Hello, and welcome to the growth workshop podcast with myself, Matt best and my colleague and partner in crime Jonny Adams. Great to see Jonny, as always.
Hey guys, lovely to see you. Thanks so much, Matt.
So today, we're joined by Mike Hohnen, who is an exec coach and a successful executive working in the hospitality sector, with a focus on supporting services businesses to drive the right culture and focus on client service. So, Mike, it's fantastic to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to Jonny and I today.
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to see you again.
So I guess, as is customary on our podcasts, we'd like to kick things off with a bit of something interesting that's happened in your past week. So it might maybe come to you first is what's been going on in your week that you could share with our audience maybe provide a bit of inspiration?
Well, I have an impression that I'm going to be the odd fish out here. But that's fine.
Why? Why do you feel like you might be the odd one out?
Well, I'll tell you, I'll try and illustrate this for you in with a little anecdote, which is, which would get us going in that sense. The couple of weeks ago, I got a request for a Zoom meeting over my calendar system, somebody who'd found me on LinkedIn, and then I sort of as we all do,
went down and checked out. So who is this person? And why did I wonder why they want to talk to me, and it turned out to be the CEO of a rather large software development company with a very sort of high profile background and top management team high profile background, and, and so I was thinking, Well, why why on earth have they found on to be this? It's a
world I don't understand. I took the meeting, of course, and I wanted it to be polite, but I prepared a sort of little speech, you know, it's very kind of you to contact me, thank you very much. I don't want to waste your time. And so when once I got going on that he stopped me and said, You know, I've researched you certainly have researched you and I understand what it is you're doing same game, do you realize that I'm a humanist, you know, I'm not I'm not actually madly interested in
the business side of things. It's the people side, I'm a people sides person. And that's the only thing that drives me the rest, I don't care what it says, I want you to come and talk to our people, and try and explain that there is another perspective on the world, which is not the one that we that we sort of generally normally have, and you have a different perspective on the world. And I really like you to, to elaborate on that. So I ended up spending an afternoon with them over in
Nice, and it was great fun. We had a really good time.
We do tend to talk a lot about obviously about the business side. And it all comes back to sort of growth. But I think Mike, what you've just shared there is exactly the point of this, right? That there's the people side of things and how important that is. And that's great, Mike, there's quite a high level of maturity in terms of from a from a leadership perspective that a leader is willing to say, look,
that's exactly what I need. I know, I'm not sort of going to step out of the numbers for a minute and go back to the root of my business that might be the people. So yeah, absolutely. Looking forward to digging into into that with you a little bit more today. I mean, Jonny, how do you follow that?
I feel that it's actually going to possibly align to what my nose loads about. And he's clearly an expert. So I was in Porto in Portugal, for a few days recently, it was an amazing trip, I if you've ever been great. If not, then as long as you can drink wine, then you're completely qualified to go, we stayed at a five star hotel, and it was pretty special. We
overlook Porto city. And I'm reflecting on what Mike said something that sort of struck me we all sort of said would you pay for this hotel, if you knew it was the star rating it was because the point being is actually the quality of service wasn't up to the level, it was actually below par. And I said to my wife, I perceive this as a four star hotel. And in fact, you know, limited urgency and really different types of services that we were getting provided during breakfast time.
Just simple stuff. Like how attentive a staff member should be possibly a five star hotel hotel, when you kind of get it a four star hotel or a three star hotel. But this was a five star hotel. So I think it looked like the hotel was living off the back of the view over Porto versus actually training and supporting their people. And the sad thing is that when we were checking out that this other couple were pretty much berating and challenging the staff member at the reception because the
quality of service wasn't up to standard. And my colleague also who traveled with us said, I'm very keen to write a review. So it was just two people independently. So there was something going wrong there, Mike, that I'm looking forward to unpacking? Because if they got it right, I actually think the experience would have gone up by a huge amount. And we would have left with us feeling like wow, so I don't know. I just thought I'd throw that out there. That's what I've been up to.
Mike, I can see you're sort of chomping at the bit now.
I mean, it's just a classic story there. I mean, there are so many examples like that out there and they will it's unbelievable. What really gets me is you know, it's not rocket science. We know exactly what it takes. It's not it's not a big mystery. It's a lot of hard work, but there is a way to solve that.
You know, and any requests you might was we all said, you know, how much would you pay for this? We wouldn't have paid as much as when we went on to booking.com and looked at the cost. And all of us went, Oh, what's that really the cost of the, you know, like, wow, so yeah, it wasn't aligned, the value was not aligned to the investment, Matt, what's been going up in your world?
I often share sort of experiences with family and that I've had with family and I was lucky enough to have my, my parents over visiting recently. So I think something that I've really taken away and then over the last couple of weeks probably is just that we will talk about sort of work life
balance, and as it exists, how important it is. But actually, outside of all of those discussions, it was just reconnecting with family and reconnecting with people that you love, and then trying to find that you're trying to find that balance. But I think the most interesting thing is how that's provided motivation in other areas. So for example, I went on a jog on the weekend, it's been a long time since I have, it was just sort of, I felt like it had been inspired
by just sort of reconnecting with other parts of my life. And it's given me more drive then in a sort of in a work and business and a business growth context. So it's just just being able to be conscious of how these things all intertwine and connect with one another, I think is really, really important. So that's my
reflection. But, uh, Mike, I think, you know, that example that you gave is just demonstration of your sort of credibility in this space, and what people really look for when they when they want to embark on a conversation with you, or they hire you to provide services. I mean, tell us just a little bit about your journey so far. How have you come to be where you are today?
Yeah, as you can see, with my gray hairs, it's been a it's a long way. Long story, we'll try and keep it short. I just want to interject something there. But and because it gets me every time I hear it. How is it we've come to get to this spot where we talk about work life balance. I mean, it's rubbish is from my perspective is rubbish. Because it implies that work is not life. And fun. I don't think any of us three would would sign up for that. I think we all three probably work
bloody hard. And we love what we do. And it's a very important part of our life. It's a different kind of balance. And it's it's, it's it's a it's a funny way of reinforcing something that I think is completely skewed. In his thinking we all do. I know that I'm I hear it the whole time. But every time I hear it, I try and shoot it down.
But what's the answer there, Mike? And I know, I know, we're sort of moving on. But that's an interesting perspective. So is there something that we can do about the language that we use? Or is there something that we can do from a corporate perspective? Have you got an idea?
Well you know, I mean, everything is a question of how we use words and how we frame things at the end of the day, that's the first first step. And so when we frame it that way, we're already sort of built an image around it. But what we're looking at is polarity between work and leisure. And what constitutes a really nice life is to maximize both. That's a good life, if you if you see what I mean, it's not doing more of one and less of the other, it's maximizing both.
If we can maximize both of those two, then we actually thrive. And so we have to find out what that is for us, and in what way we do it. But it's not like that work life balance. For me. That's, that's the short version.
Here's something you said that we've got to work out what works for us. And it's this for the concept that it's individual, and everybody's is going to be slightly different and is going to look ever so slightly different. And I think in sort of corporate culture, sometimes it's about this is what the business is does defines as good work life balance, I'm going to use that term again. But does that apply
to everybody? Absolutely not, it can't possibly apply to everybody says understanding individual situations and providing that sort of autonomy may be controlled, like but it's just even that mindful, being mindful about it as an individual and having conversations about it with your organization or your business and sort of working out how that works best for you. And, and actually, I'm fascinated in how that works. And coming from having started my career in in
support. And we're going to talk about service today. Actually, sometimes that's really hard to find in a situation where the reality is somebody needs to be standing behind a desk for a period of time somebody needs to be on the other end of the phone to speak to a customer for a period of time as shift or
whatever that looks like. So how does that work? And coming from the hospitality space, you know, like you said, I mean that industry works incredibly hard, sometimes some very long shifts, sometimes a very antisocial hours as a lot of other other sort of jobs careers in an industry is do how does how do you find that sweet spot in a environment like that?
That's a hopeless question. In a sense, Matt, because that is exactly what you started answering it becomes a very individual choice it's it's it's finding one's own sweet as you said, your own sweet spot. What is it that actually stimulates me and I think the three of us would probably not enjoy not working or or having a completely we wouldn't thrive
with that. And so each of us has to find out that but with all polarities and polarity is a fascinating subject but we're all polarities have this thing that we they always driven. There's something we want to achieve. We want to achieve the good life which is trying to balance this polarity, but there's always a fear of some thing going wrong that will drive us to over emphasize one polarity over the other. So before we get down there, but the other classic polarity is
leadership versus management. And so we have this fear that we're not in control that we're not going to be successful that we're not going to manage the business that we're not going to all the rest of it. And so we push our foot down on the pedal called management and we push it hard because we think that as long as I keep pushing that pedal, and I'm sure it would be doing right, and the reality is, and it comes at the cost of the leadership aspect, and then that deteriorates. And then you get
the downside of both polarities. And it's a little bit the same thing. So we in consulting businesses, and what we do, we all wake up in the morning in the morning and think, oh, when are we going to get the next client? And are we are we being successful? And I'm doing well? Are we working hard enough. And so we push the bloody pedal, which is called work. And we forget to balance it the other pedal, which is the leisure
part. And in that sense, we do ourselves a disfavor because that means at the end of the day, we're not at our best anymore. So one has to find out. So what are the what has to try and identify and actually be really conscious of the fact that you said the running. So one of the things that I could that I could actually see on a to do list or put in my calendar or say these when I do these things, I'm on the other polarity, I'm actually reinforcing that polarity and
not working on the other one that way. And then you need to sort of think a little bit about what are the warning signs? When do I know that I'm actually only focused on my work side? What are the What wife doesn't speak to me anymore?
Oh my gosh. I love that. I love this point. It is in our world business development. And when you're, as you alluded to earlier, you took a call because you're a good guy, and you wanted to basically let that person down gently and professionally. But in fact, actually you supported them. So better business development there, we typically see a boom
and bust or a feast and famine approach. And what we see is, you know, lots of work, loads of work, loads of activity, and then all of a sudden, you know, this roller coaster motion where Oh, no, and then you hit the bottom trough, and you go, Ah, I need to do it. That's fine. But what about our record episodes in my own life over the last 10 years, where I haven't been able to see what's going to approach and I think about a bit about
mental health. And I think about the polarities between leisure and work. And when I've worked too much, and I haven't done enough decompressing, I actually got to a point of being so compressed that that I wasn't feeling great, but I couldn't see it coming. So to your point, I love the idea around writing something down or observing but sometimes you're so in it, and being driven so hard by management that you just get to
a point and it all breaks apart. I don't know. Any thoughts on that there, Mike at all.
You said the word mental health and well, I think this is this is this is something we don't like to talk about. It's a little bit taboo. It's, it's incredibly important of years ago, I had, I was also working like crazy. And I was I was really I was actually really enjoying myself, but I was on an aeroplane three times that we're going somewhere. And it was it just went on and on and that sense. And one morning, I was walking, I was preparing to walk into a client workshop, and my
brain shut off. And I can't really explain what happened, everything just went fuzzy and wobbly. And I was disoriented. And I it was it was I wouldn't wish that on anybody. And the short story is I spent a year trying to getting out of that. Because once you've you've done that you and that's the sort of let this be a warning to anybody when you start. And I started.
It took me it took me a year to get around. And during that first period, it was so bad I couldn't cross the street on my own because my brain was not capable of calculating, you know, the cars coming or not? Are they faster? Is it Is there a space, it's actually a piece of complicated arithmetic our brain performs, and mine wouldn't just wouldn't do it, it would just can't do that. And so one really has to, and that was the lesson for me. What are the warning signs? What was it that
you know, that started telling you? What body pains or headaches or whatever, that you were pressing this pedal a little bit hard and too hard. And I think that is so important, because once it hits you, then it's no joke anymore. I mean, anybody who's been there will will know what I'm talking about. It's and I don't wish that for anybody. It's really, really tough.
I resonate, you know, and you had your own episodes. And you know, I had to turn around to my dad and say is this what it's like? And I tried to clarify like where I'm at. And I remember laying on the sofa not being able to move which felt like for three weeks because I couldn't cook I didn't know how to do that anymore. And you know, but now the the ownership actually comes back to me and my friends like Matt, you're a massive friend in this circumstances and support my
family. But knowing those signs now is really vital. And I know we've sort of deviated away from topic.
I think this is a really important part of conversation though, isn't it around that culture and actually there's a just picking up on that point that you and the term or the word polarity and I think it's being able to see both Those signs, as you said, and Jonny, you just said, they're being able to identify what's going on in each of those different worlds and using basic tools such as to do this just to
keep ourselves honest, because it's really hard. And again, it goes back to, we talked about at the top that everyone's circumstances different. Everyone's polarity is different. So everybody's perspective and wants to do this will, will look different. One thing you mentioned, Mike, as you were talking about that was this sort of role of leadership
and leadership versus management. And if we think about that, in the context of employees and supporting your employees, I'm curious, is that where you're you were heading with that comment around leadership versus management? Or are you approaching that from a different perspective?
This is where I become a broken record player, you know, because Jonny described a hotel visit that wasn't extremely successful. So coming back to the sort of overall framework here, everybody wants customer loyalty, everybody drives for the it's super interested in their NPS score, and all of this good stuff, but few people
actually really take the time to reflect on the fact. So in the services industry, I don't know anything about production, but in the services industry is what is the primary driver of NPS, it's employee engagement, employee engagement drives your NPS, because there is no loyalty in basic satisfaction, just delivering the right product at the right specification at the right price exactly as on spec and all the rest of it, that gives you three 3.5. It's on a scale of one to five, it's a
3.5. It's okay. And there's no loyalty in that. So we tend to over focus on this product specification and improving the product. But we forget that in order to get from basic satisfaction, to fantastic loyalty and enthusiasm, it requires employee engagement. And then we need to ask us and when we look at the engagement figures, we all know them from Gallup, and all the rest of we know them from all the companies, it's a huge headache across the board. In general
terms, most basic engagement levels are very low. So I think you can can sardines and Portugal, and not be particularly engaged in your job. But in the services industry, that from the customer perspective, there is a world of difference between being served by somebody who has a job and somebody who's actually engaged. It's just too different. It's just two different worlds. There's no comparison. So we don't spend enough time asking ourselves, so what is it? How do
we actually get to that point? What is it that drives that engagement? How do we get to there, and then we get back to my story about the polarities, because if you think about it, there is a polarity, which we could call tasks versus relationships, the to do list all the things we want to do, versus spending time building relationships with people connecting all that stuff. And if we lift that polarity, 500 feet up, essentially, that polarity is also called
management versus leadership. The key problem that that we've that we face out there is that the system has a bias towards task orientation, the whole system that we all sort of subscribe to, in the sense that we all live in these pyramids, there's somebody on top of us, and once on somebody below us.
And whoever's on top of us, whatever level we are on, has a certain tendency to exercise a pressure on us downward towards us, which is, we could You could wrap it up in all sorts of fancy paper, but it's called more productivity, we want to we want to see more output for less input, you know, please turn it
up, which is basically a task orientation. And then there's a pressure from below us, the people who are below us, they also think they have a different pressure, they're exercising a pressure towards us for a better relationship, they want more attention, they want to be seen, they want us to be involved. They want an emotional connection with us one way or the other. And, and they try and drive that the problem is that when we then look at our calendar, and all the stuff and
the to do list, what do we give the priority? Well, because the guy upstairs, you know, he has, he can be nasty, or she. So we keep on then value, picking the task versus the relationship problem or the relationship thing that we could be doing. Having that conversation with that person going for a walk with somebody who we know is in trouble with whatever they are doing. And so in that sense, there's already the set. It's built in, in the way we think about what do we value in work?
What do I as a manager value in the next level below me, I level somebody who gets their stuff done, you know, who delivers on time and all that stuff. And so in that sense, this is it has this lopsidedness and the other thing that's built into that cake is that when we recruit, who do we recruit, what is the kind of personality that we prefer? Well, in my world, hospitality world, who is the the young, bright waiter who gets promoted to assistant shift manager or something team
leader, whatever? Well, instead waiter who's really well organized and who gets stuff done and who ticks off the boxes and hands up in the evening was very, who's in fact really task oriented? And who gets promoted assistant manager? Well, it's the team leader who's really tasked Yeah, okay. And so suddenly, you see that there is a trace all the way through the system, where everybody who gets promoted to the next level gets promoted primarily because of that task capabilities, they are
really good at getting things done. And I get go crazy in the hospitality business when I see this because it's supposed to be in people. And somehow we get lost in that. But it gets worse. Because if you then think about it, when we are pressured, when we're under stress, when the heat is turned up, then we all have a tendency to gravitate towards what we feel comfortable
doing. And so if you've structured your system with people who are most comfortable doing tasks, then the more the heat gets turned up, the more they will take refuge in the tasks instead of getting out of that bloody office and facing the problem. Which is having that conversation with that person helping that person grow through the next level, or whatever it is.
This is it, though, Mike, this is exactly it. And Jonny, you and I talked about this a lot about and actually we talk about it through the lens of like middle managers who often get stuck. And as you talk about that pyramid structure, some of the most of us susceptible in this to this challenge. I mean, if you're a middle manager listening to this, you might be kind of nodding along as we are like, What do you say to those individuals might like how can
they help themselves in this in this situation? Because we can't all go to our boss's boss's boss's boss and say you're running your business completely wrong, you need to focus on it. So how can a middle manager listening to this podcast help themselves?
So first of all, you have to break the waterfall, as I call it, you have to even if your boss does this, you have to stop doing it. And that's a fundamental mentality, and you need to make up your mind that you want to do that. And then when I coach people around this, then this Oh, they always present this to me as a problem. This is a problem. How do I solve this because my boss is pressurizing me, and this is what they want. And I know I should be paying more attention
to taking care of the people. But I mean, I still have to deliver it. So I have to say to them, it's not a problem, it's a polarity, you need to get better at managing that polarity. And you have to see it as a polarity and not as a problem. Because there's a problem. It's not solvable, you're always this is good, this is gonna this is it's there every bloody day, day in and day out, you're faced with this. And so it's not a problem to be solved. It's a polarity to be managed understanding, when
do you do what? When do you put your foot down and resist and when do you insist on taking time to do something else or whatever it is, but you need to do that. And if you do that, you will also see how much more successful you end up being because you get a completely different output from the next level below you. So they support you. But you have to have the guts to actually believe that.
Mic drop. Jonny I can see you've got...
What you shared there, it is something that we can all resonate with. And we will have the ability to I can see the pictures being formed as you're describing them. So thank you for doing that. And as we spoke about earlier, the importance of that. And Matt, I really enjoyed your questionnaire, and I assume a lot of nodding and smiling because it's just so so relatable. I guess the question for me is just going a bit back towards what you said about MPLS
versus, you know, employee satisfaction as well. If you're looking at a business and you're leading a team, what are some of the three or three things that you could deploy that would drive employee satisfaction up knowing that you're probably measured of MBAs, but actually, you know, the input is good
employee satisfaction. So what are like three things that you know of that could work in in the service industry is not a problem, because they could be transferable to other industries, but any off the top of your head that you could deploy as a manager.
The first thing is, don't ever think in employee satisfaction. employee satisfaction is not an interesting concept in this in this, this context, because I can easily have people who are satisfied with their jobs, but not being particularly engaged, I got that that doesn't help me. So I can provide really nice jobs, a decent salaries, work conditions, I can do all of that stuff. And I can tick off all the little boxes over on the management side and see I'm
doing that really well. And I will get employees satisfaction, but I don't get any engagement. And so if we go back to the first thing, the NPS if we stand and analyze, so what is it that drives what is it that moves the needle in NPS from being reasonably satisfied to being a key promoter in that sense? It's not the product. It's not the basic spec because we're already we're already established. If you deliver on spec, you get a 3.5. So what is it that needs to be added to your delivery, your
way of doing it in order to move the needle? It's an emotional
component. It's an emotional component in the sense Somebody, there's somebody in that team, that service team that managed to connect with you in some way that touches you, that makes you feel seen that makes you valued as a Work customer solves the problem for your little dog, or sort of whatever it is that they do they do something that from the trigger something in you in your field, it's a feeling they trigger in you where you feel,
wow, that was really sweet. Okay. So what does it take to move the needle, from basic employee satisfaction to engagement, it's exactly the same mechanism, I can get decent reasonable employee satisfaction, if I tick off all the boxes reasonable, I deliver on spec, I do what I'm supposed to do. But if I want to move the needle, I have to make sure that
that employee feels an emotional connection with this job. And with me, and the tons of research to support this, that relationship that we're talking about is with your immediate boss, we join companies and we leave managers, it's the relationship with your immediate supervisor, which determines 90% of your mental health at work. And so it's that relationship. And it's, it's a relationship, it's not a it's not a to do list thing. It's a relationship. So you need to start thinking about
so what is it that constitutes a relationship? When does something become a relationship? When do I start thinking, this mad guy that contacted contact me, he is actually an interesting and fun guy? Well, he started taking an interest in me, he asked me questions, or what do you do Mike and tell me a little bit more. And John said you were doing some. And so when we take an interest in somebody else, it becomes the first step in our lives. So think of anybody that has become a decent
relationship. It starts off with a conversation where that other person's actually shows interest in you were pretty primitive.
I think this is so helpful, just to try and get some some of these amazing tips out. And I can hear already a few that I'm thinking of is when you structure a business, you need to think about what type of person you're gonna be recruiting, you know, task oriented versus relationship oriented. And thinking, actually, to your point, you know, what do you wrap around that to keep people and retain people, you know, that relationship opportunity to
create space for people to build relationships? Is there anything else that you would say for when managed, but what not managers, but when anyone is building relationships, from the tear to a tear, is there anything that they should be doing any ideas, you know, you meetings, how they should structure meetings, one to one, how they should stretch that, and things like that, Mike would be helpful.
You just need to learn one thing, they need to say to themselves, every time they go into a meeting, or a group or whatever it is the going connection, before content, that's the mantra connection before content, don't barge into a meeting. So this is what we need to do. And this is how we're going to do it. Whether it's with a group, or whether it's one to one or wherever is take the time to connect, I see managers who get it, and I see managers who don't
get it. And the managers that get it, they they follow this base. I don't know if you've come across it. But there's something called a team high performance model, which is a lovely drink suscipit model, it's a lovely model, which basically states that, you know, you start off with why, who, what, and then you get to how, and then you start building the
action plan and all the rest of it. But the foundational piece that needs to be put into place in all these situations is the why the who and the what, when we do something, when we engagement when we do something, we want to understand why we're doing it. It's a key driver. I mean, even Nietzsche talked about this, you can resist you know, whatever it was, he just said you can you can bear any pain as long as you know why. And so taking the time to make to make that that clear, what
what is the purpose of whatever it is we're trying to do. And then what I think is, is completely neglected the whole way around is this concept of social contracting. So whenever we get together with other people we need to as managers, we need to scan this room and say, These people here in the room today, do they know each other already? Okay, well, then that's one thing, no, this job here, he's actually new to the
crop. Okay. That means it's going to take us 10 minutes later, but we now need to make sure we bring into we bring Joe into this conversation, bringing up today introduce him. So we spend some time massaging that. And if I sometimes I've been working with a top management team for a hotel and we're planning an opening one of them come together as a new group. And then I can spend the whole weekend on that, because I get
them to do what I call life maps. I get them to share where they're coming from, what they're doing and what way they experiences and all of that. And once I've got that in place, then the rest of the work just goes it just flies because there's no resistance. No guardedness, no, all of that's gone. Let's just say and sort of camaraderie and trust and an openness.
It reminds me of a conversation Jonny, we had with a recent guests on the podcast, who talked about an experience when they had with their, with their peer group of leaders and their direct leader, rather these very senior team. And they'd spent that weekend together. And they'd spent that quality time together. And they weren't talking about work, they
were just engaging with each other. They were building rapport, they were building relationships, and had the energy that she felt she got from that experience was just was just so big, you know, the drive and the motivation that that created for her. And then as an expert, as the expert leader that she is she's translating that into how does she make this? How does she create that same experience for
her own team and her own direct reports? But, and the why is it's such an interesting point to start, because it sounds so obvious. You know, we've all had experiences of businesses where it's just Oh, no, no, no, we're gonna keep that just inside that jacket, we're not going to tell them exactly what we need to do. Because they don't need to know that that's not all.
They don't know it. The leaders don't know it themselves. And they're just running around doing things without any vision, purpose mission together, that's tying them all into one, you know, direction, I think we will listen to someone else. Matt recently is like, what, why do
armies March? That's a great question. And even someone who was in the army didn't know the answer, but it shows conformity, right, it shows that you're all in one direction that you're all marching in that direction in unity.
And I think, Jonny, I want to follow up on something that you were asking, so what does one do. And I think the other thing that we don't really understand enough in depth is how important the sense of belonging is to our engagement, feeling that you are part of the team feeling that you belong, feeling that that you are accepted by the others is such a
strong driver in our own engagement. And it's, it's really interesting, the sciences say that when you when you scan people's brain, and you and you see what happens to their brain, if they experience physical pain, in one part of the brain lights up. And it's the same part of the brain that lights up when people feel they don't belong. It's bloody painful to not belong. But we take shortcuts like that the whole time, and don't ensure that we talk about diversity.
Visually it's diverse. But actually, are we encouraging the discussion?
For me this leadership aspect is the thing of trying to keep together what is by nature inclined to separate those and split up and separate those, there's a constant piece of work that needs to be done. And it didn't never stops, you have to do it every day, you have to keep it together. As as a group keep this the sense of we ask something together. The sort of the conclusion for me after
having been in this game ourselves. For many, many years, I spent the first 20 years actively running hospitality stuff in all sorts of shapes and forms. And as a top manager, and then the last since 2001. I've been doing what I do now, this consulting, and I can just see that the more and more that I work on this, the more and more my business tends to gravitate towards this relationship stuff, trying to help people understand
how they do that. And also, I think it's very important. We have this sort of, we have a fatalistic approach to work relationships, you know, it's a bad team. It's, it's an irritating guy. I wasn't lucky. Thank God, I can work a little bit more with the other group, oh, take responsibility for your relationships. Ask yourself, what is my role in this relationship actually not being ideal? What could I change? Is there a different approach from me that would give a different
response from them? Because it doesn't, it's not, it's not helpful not to have those strong relationships.
You can talk about families are businesses and whatever businesses or family, whatever about all of that, right, because some of that is just smoke and mirrors, and frankly, garbage, some of that is actually meaningful. But I think the what you've just shared there is about your own perception. It's like, okay, you can't change your family. So you can't change your family, you could change your friends, but you still need to get on with your fat. Well, some people
might argue, don't, you still need to get on it. So you got to work at that relationship. So it's exactly that it's take responsibility, don't just throw it away, because you can't be bothered, the importance of having to work at it and see it as something that you need to work on. But then see the output that working on it will drive for you and for your business. I think that's such an important thing to do. I'm sure a lot of people on this podcast might be thinking or not thinking, but mad.
It's not on my Outlook to do lists that part. I can't see it anywhere.
There we go. And that is it. Right. That's the final statement. But it's not on my Outlook to do lists that can't see it anywhere. So if there is a lesson to I mean, there's a lot of lessons in this market. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to Johnny and I today some really fantastic insight. And really, really appreciate your sharing. I know our audience will love and love having listened to this podcast. So thank you for joining us, and I look forward to seeing more of
your video. He's online or maybe in the not too distant future maybe seeing you stand up in front of a live audience so thanks again Mike.
Thank you both, it's been, I've had fun and I really appreciate you accepting my rants.