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Leaders Letter 172 – Speak Up Culture & Leadership With Stephen “Shed” Shedletzky

Dear leaders, have you embraced speak-up culture at your business? Many have struggled, so this week I have a great newsletter to help you shape or reshape open culture.

So this week I have a great 5 questions answering why speak-up culture is essential and how to lead your people to embrace and encourage a communication culture within organisations of all sizes. 

I invited author Stephen Shedletzky aka “Shed” to answer 5 questions about his upcoming book aptly named Speak-Up Culture and the lessons he took from leading his own company, learnings from working alongside Simon Sinek and dedicating his career to driving change across businesses. 

Q. You have a new book hitting our shelves dedicated to “Speak-Up Culture”, what are the five things every leadership team should do to encourage and adopt a speak-up culture? 

First, I think a definition may be helpful. 

A speak-up culture is an environment in which people feel it is both psychologically safe and worth it to speak up, to share:

  • Ideas, even if they’re half-baked,
  • Feedback, to help one another grow together and our work improve.
  • Concerns, even if they’re unpopular or personal,
  • Disagreements, especially with those more senior to us in an organization, and
  • Mistakes, believing it will lead to improvement, not being repeatedly ignored or worse punished.

The book, “Speak-Up Culture: When Leaders Truly Listen, People Step Up,” shows you how creating an environment where people feel it’s both safe and worth it to speak up is the responsibility and the advantage of leaders at every level who want to be great at leading, and who want to create a better version of humanity while they do it. The bottom line, for everyone, is that organizations with speak-up cultures are safer, more innovative, more engaged, and better-performing than their peers. 

The book releases on October 3, 2023, and is available for wherever you get your books. 

Okay, now here are five things leadership teams can do to foster a speak-up culture:

  1. Value people’s voice and contributions.
  2. Encourage people to speak up.
  3. Reward people when they do speak up, especially when they bring up bad news or hard things to share.
  4. In our cultures we get the behavior we reward and the behavior we tolerate. Tolerating behavior is a passive form of rewarding it. Identify your values and the behaviors your leaders and people ought to exhibit to live into them. Recognize and reward the behavior you wish to see more of. Provide feedback, coaching and discipline, if necessary when folks behave outside the value set. If they continue to behave outside the value set, even if they are individually high performers, they’re behavior is likely toxic to the team and these folks should be offered to the competition. 
  5. Ensure you hear from a diverse set of voices and embrace difference. If the same folks are the ones speaking up, your speak-up culture could be much more inclusive and robust.

Q. Leaders go first. That’s what it means “to lead.” is one of your recent quotes – How do you recommend leaders to lead in troubling times? 

Admit what they know and don’t yet know, so long as it’s appropriate. Vulnerability isn’t sharing all the things all the time. That could simply be oversharing. Vulnerability is about context — it’s about sharing what is necessary, appropriate, and useful given a particular context and audience.

On the first day of my corporate career (September 7, 2009), 1,000 people were let go following “post-merger synergies.” I was the kid walking in as many more people were walking out, boxes in hands. I saw the direct impact that a lack of transparency in leaders had on not just folks’ productivity, but also their health and well-being. I distinctly remember my colleague, a 37-year veteran of the company, sitting in the cubicle across from mine frightened her pink-slip would arrive next. 

In this instance, I witnessed far more leaders in self-preservation mode rather than sharing what they could openly and fighting for their people.

I make the distinction between capital L Leaders and lowercase l leaders.

While Leaders may have the title, as my esteemed colleague Rich Diviney shared, “Leaders aren’t born. Leaders aren’t even made. Leaders are chosen based upon the way they behave.’ Leadership is a set of behaviors and when folks behave as such, regardless of if they hold a formal position of leadership or not, people follow. 
Those who lead hold influence, and they have a following. 
To lead means to show up to serve, to be consistent and authentic, to extend compassion and empathy, to be decisive and yet accountable, giving credit when things go well and taking responsibility when things don’t go well. 

Here is a flavour Shed’s new book and going deeper into culture ↓

Q. You worked alongside Simon Sinek; you facilitated a number of speeches and workshops for other businesses. Out of all of the great books and philosophies (The Infinite Game, Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Find Your Why and Together Is Better) which sticks most with you today and your teachings in your own company?

Definitely his most recent book, The Infinite Game (2019). I describe that book as Simon’s greatest hits album plus some very worthwhile bonus tracks. The book is brilliantly wrapped in game theory – building upon the work of the late Dr. James Carse and his work on Finite and Infinite Games — to show us that we’re all players in games that have ends (finite) and games that may have mile markers but no end (infinite). While many business leaders strive to “win” the game of business, beat the competition or be the best, they’re using finite language and thus a finite mindset in infinite games. 

Of all of Simon’s works, The Infinite Game is most robust and relevant today. In the five practices he covers (Just Cause, Trusting Teams, Worthy Rivals, Existential Flexibility and the Courage to Lead), he nicely highlights the importance of his previous works as well. 

Q. Driving change and innovation is hard within businesses, even when you are the most senior or have the most relevant title, how would you recommend business leaders do to drive positive change within their organizations for the rest of the year? 

Leaders must know that even if they’re driving the bus, everyone’s behavior on that bus is pivotal and paramount. Leaders ought to lead, not drive change. This proves a useful distinction between leaders and drivers. Leaders inspire. Drivers force or even coerce. Leaders engender followers. People do as drivers say out of fear or a perception of necessity. So, I do believe it’s important for leaders to lead, not drive. 

Leaders ought also to be aware of three gears that must all move to create meaningful and last change. These three gears, depicted below from the book (page 106 in chapter 7, Culture Matters) are Mindset, Actions and Systems. 

A leader’s mindset matters and impacts others. You cannot force someone to take on a new mindset. Transformation is an inside out job. But when people have some sort of experience that changes the way they think and view the world, it changes the way they lead and behave. We can change our world when we change our mind. 

Second, as if I haven’t belabored this point enough, our actions and behaviors matter, a lot! And, as it turns out, we can actually act our way to new thinking. L. David Marquet highlights an impressive story on this as he lead and empowered a crew of 150 sailors to turn the worst rated submarine in the entire 1999 US Navy fleet, the USS Santa Fe, from worst to first in one year. He had his sailors act into a feeling of pride by following a simple set of actions in greeting visitors aboard the Santa Fe. It’s brilliant. More on this directly from Marquet here.

Finally, systems matter… again, a lot as well. We need all three of these gears to work in unison. If one is off, the entire culture suffers. If you put a good person in a bad system or environment, the latter prevails every time. I call this Pickle Brine Theory. If you put a world-class cucumber in awful pickle brine, we, my friends, have an awful pickle that should never have been made. And we can’t blame the pickle. We must examine its brine – the environment it was in. Take an average pickle, put it in excellent brine and we have a delicious pickle, to whatever your taste. To complete the analogy, we all start out as unique cucumbers and the brine we’re in determines the pickle we become. That’s right, culture is like a pickle jar. There, I said it. 

Q. What do you predict the future of work looking like in three years’ time?  

Hate to be lame, I’m not a wild futurist that thinks the world is going to be fundamentally different in what human beings want and value. Sure, the context will always change, but these truths, I believe, will remain:

1)     Respect – We all wanted to be treated as the human beings we are, not as numbers or cogs in a wheel or machine. 

2)    Flexibility – We want to feel empower and trusted to do our work in a responsible way that integrates into our lives.  

3)    Compensation – We want to be compensated fairly and equally based upon the value of our work. 

Finally, there will be (or already is) a job called “AI Prompter.” Let’s have humans working the machine, and not the other way around… unless we truly are in The Matrix… Well that got real meta at the end here #trippy. 

The places of work – virtual, physical and hybrid– that offer flexibility, fair compensation, and who treat people as the human beings they are will prevail.

I think you’ll agree there is a tremendous amount of value here and brilliantly actionable ways to introduce or reintroduce speak-up culture into your business. If you’d like to connect to Shed, please do so on LinkedIn and definitely think about purchasing Speak Up Culture book for your leadership team. 

This week’s focus action is to introduce (capital L) Leadership and ensure speak-up culture is introduced and respected in Q4. 

Thanks, have a great week and I’ll land in your inbox again next week with another leaders letters.

Danny Denhard

» If you have missed the 5 questions series you can enjoy here

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 170 – Leadership Lessons With Jo Bird

Dear leaders, how has the start of September gone? Are you ramping up for Q4 or are you in the middle of reviewing what has happened this year? 

This week I am continuing the 5 questions theme by interviewing Jo Bird. 

So who is Jo?

  • Jo is the creative lead at Lounge (the underwear brand) 
  • Powerful creative, being responsible for a number of powerful campaigns 
  • Conference speaker (has spoken at TEDx watch below)
  • Authentic Social Media Leader – Jo is one of my go-to examples of how leaders can show up authentically on social media, particularly on LinkedIn. 

» Please do connect with Jo on her website or on LinkedIn. 

The Q&A 

Q1. You share some incredible pieces of advice and insights with your connections and followers on LinkedIn, What’s the most valuable piece of advice you would give anyone progressing on their leadership journey? 

Ask yourself: ‘why do I want to be a leader?’

A lot of people are chasing a job title so that they feel better about themselves. 
Or to gain respect. 
Or to challenge themselves in their own career. 
But the ‘me, me, me’ approach is a big fail at the first hurdle. It can also be incredibly disruptive to your team in the long-term. Trust me… I’ve had those bosses!

Being a great leader is about serving other people. It’s about standing in the shadows and applauding your team while they’re in the spotlight. It’s about empowering others to be their best selves. It’s about inspiring the team to reach a shared goal, together.

So, my advice would be to ask yourself why you want to do it. 

And then go from there.

Q2. The creative industry is likely going to experience big shifts with AI, what are the three pieces of advice you give fellow leaders on how to navigate the upcoming changes? 

  1. Be curious. You need to ask questions, do research and speak to industry professionals in order to make discoveries, learn and then subsequently inspire your team to also explore new technology, too.
  2. Be open-minded. Technology might not be your forte, or newness might feel uncomfortable, but great leaders do not stand still. 
  3. Be honest. It’s ok if you don’t have all the answers. AI will continue to develop at a rapid rate, which can feel overwhelming. If you are uncertain in any way, your team will appreciate your honesty.

Q3. You’ve given big conference talks, including a TEDX talk. Do you have three tips for other leaders who want to deliver brilliant presentations to their peers or at larger conferences? 

  1. Record yourself. Honestly. Self-awareness is the BEST tactic for developing as a speaker. Once you get over the ‘cringe’, you’ll start to notice your bad habits. ‘Ums’ and ‘ars’, awkward body language, lack of charisma. Only then can you start to practice.
  2. Practice! It’s true that preparation prevents p*ss poor performance! Do your research to make sure your presentation is air tight. And then rehearse in front of a mirror as many times as you can. When you feel like you can deliver the talk without looking at your notes, you’ll be so much more confident on stage.
  3. Treat it like a conversation. People think that being a presenter means being a robot or foghorn. It’s the opposite. The best, most captivating presenters are the ones who have built the courage to be themselves on stage. Like they’re speaking to a friend. To include their quirks, charisma and invite the audience in to their conversation.

Watch Jo’s Tedx video here

Q4. You’ve been a creative lead at both Lounge and Gymshark, both influential and culture-based brands, how do you inspire your teams when every campaign is expected to make a direct impact on the business? 

I have a few techniques that are working really well at the moment:

  1. Empowerment: I believe that creatives need to feel trusted, inspired and enabled to do their best work. For them, it can feel exhausting to constantly share their true, emotive, creative selves at work when pitching ideas. Especially if not all ideas are received well. So, they really need a leader who creates a safe space and continually champions them. Someone who ‘has their back.’
  2. Lead by example: I like to get my hands dirty, do great work and make it known to my team. If they are inspired by me – both inside and outside of the business – then they are more likely to respect my instructions as a leader.
  3. Communication: I am a high communicator. I am as transparent as I can be with my team. If there are business updates, if they have concerns, if they need more direction. I will speak to them as much as I can to make sure they feel supported and included. If they understand the bigger business goals, they are more likely to perform well.
  4. Humility: Working for rocketship brands means that the leaders can’t possibly know everything. The brands are growing at such a rapid rate, the leaders are learning and figuring things out all the time. So, I like to show a lot of humility. To leave ego at the door and encourage a ‘let’s learn this together’ attitude.

Q5. What’s the best piece of career advice you would give to C-suite leaders who don’t quite understand the power of creative (teams) or it’s just not landing right with them currently? 

I would quote Ed Catmull, the co-founder of Pixar. In his book Creativity Inc he said: 

“You’ll never stumble upon the unexpected if you stick only to the familiar.”

Creatives are the most curious kind of employee. We’re the ones who like to turn left when everyone else turns right. We’re the ones who thrive in problems and strive to break patterns. 

I don’t think creatives should take over the boardroom (we’d spend all the money on games machines and slides in the office), but I 100% think creatives should be in the decision-making room.

We see the world differently. And that is what every business needs in order to stay relevant, stay inspiring and stay profitable.

(And if that didn’t work, I’d probably just hit them with a research study like: 70% of companies that engage with creativity had above-average total returns to shareholders – McKinsey & Company.)

I think you’ll agree Jo offered some incredible tips and you can apply them this week. 

This week’s focus action is to ensure you embrace your creativity and ensure you enable your team to integrate creativity into their work. 

Have a great week if you haven’t subscribed you will miss out on with the big question you need to answer: 
Which Do You Need, A Refresh, A Reset, A Reboot Or A Restart? 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 169 – Leadership Lessons & 5 Questions With Industry Leader & Coach Joe Scarboro

Dear leaders, this week I have a leader joining us who I can only describe as the nicest and smartest leader I have had the pleasure to get to know and have enjoyed a number of coffees with. 

Joe has worked across the C-Suite (holding both COO & CFO roles), been a successful founder who sold his company, led many others and now is coaching other C-Suite leaders. 

This week’s 5 questions are packed full of gems from Joe and I know you’ll get huge value from this.

Connect with Joe On LinkedIn

Joe Scarboro 5 Questions 

Q1/ You have a unique background where you’ve been a leader across the full spectrum, from Chair, COO, CFO and including being a founder. What are the three main leadership lessons you learned from operating across the C-suite? 

Broadly, these sit within the huge topic of “people”.

Having the right people on board is vital – whether that’s the one Co-Founder that you start with or your employees, board or management as you grow. It’s closely linked with purpose, as your values and how you recruit will define your people. Making people mistakes is costly though and this is amplified in the early stages and also when making senior hires at most stages. The downsides are mitigated as you grow, as bad hires have less of an impact, but I’d strongly advise against the temptation to get *someone* in a role sooner, rather than the right person in the role a little later. This is particularly common after a fundraise and during a stage of rapid growth. Creating a robust and well thought out hiring process will serve you well here.

The next tip would be on self awareness. As a leader, you need to be able understand your biases and tendencies in order to make better decisions. For example, acknowledging that you’re bad at delegation because “That’s not how I would do it” (and that makes you uncomfortable) allows you to begin to accept that someone else might not do it the same way, but will still likely get it done (caveated with the above of hiring the right people!). Self awareness needs constant attention though, it’s much easier said than done!

Lastly, I’d go with understanding when to listen to customers and when not to. There are a huge number of examples of successful companies on both sides of that argument, so it’s not as if one way is right and the other isn’t. Understanding how customers interact with your product or service and how they feel about it is generally always important, but if you’re doing something new (be that a totally new product concept, or a new feature) you may be better served by starting with your vision, with a clearly defined purpose for it and working from there.

Q2/ You are coaching across the C-suite, what are the current elements of leadership that are coming up in your coaching that could help leaders to improve their own organisations? 

I see systems thinking and second order effects often not always being given the consideration they need. Leaders deal with a number of issues at the same time, often under a lot of pressure and they operate to solve those issues quickly and effectively. In doing so, they can easily miss fully considering the impact of those decisions on a variety of other areas of their business and beyond. 

A classic challenge of this type is formulating sales comp. Solving for maximisation of incentive (and therefore sales) may seem the right way to go, but there are a lot of other considerations. 

  • What will the impact be on the non-sales team? 
  • Do you make it confidential so as to minimise the impact? 
  • Does making it confidential align with company values? 
  • Will it erode trust within the non-sales team? 
  • Are there mitigating measures you can put in place? 

If you make it transparent, how do you otherwise incentivise the non-sales team members? Of course, you can disappear into this type of thinking and emerge with a huge number of variables and no answers, so the key is to go to an appropriate level of depth for each decision. Having an appropriate heuristic for assessing decisions in this way really helps here, be that something simple like the important/urgent matrix, or something more specialised to the business.

Q3/ You recently took over hosting dinners for Tom Blomfield (the Monzo founder & GoCardless co-founder) from Series A to Series C, are there any themes that are coming that would help leaders understand how to handle today’s demands? 

The startup investing landscape has changed more so in the last twelve months than in the last decade. With the exception of certain areas (AI etc) attitudes to risk have changed, “available funds” are much less available and there’s a push towards profitability that just hasn’t existed for a long time.

This has fundamentally changed most businesses’ strategies. In some cases what was a 5+ year path to profitability now needs to be on a 2 year trajectory because there’s no guarantee that growth funds will be available.

That’s a lot of change to deal with in a short space of time. It’s given rise to a number of themes around hiring, product pricing, unit economics and a lot more besides. Whilst these attitudes are likely to change again, it’s not looking to be any time soon, so these are big issues that need strong consideration from founders and boards.

Q4/ Apart from the mass move to AI, are there any other important moves that you feel all companies will be making in the future? 

I find it hard to apply generic thinking to companies, as every one I have worked in has been different, you need to dig into the nuance and context in order to be able to provide appropriate advice. AI for example, should *everyone* be implementing AI? No. I don’t believe they should. Should everyone be looking at how it impacts their business? Absolutely, but that also goes for a number of areas. It’s more about remembering to lift your head up and consider the fundamentals and macro environment rather than being swept along by the latest hype or making specific moves because “everyone else” is.

One trend that I hope I see come in, is the removal of shareholder value being the de facto, priority number one of a company. There’s already a groundswell of companies changing their charters or otherwise operating with a wider pool of considerations, but I believe we’ll see an expansion of statutory reporting to encompass an element of this too. It’s been happening for years already (see corporate ESG reporting), but I believe there’s a strong chance this thinking will be brought into other areas of legislation too (employment law, consumer protection etc).

Q5/ What was your favourite leadership moment of your career?

There have been many, but most involve helping people. 

As a leadership team in one of my companies, we felt a particular employee wasn’t learning and growing to their potential, but we had no resources internally to help. We were a small company and whilst they were junior in their position, there was no one with more experience than them. We approached them and suggested it was time they moved to a different company, they resisted, but we pushed them forward (and out!). We believed that we were doing the right thing and thankfully we turned out to be right. The employee left, had no trouble finding a new role (including a 50% salary increase) and their career has since taken off!

This was packed full of insight and actionable tips, I am sure you will have a lot to think about this week.

So this week’s focus item is to re-read Joe’s brilliant answers and see where you can apply his lessons. 

Have a great week and I will land in your inbox next Monday,

Thanks, 

Danny Denhard

Read the other 5 questions about leadership interviews 

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Leaders Letter 161 – 5 Questions With Dave Cairns The #digitalhomad

Dear leaders, this week I have a brand new and special “5 questions with” series. This leadership newsletter is with futurist, SPaaS (Space-As-A-Service) and the creator of the #digitalhomad Dave Cairns. 

Dave recently started to work from anywhere (despite being an Office Leasing Agent) and is sharing his flex journey blending work and parent through a mix of video, written and audio content. 

I was introduced to Dave by the previous 5 questions with Caleb Parker and we have had some enlightening conversations and know he will inspire you to think about workspaces and work environments differently.

Dave is a brilliant thinker, he is prolific on LinkedIn and really shares his knowledge and insights. If you are an exec looking to see how to leverage LinkedIn to add value to your audience and customers Dave is a great example.  

The Q&A 

Q1: You used to be a professional poker player, how did being a top poker player help with your career and leadership style?

Poker is an interesting game. It’s the only pursuit I’ve encountered whereby it’s expected that you’ll be lied to. Ironically, there’s a lot of honesty in this dynamic; you can almost breathe a sigh of relief in that the baseline expectation is some form of deception. 

Conversely, in our professional lives we are always having to suss out whether or not we are being deceived by our colleagues, bosses or clients.

Having a background in poker has allowed me to apply my knowledge of zero sum games (in poker, your win is always someone else’s loss) to win-win(-win) outcomes.

Having a deep understanding of deception and self-interest allows one to evaluate bringing two or more parties together in non-linear ways. 

Q2: What are your top three recommendations for companies trying to get the most out of “hybrid” work? 

If you think culture = the office – start by reconsidering as “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” – Suzuki Roshi

Check out Dave’s insightful prediction from last year and his excellent thoughts on the topic shared on LinkedIn.

Increasingly, one of your most common employee avatars will resemble that of a “corporate freelancer” – an employee who desires the job security and values being on a team but wants to behave with the flexibility of a digital nomad/freelancer.

Beta test workplace strategies that embody unbundling work from a central office model and instead seek to create a network effect for your employees when it comes to where they work – both physically and digitally (in a digital capacity – explore virtual worlds that make up an aspect of what we define as the Metaverse)
Read Dave’s supporting metaverse LinkedIn post

Future of Work strategy must be built around the understanding that: both employees and employers must be able to reserve the right to change their minds. For employees, their life circumstances will change which will equate to ever-changing workplace needs.

For employers, long-term office leasing as primary strategy never made sense in the first place as no business can predict where they will be in 5-10 years time, yet their real estate is fixed and leased long.

Employers will continue to be at the mercy of destabilizing forces like de-globalization and climate change – they will quite literally need to be able to pick up and move “houses” (good thing their employees all have homes!). 

Q3: You are an active member of helping companies enable better working environments, most recently you entered the metaverse and help companies with your expertise and answered Q&A.
What have you learnt by sharing your ideas regularly across LinkedIn and embracing different technology platforms?   

The way I see it, there are only advantages to exploring your own mind and sharing it with the world. And the same goes with novel technologies. It’s for these reasons that I publish content daily and that I explore new ways of connecting to & collaborating such as virtual worlds. 

If I write something stupid it’ll be forgotten tomorrow but if I write nothing I’ll miss the opportunity to keep getting to know my own mind. And if it turns out the metaverse is in fact “dead”, I’ll have lost nothing as I’ll have engaged with all kinds of new people along the way and will have valuable skills/perspectives BECAUSE I was curious. 

Q4: You are a huge advocate of Space as a Service (#SPaaS) – how do you see this really shaping the future of work? 

Over the last few years I’ve often said that there is NO office “amenity” more valuable than the choice to go there or not. I firmly believe this to be true as what is more valuable than autonomy? Autonomy provides us with the agency to decide where and with whom we belong. If I’m right, companies who compete for the next “warm body” to sit in their seat will get increasingly competitive.

It’s no longer just corporate executives that are consumers of the workplace. Whether they like it or not, their employees have been granted that same privilege. Accordingly, these newfound consumers will align with certain brands and not others, and will need different types of products/services.

The only words I can think of to describe this movement are Space-as-a-Service.

Q5: You started the #digitalhomad hashtag on LinkedIn to let people follow your journey and updates – how do you think your approach to LinkedIn can help business leaders from around the world to become more authentic across social media? 

After I left poker, I spent 8.5 years living in a state of cognitive dissonance. Even though I make a living from the office, I’ve NEVER romanticized it and in fact a lot of office culture just doesn’t work for me (I suspect I have ADHD and am trying to get assessed). 

For many years prior to Covid, I made content on LinkedIn but it wasn’t authentic. I was making videos and shit about how to sublease your office and relocate without having to pay double rent. While stuff like that matters to some of my customers, I wasn’t at all passionate about these subjects. 

I thank Covid for creating the space for me to access a former version of myself, a digitally nomadic online poker player. By accessing this guy once more I was able to start to poke holes in not just the office market, but the culture. In doing this, I’ve been on a journey of getting closer and closer to my authentic self. It’s brought me closer to all the change agents out there and has gotten me more deeply aligned with the types of customers I want to work with.

Saying what I think has also gotten me into a lot of trouble but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

You can’t put a price on authenticity – you win and so do the people you care about. 

» A huge thanks to Dave for answering these questions so transparently and offering his unique insight.

With the way the new world of work is shaping up, David is definitely a thought leader and I highly recommend following or connecting with Dave on LinkedIn. When I re-boot Fixing the broken world of work podcast, Dave will be the first guest I interview. 

Have a great week ahead and this week’s focus action is to rethink how you will look to work and leverage space differently. 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

Read The Other 5 Questions Series 

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Leaders Letter Newsletter Leadership

Leaders Letter 159 – The Company Number 2

Dear leaders, the fight for the number two position has been something coveted for many years. 

I recently received an email from a leaders letters subscriber asking about “the mythical number two role” so I wanted to tackle it in a dedicated leaders letter. 

Being the right-hand person, the next strong voice and then the trusted partner is something many professionals try to acquire and manufacture their way into this converted slot. 

Being trusted by the number 1 (CEO or founder) is a double-edged sword and one you might just struggle with.  

The Expectations 

  • Your expectation is your colleagues around you have to listen
  • Your colleagues will come to you for buy-in and support – improving your position as the number 2 
  • Your colleagues will ripple this news through the organisation and the rest of the business takes this on 
  • The rest of the org will listen to your every word and look to you for answers and additional support 
  • Leverage (leverage the people, leverage the unofficial title, leverage the opportunity) 
  • The validation will create respect 
  • You are next in line  

The Usual Reality 

  • The number two spot is often an impossible position 
  • Your colleagues around the exec table do not trust you, this sends signals to the rest of the org not to trust you  
  • You can be seen as the #1’s puppet – only delivering on their requirements and actions 
  • When there is a requirement to challenge the number 1 you will be torn to protect and defend vs do what is best for the wider org or your department 
  • Your own team’s trust often erodes over time – you become dislocated from your team and your loyalties are questioned constantly 
  • Your own “number two” will take aim at your position and authority and very often unpick your position at the seams while you play an unofficial company number 2 role 
  • The number two often doesn’t take the leaders chair when they leave or are removed 

2 Political 

Very often the number two is posturing, it’s a political minefield and you as the number two have to be so politically savvy, you have to embrace your IQ, EQ and PQ in rotation and this can be exhausting.

The company culture is often manipulated the most by this number two person and can work for and against them, most often going against them as they are in the most questioned position within the business. 

When company culture is so important to your performance many companies make the mistake of entrusting the number two to make the right strategic plays and bets to improve the company culture. Very few will put the company first when their own personal stakes and game plan have been years to play out. 

Waves Of Change 

Despite the largest company trends, over the last 15 years, it has been CFOs transitioning to CEOs, then COOs transitioning and most recently it has been CPO who takes on the CEO role once their boss moves on. 

CFOs, COOs and CROs are often in the number two position, you will see this play out over and over in mid to large businesses and often in smaller businesses or startups you might even see co-founders having to battle it out with external “adults” to take over the reins of the business. 

Very rarely does the internal number two actually take over from exiting founders or co-founders and often the move onto another business is harder for them. 

Likely Outcome – Interim 

Like in sports, you become the caretaker manager, you take temporary charge of the team. You will know quickly how your tenure will go, likely quickly and then you have the fight all over again. 

In business the number 2 can take over as an interim lead, however, it is often seen with resistance and a full-time leader comes in to replace the interim. 

Big change in business is rarely a good thing for the supposed number two and this is often overlooked by them. 

Having been positioned as the number two on a number of occasions it rarely worked out for me – going into any situation like this with eyes wide open will only benefit you and the business. 

Protect You & The Business: Are you the number 2 within your business, how have you protected yourself and prevented many of these called-out issues to protect you and move the business forward? I trust so. 

This week’s focus action is to review how you are positioned within the business and understand how your position might be negatively impacted by the perceived “rank” you are in or represent. 

Thanks and have a great week 

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter 154 – Motivated Demotivated Empowered Powerless Management Matrix

Motivated Demotivated Empowered Powerless Management Matrix - Leaders letter 154

Dear leaders, a big part of what I do is to get under the base layer and understand what the key drivers and triggers of people, teams, departments and leadership teams are. 

One of my preferred ways of getting the best results whilst coaching and running workshops with managers and c-suite execs is to ask a series of questions about themselves (remember you are the protagonist in your own story) and then dive into their management practises. 

Reduce Your Personal Management Struggles

Most managers struggle to answer simple questions about their team members, rightly or wrongly most of these don’t work on these issues and don’t want to even attempt to go another layer deeper, my own strong personal belief is that approach is going to hinder you, especially when performance is dropping or team members start to struggle. Retaining staff or being able to decide to let them leave comes down to how much you know about them alongside their personal metrics. 

I have a simple set of questions managers should be able to answer on each one of their direct team members (or direct reports). 

Motivated – Demotivated – Empowered – Powerless Questions:  

Motivates – what motivates your team member (is it money, it is status, is it opportunities to step up)

Demotivates – what demotivates your team member (is it a lack of recognition, is it poor results from their work, is it struggling with their colleagues) 

Empowers – What empowers your team member, where do they feel empowered? 

Powerless – When does your team member feel powerless? In what situations does your team member need extra support? 

What will these help with?

  • Better 1:2:1’s 
  • Better team management meetings 
  • Improves your team or department subculture 
  • Better ways of motivating the team 
  • Better ways of understanding when team members are low or need a rallying cry, what you need to say collectively or to individuals. 
  • Better ways of pairing your team members and connecting your department or team leads together 
  • A way to keep a record and update when you notice patterns or shifts and provides you with a way to coach your direct reports with theirs. 

My leadership hypothesis is:
If you cannot boil down management into tables and simple matrixes, most people will struggle to keep on top of management tasks and people leadership. Without these tools, you will not be able to break down the task at hand. 

With the continuing demands of management and non-stop work, you need better, not more tools in your arsenal to keep a record, have a log of change and importantly coach those around you.

This week’s focus action: look to complete the simple management matrix with your direct reports, bonus points if you can include your skips (those who report to a layer below you) and see how you can either find out more or motivate in different ways. 

Thanks and have a great week. 

Danny Denhard

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Here are our other free frameworks

Qualifying That “Idea” To Strategic Bet

Matrix & Guides 

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 152 – The Impact Of Fractional C-Suite Role

The Impact Of The Fractional C-Suite Role - Leaders Letter 152

Dear leaders, have you noticed the trend of more fractional leaders? 

There have been numerous articles written in recent weeks about the rise of fractional leaders. Some have been positive, and others have questioned the risk and the reward of a “part-time lead” within businesses. 

Data via exploringtopics.com

Having been a fractional lead covering Operations, Growth and Marketing within a marketplace, I can speak on my personal experiences, however, to get to the bottom of this growth and the business impact of the fractional roles I wanted to dig deeper and ask current fractional leaders to give me their take on fractional roles and how they are driving businesses forward. 

The fractional c-suite leads interviewed were (click names below to connect): 

Q. With fractional roles becoming more and more popular, what are the two common themes you see when taking on fractional leadership roles? 

Camilla: In my experience, the main reason businesses are investing in Fractional roles is due to the unstable economic environment we are in – and the flexibility and reduced-financial risk these roles can offer. But, also the increasing understanding that a business that is not yet ready for an expensive CMO hire, can actually still afford to have the strategic prowess of one, and find it valuable despite not being full-time. 

Fractional briefs also allow you to be laser-focused on the job at hand, removing some of the fluff and politics that often come with a full-time role– so I have actually witnessed personally, and from peers, companies actually getting more impact from someone part-time, than a full time equivalent.

Mehul: I find the awareness is still very low outside the immediate group. Although in the current environment, companies are facing a multitude of challenges and there is an acceptance that they need to supplement their internal teams with external expertise to resolve those challenges

Mike: Early stage companies struggle to see the value of it until they try it. What can seem like an expensive upfront investment pales in insignificance when compared to the time that can be saved in up-skilling and waiting for a developing leader to meet the required level. More open, less defensive budding leaders see fractional leaders for what they are – a great opportunity to rapidly up-skill and increase the tangent of their own career development.
It’s not a threat, it’s a huge unfair advantage in their career.

I also see a lot of dysfunctional leadership teams with a lot of false harmony. Lots of back-slapping and perceptions that everything is rosey.
It’s only when you start peeling back the layers when teams realise that there’s a lot more to building an exceptional team.

James : Flexibility: More companies are welcoming the flexibility that working with Fractional CMOs brings. It certainly suits current market conditions, but also aligns with the remote working world.
Contractors would often be viewed as separate to the business, remote working is a great leveller with a lot of these barriers being removed. I also seeing this coming more and more into the agency world, with less “”lock in deals”” and lengthly contacts that companies are being held to. 

Multi-faceted Problem solving: Seeing more businesses looking for general senior problem solvers, who have operated in a similar space and can solve a set of key issues and problems that a business may face as it pertains to their growth.
This can often be less “straight-up marketing”, diving into a multitude of other areas – from strategy to data – all part of the modern CMO’s skillset.

Oren: Businesses early on with inexperienced leadership have a hard time rationalising the increased investment of fractionals. Why pay +1k a day when I can hire a 40k a-year marketer full-time? – The perceived value and remit of a fractional is directly proportional to the C level’s belief and confidence in the impact of marketing, and hence how and if it will influence growth.”

Q. How do you feel fractional roles are helping companies move forward?

Camilla: In so many ways but as mentioned above and below, the primary beauty of a fractional role is being able to support a business that otherwise wouldn’t be able to invest in a full-time role.
For so long these businesses went without senior leadership in key functions, as they believed unless someone was full-time, they couldn’t be valuable – but the increase in Fractional roles has proved otherwise.

Mehul: Fractional roles bring a high level of expertise along with benchmarks of what good looks like. This helps the companies and the teams to maximise their learning opportunities, contextualise their performance and ultimately unlock success earlier and more efficiently vs. what they may have achieved internally.

For e.g., most of my clients give me a consistent feedback that I have helped them identify the right projects, scope them correctly and get the required investment which supports their medium and long-term objectives.

Michael: I think they lower the barriers to excellence. Where companies previously couldn’t afford to hire experienced leaders they can now tap into the expertise of more established professionals without having to foot the bill of paying a full-time salary.

Great leadership isn’t doing more. It often involves being more selective over the things you do, making better decisions and managing teams more effectively.
I’ve made countless mistakes over my career that less experienced teams no longer need to make. What might have taken me working long days & weekends to achieve earlier in my career I can now do a day/week with a more junior team supporting me.

James: Instant expertise: Companies can have FCMO’s parachute into a business at little to no notice and immediately provide expertise in key areas. These skills would often take time to acquire, build, buy-in as well as time to ramp up. This can be a shock to the system, but also an instant energy change for both parties.

Try before you buy: This works on both sides with the FCMO and company being able to determine fit for longer term engagement in weeks, not months – saves time, money and organisational strain. It feels like an incredibly optimal way to work for senior hires especially.

Oren: Fractionals pull in C-level experience for the marketing function that was not previously available for companies pre B-round.

Q. Do you feel there are any limitations in fractional roles versus having a long-serving full-time department lead? 

Camilla: The ultimate goal for a business is to be at the size where it can justify investing in a full-time CMO. I see many businesses doing this before they are ready, however, and then unfortunately it therefore sometimes doesn’t work out. Until they are ready, a Fractional CMO is a very effective way of ensuring they have senior counsel and leadership without the risk and large investment.

Mehul: Business and category knowledge is one of them. Although you are being hired for your functional expertise.

Developing trust with the team that you are there to unblock and empower them and not make their lives harder or replace them.

You have to feel comfortable for not getting the credit or value created by your foundational work in the years to come.

Michael: The main one is logistical – it can be challenging scheduling team meetings/offsites when dealing with multiple teams with different rhythms and priorities. It’s not insurmountable but certainly requires some thought.

James: The limitations do align around people management, which is particularly salient in the remote working world. It’s difficult to develop deep management relationships with FCMO engagements, especially when it comes to line management, it means these people management areas need to be filled from other areas in the org, which requires transparency all round.

Oren: Yes, many limitations. A fractional, unlike a part-time CMO, presents a hybrid of strategy and tactical deployment, and hence with limited time/scope is constrained by time/energy. This impacts team management the most, but also availability for the rest of the c-suite who often have packed schedules making finding meeting time difficult enough. 

In general, the challenge is that business owners/founders are wedded to their businesses, and having someone who isn’t in the trenches with them 24/7 as they are, is a hard pill to swallow.

From all of the underlining data being shared and the expert answers above, the fractional role is here to stay and in many businesses, it will add a huge amount of value, particularly those at an early stage or looking to mature at an accelerated rate. Many companies will need to consider how a fractional c-suite member(s) can work and how they’ll add value away from execution and add a level of insight and education in leadership meetings and to the leadership team.

As ever if you have teams in place, do consider how a fractional lead could come in and positively or negatively impact company strategy and company culture, especially if they are not onboarded into the business properly and are not a match for the existing team in place. 

This week’s focus action: consider how a fractional leader could add value and build momentum in your business and how, rather than consider it as a hindrance how it could help your business progress and grow. 

» As ever if you have something to say about this week’s newsletter? Don’t be shy, subscribe (below) and then you can just hit reply!

Thanks and have a great week, 

Danny Denhard

Want To Work With Me? I Coach, I Advise & I Consult (email danny@focus.business)

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Leaders Letter Newsletter Leadership

Leaders Letter 150 – The Ten Essential Leadership Questions To Ask Each Other This Week

The Ten Essential Leadership Questions To Ask Each Other This Week - leaders letter 150

Dear leaders, there has been a lot made of disagreeing and committing in the recent macroeconomic times. 

The chances are you are in either of two camps;
(1) Survive at any cost: have had to reduce the size of your department or lose whole teams, you have likely lost some budget and have to revisit another 9-box exercise.
Or
(2) Attempt to grow without spending the same budget you had at the turn of the financial year and requests for more headcount are not entertained. 

Either camp is hard, but you are being pressured to either get on board or disagree and commit to where you have landed or where the HiPPO is driving the business. 

The Backstory: The 13th Amazon leadership principle “have backbone; disagree and commit” has become a default principle in many boardrooms to ensure everyone is on the same page around the significant changes, whether that’s hiring, headcount freezes, company restructuring or mass layoffs. 

(Re)Connect With Leadership Colleagues 

In hard times, it can be a real challenge to be a manager, it can be a real challenge to continue to be a leader and support those around you.
You can become unsure of your role and your own future and connecting to these huge shifts can feel like a constant uphill battle. This is where I recommend you deepen your working relationships and keep improving the bonds within your leadership team.
(FYI here’s how to build better management teams with management pods). 

It is essential to refresh and reconnect with your colleagues when times are good but when they are at their most challenging I find a refresh is group therapy and can be group-defining.

Here are the 10 questions to ask each other:  

  1. What have you achieved in your career? 
  2. What piece of work are you most proud of working here? 
  3. What do you want to achieve here? 
  4. What inspires you every day? 
  5. What was the worst day of work here?
  6. What was the best day of work here? 
  7. Tell me about when you made a big work-related mistake and learnt the hard way? — And what was the lesson?  
  8. If you had to take three colleagues from three different departments to run a secret mission to save the company, who would you take and why? 
  9. If you were told to reduce your department by 50% what process would you take to do this? 
  10. If you were to revisit one project to optimise for better success what would it be and why? 

These questions can be asked in many settings and work from one to one, one to few (small groups of the management) but ideally in offsite settings as an exec leadership team. This is where open conversation will flow and your colleagues will want to connect with you on a personal and professional level. 

Why Ask And Answer These 10 Questions? These questions take real thought, a chance to show you can be vulnerable and a chance to create materials for the management team to onboard others onto the management team and add their experiences.  

This week’s focus action: Create a time slot where you and your colleagues run through the ten questions and learn about each other and what drives and motivates you and see how you could form a squad or SWORM to complete a secret mission within the company. 

Have a great week and remember IQ will only get you so far, EQ and PQ will take you and your business further. 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard 

Here are 3 other essentials tips to follow to improve leadership within your business this week: 

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Leaders Letter Newsletter Leadership

Leaders Letter 149 – Can The Undercover Boss Act Work For Your Business?

Can The Undercover Boss Act Work For Your Business? - leaders letter 149
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Dear leaders, a simple but big question this week: 
Could a stint of working undercover leadership help your business to improve? 

For years we have seen numerous press clippings, TV shows and social media accounts devoted to a high-level exec becoming an employee again and experiencing a number of reported and real common issues.  

PR Stunt Or Connection Builder?

It has always been seen as a PR stunt, “the big-time boss” goes back to getting their hands dirty to find out how their company operates outside of the boardroom. 

But can this tactic actually be a friction-removal exercise?

Want Recent Examples?
  • The Deliveroo founder (food delivery app) William Shu often references him going back to deliver food – this has rarely helped Deliveroo with recruitment (despite what the PR-driven narrative will have you believe)
  • GOJEK (Indonesia’s super-app) founders delivered services via their on-demand app for a month
  • Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber’s CEO) recently drove his own Tesla for Uber under an alias and then after the experiment, agreed with drivers (there were many issues Uber had to address for their drivers and ignored before this experiment) – this has landed well in the business press but the cultural press is having a field day on this tactical approach 

Marketplace For Change? Recently we have seen a number of marketplace CEOs take on the challenge and experience what their drivers or delivery drivers do and they have in short come to similar conclusions.

Sympthonising With Your Customers: 

The issue with marketplaces is, you always have to hear the two or three sides of the marketplace voice their opinions, it can be hard to understand which is more pressing and it is hard to see it or prioritise this question within the boardroom if you don’t have first or second-hand experiences.
Especially when you are attempting to balance demand and supply side feedback. 

The question you might be asking now is… Why take this big leap when you have teams dedicated to this? 

Internal Trust & Storytelling Matters

NPS surveys, user feedback sessions and customer support tickets are only as good as the story that is told by the Customer Support, UX or Product teams and the trust these department heads have within the leadership circle.
These can come down to the words on the PowerPoint presentation or the categorisation in the Excel spreadsheet.
Often these forms of feedback are dismissed if there is a weak story or no picture you can genuinely connect with showing the issues. Pairing this with a high cost per ticket attached to fixing these issues these are then deprioritised. 

Coachable Moment; Dive into these issues and understand how you can address these and embrace the power of video to see first-hand the issues.
Often these user stories are too long or too opinion based, match the user stories with insights before feeling like you have to put on the uniform or download the driver app etc. 

PR Or Product Improvement? Some CEOs will struggle with being part of this, others will embrace the opportunity to drive headlines, and others will want to experience what their employees are.   

Hint: Be the product improvement leader (not the PR-hungry leader), don’t seek this out for headlines, headlines work for and against you, seek this out to improve the product and understand how employees feel from the driver, to the internal team feeding back to the data analysis team struggling to get cut through from the way they might be retelling issues.  

One pitful to look out for; is when you experience something first hand it can seem to be much bigger than it is as you can become biased versus stack ranking all issues together.  

The Internal Question To Ask: Should you and can you as a leader truly embrace this type of deep research to understand how the company operates out of your view and spreadsheets and make a real material difference? 

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This week’s focus action: Consider how you can fully embrace getting into customer problems and connect with both company problems but also the customers’ problems. 

The best leaders truly understand both issues and can then help to support from the front on these and then put the right prioritisation on them. 

Have a great week and remember leadership has many forms, either smaller steps of helping others story-tell better, listening more to quant and qual feedback or getting deep into research to experience issues first and second hand. 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

Image source WSJ dedicated article on Uber CEO going undercover

Looking for a coach? I have limited slots available, find out more about my coaching services here
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Leaders Letter Newsletter Leadership

Leaders Letter 148 – Have You Lost The Special Thing That Makes You Unique?

Have You Lost The Special Thing That Makes You Unique? - Leaders Letter 148

Dear leaders, a few weeks ago, I took my puppy to get his first groom. For me and my girlfriend, it was like sending off our first child to the nursery for the very first time. 

We were a couple of minutes late, I hate being late it’s one of my bug bearers, and picking him up and with a mad dash, we were only a couple of minutes late. 

The groomers were brilliant from the first micro-moment, they asked if it was ours by his name, they told us what they were going to do and not do and they asked us if we wanted a call halfway through with an update or a reminder call just before to make our way back to their shop. 

It instantly put us at ease, they gave us clear instructions and one option to select, reducing our choice fatigue and nervousness. 

The 90 minutes whizzed by and they called when they said they would, they were super friendly when we came through the door and explained the process and how our puppy got on. Thankfully, he got on very well and importantly it was an experience, a positive experience and it made us know we would be going back. It would be his spa. 

Special Touch: They gave great follow on recommendations and said how much they liked him and even put a bow on his collar as a little extra touch. 

The experience wasn’t just for our puppy it was for us too, the groomers knowing how we would feel, what we would want to experience and where we may feel anxious. The special little touches really stood out, the bow as a lite touch branded reminder of the experience. A product manager or UX expert would have been super proud if they had engineered this flow. 

Why was it special? They said hello to the puppy by his name, they made us feel at ease straight away, they did what they said and promised, they gave us clear instructions and an option to suit us, they communicated very clearly and gave our puppy an experience and a special treat. This wasn’t just a transaction, it was an experience for the three of us.  

To me, this is one of the biggest and simplest forms of leadership you can have.

Do You Still Have That Special Sauce? 

This got me thinking, so many brands have lost that special edge, that secret touch that goes over and above their competitors.  

A few more examples: 

Amazon’s Famous Strategic Flywheel Drives Their Core Customer Centric Decisions
  • “Prime Expectations” – Amazon delivers when they say they will, in their simple packaging. They have set the tone for others to deliver within 24 hours at a fair price (mostly) and be given numerous prime perks like prime music, prime video etc. Their famous flywheel makes it difficult for anyone to compete at scale 
  • Zappos’ famously upgraded customers shipping on their first order 
  • Superhuman (the email client) 30-minute hands-on personalised onboarding (aka productivity coaching) for every customer 
  • Five Guys and their extra scoop of fries 
  • Jumbo (Dutch supermarket) introducing slow lanes so customers who want to chat at the checkout can

This week’s focus action: Work through how far away are you from what made your brand or service special?
Maybe it’s time to embrace that expert within your business as of leaders letter 146

How far away from that uniqueness you once offered are you? 

Alternatively, a personal quest: Ask yourself, have you lost that edge? How far away from your secret sauce or superpower are you now? 

It made me rethink a couple of elements and ensure I continue my special touches in my mentor process.

Thanks and have a good week,

Danny Denhard