Milan: [00:00:00] Excellent. Hello everybody and welcome again to our podcast where we usually work with playing cards just like… Oh, there they are. Right here. And we often just pick one at random, unless we have a guest like today, because it would be unfair to the guest to pull out a card and just expect them to catch up immediately because that’s what it is. We are incredibly lucky and happy to have with us Damien and Damien Burn. And let me tell a story why that came out. Because none of this would have happened without this gentleman. I was a CEO without a coach at one point I became a CEO with a coach that coach was [00:01:00] Damien. That what made me realize how much difference a good coach can make in a CEO’s life, and that’s what eventually led me to a coaching career and writing these cards and having this podcast. So again, we wouldn’t be here without Damien. And I believe that Jed, you and Damien go back quite some time as well, correct?
Ged: 10 years this year, I think maybe even more than 10 years. So yeah, a long time. Yeah. We did our initial training as coaches together in Atlanta in Georgia, which was a lot of fun.
Milan: Yeah. Damien, anything to add to your own introduction?
Damian: No, it’s been a good journey. I have a lot of credit to share with you both for it being good. In particular I have a lot of credit to share, for Ged kicking my butt and beginning a peer coaching arrangement, [00:02:00] which I actually, he knows I, I didn’t even know what that was and we’ve been meeting every week for now about 10 years.
Milan: Ged: Peer coaching is all about a… Yeah, that, that’s a time delay. Yeah. Yeah, Luke will cut that out.
Milan: Yep.
Ged: And peer coaching is all about accountability. And peer coaching is all about accountability.
I’ll go. I’ll go.
And peer coaching is all about accountability. It’s about two people holding each other to account as peers which is what’s quite special about a whole peer coaching arrangement. So yeah, we’ve, I’ve, I’ve got a huge amount of value from Damien. It’s, it’s one of those symbolic relationships where we both feel we get more value than the other.
So if you haven’t got a peer coach, you should go get a peer coach.[00:03:00]
Milan: Much agreed. You know, I quoted Amian in the card of meeting prep because he taught me one thing. He said it several times and it always stuck with me. And the saying was, “Hey, I didn’t have a time to prepare for a short meeting, so we are going to have a long one.” cannot really count on how many times I’ve actually used it myself ever since, but you’re the one I heard it from first. And, you know, it’s all about accountability, right? Showing up and being prepared means that you’re respectful of everybody else’s time and everybody else’s So good kickoff there. Where, where did you hear that first? Or are you an author of that?
Damian: Not. And I’m going to surmise with some maybe an educated guess that it came from a forward. Really wish I could tell you who wrote the forward, but I can’t. But it was the forward to a [00:04:00] book I think that Peter Drucker wrote, you know, kind of the godfather of management. And he gets lots of kudos for the books that he wrote. But that guess kind of like you, Moana, it just, it stood out in my head as if you truly wanna respect your peers, up ready with the information, that is pertinent to the engagement of the people that are in the room. And you know what I, I really like, guess, the most about that? There are not a lot of A players that show up unprepared for a meeting, good telltale sign.
Ged: Yeah, I could have, I could have used that that quote yesterday. I mean, I’ve never heard that quote before, and I, you know, when I was looking at the meeting prep, I thought, “Okay, that’s, that’s gold. I’ll, I will use that. ” And I, I could certainly use it yesterday. You know, leadership team turned up unprepared [00:05:00] and, you know, the meeting just went off the rails really, really quickly because they hadn’t done their prep.
You know, they just didn’t really, they just weren’t prepared to run the meeting the way it should have done. So we probably got one tenth of the value out of that session than we should have done, which is a, a real, real issue. So and this is all about respect, isn’t it? You know, if you’re, if you’re late to a meeting, you’re being disrespectful.
If you’re turning up to a meeting and you haven’t done your prep, it’s about disrespect. And you know, that’s the in- in my mind, that’s pretty much the inverse of accountability. Being disrespectful is the inverse of accountability.
Damian: Agreed.
Milan: The other, the other place where this came up a lot is, you know a couple of weeks ago, we recorded the episode on Metric ownership and Jed, when you were just talking, just reminded me of a situation when somebody shows up to a meeting and they’re presenting their metric, and that moment in that meeting is the first [00:06:00] time that day or maybe that week they actually see the value themselves. So when somebody’s asking them, “Okay so what are we gonna do about it? Oh, I have to go to my team and figure this out, ” right? It’s again, under the sign of lack of accountability. I am sure that between the two of you and combined the decades of coaching history, you have a lot of examples of how accountability shows up or how do you see when it’s missing? There will be some funny stories there, right?
Ged: Yeah. Yeah, I th- I certainly think so. And Damon, I’m sure you’ll jump in, but I, I, I wanna make sure that we cover the topic of accountability ownership because now that, that to me is something that people get wrong. And, and there’s, there’s no simple one clear answer. Now, there is a, a series of ifs in, in that combination, but Damien, I’d lo- I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.
Damian: Well t- of things. First, you know, if you show up for a meeting I’m prepared, you’re, you’re [00:07:00] waving a flag that, “Hey, I’m not on the team.”
Ged: Hmm.
Damian: You’re, you’re waving at least your B player flag to say, “Look at me, I’m over here wearing the B player uniform.” And C, you’re signaling to everybody in the room that we’re gonna have a meeting so we can have another meeting,
Ged: Yeah.
Damian: Because you simply didn’t arrive with the necessary information. And, and that prep is, is twofold. One, y- you, you prep as long as in advance as you possibly can, because the best people will re-prep. They’ll open the meeting up after they know that within their rhythm of how a meeting gets done, they’ll know the timing where they can open up the meeting again, go over everybody else’s prep and go, “Oh, look at that.
Ged is looking for an item or an article that I have and I can get it rather than waiting another week when Jed says in the meeting, Hey, we could use that article to go over that data and [00:08:00] I can go get it and we can solve the problem, you know, a week, a day, a month in advance.” It’s, it, it’s so cyclical.
And, you know, in Metronomics, it’s, it’s a rhythm. For a meeting is also a rhythm. The meeting sets the beat, but you must get ready for it in a cyclical fashion.
Ged: Yeah. I think, I think that’s probably when you start to see team cohesion kicking. It’s when people are actually turning up at meetings prepared, and there’s almost like a pre-meeting to the meeting that might be just done between individuals. I know, I noticed that you’ve got a stuck here that is, I can probably unblock that for you, or to your, to your example, you know, there is an article that someone’s looking for, and I, I’ve got that.
Let me just email it to you. Now, that’s when they start working together as a team and supporting each other, which is a big part of, of team cohesion, because the trust is already there. You know, they’re, they’re not trying to do power moves about, you know, “Well, you know, he’s got a blocker and I’m not gonna help him.”
You know, so they’re actually trying to unblock things proactively rather than [00:09:00] just sorting a not, not being on, on the front foot to help resolve issues like that. So that, that to me is the start of team cohesion. When you see that, you know the team’s coming together.
Damian: I guess, Ged, further to your point you know, on accountability, we’ll probably cover this a little later on, but there’s a good segue here where should not be the leader of the company or the chair of the meeting calling somebody out. We are building a circle of accountability and you can’t make that, that circle will break if somebody’s in the circle who’s untrustworthy. And so if they are there and they’re untrustworthy and I just made a mistake, it’s, it’s so without emotion that somebody would go, “Hey, look, Ged, you just weren’t ready for this meeting and, and we do expect more of you and, you know, you might give me a reason or an excuse, they’re different and, you know, Hey, look, good reason.
[00:10:00] Why don’t you just reach out to me next time and I’ll help you. Simple as that.
Ged: Now let’s d- let’s dig into that in a reason or excuse they’re different, what’s the difference?
Damian: Well, reason is usually presented at the beginning of the meeting prior to somebody asking and it’s real. They go, “Look, guys, I know our team behavior is always to prep for meetings. Let me, you know, your forgiveness right away because my house burnt down last night.” That’s a reason. My dog ate my homework is an excuse and it normally comes right after somebody says, “Hey,
Ged: Yeah.
Damian: Why weren’t you ready for this meeting?”
Ged: Yeah.
Damian: And you blurt something out because… And everybody knows you’re blurting something out that
Ged: Yeah.
Damian: Just not a reason, it’s an excuse.
Ged: Yeah, so accountability in that context is proactive. You’re actually putting it out there in advance, yeah. You’re not asking for a, you know, apology, you know, you’re not, you’re not apologizing, you’re just saying, “Here is what [00:11:00] it is. Here is how it is.
Damian: Yeah, I, I,
Milan: I own it.
Damian: Equate… Yeah, I would equate that to you know, something as simple as asking for help. You, you, you put it out there prior to somebody going, “Hey, you were supposed to be done with that by now.” When, when I know the deadline’s coming up and I’m a good team player, and I start to see that I might not make the deadline on something I committed to, i- if, if I am a trustworthy teammate and the teammates around me are also trustworthy and we’re sharing in that trust, I have no problem going, “Hey, Ged, I’m running behind. Do you have some time to spare? You’re an expert
Ged: And that’s the peer accountability thing, isn’t it?
Not, not necessarily being, feeling okay to ask for help, but it being the accepted way to actually offer help in advance.
Damian: Here.”
Ged: I can see you’re struggling now.
Damian: Yeah, imagine the norm is we [00:12:00] always get everything done versus, and this happens to us with clients all the time, versus, “Wow, sure bid off more than we could chew that quarter.” Right? And when you’re coaching new clients, they always think they fail to account that, know, there’s only five days in the week, there is the whirlwind taking up the majority of your time, you do have your
Ged: Yeah.
Damian: And you forget to account for how much time is actually in the day. After they get good at it and they have some team trust, it’s no problem for any of us to sit in a quarterly meeting and somebody say, seem to be taking on a lot there.”
Ged: Yeah.
Damian: Maybe back off and we’ll get done. Like a priority is something that has to get done, not a nice to have.
Ged: Yeah. I, I had, I had exactly that quote yesterday, and I was questioning whether they’d taken on too much, no, and exactly that situation. And, and someone turned around [00:13:00] and said, “Well, we just have to do that. ” And I said, “Having to do something doesn’t mean you will do it. ” Yep. So let’s be super, super selective about what we’re gonna focus on this quarter, because I’m looking, we’re a month into the quarter.
Now, I’m looking at the colors here and we’ve got bright reds and ambers and very little green. It’s not gonna happen. Oh, but we have to. Having to doesn’t make it happen.
Milan: Yeah. Then the question is the fall… Yeah,
Damian: Go ahead, Milan.
Milan: Yeah, Luke will have little extra work. Well, then the, really the follow-up question is what are you going to do differently for the rest of the quarter, right? What are, what is it? What are you going to do with that? That, I like the idea of talking about it in advance because stuff happens, we make mistakes, the accountability is about owning it, right?
Not waiting whether somebody notices whether that happens, but to be upfront with it and say, [00:14:00] ” yeah, this is what happened and I’ll do better next time,” right? Or whatever, you know, whatever the situation is. And I just love the meeting prep as the signal because I haven’t really thought about it, that, that really by the way people show up in a meeting, you can get such a good sense of what is it, what you’re dealing with here as a coach. Never thought about the meeting prep as a sign of a, a player. I think I need to go back to the cart and actually edit to that because that’s gold, right? Because they, they will do that automatically. You know, you know how they show up, how annoyed they get with when somebody else doesn’t, right?
That’s under the good signal. It’s like, “Hey, you’re wasting my time,” because, you know, they, they want to use their time for, for something that is valuable. So thank you for that bit. That’s that’s a really good one. I have to, I have to noodle on that a little bit.
Ged: I,
Damian: Fur-
Ged: [00:15:00] I think you know you’re working… You go, Damien, you go.
Damian: To I guess identifying who’s on the team and who’s not on the team, and I stole this from a very good client and maybe massage the question a little bit I would give that client credit for this and he knows who he is. The daily huddle, the first question in all of my daily huddles with the clients is, is your dashboard up to date all metrics and priorities being accurate and it’s a yes or a no question to each participant. So I love it when somebody shows up and you, it goes, yes, yes, yes, and then a no, and then a no answer. Especially the no, I just don’t have time for you people. That’s all they’re saying. I’m
Ged: Yeah, I am not in this team.[00:16:00]
Damian: You imagine. I, I just don’t have time to talk to you two. Thanks, thanks for coming up, but I’m just gonna sit through this meeting and be on my phone the whole time and guys talk about whatever you wanna talk about.
Ged: And, and that’s really a sign of, you know, of, of, of someone who, who is i- i- is clearly not part of the team, you know, and it’s, it’s gonna… You, as you mentioned earlier, that you’re having a meeting so that you can have another meeting, because at some point, they’re gonna have to come back and address those points.
So yeah, you’re having a meeting to have another meeting, and most people hate meetings, so why have more than you need to?
Damian: Yeah, most people do hate meetings. They’re probably not having good meetings.
Ged: That’s right. Yeah. They’re not the A players that are sort of ready to go. They’re there on time, they’re prepared, they’re ready, and they’re gonna engage in robust conversation to, to thrash out the details. Absolutely.
Damian: Yeah, I have a new client who’s been through two exits already, and his quote yesterday was, [00:17:00] “I just can’t understand how I accomplished what I accomplished without having a daily huddle and this meeting rhythm. I would’ve been so much faster.”
Ged: Mm-hmm.
Damian: Ged: Mm-hmm.
Milan: You’re forgetting about what a meeting what meeting does for a C player, right? I don’t know if you heard a saying, but having a meeting is the easiest way of avoiding work, right?
Damian: Yeah.
Ged: Early, earlier on, I, I sort of posed a question I thought we’d come back to around, you know accountability ownership, particularly around metrics. So there’s a lot of confusion, different views around this. You know, is it the person who counts it? Is the person who does it?
Is it the person who affects it? Do, do you have a particular perspective? ‘Cause I, I know that you’re, you’re very, very straight about your definitions, and I think [00:18:00] hearing how you define them would be very useful.
Damian: Well, I’m s- I’m gonna steal again I don’t think it’s a, a delegation task because if you’re being delegated to, you’re being told to.
Ged: Yep.
Damian: I like it when we have some key metrics in the company, as, you know, whatever your company does, you, you’re gonna count some things, and those are gonna be key company metrics. Wait for somebody to go, “I’ll take that. And if we have an argument about it, I’d let them make their case. One of, one of the, the, my most favorite stories w- is from a, another coach now coach who I was coaching, but she became a coach, and her CFO is, “How could I possibly be accountable for cash?”
He didn’t want it. Somebody’s gonna have to be accountable for cash. “And he goes,” I, I [00:19:00] really just have a couple of levers. I can’t really control how much cash is coming in. “And it was interesting to explain, so, so he, he didn’t want it, and after I explained to him that he has the best perspective on cash as a financial mind, and really can look at the bank accounts every day and report back, that when you apply that to the KFFM, he can give marketing and sales and production days and days of warning when his cash conversion cycle goes off, that somebody else is actually read, it’s not cash. He can see the trend to red. So to, to take that full scale, I think first and foremost, it’s somebody who absolutely wants that metric. If somebody doesn’t want the metric, I think it’s up to the team or the coach or the head of company to make that something that they reasonably attractive [00:20:00] to measure their position and they are obsessed with updating it, good or bad, particularly good.
You know, you go, ” Look, I scored, “and they update their metric. When you know somebody wants to update their metric, you have, you have got them to the right place because they’re literally showing the team that they’re a great contributor. And I think that’s the way to get there. You know, if somebody’s updating a metric that they hate that is useless, that, that is a negative exercise in their behavior.
It’s an exercise in futility, actually. Find the right ones, find the people who want them, and sometimes I say to people, ” Look, I can take that metric if you want, because I love that metric, and I’m gonna update it every day. “And if, if you can get that with people, I think you’ve come across the right set of metrics with the right teammates looking out for them, especially if they, [00:21:00] especially, you know, we’re looking for metrics that, affect people on either side of you functionally. So if you’re on the KFFM in a linear flow, it’s easy to see. Or if you’re in sales and you have, let’s say you’re the sales leader and you have four or five people geographically working to build your metric, it’s great when you look around the metrics and you see somebody super green and somebody’s yellow, once you connect everybody’s behavior to the outcome of the entire function, I think that’s the best way to go.
Ged: There’s a very useful framework, a very simple framework in EOS, the Entrepreneurs Operating System which is called simply GWC. And the model there is to own a metric, to be accountable for a metric. You have to get it, as in you understand the mechanics behind it, you need to want it, as in you really wanna own that metric, and C, you need to have the [00:22:00] capacity to be able to take it on and influence it in the right direction.
So GWC, three quick questions, do you get it? Do you want it? Do you have the capacity to take it on? And if you can say yes to all of those three questions, then you are probably the right person to own that metric.
Damian: Great acronym.
Milan: Yeah. When you’re talking ownership of Metric versus accountability for the Metric, are we talking about the same thing or are there nuances?
Ged: Same thing for me.
Damian: I, I would say, I would say same thing for me too. I- if you own it, it’s yours, and you are accountable in one way, shape, or form, whether you, you know, use teammates or have, you know, outside help to make sure that if you have accepted accountability for that metric and you own it, that you’re gonna update it every day and when it goes, [00:23:00] you know, maybe not to green and, and it’s yellow or red, you have the authority to press the help button and make sure that everybody’s aware that something isn’t going the way that the company has forecasted.
Ged: Yeah. Yeah, I, I’ve come across situations where someone’s taken on an accountability, so they’ve taken on ownership for a metric, but they don’t have very much ability to influence it. You know, just because it’s a complicated thing and is, you know, the, you… We have to pick someone and there’s no one who is really, really able to influence it over, over the whole.
And in, in that situation, I say, “Well, look, you know, you’re accountable for it. You own that metric, but your primary role there is to ring the bell when it’s not heading in the right direction.” Yeah. You’ve got to ring the bell to the rest of this leadership team or to whoever you think needs to have the bell rung at them, but that is your primary role there.
And that, that works as well, because that’s enforcing that [00:24:00] peer accountability. We’re saying, “Okay, Bob, you know, this is g- this was green yesterday. It’s now going amber and I can see it’s gonna go red. We need to do something.” What, what, what do you think about that?
Damian: Look, I think that’s the example that I used right up front with the CFO. They actually can’t go get revenue, which is
Ged: Yeah.
Damian: The best way to fix a negative cash position, you know, besides I’ll pay my payables later or, you know, what, whatever other layers they, or they can collect earlier. However, they can ring the alarm bell to go, “Whoa, I don’t think we have enough leads or, you know, our close rate is too low, our production isn’t keeping up with the orders.” So I think that your, your example’s excellent. They, they’re accountable to report on it and make sure that when it’s going sideways, that people get lots of warning to fix it.
Milan: I like [00:25:00] I love what you said there Damien. I repeated it in my head 15 different times, and there’s the authority to push the help button. I, I love that expression, but that’s what goes with it. It’s like, you know, you own it therefore it’s not just the responsibility, but also the authority that comes with it, see the imbalance of responsibility and authority all the time in so many different forms and we’re dealing with it, but th- this is a, this is a beautiful example, Like, yeah, you are accountable for it being there, but it also gives you the authority to do something when it’s when it’s not heading where you want it to be.
Damian: Yeah.
Ged: Let me, maybe throw a different situation at you, and, and I’ve accounted this a couple of times, and and I’m, I’m expecting a, a, a vigorous debate on this one, so let’s see, let’s see where we go. I, I have, on occasion, allowed someone to allow someone else to update [00:26:00] their metric for them. Yep, so in a, it’s the person who’s got easy access to the report, and they’ll update the metric on behalf of the person who is accountable.
Now, I always push back on that, but if they are, if they present a strong argument for that, I’ll allow it. But what I will do is in sessions, I, I, I deliberately have a very large mouse pointer, so on the screen, I’ll put my very large mousepoints over the number so it can’t be seen. And if they don’t know it, I tell them they don’t, they’re not in control of that metric and they should start counting it.
So they need to know it if they’re not putting it in themselves. Thoughts?
Damian: I think, I think you’re more kind than I am. I would go, “You may not have somebody else update your metric.” Simply, because I would like to, you know, back in the day when everybody was in the office, I would like to walk down the hall, run into Robert who owns the metric and go, “What’s your number [00:27:00] today?” And I don’t want him to say, “Oh, I gotta go ask Barb.” She updates that for me. Therefore, he does not own the number.
Ged: No, I… Yeah, you gotta know your number, which is why I test them, yeah. And if they don’t know the number, then it’s… Okay, so it’s going back to you. Yeah.
Damian: “Yep. How’s it trending? Where was it yesterday?
Ged: Yep.
Damian: You know, back to my original question w- with the, the daily huddle, if you have a daily huddle in the morning, and the question is, ” Is your daily dashboard up to date, including all your metrics and priorities? If they say yes because somebody else updated their metrics, and then in the meeting I go, ” What’s your number today?
“And they don’t know it, they don’t own that number.
Ged: They don’t. No, no. No, they’ve gotta know it. Yeah, they gotta know it. Yeah. So I’ll allow it if they pass the test, but otherwise, no. I,
Damian: Yeah.
Ged: Ye- years and years ago, I had a very, very short engagement, and the reason why [00:28:00] it was short was will become very, very clear with a, with a company and the kickoff, you know, we were going through the, you know, the, the metrics on day two for the annuals and the quarterlies and we identified that he was accountable for for, for revenue.
You know, he’s, he was, he was a CEO, he was a SaaS business, and you know, he was also the founder, founder sales guy as well, which is pretty, pretty common. And when we, when I sort of explained the implications of owning the revenue metric, and he said, “Well, well, I’m, I’m not going into Metronom and updating that every day.”
And, and I said, “Well, why not? Why wouldn’t you go in? ” And he said, “I’m the CEO.” So that was it. We were done. We were done.
Damian: I, I have a, I have a recent quote if I’m allowed to say a, a minor four-letter word. “That guy sounded like king shit on Turn Island.”
Milan: I actually used this quote earlier today, [00:29:00] I had a similar conversation. Actually, it goes all the way back to university. We were talking about business process re-engineering, there was a story that ages me. But, you know, the, the the story was, and older gentleman used to things they were, they wear was really uncomfortable with what the company was doing at the time, and I think it was SAP integration or something, you know, crazy like that. He was like, like, “I’m not going to be doing this every day, am I? ” And the CEO told him “Oh, no, no, no, you don’t have to do it. I can do it for you, but then I don’t need you. ” Right?
Damian: I can do it for you, but then I don’t need you.
Milan: Exactly.
Ged: A- a- and what happened? And what happened?
Milan: I don’t know. The, the, the prof ended the story at that point. It was, that’s all he said. I think that he was driving [00:30:00] accountability for a change management in the organization.
Ged: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. So, so we’ve talked about accountability mainly in the context of metrics, but it also, it also flows through all sorts of other parts of the business. Damien, do you, do you have a particular way of thinking about that, you know, beyond the metric side of things?
Damian: I do. And, and I’ll bring it back to the circle of accountability. You know, it, it’s, it goes to core values, behaviors. You know, this is how our tribe behaves and this is what we do. And, that circle of accountability when done well, and you must have a senior leadership team of A players, not just a group of A players, a team of A players.
And I think that’s an important distinction.
Ged: Yep.
Damian: That is happening more often and I, maybe this has happened to me, [00:31:00] more than several times now, where the head of the company goes, “You know, I just don’t need to do anything anymore.” people inside that circle of accountability are governing outcomes, y- y- you know, committed to outcomes. They’re governing the behaviors of the team, and now and again, maybe the visionary has to come in push the group to, to a different, you know, longer term strategic outcome because they do see things. But that circle of accountability can also reel in the head of company when they’ve gone off on maybe a not so brilliant tangent. And when you get that level playing field and everybody has a hat and the circle can’t work without the hat I, I suppose no different than know, a flywheel. Everybody is a component and they each have functional [00:32:00] roles within that. First functional role being a contributing member of the team at the rate that is expected. So, you know, does accountability have a, a, place outside of metrics? Yes. Inside the circle, you need to co- connect all the dots. And the minute you, you feel it, the minute, the minute it’s not a circle anymore, maybe you brought in a new piece of the puzzle, the circle was working, we brought in a new piece, you feel it when it’s not working.
I, I’m going through a little bit of a situation like that right now where they added a piece and everything was going great. They did need this new piece. They had to break, you know, somebody was wearing two functional hats and it was getting too large. And I don’t know how that’s gonna turn out simply because we have an accepted behavior probably the five people aren’t gonna change in order to accommodate the one or not too much because it will you know, add new ingredient, it’s a new soup. [00:33:00] However, it still needs to taste good at the end of the day. It can’t, it can’t have that negative flavor of the new member of the soup is not working out. So I think, I think accountability is first and foremost to be a contributing part of the circle of accountability.
Ged: And that aligns really nicely with Patrick Lynchoni’s concept of the first team. And this is a concept I pushed very early on you know, on the kickoff, you know, the, I, I position the first team as every person in that room’s team is this team. It’s the first, this is the first team, and the functional teams that they are accountable for, that they manage, that they lead day-to-day, that’s their second team.
And if people are not comfortable with that view, then they’re gonna be operating in a silo, and they’re gonna prevent the rest of the leadership team from delivering what they need to. And it’s a really, really quick test. You know, if, if people aren’t happy with that concept of the kickoff, I know [00:34:00] exactly who won’t be there two quarters on.
Damian: Yeah. I, I am very much on that page, Ged, and you were alluding to your big mouse to cover the number up. I’ll go in two or three quarters later and go, somebody will say, “Yeah, so my team is really working hard on marketing.” And I go, “Oh, are they your first team?” And, you know, immediately, “Oh, yes, yes. They? And they start to come back to the conversation we had a couple quarters earlier. Well, first team’s in this room,
Ged: Yeah.
Damian: Always.
Ged: Yeah. And when you, when you start to see a leader protect their team and sort of be the buffer between the leadership team and the team, then you, you know that you haven’t got a first team member, you’ve got a, a second team member in the first team, which doesn’t work.
Damian: Yeah, I agree. That’s well said..
Milan: I have to, I have to admit I completely blanked out on that concept. I obviously know it, [00:35:00] I used it before, but not recently. So thank you for the reminder. I love doing this because I learn, you know, something every time. As we know, and there is a card and its repetition is good, right? Sometimes you need to hear the things again and again again, and I am sure it will come up three times over the next week as those things usually do. Thank you very much for that reminder. Really appreciate it.
Ged: So before we move to, to wrap up, a big thing for me around accountability is, is clarity of expectations. And, you know, this is, this is somewhere where I find that leadership teams often stumble because they don’t really understand the importance of setting clear, super clear expectations, having that clarity before you even start.
H- h- how do you think that plays into accountability, Damien?
Damian: A couple of ways to address that first a- as a priority, like if you were writing a [00:36:00] priority, I think making sure that it’s well-written and everybody understands exactly the outcome that you’re after how much time it will take. So the finish line, how much time it will take to get there, and who is accountable first, and then who is gonna be responsible. Then the second point, a- and I keep saying circle of accountability, that is cultural, and the CEO has to lead that culture being rigorous, not ruthless. So it’s very acceptable to go, “You didn’t finish your work on time.” And, and that’s, that’s not ambiguous. You didn’t finish your work on time. We finish our work on time here, so the next time you either ask for help before it’s too late, or you don’t take on so much. Those sorts of statements start to create a cultural norm, I want the rest of the circle in the room to start saying what [00:37:00] the CEO said, not only to each other, but to their functional teams as well, that it becomes a cultural norm in the whole company. I still have my original company that I started when I was years old. A pub. I have not worked there in at least 22 years, I promise you, this was a bit of a fluke because I was a young man, that if I walk in the door, know everybody there, but I’ve never seen them before and I don’t know their names. Just know why they’re and they have a familiarization to them that, that the culture has endured over, I think we’re up to 33 years now, and the gatekeepers have been always the people that were working there.
And I think that’s, that’s what any great CEO is trying to get within their senior leadership team [00:38:00] so that it trickles out into other circles within the organization.
Ged: Yeah. I’ve, I’ve been to that hub, I think, and I, I’d agree with that. You know, you walk in and everyone behaves in exactly the same way.
Damian: Yeah. I don’t even, I don’t even know their names. Normally, I can mystery shop them.
Milan: Undercover boss. Yeah, you
Damian: Yeah.
Milan: That. Yeah. Yeah. I know that you know, we’re, we’re coming to an end, but I would love to double click on something Ged just said, and there’s the concept of the accountability for culture, right? Because, you know, we were talking about metric clearly, you know, we were talking about objectives, you know, priorities, that’s it, you know, for your function in it.
But, you know, how about the accountability for the values, for the behavior in the organization, for the culture? You just, you just talked about it, but you know, can we dive into that a little bit deeper? How does it look like? How does it present itself and how does [00:39:00] that what happens when it fails?
Damian: Well,
Ged: For me, that is clearly the accountability of the C- that’s the CEO’s accountability. There is no question. Now, they are accountable for culture, they’re accountable for setting and leading the strategy, and they’re accountable for holding the leadership team to account. And if they’re doing anything else, they’re doing someone else’s job.
Over to you, Damien.
Damian: I love that I let you go first because that was excellent. Much like a priority, we can’t just say, “Here’s the behavior, you know, mimic me. We have to have clearly defined core values that these are the three to maybe four things that we aspire to be. They must be written well specific examples of what it looks like when you’re doing that, much like a priority is very well written. We need to write it out so that when we’re doing reviews, hopefully on a quarterly basis, we can say, “Look at you [00:40:00] living the core values and here are all the examples I will give you in your own behavior where you’re living the core values.” So we’re reinforcing positive behavior to the point where we only have 24 hours in the day, and if all the behavior is positive behavior, we don’t have any time for negative behavior. So everybody wants to turn the negative behavior off. I don’t want to. I just want to turn the positive behavior up.
Milan: Yeah.
Ged: That was brilliant. If all we do is positive behavior, we don’t have any time for negative behavior. That is gold.
Milan: Yeah.
Damian: Yeah, you can use
Milan: In
Damian: You can
Milan: So that reminded me Damien, about a musical that you saw not so long ago that you really liked, right? So we put all that negative behavior in a box and crash it.
Damian: Look, I, I, I really believe, like… So as you know, I feel strongly that I have a lot of negative behaviors. If I would just do way [00:41:00] more of my positive ones, I would have no time for my negative ones. Just crush, crush that other guy.
Milan: I love that, like the so big by displacement, it’s makes, makes total sense actually. And you have a lot of that in psychology, right? Including the fake it delicate principle, right? It’s like, like, you know, build those habits of doing, doing what you want to be doing. So literally, there is no room for the rest of it.
Again, never thought of it that way, but it makes a lot, a lot of sense.
Damian: Yeah. And, you know, if you’re the head of company we don’t have any time not to reward positive behavior. The minute that it happens, that’s that core value. Good for you. You’re amazing. Don’t, don’t wait for, you
Ged: Yeah.
Damian: 13 weeks or six months or a year for a review to tell them they’re behaving well. In the moment, I always say [00:42:00] it’s like a bunch of five-year-old hockey players.
You would never do this to a group of five-year-old hockey players. They’d come in into the dressing room and go, “How’d we do, coach?” And you’d go, “I’ll tell you at the end of the season now, get back out there and play.” You just wouldn’t do that, yet we do it to adults all the time.
Ged: Yeah.
Damian: So it’s the CEO, Ged. Head of companies gotta run it.
Ged: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And it’s not something that can be delegated to the head of people and culture, yeah. They might do the execution, but it’s gotta be led and directed from the front, from the top.
Damian: We, we should have a we should have a vote right now that we change HOC acronym away from head of company to head of culture.
Ged: Well, the acronym would be the same, Damien. That wouldn’t work.
Damian: I know.
Ged: And that is probably a really good place to bring it to an end.
Milan: I think so. Yeah. We covered, we covered so much, you know, accountability from so many different angles. [00:43:00] Damien, thank you so very much to joining us. And again, from my, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything you’ve done for me over the years. Again, wouldn’t be it wasn’t for your help and guidance, so can appreciate it enough.
So thank you. Thank you, Ged for today as well. And yeah, we’ll see you next time and see where this takes us, what will be the next card we’ll pull out.
Ged: Looking forward to it. Thanks, Damien.
Damian: Thank you.
Ged: Okay, do we wanna record a quick teaser?
Milan: We do, but we, we generally do it ourselves, right? We can,
Ged: Okay.
Milan: Damian, Damien go. It’s, it’s l- late, late for him. Thank you so much again for joining us. Yeah, there were some technical that I, I got some freezings, but hopefully the hopefully the onsite recording will be okay and then look, we’ll have a little bit of work [00:44:00] cleaning it up, but it will be okay.
I will look at the schedule and I will give you Damien heads up when this is coming out. Yeah.
Damian: Thank you, guys.
Ged: Yeah.
Damian: Fun.
Milan: No, thank,
Ged: That was… Da- Damien, as you leave, can you make your, you should get a notification saying whether your s- whether your stream has finished uploading. If it hasn’t finished uploading, just leave that browser open and let it finish before you close the browser. You can leave this room, but it will, but there might, there might still be a few seconds or even a minute or so of upload remaining.
Milan: Okay, then t-… Or just
Ged: No. Click on leave. Can you see the leave button at the bottom of the screen?
Damian: I will.
Ged: On that, but then it will take you to a, an exit room, and it will tell you whether or not your upload is finished or not.
Damian: Excellent. I think I remember that from the last time you and I did one.
Ged: Yeah.
Damian: Okay. Thanks, guys. Have a great weekend.
Ged: Okay. Cheers, [00:45:00] Damien. See it.
Damian: Bye.
Ged: And do we wanna stop the recording and start another one if we’re gonna do another episode?
Milan: Do we have fun in us? I’m kinda low on, I’m kinda low on
Ged: Okay. Okay.
Milan: Noti- I noticed it be- the, during the recording. I wasn’t particularly happy with it, but, you know, the, the delays were stopping me and it was and sometimes I guess you couldn’t hear you, so I hope the recording will be okay. I know that we are reducing our you can stop the recording regardless, so at least we know that it uploaded and we have everything.
