best boss,former managing director at
Metro Bank and chair of theRugby League World Cup, chris
brings ordering wisdom forged inthe fires of elite sport.
In this episode, chris revealsthe thinking frameworks that
separate leaders from managers,how marginal gains transform

(00:56):
teams and the untold storybehind building world-class
performance cultures.
If you're a business leader,coach or endurance athlete
looking to sharpen your mindset,this conversation is pure gold.
Think Diver CEO meets thediscipline of a sports
psychologist, with no fluff,just actionable insight.

(01:19):
So, whether you're running yourbusiness or a marathon, this is
how you endure, lead and win.
Let's dive into the episode withChris Brinley MBE.
Do you know what?
When we look at the back end ofthis podcast and we see
something really interesting, wesee that 57% of the people that

(01:41):
regularly listen to it haven'thit the subscribe button.
So could I ask you a quickfavor before we dive into
today's episode, if you'reenjoying Claire and I bringing
you amazing guests, not askingyou for patronage fees and not
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(02:02):
can help us continue to do thatand make it even better is to
hit that subscribe button.
And here's my promise to youwhen you subscribe, we'll make
it our mission, along with theteam that supports us, to
continue to improve this podcastevery week.
So thank you so much for yoursupport and for being a part of

(02:24):
the Business of Endurancecommunity.
Let's dive in.
So, chris, welcome to theBusiness of Endurance podcast,
really looking forward tochatting to you.
I know that, having listened toyou on other podcasts, and that
we're going to have some verysimilar ideas and concepts on
certain areas we're going totalk about, so I'm really
looking forward to diving intothat.
But I wanted to start bybecause you've been named the

(02:47):
Britain's best boss and you'veled the Rugby League World Cup,
which we've also talked aboutwith John Dutton, and you've
also been transforming MetroBank's culture, so you've
clearly thrived under pressure.
So I'd like to start byunderstanding what's the most
challenging leadership momentyou've ever faced and how did
you turn it into a story ofresilience and growth?

Great question, Charlie.
Thanks to you and Claire forthe invite.
Delighted to be a guest today,I think without a shadow of a
doubt the.
Rugby League World Cup 2021,.
It didn't take place in 2021,which I think was the reason for
the test of resilience.
As many people know, covid camein March 2020.
And I remember we were at aboard meeting, a two-day board.

(03:33):
It looked like we were going toget locked down and this was
March 2020.
And I remember earlyindications suggested it was
only going to be for a few weeks, maybe a month, and we all went
well, that's great.
You know, we've got 18 monthsbefore kickoff, we'll be fine.
This is a blip along the way.
As we all know, covid was a lotlonger and a lot more serious.
The challenge was we got to aplace whereby we were 100 days

(03:57):
to go to kickoff in 2021, and westill hadn't got all the
participation agreements signed.
And, in particular, the twoleading nations in the world,
both men and women, and that wasAustralia and New Zealand they
had concerns about travel andsort of going back to home after
the tournament and theirgovernments had a very different

(04:19):
approach to ours.
Less than 100 days to go, johnand I got a communication saying
that both Australia and NewZealand, men's and women's, had
withdrawn from the tournament.
So we'd got every contract inplace, every venue in place.
We'd got other nations ready totravel, both men and women, and
also we were running awonderful wheelchair tournament.

(04:42):
And the reality was we had somebig decisions to make as a
board and as an exec team, andthat was do we cancel the
tournament?
We sunk a lot of money into it.
We'd been wonderfully supportedby government.
We then thought do we postponeit?
But we didn't know how longCOVID was going to last or did
we decide that we were going tocarry on without Australia and

(05:03):
New Zealand?
And all the board had differentviews at the outset and it was
a real test of bringing peopletogether.
The fact that we'd started thejourney ultimately meant that we
were not going to cancel it.
I think our decision-makingconversations were around the

(05:25):
importance of athletesrepresenting their country in a
World Cup.
I'd never played professionalsport, but in talking with
people about either the Olympicsor a World Championships or a
World Cup, that's the pinnacleof people's career.
For example, we'd got teamsfrom the Cook Islands and Papua
New Guinea that were due to playin a women's tournament.

(05:45):
We had Brazil.
It was the first time a SouthAfrican nation would have ever
taken part in the tournament andI think we decided it wasn't
the job of an administrator towithdraw hope and the ability to
represent your country on theworld stage, so we made the
decision to postpone it for 12months.
The reason that neededresilience was every contract
became null and void, so havingto try and renegotiate contracts

(06:09):
, some of which were lost.
Some venues that were availablein 2021 weren't going to be
available in 2022.
An example of that was Anfield.
Anfield had planned buildingwork during the Qatar World Cup,
also knowing that we were goinginto 22,.
We were moving from space in2021 where there were no other
major events that year.
In 2022, we had the Euros thathad been postponed, some of the

(06:33):
big games being played in GreatBritain, we had the World
Gymnastics Championships, we hadthe Qatar World Cup and we were
trying to attract customers'interest and attention in a year
that was a crowded year forsport.
And then we also started tolook at the financial impact.
We refunded over £1 millionworth of ticket revenue, most of

(06:53):
which never came back thefollowing year.
So it was a financial impact.
And then, when you looked into2022, the reality was we'd seen
a change in the economicsituation.
You know, base rate had startedto go up.
The cost of gas and electrichad started to go up.
As a result of base rate goingup, mortgage payments started to
go up.
So, from having a healthyeconomy going into the

(07:17):
postponement, the economy movedagainst us and that proved to be
a real challenge.
There were lots of differentfactors which tested our
resilience, charlie, but thereality is we delivered the
biggest, the best, the mostinclusive World Cup that the
sport has ever seen.
The number of teams, the numberof athletes.
We introduced Wheelchair RugbyLeague to a whole new audience,

(07:38):
live on the BBC.
We had a sell-out final for thewheelchair.
We built a purpose-built courtinside manchester central.
We're the only sport ever tohave held three world cup finals
in a space of a 24-hour periodin the same city.
And there's a wonderful pictureat the end of the men's final,
which australia won, where thegillaroos, the australian

(08:01):
winners for the women, and alsoengland that won the rugby
league wheelchair world cup,were all on the pitch at Old
Trafford at the same time.
And again, it's a picture thatmade history and made us feel
very, very proud and thatsometimes, when you get there,
you realise that it was allworth it without a shadow of a
doubt.
Whilst it tested our resilience, we were proud to be part of

(08:22):
what we wanted to do, which wasto make a difference to the
communities in which we serve,and rugby league served as a
vehicle for that, and there wassome special moments.
So, yes, it was tough, yes, itstretched us, but you know,
there's no achievement withoutchallenge brilliant, and I think
so.

What's amazing about that story is that you
created arguably the best rugbyleague World Cup of all time
from a very, very from you know,from a more difficult position
than ever before.
What was it about?
The mindset of the people?
Or the values?

(08:57):
Or, you know, what was it aboutthe board that allowed you to
get to the point where you turna really difficult situation
into delivering something quiteamazing at the end, Charlie?

we.
We had a board meeting todecide what we would do whether
we would postpone, cancel orcarry on and John had done a
ring round in the morning andfound out that we we had a split
vote.
Usually when you get a splitvote on a board, it becomes the
chair's decision, and I was thechair and I remember saying to
John that that cannot happen.

(09:28):
Not that I was afraid of makingthe decision, but the story
would have been more about thesplit vote and the chair casting
vote rather than actually thedecision we made, and often
people sometimes forget.
Behind it were athletes, werebackup teams.
The women in Papua New Guineararely leave their island, so to

(09:48):
create a moment whereby theywould come to a different
country, experience a differentculture.
We had Samoa, we had Tonga thatplayed out the most amazing
quarterfinal, and I remembersaying to John I'll ring round
now and I talked to each boardmember about our values, about
being inclusive and thereforethe importance for me of the

(10:08):
tournament going ahead.
We talked about let's view itfrom the athlete's perspective
rather than our perspective, andwhilst we had our frustrations,
I can't imagine anybody morefrustrated than an athlete that
has trained for a number ofyears for a World Cup, wanting
to represent their country.
So we talked about being boldand brave that was one of our
values.
We talked about beingworld-class.

(10:30):
We talked about being inclusive.
We talked about being authentic.
Those were our four values and,ultimately, I believe, we were
given the privilege oforganising the tournament.
So, therefore, we had a reallygood discussion as a board and,
instead of it being a split vote, it was a unanimous vote.
They were postponed for 12months and we would go again.

Claire Fudge (10:49):
It's amazing to hear like you know the
turnaround and when you weresaying about you know athletes
having to wait that amount oftime, I didn't realise actually,
until you said about you knowwomen in Papua New Guinea.
They would, you know, theywouldn't have left usually.
So to come over and you knowand have this stage to be able
to play on just amazing.
Thinking about leadership andmanagers I've heard you talk

(11:12):
before about you've said insomething I've listened to,
leaders think and managers do.
Yeah, what does that mean sofor people listening?
What do you mean by leadersthink, managers do?

Well, it's not original.
This I'd recommend to allviewers and listeners to look at
the work of humphrey walters.
Humphrey walters worked withclive woodward pre-2003 rugby
union world cup victoriouscampaign for england in the
men's world cup of 2000.
I invited humphrey Walters tocome and speak to our team and

(11:48):
one of his opening slides wasabout managers and leaders.
And the word manus is Latin forhands-on, so manager is
hands-on, which is, you know,getting into the detail, and
leader L-A-E-D-E was Latin forthe root ahead.
So therefore that's when I-ewas latin for the route ahead.
So therefore that's when Irealized that managers get paid

(12:08):
for the handles and leaders getpaid for the brains.
My first ever job player wasprinting checkbooks in a bank.
It was, you know, the entryrole.
Nobody actually asked me aboutstrategy or or what.
What did I think?
I was given a load ofcheckbooks and told to print
them.
So I'm pretty sure that myearly days was hands-on and just
managing my own expectations aswell as my own workload.

(12:30):
But I do believe that is thebest example that I've ever had
in my career from Humphrey, andhe's got a great book called the
Little Book of Winning and itis little but it's powerful, and
that, for me, was always how Iwould talk to people about.
We get paid for our criticalthinking and ideas are free.
I know we'll come on to thesubject of ideas a little bit

(12:52):
later and therefore, even ifyour job's hands-on, I do still
ask you questions about what doyou think?
How could you make it better?
So that's the reality behind it.
On a leadership journey, I talkabout leading self, leading
others and leading a business,and everybody's a leader,
because everybody has theprivilege of leading themselves,
how they choose to behave, howthey choose to interact, how

(13:15):
they choose to speak to others,and then you get the privilege
of leading others.
You know, if I had a pound forevery time I met somebody who
just got into their firstmanagement or leadership role
who said, chris, I just wisheverybody would think like me.
And the reality is they don't,because we're all different.
What your job is, perhaps asyour first leader, is to get
people to think about theorganization, about the customer

(13:37):
, about colleagues, about thefuture, about learning, about
continuous improvement.
So therefore, that's's then notleading others.
And then, when you start tolead a business, actually you're
so far away from the process.
In many occasions and I had theprivilege of being the managing
director for NatWest for thenorth of England and Scotland.
There's over 5,000 people inour team and I never once served

(14:02):
on the counter, claire.
But as the managing director Iwas responsible for every
transaction that went on in the435 outlets of NatWest.
I couldn't do and I couldn'tphysically serve every customer
in every branch, but I needed tothink about how every customer
got served, got served well, weengaged them, we gave them the

(14:22):
right amount of money, we didthe right projects, all of that
stuff.
So for me I've been throughthat journey of hands-on at
NatWest right through to beingresponsible for every
transaction.
But I physically couldn't do it, so I had to then think about
how best to get it done throughthe team that I had in play.

I'll come on to another question, actually in a
minute, but to do with yourapprenticeship at the age of
40-something.
I think, which was reallyinteresting to listen to.
I'm going to ask you somethingabout that in a second.
But how would somebody then gofrom, I guess, changing their
mindset a little bit from kindof this managing and doing to
really kind of more of athinking mindset?

I've got a group of people together in a couple
of weeks and we're going to theRoyal Northern College of Music
and the reason being is I talkabout leadership in the same
light as a conductor of anorchestra.
So we are going to learnconductorship for two days and
the reason I say that is theconductor doesn't play the
instrument.
And often I say to leaders not,it's not about how many other

(15:26):
people's jobs you can do, it'sabout how do you organize your
resources that are available togive a really great performance,
and that, that, for me, is theskill, and it's hard for some
people to let go.
They trust themselves sometimesmore than they trust others.
But again, one of the insightsI sit down with people, claire,

(15:48):
and share and ask is if you goback to your first ever day at
work and it might be for somepeople 16 or 18 or perhaps 21 if
they left university I ask thequestion if on that first day at
work, somebody handed you yourin tray and your inbox that you
currently have today, how goodwould you have been at doing it?

(16:08):
And I suspect not very goodwould be the answer, perhaps
overawed.
So the question I ask is howhave you grown to the point
where, on that first day, youdidn't feel competent, to the
point now where you're reallydoing a good job and the answer
is you've probably had somereally good training.
You've probably had a goodcoach or a good mentor or a good

(16:30):
boss.
You've probably messed up a fewtimes, but you learned from it,
so that's okay.
How do we learn from our lessons?
We've probably had a culture oflearning.
So, again, I remember my timeat British Gas and my engineers
were on the road a lot, and Ijust suggested that perhaps we
can use that time on the roadwhilst travelling between jobs,

(16:52):
maybe to learn, as well aslisten to Radio 1 or Radio 2 or
whatever.
So I think there's learningopportunities right throughout
your lifetime and youremployability.
So for me, that's how youchange from doing to thinking,
which is allocate some time tothink, use opportunities to
learn traditional learning, butmaybe learn from others as well,

(17:13):
learn from your mistakes and asa result of that, that's when
your brain's a muscle.
So the more you exercise thebrain, just like you would your
arms or your legs or your heart,then why wouldn't you choose to
have a really smart program formaking your brain the best and
fittest and most useful?

it can be.
I think that's brilliant.
I'm a massive advocate of this,and it's not just about the
leader being learning andgrowing.
It's about instilling this allin your team, isn't it?
How do you create a culture inbusinesses that you've worked in
?
How have you created a culturewhere people are learning and
growing and there's that driveto be better?

I think I talk about the future an awful lot,
Charlie, because that's wherewe're going to spend the rest of
our lives, and the futuretypically has an element of
unknown, but also it does havean element of known as well.
So for me, I always talk aboutthe difference between being
employed and being employable,and your employment can end at
any time through no fault ofyour own.

(18:13):
I do a case study on Woolworths.
When Woolworths went bust andthey made tens of thousands of
people redundant, it wasn'tnecessarily an individual's
fault and it wasn't because theylacked learning.
The organization just didn't dowhat it needed to do to stay
afloat.
So I talk about employabilitybecause I think if you've got
employability, you're likely tobe employed forever, and

(18:34):
therefore I break down people'sperformance into personal
qualities like resilience, liketimekeeping, like a desire to
learn, flexibility, pluswhatever technical skills you
might need for that job.
And then I ask people to thenconsider where consistency comes
in.
And the very best eliteathletes I've ever seen or

(18:54):
worked with they have a highdegree of consistency of both
personal qualities and technicalskills.
So therefore we talk about howconsistent, and that is about
practice, it's about coaching,it's about observation If it's
good enough for an elite athlete.
It's good enough for theworkplace.
So I talk about the benefits ofbeing the best you can be.
I talk around.
There'll be somebody else inanother organization who is

(19:17):
prepared to develop themselvesfor an opportunity that may
arise, for an opportunity thatmay arise.
And if you don't, and you comeup against that person for a job
, I believe that if theyprepared better than you, there
is a strong chance they will getthat job ahead of you.
And when I present, I alwaysuse the same slide at the end.
It's the same final slide I'vebeen using for 20 years and it's

(19:39):
a quote by Seneca.
And Seneca was accused of beinga lucky general and he got
frustrated with that.
So he addressed all his fellowRomans and said luck is when
preparation meets opportunity,and I think there's the
opportunity for everybody to bebetter at who they are and what
they do.
Sadly, some people aren'tprepared to do the hard yards of
learning.

(19:59):
They'd rather watch TV.
I don't watch a lot of TV.
I'd rather learn a bit moreabout leadership, about
performance, about motivation,and motivation is something that
I again, I spend a lot of timewith individuals talking about
what's their motive for action.
That's, you know the definitionof motivation and why would it
be good now to start somethingthat in six, eight, 10 years

(20:20):
time they might have a wonderfulopportunity?
And because they've put thatpreparation in, they'll be in
poor position to take advantageof that opportunity and all it
brings them.

And the other thing that kind of occurs to me
as you're talking about this isgrowth is one of our six human
needs.
So to be truly happy, we needto actually feel that as an
individual, we're growing.
So not only do we benefitbecause we're in a position to
seize the opportunity when itarises, but we benefit because
we're in a position to seize theopportunity when it arises.
We're actually happier alongthe journey because we ourselves
can see ourselves growing.

Charlie.
I mean when I talk to peopleabout self-esteem, self-belief,
self-concept, I talk about thosesmall achievements that we all
do.
I remind people that in theearly months of our lives we
achieved one of the biggesttransformation programs ever is
when we moved off four limbs totwo and, and you know, and we
wobbled a bit, we fell down abit.

(21:10):
We used support mechanisms likea sofa or a wall.
Perhaps other people helped usby holding two hands, but the
motivation was either I've gotan elder sibling in there on two
limbs and I want to follow them, or there's a shiny thing
somewhere higher than where Ican reach and therefore I want
to reach it.
And suddenly we're motivated ata really early age and that's a

(21:30):
huge sense of achievement.
So I think those small sensesof fulfilment and
self-achievement, I think weshould recognise them and often
we take them for granted and weforget that we've been through
an awful lot of change in ourlives.
So when somebody says change,it's not something to be fearful
of, it's something to beembraced because it has really
enhanced our lives Brilliant.

Now one of the things I've so I've listened to
a few different interviews ofyou in the lead up to this and
what I loved and what I reallyconnected with was that I've
heard you refer to quite a fewdifferent frameworks along that
journey, and I think for peoplein business, it's really
powerful to understand why isframework thinking, thinking
using frameworks, and why isthat important?

(22:12):
How does that help you solvecomplicated problems?
So I'd love you to explain whyyou think thinking in creating
frameworks is powerful, but alsofor you to give us an example
of one where you use itregularly in your business or
life.

So frameworks help because I think it's a
start point.
I regard myself as a pracademic.
I get Hertzberg's theory ofmotivation and I could do a
lecture on it, should I want to,but most people on me want the
practical application.
That's the prac bit.
So often.
What a framework will do is itmeans you've not got a blank

(22:49):
piece of paper.
It means you can start writingsome headings down.
So one that I use all the timeis Ken Blanchard's model of
situational leadership.
And what Blanchard says is ifyou've got somebody in your team
who's not performing at thelevel you want to do, you have a
diagnostic toolkit, and he saysin the book don't prescribe

(23:11):
before you diagnose.
And I see a lot of bosses whoactually make their mind up what
the issue is without asking anyquestions and, even worse, not
even listening to the individual.
So how they then couldprescribe the right solution, I
just don't know.
And what Blanchard says isthere's four stages you just

(23:33):
want to explore with everyindividual Stage.
Number one is knowledge.
What's the chance of somebodybeing really successful in
achieving something if theydon't know what to do?
Well, I'd say it's almost zero.
So wouldn't it be a good ideaif somebody's not done what you
wanted them to do, if youchecked if they knew how to do
it, and that I find it reallysimple to find out.

(23:55):
If somebody knows what to do, Ithink you can ask them how
would you do this?
You know and I've worked in twobanks and we took all that
assurance, testing.
We'd sit there and thissituation, this scenario could
you tell me what the process is?
Could you walk me through it?
When I was younger, my childrenwere younger gave them quizzes.
They got none out of 20 on theGreen Cross Code.
I'm hardly allowing them to goout the house and cross the road

(24:16):
on their own, am I?
Because they don't even knowwhat to do.
So first of all, can you justcheck that they know what's
expected from them and they knowwhat process to follow?
Secondly, blanchard says if youknow what to do, have you got
the ability to translate theknowledge into skill.
So after knowledge comes skill.
And often people can tell mewhat they're going to do, but
under a real life situation.

(24:37):
Perhaps they've not rehearsedthe process enough times for
them to be able to execute it ina real-life situation with a
customer.
And the way to find out ifsomebody's skillful is to
observe them and give themfeedback.
And again I go back to what Isee in the world of elite sport.
Athletes are obsessed withfeedback.
It can help them shave 0.01 offa swim or a run, and that's the

(24:59):
difference between first placeand sport.
You know, feedback's a gift andit's free.
So observation of somebody andthen helping them with that
skill I look at.
You know, sheffield won theUSPGA last night and Rory won
the players and as a result ofthat they've got coaches.
And if it's good enough for thebest in the world, then it
should be good enough for all ofus to get to be observed.

(25:21):
And again, I think some peoplejudge somebody's performance on
the result without actuallyseeing the performance.
So how can you feed back whenyou've not seen whether somebody
opened a conversation wellhandled objections, well
negotiated well?
Blanchard calls knowledge andskill competence.
He then draws a line that saysif you've got somebody that's
knowledgeable and skillful butthey're still not performing at

(25:43):
a high level level, what youmight want to explore is their
levels of confidence.
And when I look at sport, whatI often find is elite performers
.
They've got high levels ofknowledge and they've displayed
in the past high levels of skill, but the reason they're not
performing is because they'velost a bit of confidence in
themselves or the teammates orthe tactics and what I get.

(26:03):
I can observe people forconfidence.
I can have a chat with themabout how they're feeling and
often if somebody's low onconfidence, what they need is a
good listening to.
If you don't do the diagnostic,what you end up getting is a
good talking to.
If my confidence is low and Iget a good talking to, or worse
still, is my confidence going toget any better?
Probably not.
I want somebody to remind methat when I was at my best, this

(26:27):
is how I perform and explorewith me how I get back to that
feeling.
So that's the third part of thediagnosis of confidence.
Then the last bit if you've gotsomebody in the past that's been
knowledgeable, skilful andconfident, the reason they might
not be performing is lack ofmotivation.
Maybe they just don't want tobe where they are today, maybe a
family member's really poorly,maybe they've got a concern

(26:51):
outside of the workplace, ormaybe they just don't like it
here anymore.
And often again, when I speakto professional footballers,
these can be some of the verybest footballers in the world
that just don't have themotivation to play for that
particular club or thatparticular manager.
So there's the framework.
I have a diagnosticstraightaway that goes knowledge
, skill, confidence, motivation.
It just enables me to followthe framework, and how I liken

(27:12):
it is either tools in a toolkit.
So I worked at British Gas andmy engineers a set number of
tools and they knew how to useeach one really well.
They used some more than others.
And then when I talk to golfers, golfers know the elite golfers
have got 14 clubs and each oneof them has a different function
.
So I then start thinking maybemy toolkit for leadership is

(27:33):
blanchards model.
My organizational design ischarles handy's gods of
management.
For people strategy it'sricey's recruitment, induction,
competence, excellence andsuccession.
So all the frameworks do isallow me to have a start point
and then and go.
Will this tool help me do thejob I need it to do?

(27:54):
Flexible?
And I spent a day watchingglass blowers in morano, which
is an island just off venice.
The tools that thoseglassblowers used, charlie, were
hundreds of years old, butthese were real craftsmen and
they knew how to use the tools.
So for me the model is a tooland you don't need that many.

(28:14):
Funnily enough.
I don't mind which coachingtool you use, but just use the
one and master the one I use.
Grow by John Whitmore.
What's the goal?
What's the reality of where weare now?
What are the options to getfrom where we are to where we
want to be?
The W is the will, the what,the when and what can get in the
way.
You know, matthew Syed, in hisbook Bounce, talks about the

(28:34):
power of practice and the mythof talent.
And again, just get a tool thatyou're comfortable with using
to create the outcome that youwant.
So that, for me, is the powerof models.
It just gives me a start pointaround the blank piece of paper
so I can then start to thinkaround the tool and work towards
the outcome I'm looking for.

I think the idea of a framework also for that
person that you may be coaching,or the athlete themselves,
having them be able to knowwhere they are in that process
as well, and their understanding.
When you, when you've usedframeworks in the past, where do
you think your use of likemodeling and framework has
really benefited you?
So, in a situation that was,you know, particularly sort of

(29:16):
high stake, where have youreally used one of your
frameworks?
Where has it really benefitedyou?

Claire, I'm smiling because when, when you
hold a global tournament, youhave an observers event where
you invite people from othersports to come and discuss how
the tournament is, how you'veprepared for it.
And we had ours on the Fridaybefore the wheelchair final,
which was the night, and themen's and women's finals, which

(29:43):
was a doubleheader, at OldTrafford.
And I always remember burstingout laughing as the chair of our
Risk and Audit Committee, mikePearls, walked into the room
with a huge beach ball, and Imean a big beach ball, and I
laughed because when we weretalking about the tough decision
around postpone, cancel, cancelor carry on, I talked about a

(30:05):
beach ball with everybody, andthe beach ball is a framework
that the beach ball's half redand half white.
In this instance, and often,what happens is somebody will be
stood in front of the whitepart of the beach ball and
somebody else will be stood infront of the red bit and
somebody comes along and sayswhat color's the beach ball?
One person sh will be stood infront of the red bit and
somebody comes along and sayswhat colour's the beach ball?
One person shouts white, theother shouts red.

(30:26):
Then people say no, it's notwhite, it's red and then to go
no, no, no, I don't know whatyou're saying.
Of course it's red.
No, it's white, no, it's red.
And eventually people just digthe heels in, convinced that
they're right.
The reason talk about the beachball is, before we shout louder
, can we just go for a walkaround the beach ball in its
entirety?
Because what you'll find isit's red and white.

(30:50):
And my experience of life is, ifdecisions are not straight, red
or white.
So therefore want us to walkthrough the beach ball and ask
why somebody sees what they see,and that might be their
experience, it might be aqualification, it might be what
newspaper they read andtherefore they formed an opinion

(31:10):
.
So when we had situations whereI wanted people to listen, to
respect alternative views, evenif they were different from
their own, I would walk in witha beach ball and that was a
symbol for us to do morelistening and reflection and
understanding.
I'm a big fan of Gandhi's quote.
You know, first seat tounderstand.
So one of the questions I oftenask is what makes you say that?

(31:34):
I always say the opposite ofright is left.
Some people think the oppositeof right is wrong and people
will go you're wrong.
No, no, no, no, no.
If you see red, I believe thatyou're seeing red, even though I
might be seeing white.
But funny enough, walkingaround the beach ball and being
prepared to listen to analternative view, I think is one
of the real skills ofleadership.

I love the idea of just walking in the beach ball.
I mean, what a great idea ofred and white.
And also your idea of right andleft, not right and wrong.
I really like that.
Working in the world ofnutrition, people often ask me
you know, is this a good food oris it bad food?
And I always talk about there'slike no good and bad.
You know there's differentsituations, so I really like
that idea of thinking.

(32:15):
You also talked quite a bitwhen I was listening before this
podcast about different models.
So particularly I was listeningabout the three revolutions
that you talk about.
What are these threerevolutions?

Claire, I was blessed in 1996 to be in the
audience at the National IndoorArena in Birmingham and the
speaker was a guy called JackBlack, and I don't mean the
American actor.
Jack Black is the founder ofMindstore and I can only give
credit to jack for the threerevolutions.
But this was 1996 that's almost30 years ago, and it made a

(32:52):
huge impact on me and you knowjack still on linkedin and
youtube and stuff like that andI would really would encourage
people to have a look at thework Jack does.
I call it mental architecture,that's my language.
Jack Black said the future isgoing to be different from the
present, which is different fromthe past.
The three revolutions he sharedthat day was number one

(33:13):
technology revolution.
Now, if you were talkingtechnology revolution in 1996,
as he was, we were in the reallyearly embryonic stages of the
internet, never mind Zoom, teams, uber, ai, all of that stuff
algorithms.
So he talked about thetechnology revolution and where
I've applied it in business,claire, is I think technology is

(33:35):
wonderful, particularly arounddoing the heavy lifting, what
that means.
If technology can do the heavylifting for individuals, that
creates capacity for individualsand therefore, if you've got
some capacity, why not use someof that capacity to build your
capability, so become better atwho you are and what you do.
And, as a result of that, thethree C's of capacity capability

(33:57):
.
The third C is confidence.
So that whole bit I always ask.
The question is can we usetechnology to do some of the
onerous tasks, some of the tasksthat humans perhaps get wrong
or aren't particularly motivatedby doing so?
It creates drudgery.
I do look at technology now,and you know, the first mobile
phone was the size of a brick.

(34:17):
If you look at technology now,not only is it a phone, it's
everything but a phone.
You know, my daughter rarelyrings me.
She'll WhatsApp me, snapchat me, instagram me, everything else
me.
And then, on top of that, I canlisten to music, I can take
photographs, I can look at somefiles, I can do my banking, I
can order a cab through Uber, asI've said.
So the technology revolution iswonderful and therefore we

(34:39):
should embrace it.
The second revolution Jackcalled it the consumer
revolution.
I've probably winded it now topeople revolution, both
customers and colleagues.
When I grew up, if I wanted togo shopping, claire, I'd have to
be careful, because the shopswould be shut half day Wednesday
, half day Saturday and all daySunday.
And if I wanted to buysomething other than from a shop

(35:00):
I would have had to have had acatalogue, a paper catalogue, at
home.
That was for money poor peoplein reality.
But you now look at consumernow and you look at artisan
bakeries, you look at bespokecoffee shops, you know.
You look at Pret-a-Manger thathad a vegan brand.
So suddenly the consumer hasmoved from almost this block
thinking into real individualthinking and we've got the rise

(35:23):
of influencers, so understandinghow people think and behave.
So my recommendation to anybusiness is just just get in
once every few months abehavioral psychologist to talk
about how your customers mightbe thinking about behaving and
how different they might bebehaving going forward than the
past.
But also some of yourcolleagues, whether that's a, an

(35:44):
Alpha, a Gen Z, a Gen Y, youknow baby boomers.
So I think there's a lot moredifferential in our approach to
the workplace, but also adifferential in our thinking
about how we purchase.
When I was growing up, theenvironment wasn't a
consideration in my buyinghabits.
Yeah, I've got a young daughter.

(36:05):
She makes her purchasingdecisions based on an
organization's approach to theenvironment, to social impact.
So suddenly thatconsumer-struck colleague
revolution I think is worthbeing mindful of.
Then the third one is the worldorder revolution.
Usually world orders werepretty easy, but it to predict

(36:25):
your world order changes at amicro level.
If you get a new next-doorneighbor or you get a new boss.
It's never the same.
It's always different,sometimes better, sometimes
worse, but it's different andthat's at a micro level, a macro
level easy to predict in thefuture.
In the past, we had a generalelection every five years, the
presidential election was everyfour years and you sort of went

(36:49):
we'll just roll with it.
If you look at, we had brexit Ithink it was 2016.
We had covid in 2020 we cameout of covid pandemic and into a
, a war in europe for the firsttime since the end of the second
world war.
Then we've had a cost of livingchallenge and suddenly we're
seeing unrest in the Middle East.
So therefore, suddenly peopletalk about perma-crisis.
Now that's the world order.

(37:09):
And then on top of that, you'vegot the role of individuals.
So I look at Greta Thunberg.
If somebody would have said 10years ago that a Swedish
schoolgirl will have a greaterinfluence on the environmental
movement than the president ofany established country, I'd
have gone, really, but she has,and she does.
So.

(37:29):
The world order.
I look at how people consumegoods.
I look at aggregators now I buymy insurance via an aggregator
because they do all the heavylifting using the technology,
and my behavior now is to go andget the best deal, but instead
of me having to go around 30 or40 different insurance companies
, I just go to one that happensto have a meerkat as a front and

(37:49):
therefore it enables me to savetime and make an informed
decision, because time for me,claire, is a commodity.
I don't let people steal mymoney and I can assure you, I
don't let people steal my timeeither.
So this is how people arestarting to think differently
now in the world.
So that's the three revolutions, and it really is just being

(38:10):
prepared, because they do changelives.
And you've got a choice you caneither be ahead of the curve
because you're thinking aboutthat, or you cannot think about
it and it might define you.
And if I look at the likes of awalrus or a kodak or a
blockbuster or a nokia, when Ido my research, it usually boils
down to they didn't understandthe three revolutions and it

(38:31):
defined their future, whereasthe best organizations are
always thinking of the threerevolutions, and I think apple
and amazon are great examples ofthat I really love this
framework.

we've got a couple more frameworks in there.
We've got the three Cs and thethree revolutions, which I love.
But I wanted to try and drilldown on this principle and say,
well, armed with that knowledgefrom Jack Black, how did you go
about using that framework whenyou were managing Metro Bank,
particularly within the techlet's focus purely on the

(39:02):
technological revolution how didyou use that at Metro?

Well, let's be really clear, Charlie.
There are some wonderfultechnical people and I'm not one
of them.
So it goes back to leadershipand thinking.
What we did really well atMetro Bank is we decided that
our culture would be outside in.
What do I mean by that?
It meant we will take a look atourselves from the outside, as

(39:27):
our customers do, and we won'tjust stand in their shoes.
I could stand in somebodyelse's shoes, but the question
is, could I walk a mile in theirshoes?
And that's different.
See, inside our organisationsthey tell the customers what
they're going to get, whetherthey like it or not.
Let me give you a real exampleof that.
Of all the executive peopleI've met in the insurance

(39:48):
industry, the banking industry,other utility industry, never
once has anyone produced me aletter from a customer that's
been sent into the business thatsays I'm really bored with
human beings answering the phoneimmediately.
I insist.
You install an automated voicesystem which keeps me waiting
for 35 minutes whilst telling methat my call is really

(40:10):
important to you.
See, that is inside out.
No one's asked for it, butyou're getting it, whether you
like it or not.
Right?
And even more bizarrely, thesecompanies have values that say
we put the customer at the heartof everything, we do.
No, you don't.
You're lying, you're lying toyourself, you're lying to your
customers.
Right, and the reason they doit is because it's a cosplay.
Okay, it's a cosplay, but atleast be honest with people,

(40:32):
don't take us for fools.
So at metrobank, we wanted to beoutside in, so it was all
around.
How can we be better for ourcustomers?
So example is we opened ateight o'clock in the morning
till eight o'clock at night.
Why?
Because customers told us thatactually, opening at nine
o'clock meant they were usuallyin work.
Shutting at 3.30 meant we shutbefore they left work.

(40:54):
So then what did we do?
Well, we allowed you to go inat lunch times.
What did banks do?
Give staff lunch times off, sowe had less people and more
customers.
Well, no wonder people queued.
So if we did 8 till 8,typically we had no control of
when the bus and the tubearrived.
So therefore, let's beconvenient, let's open on bank
holidays.
I remember one bank executivesaid to me you can't open on a

(41:15):
bank holiday.
Well, I can, because it's aself-imposed holiday.
The only legal requirement is Idon't open on Christmas day and
I don't open on Easter Sunday.
So we chose to open bankholidays, and the one that I
think was the best leadershipdecision we ever made was when
we started to look at why peoplecomplained and whether we could
do anything about it, and oneof the most common complaints

(41:36):
was mislaid my card, and youcancelled it immediately after
I've spoken to you, and thensod's law is when you cancelled
it, I've then gone home andfound it in my jacket pocket or
another bag, or, if you're astudent, you probably found it
in the bar the last bar you werein the night before, and what
that we realised is that cost usa lot of money in reissuing

(41:59):
cards, but it caused a lot ofcustomer frustration.
So our IT team went away andsaid let's see how we can solve
this.
And they solved it by creatinga system where you could suspend
the card from being used tomake sure that people's funds
couldn't be accessed improperly.
But if you found it, you couldphone us up and reactivate your

(42:21):
card, or you could do it throughthe app, and I remember one
bank six years after we.
If you found it, you couldphone us up and reactivate your
card, or you could do it throughthe app and I remember one bank
, six years after we came outwith it, did a big TV advert as
if it was brand new.
We'd been doing it for sixyears at Metro Bank and that,
for me, is how you usetechnology.
We printed our cards in storeand I remember one banker
accused me of being inefficientbecause he said we can produce a

(42:42):
card offshore cheaper than youproduce yours in store with your
machines.
What they didn't add on was thepostage cost to them sending
out the card in one envelopeyour pin.
That wasn't your pin, so youhad to go and change it anyway
in another envelope, whereas atmetrobank, if you opened your
account in store I think we did75 of all accounts within 15
minutes you got to pick the pinnumber you wanted and before you

(43:05):
left the store we checked thatyour card was working.
So you had your pin in yourcard in your pocket within 15
minutes and we could replace oneimmediately within 15 minutes
as well by walking into anymetro bank store.
Going my car doesn't seem towork.
Even to this day, mosttraditional banks still say your
replacement card will be withyou in three to five days.
I don't remember any customerwanting three to five days wait

(43:27):
time.

If you were, you've obviously got a huge
amount of experience of thebanking sector.
If you were managing a banktoday in the world of challenger
banks like Monzo and Starlingand in a world of AI and
technology moving at lightningspeed, and in a world of AI and
technology moving at lightningspeed, what do you think is the
next step for that sector withregards to technology?

I think it's just got to be as user-friendly
as possible, and I use FaceAppnow, which is really helpful.
It's got an added level ofsecurity or biometrics.
I'm always amazed when I lookat retailers, how much stuff is
left in the basket.
So people go through theprocess of working out what they
want.
You then put it in the basketand then paying for it is the

(44:11):
hardest possible thing in theworld and as a result of that,
you get suddenly pissed off andyou go right, that's it.
I just can't be bothered.
And the amount of stuff that'sleft in the basket, it is really
, is really hard for retailersto understand.
But what you've got to make iteasy to pay, that's what I want
to do.
I just I've made my decision.

(44:33):
Can I pay?
So fulfillment is probably thethe banner word I'd use, charlie
, which is how can you make iteasy to do business with you?
And what's great is, as well asnet promoter score, which is
the can you make it easy to dobusiness with you?
And what's great is, as well asNet Promoter Score, which is
the traditional customer measure.
Now there's some really coolcompanies that ask the question
on a scale of 1 to 10, how easyis it for you to do business
with me from a technologicalperspective, and I think that is

(44:56):
the better question for thefuture.

I think it's an interesting area because it's
just growing so quickly, isn'tit as well?
And I think you're absolutelyright in terms of make it easy
to pay.
I think about Christmas, whenyou're buying so many different
things and, honestly, if I haveto put my car details in, I go
somewhere else.
So I think, yeah, you've got tomake it easy for sure.

Absolutely.

I want to learn a little bit more about.
You know you've worked,obviously, in high performing
sport with Olympic athletesWe've talked about rugby and
also with major corporations.
What's the greatest lessons youthink that you've taken from
this world of elite sport intobusiness, and also vice versa?

OK, if I take elite sport into business,
claire, it's this one.
If I can simplify a cycle foran athlete, I always see elite
athletes warm up.
They then move on to the nextstage, which is peak performance
, and it's the quality of thewarm up often that dictates
quality of the peak performance.
Then, after peak performance,all the elite athletes I've ever

(45:56):
seen and worked with alwayswarm down.
And then all the elite athleteshave a period of quality
recovery time, known as QRT, andthey do that process because
they need to be consistent interms of performing at the
highest level.
So when I looked at that model,what hit me right between the
eyes, claire, was wouldn't it begreat if every single meeting

(46:18):
in business followed thatprocess?
So now I go into organisationsand say how do you warm up for
meetings here?
You see, a lot of organisationshave meetings without agendas.
Imagine saying to an athlete Iwant you to peak perform when at
?
Oh, I'm not going to tell you.
What do you want me to do topeak perform?
I'm not going to tell you thateither.
Who will be in my team?

(46:39):
I'm not going to tell you thateither.
So wouldn't it be great is ifpart of every organisation had a
warm-up checklist, so you sendthe agenda out in good time.
You have real clear objectivesabout what the meeting is trying
to achieve.
Any associated papers areactually sent out in advance, so
those people perhaps have amore reflective nature, are able
to consider it.

(46:59):
Those perhaps that want to askany subject matter experts in
their team who aren't going tobe in that meeting, they can
actually ask them to produceevidence.
Wouldn't it be great if everyindividual attending a meeting
had three questions for everyagenda item as to how can I
understand more about what we'retrying to achieve?
But no, people just rack up andoften, if they're in the same
building, they have the temerityto rack up late.

(47:20):
In sport, if you're late, youprobably won't be performing in
the squad and as a result ofthat, you might not get a place
in the squad ever again becauseyour replacement takes it.
Then I look at peak performance.
I've sat in meetings where Ibelieve that the objective of
certain individuals was to getthrough the meeting without
saying a word and then, as theywalk out of the meeting, they go
.
That was a shit meeting, wasn'tit?

(47:40):
I can't believe we made thatdecision and I'm sat there going
.
But you were in the meeting,you had the chance to contribute
.
So what does peak performancelook like?
I believe everybody should speakin a meeting.
I think it's the chair's job toengage those quieter, to seek
their views.
Just because you're quietdoesn't mean you're stupid, and
often in meetings you've got thenoisy ones that pile in first

(48:02):
every time and I'm going, canyou come in fourth, fifth or
sixth so I can get to understandwhat other people are thinking?
And then we should make surewe're going along, we really
understand who's responsible,what's responsible?
Then the warm down should beabout reaffirming who's
responsible, what's responsible,what deadline, what the actions
are, and then this is the keything for me giving people time

(48:25):
in that meeting to distributeany actions to anybody else in
their business.
Because what happens is if youdon't have that time and you
have this horrible concept ofback-to-back meetings, you get
to the end of the day.
If you've had five meetings andthere's three or four action
points, you've got 15 to 20action points to distribute.
When do you do that?
Well, my experience is peopledo it when the kids are in bed.

(48:48):
They've had the tea, they logon at eight, nine, ten o'clock,
at nine, start sending actionpoints around.
I don't think that's good forany colleague.
So so if you did that, as youwent along in the meeting, you
had a warm down session.
The great news is peoplereceiving your action requests
at 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, 12o'clock during the day can help

(49:08):
prioritize what needs doing andwhen.
And then the evening should beqrt, which is quality recovery
time, and even during the day,between meetings I talk about
have a 15 minute slot where yourefuel, rehydrate, go to the and
actually start warming up forthe meeting.
That's ahead.
How you can have back-to-backmeetings, which is you leave one

(49:29):
meeting and rush into anotherand have mental capacity to be
able to do that effectively.
I don't know.
You would not ask a marathonrunner the minute they cross the
line to go right.
Can you just run another onenow please?
It doesn't work in eliteathletic performance and I don't
understand why it should inbusiness.
So that's what I learned fromsport that I think business

(49:49):
could have.
What I think sport could learnfrom business is the balanced
business scorecard, becausepeople think it's all about
performance.
It's not.
Performance is an outcome ofdoing great things.
So if you want profit, don'tfocus on profit.
Focus on your people, focus ongiving a great experience to
customers, focus on havingreally smart processes it's

(50:10):
called internal quality quadrantand make sure that all of those
three come together to givesuch a wonderful experience for
colleagues and customers, knownas a service profit chain.
Actually, great experienceequals people doing business
with you on a consistent,sustainable basis, full enough.
That's how you're profitable.
Your people are not only happy,they're loyal, and then they're
committed.
So, as a result of that, yourstaff turnover drops.

(50:32):
As a result of that, yourhappiness score.
As a result of that, youdevelop people.
As a result of that, customersget consistency.
So, for me, paul could learn alot from the Balanced scorecard
in business, and business couldlearn a lot by having the peak
performance model as itsstructure for meetings.

I just love the idea of this warming up, peak
performance, warming down andthen this quality recovery time
and I'm definitely with youBackground as a dietitian and
sports nutritionist isabsolutely 100 percent, is
absolutely 100%.
You know, you talk about kindof having time to drink, having
time to have something to eat,and also that relaxation, that
time away from people anddifferent people may need to

(51:08):
walk, you know, outside theoffice and come back.
So I really, really, reallylike that idea.
I'm sure, charlie, you'veprobably got some input on the
second part of that, because Iknow you teach a lot about a
scorecard as well, don't you?

Yeah, I completely.
You teach a lot about ascorecard as well, don't you?
Yeah, I completely agree.
So we talk a lot about thesuccessful business scorecard
and knowing your numbers andultimately, that's you know.
I would say I apply the sameapproach to my sport, which is
which is triathlon, and you know, historically that was looking
at my numbers along throughtraining peaks.
Nowadays it's using a more aibased approach, but absolutely
it's.
You know what.
What gets measured, gets done,doesn't it Charlie?

it's not new to us.
Often we think that some ofthese concepts are just well
beyond me.
I always look at a scorecardlike I look at a dashboard in a
car.
I don't need to know how theengine works right, and I never
will but guess what?
Looking at the dashboard tellsme how many miles I've done, how
many I've got to go, whetherI've got enough petrol, whether
I'm below the speed limit, abovethe speed limit.

(52:06):
It has some warning lights and,funnily enough, they're red,
just like a red, amber, greenscorecard.
So I sit there and just getpeople to realise that in
everyday life these concepts arearound them.
So I talk about translationrather than change.
Go, it's just.
It's just like your dashboardor your camera.
They go, so it is.

(52:26):
I go, there you go.
So if you should devise adashboard like your car for work
, what would it look like?
And fully enough, you come backwith this brilliant dashboard
scorecard.
I go there, you go.
That's what scorecard is.
Yeah I.

I completely agree and it's and equally.
It's why what I loved when Istarted getting to triathlons
was this training peaks justgive you three numbers, it's
like three dials and if one'soff, then you've got a whole
load more data that you can goand look at equally all.
Initially you just look at thetop line three numbers, and I
think somebody once used theanalogy that I I was similar to
your car one is is when theywent into the cockpit of an

(52:59):
airplane.
There's dialss everywhere.
How on earth do you look at allof those?
And they go well, I don't.
I just look at these five dials, but if that one's off, I look
at these other 20.
And if this one's off, I lookat those 20s.
So, absolutely brilliant.
One of the things that youchampion is physical activity
through greater sport andthrough Her Spirit, and I love
listening to you on the herspirit podcast.

(53:19):
Actually, it's a.
It's a great podcast.
I know.
I know the ladies behind herspirit.
I said to them at a time I'mnever quite sure whether I'm
supposed to be listening as aguy, but but it's a really great
podcast.
So I do.
But how do you personallymaintain health and and vitality
?
What?
What advisor would a world ofadvice would you give to?
Other leaders are thinking thesame thing.
We're nothing without ourhealth ollie?

absolutely nothing, look, I've.
I've got one goal in life andthat is to be the world's best
dad, and that isn't me beingburied in a cemetery anywhere.
So, number one, my motivationis always to be around my
children and my wife, elaine,and be healthy.
So I talk about mind, body andfuel an awful lot, and that's
what her spirit has taught me.
So I'm always thinking abouthow do I stay sharp mentally?

(54:02):
So I've got an early morningroutine that gets me mentally
warmed up.
I always have citrus fruit withhot water and a tablespoon of
honey as my first drink in themorning, because that's
important to me.
I exercise.
I will get off at a tube stationor a bus stop, one before my
destination.

(54:23):
I'm always getting steps in.
I walk upstairs, lessdownstairs, because that has a
different impact on my knees.
I I walk an awful lot.
Ideally, if I can my scheduleallows it I'll be early morning
rowing or cycling.
So I'm always thinking aboutyou know how can I make sure
that I'm the healthiest I can be?

(54:43):
I have my annual assessments.
I have lots of blood tests,always checking.
I'm 60 now, so I'm alwaysmaking sure that I am in good
health, because if I'm not, I'mnot sure I can help others.
And then the last bit againfrom a Jack Black story.
Jack Black has a technique forcreating energy.
I won't spoil it for people,but I've used the technique now

(55:05):
for a long, long time and I andI have a permanent tank of
energy, always full and ready togo well, now you've made me
want to ask what is it?
look at, look at, look at jack'swebsite, but it's a lovely.

Left us on a hanger there it's a love.

It's a lovely example of neuro-linguistic
programming meets positivethinking, meeting your power of
your mind.
And henry ford had a greatquote if you think you can or
you think you can't, you'reabsolutely right and therefore
that the whole energy thing ispremised on garbage in, garbage,

(55:42):
garbage out, because all yourbrain is is just a wonderful
necktop computer and youwouldn't want your desktop to be
full of irises and oldoperating systems, so why would
you want that in your head?
So, what you put in, make sureit's good quality stuff and, as
I say, thank you to Jack Blackfor giving me a lifelong tank of
energy.

Well, we'll have to go and have to go and listen
or watch that, definitely.
But I'm 100% behind what youput in the tank is very, very
important in terms of what youget out and high performing.
If you could just leave oneidea, or perhaps for you one
system or framework, if youcould leave that behind for
other generations to inspirethem, what would that be?

gosh, what a great question.
I still would revert to thebalanced business scorecard, and
the reason I say that isbecause it starts with the word
balanced, and I think one of thelessons for life is balance and
equilibrium.
So always look to do that.
Whether that's work life,whether that's family, whether
that's birthdays, there'll bethat's family.
Whether that's birthdays,there'll be days where it goes.

(56:44):
I need to put it in at work.
When I was at NatWest, I did avideo.
I was very clear.
I wanted every parent of aprimary school child to be able
to see their son, daughterattend sports day, and you
didn't need to book specialleave for it, I just wanted you
to go.
And if you didn't need to bookspecial leave for it, I just
wanted you to go.
And if you didn't have youngchildren of that age but you had

(57:06):
a passion or an interest thatmeant a lot to you, then again,
I wanted us to demonstrate theutmost flexibility to allow you
to be able to do that withoutbooking days off for a couple of
hours.
Why?
Because I wanted it to betwo-way.
I wanted to be flexible with mycolleagues.
I knew I'd need days where Ineeded them to be flexible with
me and maybe stay a little bitlonger or do a shift over a bank

(57:28):
holiday and stuff like that.

So I think balanced business scorecard and
you can apply that to life aswell.
I think that is tremendous andI think we've talked about it a
few times.
I think the mistake that a lotof people make, particularly
around goal setting, is they set, you know, they're very
structured in that they setgoals for their business and
then they wonder why theirrelationship at home is falling
to bits or they didn't spend thetime with their kids or their
health has slipped Because,guess what, they didn't have any

(57:52):
thought or goal setting orprocess around those other areas
.
Is there any tangible kind ofadvice you'd give people as to
how they do that?

I'm going to go back to Jack Black, jack Black.
Jack Black introduced me to awonderful concept called the
Wheel of Life.
If you Google Wheel of Life,anybody watching or listening
it's wonderful.
Basically, it's a spoke of awheel, and each spoke is
something that's important toyou, whether that's health,
whether that's relationships,whether that's spirituality,
whether that's personaldevelopment, and basically you

(58:27):
score yourself on a score of oneto ten.
One being I'm absolutely crapat this and it's not going the
way I want it to be.
Ten is absolutely perfect and,spookily enough, when you add
all the different spokestogether, you have the most
zig-zaggity wheel you could everimagine.
And the reason being you go,and that's life.
So if I'm a tenant something,but my relationship scores too.
What if I dial down money?
What if I had less money butbetter relationships with my
family, actually?

(58:48):
So what I encourage people todo is, if they've got a partner,
get the Wheel of Life outseparately, each fill your own
in and then come together andcompare scores.
That is the stimulus to somewonderful conversations about
why somebody's put that score,and then have an action plan in
that, if you are weighing toomuch at the moment, you're
overweight and you're worried.
You're healthy, suffering.

(59:08):
Therefore, you might scoreyourself a two or a three.
What actually might you do tomake it a four, five or six?
And, as a result of that, youstart putting down a series of
actions.
I've met people who are veryrich but got no relationship
with the children and it breakstheir heart because that video
has been made versus.
You know.
I don't think anyone will everhave on the tombstone a wish to

(59:29):
spend more time in the office,you know.
But lots of people say I wantto spend more time with my
children and that's all aboutbeing present in the room, not
just, you know, being in theroom but still answering your
emails for work doesn't helpmaking Making sure you take good
holidays and stuff like that.
So, yeah, Wheel of Life isquite a common thing, but Jack
Black introduced me to it and Ido my Wheel of Life every three
months because life changes andthere'll be some just really

(59:52):
good reminders to carry on doingwhat you're really doing well
and you're enjoying.
But where areas tend to havegot a lesser score and it's
concerning you, it's a reallygood reminder to take action.
Fantastic.

Charlie Reading (01:00:03):
That's brilliant, and I couldn't agree
with that more.
We always ask people on thepodcast for books that they find
themselves recommending toothers regularly, or books that
help them on their journey.
You've already recommended acouple already, so I got
Humphrey Walters' the LittleBook of Winning, and I also love
Matthew Syed's book Bound, soit's a brilliant, brilliant book

(01:00:27):
.
What other?

Chris Brindley (01:00:27):
books have made an impact on you on your journey
, or do you find yourselfrecommending regularly?
I'm an obsessive reader and Ido read.
I don't listen.
I get a highlighter out and Isort of scribble all over things
the people at the library.
Don't let me do that, charlie.
I have to say so.
I'm not in the habit of buyingthem and do it myself.
There's an author out therecalled Royston Guest.
Royston's done a great personalbook called Rise and he's done
a great business book calledBuilt to Grow.

(01:00:48):
So I'm a big fan of Royston's.
Good to Great by Jim Collins ismy go-to book.
Stephen Covey's Seven Habits ofHighly Effective People.
Dale Carnegie, how to WinFriends and Influence People
Really.
Bill Walsh the Score Takes Careof Itself, which is all about
just doing the right activityand the outcomes, sort of like
indicators because you've donethe right lead indicators.

(01:01:09):
You know what they Don't Teachyou at Harvard by Mark McCormack
.
I think that's just a greatbook.
You look at other ones.
Think Like a Winner YehudaShinar, who did some work with
Clive Woodward.
So those are probably.
You know a lot of books, anyPatrick Lankoni books.
You know Dysfunctional Teamsand Leadership.
So I think there's lots outthere.

(01:01:30):
One tip I'd give everybody,though, charlie, is I haven't
got the best attention span, so240 pages of a book is a
challenge for me personally.
So I am a subscriber toExecutive Soundview that does an
eight page book summary and ittells me all I need to know in
the summary, and if I reallylike it then I know that I'll

(01:01:51):
enjoy the book yeah, so you knowthat's another way of using
time smart.
I call it triage.
I don't need to get 50 pages torealize it's not me.
If I read the eight-pagesummary, I've either picked it
up and don't need to read thebook or I go.

This is going to be a book I'm going to enjoy,
and that goes on the holidaylist brilliant recommendation,
and we have a closing traditionon this podcast where we get the
last guest to ask the nextguest a question without knowing
who that person is going to be.
So the last guest was formeriron man, multiple world
champion, chris McCormack,otherwise known as Macca, and I
think Claire has got Macca'squestion lined up.

Claire Fudge (01:02:27):
So if endurance sport was a business mentor,
what would its most importantlesson be?

Proper preparation.
When you look at endurance, Idon't think you could or should
enter that without a really goodlevel of preparation.
Have a plan, but be preparedfor the unexpected.
So I have to say that everyplan tends to dismantle at first
point of contact.
But I do, I do think that wouldbe.
Preparation.

(01:02:55):
For me will be everything, andyou know, getting some really
smart people around you perhapshave done it in the past, all of
that.
But if we talk about warm-up,peak performance, you know, for
me endurance, I don't think youcan take it lightly.
So it was a great question.
And for me, preparation.

Brilliant, brilliant.
I think it was Mike Tyson thatsaid a plan is great until you
get punched in the face.
It's still hugely valuable,isn't it?
So, chris, it's been absolutelyfascinating listening to you.
I love hearing the frameworks,I love hearing the stories, I
love hearing the lessons and thebusiness, particularly the
business lessons.
There's so much value in here,and my reading list has just
expanded.

(01:03:30):
It's a good job.
I listen to books because I cando it while I'm training and
it's just expanded exponentially.
So, yeah, a huge thank you forwhat you've done for sport, for
business and for sharing that onthe podcast.
Oh, thank you.

Charlie, and thank you, claire, it's been an
absolute pleasure.

Wow, there was a lot to take in there.
What did you make of thatinterview with Chris?

Brindley, there was, as you say, there were just
so many different levels kindof going on, lots of things that
we talk about, lots of thingsthat you, you're coaching and
trust a team in terms of um,talk about the business card,
the school cards, but also theidea of frameworks.
I mean he, even when we weren'ttalking about frameworks, he
was talking in his frameworks,wasn't he?

(01:04:11):
And I just think I mean, I useframeworks in my business and my
coaching and teaching, as, asdo you, but I think you know the
use of a framework, the, thehaving the ability to be able to
, for the other person to beable to understand as well, you
know, whether that's the athlete.
You know he's talking both onthe side, in terms of him
working in sports, but also himworking in in big corporates as

(01:04:32):
well, um, so that was reallyinteresting to kind of see it.
Both sides, what, what was,what were your thoughts on the
idea of, you know, the, thebusiness card and the frameworks
?

So the frameworks I completely agree
with and the more I've built upthe trusted team and understood
the best way that I can coach,the more I've understood the
power of those frameworks,because I keep so.
I've recently had a conversationwith two or three people who
are thinking about selling theirbusiness and obviously the
trusted team is trying to getpeople to have a saleable and

(01:05:05):
scalable business and becauseI've built a framework, I now
know exactly the questions toask them to help them decide
whether they should be scalingor selling and so that anything
that gives you a framework and,like you said, it's just a
toolkit, toolkit, it's athinking toolkit and when you
get a certain problem, you go,oh, I know that this is the tool

(01:05:25):
for that problem, I'll workthrough those questions.
Like he said about kenblanchard's knowledge, skill,
confidence and motivation, youknow, if you've got somebody
that's underperforming, you gothrough that process and you you
are, go through that framework.
So I think it's, I think it'sreally powerful and I think what
he talked about with thebalanced scorecard, but
particularly around the wheel oflife Jack Black's wheel of life

(01:05:46):
I really liked Because so, asyou'll know from being a part of
the Trusted Team, we do theevaluation spotlight.
He said he does that everythree months, obviously with the
Trusted Team, that's what I wasthinking of.
Every two months, we're gettingit started all off with these
six areas of your life.
What are you getting as a scoreout of 10 and what's working and
what's not working, and it'sjust a.

(01:06:07):
It's just brilliant in terms ofbringing an awareness to well.
Okay, this bit of my life isgoing really well and this bit
of my life is not going so well,so I need to to redress that
bit.
So I really like that.
What else did you take fromChris's conversation?
Oh, my god, there was so muchto, so I really liked that.
What else did you take fromChris's?

conversation.
Oh God, there was so much totake.
But I really liked the idea ofthis.
I mean, it really frustrates mein the world of nutrition where
people think in these black andwhite kind of terms of you know
, this is good, this is bad, andactually he was talking about,
you know, in terms of it's notright and wrong's, like right
and left, and I love the idea oflike actually what.

(01:06:44):
You know, we are all humanbeings and we think in slightly
different ways, and it doesn'tmean to say that left is the
wrong way, it just means it's adifferent way of thinking and
just some of the very kind ofpractical things that he, I
guess, has, you know, reallylearned from the bottom up.
You know he talks about goingin and printing checks, didn't
he to start off with, and sojust these kind of different
ideas of really being able toteach in any environment,

(01:07:07):
whether that's in, you know,kind of a sporting environment
or whether it's in in aboardroom, and I really could
see the benefit of this warm-up.
So meeting right, like when hewas talking, I was like this is
so true, isn't it rushing around?
You haven't seen the agenda, orthere isn't one written or it's
not particularly great.
You run in, you're a bit lateand you know, hands up, you know
me very well always a littlebit late, not to say I'm not

(01:07:28):
prepared, but perhaps I'm not soprepared, right, because I'm
late.
But this idea of actually beprepared for that meeting, turn
up in every single way and thewarm down, I, you know, actually
take time there and then, whenyour brain is fresh, to be able
to action, everything you needto action, and then take time
out.
What do you, what you know inyour experience in business,
what have, what have you taughtas a culture in your teams in

(01:07:51):
terms of this idea of you know,going into a meeting, being
prepared, what you know, whathave you taught in the past?

Well, I think I also really like that.
I wrote that down.
I really loved the analogy ofsport to business for that.
But it reminded me of thestructure that we use for the
leadership meetings which I dofor each of the businesses that
I run or invest in, and so whatwe've been doing recently was so
we'd get AI to do ChatGPT, todo a deep research piece on the

(01:08:20):
specific business that we'retalking about, but also the
specific problems that we needto solve at the moment.
So I'll go off and put this bit.
You know, if you haven't useddeep research on ChatGPT, it'll
put together a whole lot ofresearch.
It takes about 15 minutes to dofrom loads of different sources
, but it's quite heavy is useNotebook LM to convert that into
a podcast, which is a 20 minutereally easy to digest

(01:08:44):
conversation between twofictional people about the
content of that document, andI've sent it out to all the
people that are attending theleadership meeting before that
meeting.
So that's like their warm up.
They're warming their brain upby having listening to this
podcast, which is actually abouttheir specific problem in their
specific business and theirspecific sector.
Then in the actual meeting, thepeak performance getting

(01:09:06):
everyone to speak, I think isreally powerful.
And actually I often say in theKaizen meetings that we do for
the guys that we coach throughthe trusted team leaders speak
last.
It's your aim to get everyoneelse to speak on this subject
before you bring your ideas tothe table.
So I think that was fantastic.
I love the idea of then in themeeting going right, nobody's

(01:09:27):
leaving this meeting until weactually have a specific.
We've kind of put the buildingblocks in place so that we now
have you're not leaving here andgoing.
I've got to write up threepages of notes or actions.
It's already built into goalsthat you're now going to, you're
going to drive towards for thenext quarter between now and the
next leadership meeting, andthen definitely the recovery
afterwards.
Don't get that time off at theend of the leadership meeting,

(01:09:51):
which actually at the annualleadership meeting, that would
be a dinner for all of thepeople in that leadership
meeting.
So they're kind of they've gotthat mental defrag.
I think that's really powerful.
I thought that was a reallybrilliant principle and also,
yeah, just I mean like I think,the number of books and
frameworks and I've never reallylooked into anything by Jack

(01:10:12):
Black, so I now got five or sixthings I need to look at for him
.
One final takeaway what wouldyou draw out from that
conversation as a final takeaway?

First of all I thought Jack Black maybe was a
rum.

That's all I could think, but I obviously
need to look it up properly.
He's also a Hollywood actorthat did School of Rock and
things like that.

Exactly, I think the power of this idea of having
a culture of this warm up,being prepared for a meeting or
whatever it is, being preparedfor a situation, time to be able
to action something and thenbeing able to step away from it,
that for me, is a really greatanalogy that I can take away and
use for myself, but also I canuse with my clients, with my

(01:10:49):
athletes.
I think you could use that inany situation.

I think it's really good.
And actually Amazon News.
There's a famous Amazon examplehow Amazon meetings.
You go in, you all sit thereand read a document, so they
actually do the warm up in themeeting time itself.
So you're all sitting andreading the same document
beforehand, so you're all comingat it with the same amount of
information and then they havethe discussion and then they
create action points.

(01:11:12):
So, yeah, I think that's a goodexample of what Chris is
talking about.
Yeah, loads to take away, loadsof brilliant business lessons
and for everyone that'slistening at home, keep on
training.

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