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Performance Psychology Consultant, Dr. Alexander McWilliam, Talks Presentation Anxiety and Performing Under Pressure with MBM CEO, Darren A. Smith. Join Darren as he asks; 'What makes Dr. McWilliam the best person to talk Presentation Anxiety?'. With perhaps the only PhD, globally, that specialises in why and how we feel nervous when public speaking, Dr. McWilliam has the utmost knowledge and expertise on how to combat presentation anxiety.  Watch or listen to the podcast episode to experience Darren and Alexander exploring the ins and outs of this subject.   Click the Image Above to Watch the Full Episode on YouTube.   Read The Full Episode Transcription Below: Darren A. Smith   Welcome to the world's stickiest learning. My name's Darren Smith, and more importantly, I'm here with our guest. Thank you for coming. Alex, how are you?   Alexander McWilliam   I'm very good. How are you doing?   Darren A. Smith   Hey, I'm good. I'm good. We've both got our funky shirts on and striped. You're in check. We better not go to the same party. We'll clash. But hey, we're good. We're good. Let's get back to you. We're going to talk about presenting and about being nervous and speaking up and those types of things. We'll get to that in the nicest possible way. Why should we listen to you when you talk about this topic?   Alexander McWilliam   Well, we said my name is Alex, which is true, but my full title is Doctor Alexander McWilliam. I've got a PhD in public speaking anxiety and performing under pressure. To my knowledge, the only person in the UK potentially globally with a PhD specialising in this field, and I've been coaching presentation skills confidence when presenting for almost  decades, so a wealth of experience. It makes me feel old, but. An expert in the field of anxiety and performing under pressure.   Darren A. Smith   Two decades we haven't even got any grey hair. What's that about? OK, so you're the only one with the PhD potentially in the world in this. So just tell me about that. How long did you study for to get this?   Alexander McWilliam   So my PhD took  1/ years in total, so it was three years. Multiple studies I looked at AI looked at all the interventions available for public speaking anxiety into reduction. That was one area of study. I developed a questionnaire to help identify specific public speaking concerns because there's so many in the world. But actually when we're coaching, we need to identify what it is specifically.   Darren A. Smith   Yeah.   Alexander McWilliam   And then a last study was using acting and improvisation to help reduce public speaking anxiety. So over the three years, there was all of these studies going on with multiple participants trying to figure out why they get anxious. How do we overcome that? And as there's so many interventions available, can something alternative, like acting in improv, which hasn't seen many mainstream sort of interventions, you see CBT, you see exposure therapy, things like that. But acting in improv, that was the unique route I wanted to go down and bring on my own expertise of being an actor and being an improviser.   Darren A. Smith   Yeah. Yep.   Alexander McWilliam   With that so 3 1/2 years of lots and lots of studying, lots of reviewing, lots of writing, and if anyone's doing it, if anyone's done it, they know that it is a mammoth of a task. But so rewarding once it's done.   Darren A. Smith   Impressive. OK, so 3 1/2 years doing that and and just would you just paint a picture for us? So what did you do? You did some research, not some. You did research. You looked at research you practise it. Is that we did for 3 1/2 years.   Alexander McWilliam   I read a lot of papers looking at theories, different theories from sports psychology, from psychology, looking at why people fail to perform when it when it matters, and what's happening in our bodies and our brains when anxiety kicks in, fears, anxieties, how we develop those. So looking across the board over the last  years worth of literature, looking at what interventions are available, which ones are effective and which ones aren't effective because again. There's a lot of interventions available. People go, Oh my God, there's so many things I could try and do to reduce anxiety. What works? Well, luckily, I published a paper earlier this year which identified which ones were good, which ones weren't, and how we overcome them. And also, it's been a while developing this questionnaire to identify those specific worries and having to test it, validate it. All of those things with thousands of, I think we ended up having around  participants to validate this questionnaire. So it's not that because.   Darren A. Smith   OK.   Alexander McWilliam   You get a questionnaire, you know the online ones are going. Ah, what's my biggest worry then? You know, it could be anything's anyone's written that. So we took a lot of time doing that. And then also the intervention testing out a six week improvisation course to go. OK. If we got people in over six weeks once a week for a few hours, can we use those techniques to do that? And then we have to do all the steps work which again.   Darren A. Smith   Yeah.   Alexander McWilliam   I've I've never learned stats when I was younger, so that was a new area of statistics of how to do. Which again is a mammoth task of maths and data and analysis, but again very rewarding, but a very complicated at the same time. So three years of lots of that and then presenting at conferences, writing papers, editing that took a long time because a my thesis I think was around , words. Trying. Yeah. Trying to get and that's a short one that's that's quite a short version some people's thesis.   Darren A. Smith   Yeah. OK. Off.   Alexander McWilliam   Are , words like a lot of history thesis? Are there like hundreds of thousands of what? Not hundreds, but maybe ,? So trying to make it so that it was rather. And not waffling is the other things there's such. It's like there's so much content you could talk about and try to go one of it. What am I refining it? And actually I found during my PhD in the first six months, actually I started coming in with one idea and then six months later, that idea sort of change and amalgamated. And then it kept changing. I think when someone does a PhD, they realise that actually they start with one idea and it does.   Darren A. Smith   Yeah.   Alexander McWilliam   Modify a lot and for the better as well.   Darren A. Smith   Yeah, makes sense. That makes sense. So over the next  minutes, however long you and I are going to talk, I'd like to talk longer. People are going to understand why they're nervous when they present and how they can overcome it is that is that simply what we're going to get because that's powerful, right? OK. All right. Fabulous. Fabulous. OK, well, I'm intrigued. So over the next  to  minutes, I've got four or five questions that we've pulled from Google search that most people ask around this topic.   Alexander McWilliam   Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.   Darren A. Smith   And then I think at the end of it, you've got a really handy mnemonic, a really handy takeaway for us to have. Is that right?   Alexander McWilliam   Yep, got one. It's called steady and I'll let you people can still go. Oh, what's that about?   Darren A. Smith   They've been treated us now. I like that. So that's the the culmination of , words. Your thesis down to  things.   Alexander McWilliam   Yeah, essentially.   Darren A. Smith   All right. OK. All right. Well, I'm keen. I'm going to kick off with our first question, if that's all right.   Alexander McWilliam   Yeah.   Darren A. Smith   How do I not feel nervous or panicked before presentation is the first question most people are asking how do I not feel nervous and panicked?   Alexander McWilliam   But the first thing to challenge that is go nerves aren't a bad thing. If we're nervous, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It can actually be quite facilitative to our performance. We need it to energise us. If the issue comes, it become too nervous. It overwhelms us and it impacts our performance in a negative way. So that's the first challenge. Nerves aren't necessarily a bad thing.   Darren A. Smith   Yep.   Alexander McWilliam   And also and I'll talk about this later, our body doesn't necessarily know when we go. Oh, I'm feeling nervous. Is it nerves? Because actually. There's a famous study where actually they reframed, oh, physiologically, nerves and excitement have the same physiological response. My heart rate goes, my handshake, I feel sweaty. The only differentiation is your mindset. When we're nervous, I'm worrying about the worst case scenario. When I'm excited, I'm dreaming out at the best case scenario. So you, I'd always recommend you reframe that and go, actually. OK, I'm feeling this is it nerves. Well, OK. I don't really know what it's. I could be nervous about, but maybe.   Darren A. Smith   I love that. Yeah, yeah.   Alexander McWilliam   Excited. I'm excited because I get to present to my peers and share my idea because the the nervousness comes from the unknown and the ambiguity. I'm nervous all about something. What's going to go wrong? However, I'm excited because I get to share my research and the audience get to share my story. That's why I'm excited by I use that when I go to the dentist. I hate dentists. I'm nervous, but I go. I'm so excited they get to clean my teeth. I'm so excited they get to do this. And it it calms me down a bit. So I think nerves isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's only when it becomes too overwhelming. But and there are in that steady Muni,

Discover the Personal Values Coaching Card deck with Expert, Clare Walker Dive into a great discussion between Clare Walker, expert in Personal Values and Darren A. Smith, MBM CEO. Here, the pair talk about why Clare is perfect author of this deck, due to her expertise, training and extensive career experience, how the deck works and what you can do to improve your coaching whilst utilising Coaching Cards.   Watch the full podcast on YouTube by clicking the image above. Read the full Personal Values podcast transcript below: Clare Walker, Vodafone   0:04 Yeah. Darren A. Smith   0:06 OK, so the whole thing is probably, I don't know, 3-4 minutes, 5 minutes. You know, it's not a long video. It's as much as you want to say. Really the idea is we're helping people to understand and use them. Clare Walker, Vodafone   0:20 Well, no, I'm not. I'm gonna go the personal values. They just look at the opposite way around for the simple reason I built those as very bespoke, not bespoke. But yeah, I built them quite bespoke. Darren A. Smith   0:34 OK. Clare Walker, Vodafone   0:36 Yeah. OK. Let me go personal wrong. Darren A. Smith   0:40 So the first question coming up after I ask you who you are and what you do is what are these personal values cards all right. So we're just doing the what the what the why in the how. OK. So let me make sure you're OK with that. Clare Walker, Vodafone   0:58 Let me completely blame and just push my credit First off. I'm gonna be on video. Darren A. Smith   1:05 And then afterwards I got a different question for you. Nothing to do with the video, just something I've had your opinion on. OK. All right. I'm ready when you are. Clare Walker, Vodafone   1:13 OK. I'm ready now. Darren A. Smith   1:20 Talks, it looks real. It's good. Love the dunks. Hi, my name is Darren Smith. I'm from the world's stickiest learning. I'm here with Claire Walker from Vodafone. Claire, how you doing? Clare Walker, Vodafone   1:33 I'm very well. Thank you, Darren. Darren A. Smith   1:35 And Claire, what do you do at Vodafone? Clare Walker, Vodafone   1:38 I am the coaching and mentoring lead, so it means that I look after all things for external coaching, internal coaching, coaching resources and also training people how to have a coaching mindset as opposed to be coaches. Darren A. Smith   1:53 OK. And how long have you been doing coaching? Not necessarily just a Vodafone, but how long have you been doing coaching things for? Clare Walker, Vodafone   2:02 I started my professional or my my more structured career back in 2016, but actually through conversations and interviews like this, I realised I've pretty much been coaching all of my life. Darren A. Smith   2:14 Love that, love it. Love it. OK, OK, now we're here talking about these coaching card things. We have a number of coaching cards and you kindly collaborated with us on a particular deck. So I'm going to ask you a few questions to share with the folks that are watching. What are these things? Why did you create it and how to use them? So let's start with the first question. What did you create? What are they? Clare Walker, Vodafone   2:41 I created a deck that our personal values cards and I have them all here. Darren A. Smith   2:47 Oh yeah. Clare Walker, Vodafone   2:48 And there are 80 of them that help people to understand what their drivers, they're motivators, their way of being is. So by going through these you can really start to investigate what it is that's inside you that can. When you look at them and investigate them can cause less friction for you and greater understanding of not just who you are, but who the people around you are as well. Darren A. Smith   3:16 OK, so these are coaching cards. They look like they're the size of a playing card. OK, there's eighty of them and they come in a little box and their personal values. All right, got it. Got it. Could you show us a couple just so we can see what's written on these things? Clare Walker, Vodafone   3:32 Yes, absolutely. So each one of the cards has got a different word on it. So you can see this collaboration, there is tolerance, pleasure, passion. And as we go through the deck, they're then going to belonging dependability. Duty. Creativity. So there's 80 different words on here that when you look at them, they're not the top five or four or five words that you would normally choose as being your values. People normally say things like honesty and integrity and fairness and authenticity. This is a a bigger pattern, goes deeper and when people go through this, they choose cards that they've never really considered as being their values, but suddenly understand that actually it's really important to them to have fun or to be empathic or to belong. Darren A. Smith   4:19 OK, fabulous. And why did you create them or what problem do they solve? Clare Walker, Vodafone   4:27 Yeah, they I created them because I've been using them for some time. I mean, we always through coaching, we will ask people questions such as you know which of your values do you feel has been restricted here or which of your values could come into play here that could help you collaborate with this person or through your coaching reach your goal. And so when we started looking deeper into how you know, how we could look at these and how how we could get a range of cards. We started to really understand that when. Give people these and they start pulling them out in front of them. There are certain cards that can resonate with them and they will pick one up. I had one person picked it up and burst into tears because suddenly this time they realised it meant something to them. They'd never considered it or they haven't considered it in that way. And so it's interesting. We ask people, you know, to choose their set of 10 from this deck and out of that set of 10, you know, that's their top 10 for the day. But we asked them to to lay 10 out of this pack of 18. Darren A. Smith   5:22 Oh, OK. Clare Walker, Vodafone   5:30 The ones that resonate most with them, not the ones they think they should have. Everyone thinks I should have family and I should have love and I should have. They actually go with the ones that I didn't have family in mind. It doesn't mean that I don't value them, it's just their omnipresent. I didn't have to have them in my top ten, but people then lay out their top ten and start to recognise that actually the things they thought they valued might not be at the top of their list. People who say money, yeah, value money. Darren A. Smith   5:43 Yep. Yep, OK. Clare Walker, Vodafone   5:56 But actually realise they have none left at the end of the month. What they recognise is that further up the list are things like social interactions and. Aesthetics, so they may instead of valuing money at the top of their list, what they may value is going out and socialising with their friends, which is why they have no money. But it's more important to them at the end of the day, to have those connections with their friends than it is to have money in the bank. So you start to really see where you put your values and how you can. Darren A. Smith   6:17 Gotcha. Gotcha. Clare Walker, Vodafone   6:29 Ensure that you give focus and energy to the ones that are going to help you reach your goals. As well. Darren A. Smith   6:35 OK. And you start to touch on there the how they work, so you've got these 80 questions, you've got a bunch of folks in a room and you've asked them to pick 10 each and then just give us an idea because you've done done this a number of times, what happens? You mentioned the lady bursting into tears, but what else happens with those values cards? Clare Walker, Vodafone   6:54 Yeah, yeah, that was in a 1:00 to 1:00. So it wasn't too out there in the team. So fortunately we we sat and talked, talked through what it meant to and might have that reaction. OK. So when we do this with teams, we get people to choose their top ten and we get them to lay them out on the table. And then what? We ask people to do is look at that 10 and choose the one that feels most important to them, the one that really resonates with them, the one that's probably non negotiable. Darren A. Smith   6:58 Ah, OK. Clare Walker, Vodafone   7:20 That they don't want to live ever without. It's it's the one. And actually the one that they choose is normally the one that underpins everything else. Darren A. Smith   7:21 OK. Clare Walker, Vodafone   7:28 So if it's something like honesty or trust or respect, you'll find all family or inner peace. You'll find that everything else that they then talk about sits underneath that and relates to it. And So what we get people to do is choose their number one and then what we do is we ask everybody in the team. To say what their card is, what that means to them, so really to give the definition of what that is for them. But then why that is so important to them? Darren A. Smith   7:58 Of course. Yep, Yep. Clare Walker, Vodafone   7:58 Some people will say family, my wife, my kids. They're really important to me. And you know, because they are my life and I do everything with them. Other people will look at the same card and say family. That's the people that are around me all day everyday. And it's not just the people who are blood related. Family to me are those people who are in my work team. They in my church that are in my my social group. That's what. So it sometimes goes bigger. And we had one guy who talked about wealth. He picked up wealth as he's number one and some of the guys on the team kind of went. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Wealth. And money bags and he said no, no, I don't mean that.

Parenting Coach Ruth Taylor Talks the What, Why and How of our Parenting Coaching Cards with MBM CEO Darren A. Smith In this exclusive discussion, Ruth touches on why her experience as a parent herself and her training as a soft skills facilitator makes her the perfect coach to have written our deck of 80 parenting coaching cards. Ruth and Darren cover the what, the why and the how of this deck of coaching cards, together with a few key pieces of advice and guidance that can be found in this brand new deck!   Click Here to Watch the Full Podcast on YouTube.   Read the Full Parenting Coaching Cards Podcast Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith Welcome to the world stickiest learning. My name is Darren Smith and more importantly, I'm here with Ruth Taylor. Ruth, how you doing?   Ruth Taylor Pretty good today. Thank you. When I say today, for me it's night time.   Darren A. Smith Good. It is. Where are you in the world?   Ruth Taylor Well, I decided to move from the UK all the way to the other side of the world, so I'm currently in New Zealand.   Darren A. Smith Right. OK. So it's 9:00 AM here. It's probably about 9:00 PM there, isn't it?   Ruth Taylor 10:00.   Darren A. Smith Oh, right. OK. Thank you very much for coming in. We've got 3 short questions for you about the cards that you created, which I can see on the right there. So the first question is: Why, in the nicest possible way, should we talk to you about parenting? What do you know about parenting?   Ruth Taylor When I came to New Zealand, I had toddlers and now I have two adults who I'm very proud of. They're in their 20s now. I was very fortunate. I did  parenting courses before I had parents.   Darren A. Smith  OK.   Ruth Taylor Parents? before I had children. Before I had children and that's something that most people don't get the chance to do. But I was trained as a parenting coach and a facilitator for courses by health promotion at the time to work with parents, and I thought this is awesome. I've got this and then what I found was the reality of having your own children is.   Darren A. Smith Yeah.   Ruth Taylor Not quite as simple as they made out. But there were things which I was able to consider before having children, which maybe other people weren't, because obviously having gone on the courses, there was things I could talk to my husband about going. Have you ever thought about this? It was like, no. So those questions where I was thinking, well, how can we encourage other people to be able to ask those questions either before they even think about getting pregnant, when they are pregnant. And all that. So that's really kind of where the coaching clads came from and also where the sort of sections of the the cards came from. So and in my life I'm a facilitator. I I facilitate soft skill courses, communication skills, conflict management, leadership skills. Emotional literacy. A lot of things like that. So I've worked in schools, I've worked in hospitals with leaders, with parents, with children. So I guess I have a different insight as well as. How how we often think about children isn't actually how children think, and sometimes we don't think of the impact of our actions on our children. And therefore having again having card which encourages to reflect before we open our mouths or before we make certain decisions means that hopefully we'll get more of the behaviour we're looking for.   Darren A. Smith That that makes perfect sense. I know. When Gabby was born 25 years ago, these things don't come with a manual and you come home and you go. I have no idea what to do. My life has changed. Yeah.   Ruth Taylor The thing is, things change all the time, so these cards don't say do this do that, they say have you considered or? Where would you go for this information? So it's not a, not a guideline of saying, oh, you should pay it this way. And no, no, that's wrong. It's more case of well talk about it.   Darren A. Smith   Yeah.   Ruth Taylor   Decide as a couple because I don't know about yourself, but when I was first going out with my husband, working out how we're going to raise kids wasn't the first thing on our minds making them. Maybe you know that's that's you get your priorities right. So it's like well. How do we how do you get to start these conversations?   Darren A. Smith   Very true. Yeah. Yeah. OK. All right, so you've got a lot of experience of parenting. You've done a lot of courses. You practise this, and then you created these cards. So what are these parenting coaching cards?   Ruth Taylor Oh yeah. So these are actually probably pretty much early on in the journey rather than later. Obviously, the journey up a parent is ever changing, engaging in fun and annoying and all the things it can be. So looking at the cards, we decided to actually go for kind of set of this 80 cards, something like that. But we broke it into five parts.   Darren A. Smith   OK. Yeah.   Ruth Taylor And the reason for that was because, as I said, the whole preparation thing, there's a lot of people. We're thinking about having children. And this kind of like, well, what do you think about about having to what should I consider? I mean you've got the things like, can I afford it? I suppose that's a basic one, but what other things have I got here? Who do you, who are your role model parents and it's usual conversation to have with your partner, you know, who delaces good parents. Who do you see as good parents?   Darren A. Smith   Yep.   Ruth Taylor Are you aware of the impact of technology on babies on the Super course of this one is what relationship do you currently have with your phone because that's a challenge that people might not actually consider it's like. If you are someone who spends all your time on your mobile, on social media, your child is going to disturb you. You're not going to be able to do that.   Darren A. Smith Yeah, yeah. But we we see.   Ruth Taylor   I'm just going to push that. The cat is now meowing you can put.   Darren A. Smith   And it's all right. We we can't hear it. One of my my, my bugbears is when you go to a restaurant they have kids on a phone watching a film. You think. I don't think that's right for me as a parent but you know if they consider that I don't know.   Ruth Taylor You got here. Oh, I'm working. In my in my day it was. Don't put them in front of the television and I admit absolute you absolutely use the TV as a babysitter. But the thing about TV is you can walk in front of it, you can unplug it, you can turn it off.   Darren A. Smith Yep. Yes. Yeah.   Ruth Taylor The thing about the phone is you don't know what they're looking at. You can't see what they're looking at, and you try and take that on off them. I tell you, they've got a grip like a vice. They ain't going to let go, and it's much, much easier to refuse than it is to remove.   Darren A. Smith OK, OK, alright.   Ruth Taylor   It does not hold a concept that however hard it is you think to resist your child's desire to have one, trying to take it off of them afterwards. It's a lot harder and you will get a lot more noise, but that's that's just kind of my personal opinion. But there is a lot of research, there is a lot of research coming out to support that view.   Darren A. Smith   I'll get that. I'll get that. So so you created 80 questions, there's five stages. Just tell us what those five stages were. Again, I know you showed us the card.   Ruth Taylor   I did and then I put it down and what did I do with it? Oh, here we go. So there's preparation, which is you're thinking of having kids, and you're starting to talk about it. So how to start talk? There's then pregnancy and people might think, well, what do I need to know and talk about? Pregnancy. Well, are you someone who is going to reveal the gender of your child?   Darren A. Smith   Yep. OK. Yeah.   Ruth Taylor   Do you want a gender of your party, or are you someone who's going to wait until you have the Charter to get it named? It's a little bit tense when you're having that. The scan and your husband's going. What's accident? You go. No, I don't want to know. So it's again, it's having those conversations prior to that. Are you going to be OK with people coming up and touching your belly and or can I touch your belly? It's kicking. So you won't personal boundaries. And this is going to be different for everyone. So pregnancy.   Darren A. Smith   Up front, yeah.   Ruth Taylor   Are the vitamins you should be on. Are you doing any kind of lifestyle choices which maybe could harm your child? I mean, if you're a drinker or a smoker, are you going to give that up? These are things to consider. I don't know the answers. The third section is parenting itself. So in that first 2-3 years, the first thousand days is very important. The child's. Development. Yeah. How? How do you see?   Darren A. Smith   Sometimes. Wow. Yep. OK. Have you heard of that?   Ruth Taylor   It working as far as who's going to get up at night and how look after the kid. How are you looking to put in sort of rewards or sanctions or disciplining you know, what's your thoughts on that? How are you going to cope if the house goes to pot you know there's not it's not going to be tidy as it is now because you've got things going on is is this understood?   Darren A. Smith   Yeah.   Ruth Taylor Let me talk about partnerships and people, which is really other people in your life who may be involved with helping you to parent. So this could be a wider family over New Zealand would say father, which is a Maori word for for your wider family.   Darren A. Smith   OK. Yeah.   Ruth Taylor   Are you looking to send your child to kindergarten or? Nursery.

Master the Art of Persuasion With Expert Christopher Phelps, Us Ceo of Cialdini Institute Christopher Phelps and Darren Smith dive deep into the psychology of persuasion. Explore the powerful principles that can help anyone improve their persuasion skills. From understanding Robert Cialdini's six principles to actionable insights on how to apply persuasion in sales and business, this conversation is a must-watch for anyone looking to influence effectively and ethically. Click the image above to watch the video on YouTube   You Can Read the Full Transcript Below: Darren A Smith: Welcome to the World Stickiest Learning. I'm Darren Smith, and I'm here with Chris Phelps. Chris, how are you doing? Christopher Phelps: Very good, Darren. How you doing? Darren A Smith: Hey, I'm good. You've just managed to solve a problem for me where I've got a stream of light from my light and, and Chris was saying, we'll put a post-it note sort of here, and you've just cracked it. It's been a problem for two years. We're off to a great start. Darren A Smith: So in this podcast we are talking about persuasion, influence, those types of soft skills. I'd like to start with a question, which is why should we and the people listening and watching listen to you when we talk about persuasion? Christopher Phelps: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so just to give you a little bit of my background, uh, I was very fortunate, uh, and unfortunate at the same time. So I'm a dentist, uh, by trade. Uh, grew multiple dental practices in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I live on the East coast. And, um, had made this bold move of selling two of my best offices, uh, to free up my partners to be happier elsewhere, as I like to say, and took over my two struggling practices, the worst ones, so I could get back to being me, right? Get back to doing it my way. And I felt like if, if, if I could put my, all my efforts into those two baskets, so to speak, that I could do more with those two offices than what I was being held back with, with the four, right? Darren A Smith: Okay. Christopher Phelps: And so when I did that and I made that move, I then realised maybe that wasn't so smart, because now you're stuck with not the ones that were making money, the ones that are costing you money. , uh, one of which was a brand new dental practice that was costing me 70,000 a month, us in expenses, but only taking in 35,000 a month in revenue. So you don't have to be a math expert to realise that's not a good check to write each month, right? So, but what it was was a powerful motivator for me to stop, uh, procrastinating on the problems of these practices or ignoring them, right? And, and deal with them. The problem was I just didn't know what the root cause of the problems were. Okay. And so your brain is funny in that sense. That's why it procrastinates, that's why it ignores the problems, because if it doesn't understand the root cause or doesn't feel like you have the capability to solve the problem, that's what it does to quote unquote protect you. Christopher Phelps: Right? Well, at this point, knew I had to do something and dig into it. And I was fortunate that a friend of mine invited me to a business seminar, and the keynote speaker was the, the godfather of influence himself, Dr. Robert c Cini. And, you know, Cini is a professor of emus, of Mark, uh, psychology and marketing at Arizona State University. Uh, he wrote the book, influence of Psychology of Persuasion over 40 years ago, and that's what he's built his name and research around is this whole idea. And after he, he gone on stage and talked about those six principles. There was one of them in particular that was like my aha moment that I was like, yeah, that principle right there, that one is the root cause of all of my problems in my practices. Okay? So I knew he was, was in, he was an authority, right? Christopher Phelps: This guy had the answer. So I sought him out and, uh, went out to Phoenix, Arizona. Uh, I did a two day training on persuasion and influence with him and his team. And then I found out that they had a certification program so that you could actually go deeper in your knowledge. And they only take, you know, a couple people every few years out of the thousands that apply. And I was fortunate that they accepted me into the family, so to speak. And so I actually got to train under Dr. Cini directly for over a year and basically went and took these principles and this behavioural science research that I've been studying with him. And I went back to my practices and kind of use them as my laboratory, if you will, experimenting, right? Hey, if I kind of worked in this study in this scenario, maybe it might work with my patients in this scenario. Lemme try it. Well come to find out not only did we have some significant results that year, but each of those practices grew by a million dollars each three years in a row. Okay? Darren A Smith: Wow. Christopher Phelps: So, and this is doing, uh, the timeframe of this, by the way, is 2008 to 2010 when in the United States that was during our housing crisis, right? Which a similar economic turmoil like we're experiencing now with inflation and whatnot. So a time period when more dentists went bankrupt in the states than in the history of dentistry, we're growing millions of dollars a year. Okay? Okay. So automatically, because of that experience and the training with him, I drank the Kool-Aid , right? I saw the benefit of this stuff and the power of it. Christopher Phelps: When you stop making your strategies around the excuses people give you after they've said no , and you back it up and you start making your strategies around what they're really using to make the majority of their decisions. So that's what child Dini's principles tap into, right? That's at the heart of what they speak to. So why take this for me? Well, because number one, I've studied this from the man himself. Uh, number two, I've lived it, okay. Uh, I've used it in my own businesses. And then number three, I've helped countless other dentists, dental practices, as well as large corporations outside of dentistry and other industries tap into the power of these principles as well. Uh, so I've helped others see the same kind of benefits and result I have. Darren A Smith: Wow. Okay. I'm hooked . Now, before we come to the questions, 'cause you and I talked, um, let's ask top 10 questions I'd really like to know. Just gimme an example of one thing you changed in your practice that made the growth through this. Christopher Phelps: Yeah. Well, here's a simple one, right? So when we normally present an options, uh, treatment options to a patient, uh, we were actually treating them and I was trained in dental school to take them what I call up the stairs, right? So the options start low and go high, right? Mm-hmm . So for instance, if somebody was missing a single tooth, uh, the options would be do nothing, right? Leave the tooth gone, uh, do something we call a removable partial denture. So have a fake tooth that comes in and out, plastic tooth do a bridge, which is something that stays in place and kind of connects the teeth around the space. So it looks like the tooth is there. Um, and something called a dental implant, right? So we replace the single tooth that way without hurting the neighboring teeth, right? So in the past, we would present something to that effect. We'd say, Hey, do nothing, do this partial, do this bridge or do this implant. Okay? Darren A Smith: Yeah. Got it. Christopher Phelps: Well, one of the things we learned in persuasion is this thing called contrast and how, uh, what you say first sets the stage for how people perceive the next thing you talk about, and then the next thing you talk about and the next thing. So when my financial team would come in and go over those options, let's say it was, uh, $2,000 for the first option. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, $4,000 for the next option, or $6,000 for the, for the high-end implant option. Okay? Each number they hear sounds worse and worse and worse in contrast when you take them up the stairs. Yeah. So one simple thing you can do is just flip the order, don't end with your most expensive item, start with that in your presentation and take people down the stairs as well. Right? There's a reason they say nature likes to take the path, at least resistance. Christopher Phelps: We want to take the path of least that takes less energy, right? So going down actually means that more people are automatically slated to say yes to not only your ideal option, but every other option underneath. So they actually did this in, in a study in dentistry where, uh, doctors were taking people up the stairs in this scenario, and then they ha half the time that's what they did. And then the other half of the time they flipped the coin and started high and took them down low. And we would all agree that if price was the sole motivating factor of why people said yes, then it doesn't matter what order you presented in right? Christopher Phelps: Up or down, you either have the money or you don't. Okay? Well, they ask these doctors, well, how much of an increase in sales of your most expensive, in this case $8,000, uh, product needs to occur for you to think this was a really good experiment? And they were thinking, man, if we had a 20% increase in sales of our most expensive product, that would be great for this year. And so I usually ask the people that same question, think about you and your industry. How many of you would love a 20% increase in your most expensive product that you sell? Right? Well, by starting high and going low, just that one little move, 540% increase in sales of the $8,000 treatment option. Darren A Smith: Wow. Christopher Phelps: One 20. Darren A Smith: And I love that it's so simple from going downstairs. I've just written it down.

Mastering the Art of Negotiation: Strategies, Insights, and Real-World Solutions Explore the art of negotiation with a distinguished group of professionals in this Negotiation Skills Training Webinar - Kuwait. Today, we're joined by Darren A. Smith, a seasoned expert in negotiation strategies and the founder of the innovative Sticky Learning methodology. Darren will guide us through some of the most effective techniques for achieving success in high-stakes negotiations, drawing from his extensive experience. Also joining us are Suha Isaac SCV, a dynamic facilitator and partner in bringing this invaluable knowledge to Kuwait, where she has been instrumental in fostering leadership and strategic negotiation skills across various sectors. Suha will share insights into how negotiation principles can be applied in the unique context of Kuwait's culture, especially for leaders in banking, education, and investment. Additionally, we are joined by professionals like Farrah, Yousif, Hamad, and others, who will share their personal challenges and experiences with negotiation, providing real-world examples to enrich our discussion. This session promises to be interactive and insightful, offering practical strategies that can be applied immediately. Darren will dive into the sticky learning approach, demonstrating how repetitive learning over time leads to meaningful behavioural change and long-lasting negotiation skills. Click the image to watch the webinar on YouTube You Can Read the Full Kantar Market Share Transcript Below: Darren A Smith: Hello and welcome. Suha Isaac SCV: Yeah. Hello everyone? Yes. Hello, hammed. Hello, Farrah. Hello, Yusef. Yousif: Hello. Hello. Hello everyone. Suha Isaac SCV: Hi, hammed. Thank you for joining. Yousif: Thank you. Suha Isaac SCV: Yeah, we're just gonna wait couple of morning, couple of minutes until um, we have more people because they're joining. And we are gonna start in two minutes maybe, Darren. Darren A Smith: We'll just see who else attends and then we'll begin. Suha Isaac SCV: Okay, great. Suha Isaac SCV: And of course, I know it's very difficult for people to join after working hours unless they're really interested in having some insight and a new, uh, let's say a new view about, uh, any topics that will be discussed in these kind of webinars. And, uh, I assume some of the people, I, I assume they have their, uh, I think their, their, uh, kids, uh, going to exams in this period of the time. And many people, let's say busy with starting, uh, preparing for their Christmas leave. So we're, we we're hitting the ground before the 20th of December when everybody actually will be switched off. . Darren A Smith: Makes sense. Suha Isaac SCV: Good. Yeah. Good, good. So the, the mic is yours. Can, uh, Darren, when you want us to start? Darren A Smith: Okay. Well, let's, um, see if we've got a few more people coming. This will be a very interactive webinar, so if you would like to come on camera, and if you would like to join in, I'd love to see your faces and we can chat about what challenges you have and how I can help. Hi. Good. Suha Isaac SCV: Yeah, how you, Yousif: Hi, how are you? Darren A Smith: Hello. I'm good. Good. I'm good. Farrah. Hello? Uh, you are on mute just in case you Farah: . Oh, sorry. I just said hi. Hi. Uh, Darren A Smith: I did some lip reading and I think I guessed. Uh, let's see if Hamed will join us. Can we coax him out? Hamed, do you fancy join us? Okay. And we've got, uh, someone else coming in. Okay. So bear with us while we just grab the late comers. Um, if you could, um, grab a piece of paper and a pen, it would be great. Um, just be some questions. Farah: Okay. Suha Isaac SCV: Okay. I think we have, um, SIA Hussein, thank you for joining us. And I think he, you want to start? Darren A Smith: It's all right. We've got Hamed coming back, so I've just, uh, Suha Isaac SCV: Okay. Darren A Smith: Admitting, um, and we've got another person, so bear with me. Farah: Mm-hmm. Darren A Smith: No, gone again. Okay, good. We have some tech problems. Let me just see. Uh, they were here then they've got over scratch. Okay. I Suha Isaac SCV: See. Yeah. Okay. Darren A Smith: It's four minutes past. Uh, is everyone all right if we start? Suha Isaac SCV: Yeah, I think we will. Yeah. So, uh, yeah. Good. So thank you everyone for being here on time and, uh, um, I honestly having a webinar, um, it's very new, let's say concept on the, on the Kuwaiti culture, specifically the, the working culture that we need to, um, invest in our, let's say, save time or time with our families just to gain some knowledge. And sometimes people think if the knowledge is a free, so it's worthless, but that's the contradict. We're trying to giving you some very, uh, precious, informative, uh, knowledge, which will drag you, of course, to continue and pursue your, um, digging more into these kind of subjects. So negotiation is very attractive and very, uh, let's say, let's, let's say it's very vague sometimes because people think, uh, the negotiation is just, let's say I can read a book and I can negotiate with any kind of clients I have, or partner or family or even our kids or whatever. Suha Isaac SCV: So negotiation, it's a little bit, uh, um, uh, there's a methodology and there's so many schools. Darren has one of very, uh, very, uh, interesting school of, uh, delivering this kind of knowledge called the sticky learning for that time. Uh, let's say partnering with Darren to bring these kind of, uh, methodologies to Kuwait, to empower our leaders and our, uh, let's say our experts in banking, education and investment, other kind of sectors, how they will negotiate, um, specifically in gaining, uh, the deal. There is a book written by Trump called The Deal, and this is how this guy or Trump reached the presidency. The deal, uh, I, I'm, I'm honestly ordering the book and I'm gonna read it because this is how people negotiate. It's all based on negotiation. So I'll leave the floor for Mr. Darren to introduce, to introduce himself and what is the sticky learning methodology that he come up with regarding the negotiations. So, Darren, please go ahead. Darren A Smith: Thank you. I'm gonna start with a question 'cause I don't like talking about myself. The question for everyone here is, what one problem would you like to solve in negotiation? And let me see if I can help you in the next 30 minutes. Now I've got a whole agenda of things, but if you could put in the chat or tell me what one thing do you wanna solve? Farrah, please. Farah: Um, I think especially as a woman, I think there's a gender aspect to it. So I kind of wanna get what I want without seeming too pushy. 'cause I think that pulls pushing men, especially who are sometimes usually your manager away when you're being too pushy. Darren A Smith: Oh, lovely question. Gender aspect. Alright, so I'm gonna talk a bit about push and pull in a little while. That's the bit I'd like you to look out for, which I think will help. Okay. Someone else, what's the one thing you'd like to solve so you get some value from the time you're spending here? Ef. Just 'cause you are here. Oh. Oh, Ahmed, go on. Ahmed, what's yours? He jumped in. Ahmed: Yes. Hello. Mr. D and Mrs. Suha Isaac SCV: Yes. Hello. Ahmed: Hi. Uh, actually one very frequent problem B is working in risk management is in, in many, in many ways, uh, finding a middle ground. Uh, and when we propose a solution for certain risk situations, uh, we find it difficult to mediate sometimes between different parties. I mean, just to reach a middle ground between different, uh, sides of the, of the argument. So that's, that's something that I'm frequently faced with. Darren A Smith: Okay. I think I understand what you're saying, Ahmed. I've written it down. Let me see if we can crack something here together. We also have about 10 minutes at the end for q and a. Um, who else would like to share, uh, one thing they'd like to solve in negotiation skills? Yu it's just 'cause you're in my eye line. Yousif: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hi. Then, um, uh, actually, uh, if we want to talking about the, uh, uh, uh, communication, how we, how we make the communication easy for the another parties. Okay. So, uh, for example, if we want, if we want to give any solutions about something that we have in our works, how we are summarize it and give it an easy way, easy idea or easy uh, uh, thinking. Darren A Smith: Lovely, lovely question. Alright, we'll just ask one more person, see if they've got something and then we'll move on. One more person. What do you have that you'd like to solve here today? Okay, we have no takers. Oh, Darren A Smith: Hamad. Go on. Hamad: Um, I'm always being afraid that I get outsmarted and being rejected. For example, I'm the head of customer service, so I always, I'm always in demand for something for my people and my managers always being, you know, outsmart me in something and then they reject it. Darren A Smith: Mm. Okay. I'm keen to know more. I'm not sure I can get it. Just tell me another 20 seconds on that so I can understand it a bit better. Please. Maybe an example, Hamad: Uh, for example, I always wanna expand my teams. I want some help from, I want some help for, uh, uh, increasing my head count, you know? Yeah. They always got something to reject me, like, improve your sales. Then we'll talk, do this and then we'll talk. Darren A Smith: Okay. Okay. I might have something for you, Hamad. Hamad: Alright. Okay. Darren A Smith: I may do right. We've got about 30 minutes together. So is everyone ready to rock and roll? Cool. Fabulous. Alright. First thing I'm going to do is let's talk about sticky learning. Not us promoting ourselves, but in terms of why don't we achieve behavioral change after training. What are your thoughts?

How Embracing Nervousness and Understanding Human Factors Can Transform Your Deals In this podcast with negotiation expert Derek Chevalier, we dive into the secrets of mastering negotiations and transforming your approach from amateur to pro. Discover how to leverage your own nervousness to your advantage with the surprising strategy of "rope-a-dope," and learn why understanding the human element in negotiations is crucial for success. With insights that go beyond mere tactics, Chevalier's advice reveals how to effectively manage complex negotiations, understand the hidden roles of all participants, and craft strategies that make you the master of your negotiation game. Ready to up your negotiation skills and walk away with better deals? Read on to uncover the key strategies that will give you the upper hand and turn every negotiation into a win. View this episode on YouTube by clicking the image below. Click the image to watch the podcast on YouTube   You Can Read the Full 'Rope-a-dope' Expert Interview Here: Darren A. Smith: Alright, alright. Welcome to the world stickies. Learning my name is Darren Smith and my guest is Derek Chevalier. Now Derek and I were just having a great conversation because I was saying how do you pronounce your surname? And you were telling me it's French and it means nice. Is this right? Wow. Derrick Chevalier: OK. Yes, yes, that's it's actually a title, right, a Chevalier or knight. Darren A. Smith: You said so much better than me. Derrick Chevalier: Ha ha ha. Darren A. Smith: And also we were discussing Smith and I was saying how boring it is and I love your surname. I love it, I love it. But let's get down to why we're here. Derek, you're an expert on negotiation. I'm going to ask you a question which will be a little bit tough, but I know you'll take it in the right way. Why should our listeners listen to you when I ask you questions about negotiation? Right. Have you been doing it a while? Derrick Chevalier: Ha. I've been doing it awhile and I think the benefits that can come from the experience that I have is that people can transform their interactions with other human beings. Darren A. Smith: Nice. Derrick Chevalier: It's a process that can be adapted to virtually any element or aspect of both personal and professional life, child rearing to business, yeah. Darren A. Smith: Yeah, yeah. I mean I always say in negotiation, I can negotiate with anyone. But my kids, you know, they just win. But you know, we both know that. Derrick Chevalier: Exactly. Darren A. Smith: Now I've got. Derrick Chevalier: The younger they are, the more true that is. Darren A. Smith: Oh, I want a lolly. I want a lolly. I want a. Oh, come on. You've worn me down. Have 4 lollies, alright? So you and I were talking about this a couple of weeks ago and I said well, let's ask the questions that people are asking on Google, which I've got here. And you said, yeah, you can answer those questions. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to ask you the questions that the folks are mostly asking on Google, like 10,000 hits a month, alright. Derrick Chevalier: OK. Sure. Darren A. Smith: So let's start with the first one. Nice easy one to get us going. What do you mean by negotiation, that's what the folks are asking. Derrick Chevalier: Sure. So it's a formal or informal process of either conflict resolution or problem resolution. Essentially. That's as simple as it is, you know, a process for resolving. Darren A. Smith: I like it. Derrick Chevalier: Either issues or questions or conflicts. Darren A. Smith: Alright, nice. Nice. Alright, nice and simple. For folks watching or listening to this show and they're thinking I can't negotiate. I don't like negotiating and I avoid it. Just a couple of thoughts for them before I move on to our second question. Derrick Chevalier: Right, sure. Quick disclaimer, everything that I'll talk about is based upon the proprietary negotiation framework that we use in Harrison Chevalier. So that is actually called CNSUF or snuff negotiating for short, right? So right. So. Darren A. Smith: Locked up. Right. Snuff locked it. Yep. Derrick Chevalier: If we're looking, go ahead. What was the question again? I wanted to give that disclaimer. Yeah. Darren A. Smith: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, cool. So if there's folks out there that are listening or watching and they're thinking, how do I negotiate? I don't like this negotiating thing, isn't it just people who bang their fists on tables? I know it's not, but go on. Derrick Chevalier: Yeah. Sure. Right, that's such a great question because I've learned over, especially in the last couple of years. We've done a lot of research and found that people are reluctant to negotiate. And that also a lot of people believe that negotiation can be learned simply through experience. So here's the rub. Whether you want to negotiate or not is a choice, but we are always negotiating because essentially, by the very definition that we just shared. Every interaction with a human being, and if you look at the pundits in Physiology, it's a great book called *The Body Keeps the Score*. Derrick Chevalier: We are both negotiating with ourselves, but we are certainly negotiating every situation and every interaction that we're in with other human beings. The question is, are we doing that by osmosis because we are impacted by our sociology, education, the political system that we grow up in, and the institutions we're raised in. So are we doing it on purpose or by mistake? I would say that the difference between a layperson and a professional negotiator is that they're engaged in the same process. One is using a formula as if a cook or a baker would use a recipe and another is doing it by rote memory or by experience. Darren A. Smith: Nice. I like that. I like that. I like the recipe metaphor with the cook and the baker. Just come back to *The Body Keeps the Score*. I haven't read that one, but I assume it's on Amazon and blah blah blah. OK. Derrick Chevalier: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great book that talks about the fact that very much of what and who we are is a part of where we've come from. And that particular book talks a lot about trauma and it talks about the trauma that we experience all the way back into the womb, being a part of our DNA and writing part of the script for who we become. Darren A. Smith: OK. Derrick Chevalier: And how we handle situations that we're involved in, what memories trigger us into various mental, physical, and physiological states, right. So. That's why somebody can hear a door slam. I was a combat veteran and that's why somebody that's been in an acute situation can hear somebody raise their voice or have a particular tone of voice, speak at a particular pitch or rate and immediately be triggered into a physiology that was part of their upbringing, right? So. That is going to occur when we're interacting with people, which is why it's very important to be mindful of not only what we say, but how we say it to whom we're speaking to. Darren A. Smith: In episode 2 that you and I are going to do, I'm going to segue you into that. We're going to talk about you being a combat veteran, but right now I'm going to move on now just for the folks at home. I want to give them a snippet. So we're going to make this some big stuff and some small stuff. When they're in conflict and negotiations, conflicts, it's problem solving, it's getting something resolved. Have you got a small top tip we can give to these guys? And they're like, oh, give me something. Derek, give me something. Derrick Chevalier: Alright, that's OK. No, that's fine. Sure. Negotiate people and not problems. Darren A. Smith: Oh oh, you've got to expand on that. I love that. Go on. Derrick Chevalier: First of all, most people are focused on their wants, their needs, and the desired outcome so. Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Derrick Chevalier: They are focused on the details of the issue, their position versus their counterpart's position. But. We're dealing with human beings, so a lot of you think about chess. Chess is often a great metaphor for negotiation, right? And also sport. Are a great metaphor for negotiation. However, in the snuff framework we talk about well, where isn't chess a good metaphor? Well, here's where it's different in chess than in life. In chess, every chess board, no matter what it's made out of, comes down to 8 squares, 8 down and eight across. We know who the players are, and every player has a prescribed role. Darren A. Smith: Good. Derrick Chevalier: A role they can only move at certain times. They have particular limitations and no matter where you are in the world, those limitations are the same. There's only been a couple major changes in chess in the last 400 years, so we know what the rules are and we know what the players' positions are. That is not true in life. We don't know who. We may know what their titles are, but we don't know who they are. We don't know what role they're playing in that negotiation. Darren A. Smith: Mm hmm. Derrick Chevalier: We don't know their limitations in terms of power or capability and we don't have access to the same input that they do. So therefore that human interaction is much more complicated because you want to identify the role, position, and objectives of the person you're interacting with. By contrast, here's sport. Darren A. Smith: OK. Derrick Chevalier: And this comes down to what we'll talk about a little bit is transactional negotiation. So many people use sports as a metaphor for negotiation. All right, snuff point. What is the difference between life and between sports? That's a big one. In a sports competition, whether it's cricket or tennis or bowling or football or soccer, whatever it is. How many people can see the scoreboard? Darren A. Smith: OK, alright. Derrick Chevalier: How many?

Dive Into Whole Brain Thinking In this episode of "The World's Stickiest Learning," hosts Darren A. Smith and George Araham engage in a deep dive into Whole Brain Thinking with expert psychologist Johan Olwagen. The discussion revolves around the HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) model, exploring its applications and insights. With Johan's extensive experience since the late '90s and the hosts' own encounters with the model, the conversation delves into the value and impact of Whole Brain Thinking. Get a comprehensive understanding of HBDI and its relevance in leadership development and personal growth with this podcast! View this episode on YouTube by clicking the image below.   Watch the video if you're more of a visual person   You Can Read the Full Kantar Market Share Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Welcome to the world. Stickiest learning. I am absolutely pleased that this title will be a deep dive into whole brain thinking with our psychologist, Johan. Johan, how are you? Johan Olwagen: I'm very well and thank you for the opportunity guys. Darren A. Smith: And we're here with George as well. Hi, George. You good? George Araham: Hello. Hi, good and you? Darren A. Smith: All right, so we'll ask these guys to introduce themselves in a moment. What we're looking to do here for the next 30 to 40 minutes is a real deep dive into HBDI whole brain thinking to understand this thinking preference tool. And we've got our expert here. And George and I are going to grill Johan to within an inch of his life about HBDI because he's been using it for about 500 years. Johan Olwagen: Excellent. Looking forward to the challenge. Darren A. Smith: All right. Well, let's start with George. George, would you just tell us 30 seconds about you? So our listeners know who you are before we get stuck in. George Araham: Sure. So I'm actually NSO blog writer and I've been collaborating with Darren on HBDI. Which is a fascinating assessment tool. I also have my masters in marketing, but that's boring stuff so I don't really like to talk much about it. I did write an international best selling book on relationships, so yeah, that would be me in a in a nutshell. Johan Olwagen: Trans. Darren A. Smith: Well done. Well done. Thank you, George. Very welcome. Johan, would you just give us 30 seconds about you? And also I'm going to ask you that tough question, but in the nicest possible way, why should we listen to you when you talk about HBDI, please? Johan Olwagen: Well, first let me introduce myself. I'm a clinical psychologist in South Africa. I have been working in the field of leadership development since 1995, went through a number of iterations in my career. Why should you listen to me? Passion, excitement and impact? I really am passionate about getting people to change and working with people so that they can thrive and grow in whatever they intend in life and purpose in life. Darren A. Smith: Fabulous. Fabulous. Thank you. Thank you. George Araham: Hmm. Darren A. Smith: And how many years have you been, Johan working with HBDI whole brain thinking. Johan Olwagen: Well, in the late 90s, we had discovered it. A colleague of myself and we wanted to get a hold of the HBDI and it was provided to somebody else to run the business in Africa. And so I haunted this person down in 2001, made-up with her. She was the CEO of Herman International Africa and just said, I need to talk to you. We need to get together. We need to. Utilise this tool because I found absolute value in it so since 2001. In a couple of decades now. Darren A. Smith: And I didn't know that before we started this, but I had my first profile done when I worked for Sainsbury's, a supermarket here in 2001. Johan Olwagen: There we go. Fantastic. Johan Olwagen: Again. George Araham: Interesting, that's a similarity. Johan Olwagen: Absolutely. Yeah. Darren A. Smith: So we've got about 50 years between this of Herman thinking. Wow, wow, wow, wow. OK, OK. Brilliant. Brilliant. So we've got some credibility. We've been using it for a while. And in this room, I think we've got a red, a yellow. And I think we've got some blue as well. So we might be missing green. But as we've said in our preparation, George wore a green shirt. So we've nailed the green. Lovely. George Araham: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: All right, we're going to come over to George for our first question and then we'll take turns, I think, and we'll build on those. So, George, what's our first question for Johan, please? George Araham: So I'm going to start hard. I always like to jump deep into the subject, so I'm going to start by asking like today in it's very trending that companies are very much masking in land of like they tend to be very rigid in their approach and a lot of employees prefer the freedom of choice which they are not being given. I'm not going to go deep into it but like this like this is. A bit of context around the question, so my question to you, Johan, is how would you as an employee for example? George Araham: That has a blue, a yellow, a green, or a red personality type. How would you cope with this problem? Yeah. Johan Olwagen: All right, so I want to say this first upfront because, as you've mentioned the word personality part, I think it's definitely more thinking preferences. So for me, the starting point is always this: how you think is how you act is who you are, because our thinking, if we look at the behaviour that people display, behind that is a lot of thinking, and you're so right. I mean, we all grew up with particular thinking patterns and ways of doing things. Organisations need to understand that we're in a new world of work. It's a VUCA world, volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and so the old ways of being and the old ways of thinking. George Araham: Yeah. Johan Olwagen: What got you there is not going to take you here. And I think that's a critical understanding in that changing world; we've literally got to learn to shift our thinking gears, if I can use that analogy because if we don't shift the thinking gears, the elements of the model that you don't apply will bite you in the end. In other words, if we really look at whole brain thinking. It really implies for me that we need to climb out of our comfort zone. We can't expect other people to change. Johan Olwagen: Or to accommodate us, we need to do that accommodation. And so what you will find in the new world of work, especially with the new generations, very flexible, very open, very willing to discover and explore. And unless you shift that gear to also accommodate them, you're going to run into difficulties. And we see this. How do we see it? We see it in organizations that want to force people back into the workplace. Johan Olwagen: That are not open to work from anywhere, and they're running into difficulties and we can talk about what the kind of leaders are that do that. But I would say that shift your gears. It's a new world. It's a different world and you know Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, said in 2018 already. Johan Olwagen: That the world has never changed as fast as it is changing now. Think about that. The world has never changed as fast as it's changing now. It will never be this slow again. So unless you accommodate that, unless we are agile, we run into difficulties, so I'm not sure if that's answered the question directly, but that's a start. Darren A. Smith: All right. Well, I've got a subsequent question off the back of that. So if I'm one of those colors, I might assume that the Greens might struggle with this more because they're more rigid in their thinking than the yellows. I'm happy to be wrong. I'm just sort of mulling this over. What do you think? George Araham: Yeah. Johan Olwagen: So, so. So let's talk about what those colors are. You know, if you think of in the whole brain model, yellow is about holism synthesis, integration, it's about innovation, forward thinking and and I think if one can use the F word for yellow, it's about future. So how do we how do we accommodate this future? Johan Olwagen: Blue very much about goal-directed focus is the F word there. How do we solve this problem? How do we deal with the issues? How do we capture the chase, whereas for green, green wants a format? Once structure it wants clarity, it wants certainty. If you think about it, green very often. Struggles with change. It's not that they can't change. George Araham: Yeah. Johan Olwagen: But the change must; they need to be able to see how that change is going to add value and what the process is going to follow. So now post COVID. The world has changed. Suddenly, people are working from different places. New demands are coming in and blue says, excuse me. What part of did you not understand? You get back to the office. This is how we've done it. Green says hello. This is a workplace. Can you just come in here? There's due process and policies that we need to follow. Yellow says, whatever. What policies? What are you talking about? Alright. And then obviously the Red Quadrant people-oriented collaboration. Johan Olwagen: It's about teamwork now. Can you imagine? They run into people who tell them this is how it will be. Yeah. An office space or a factory space? There's no problem. They do it immediately. But if it doesn't make sense. So what do you want? Do you want me to spend time and hours? Or do you want the output? And does it matter where you get the output? Or is it where you want me to be? The green quadrants if for them they can see. How it unfolds sequentially and how ultimately it would add value. They will buy in, but don't you come and just change things for the sake of changing. Johan Olwagen: Yeah, let's go. Where do you want me to work? I'll work. I can be anyway, but but certainly I think all of those quadrants are open to change that or yellows.

It Can Be Loney at the Top - But C-Suite Coaching Cards Can Help Join C-Suite Coach, Kim Randall and our very own Darren Smith, as they talk about support for C-Suite (executive-level managers). Face it, sometimes it gets lonely at the top, especially when everyone is rushing to you for support. Explore Kim's passion for delving into the human side of leaders, helping them to connect with who they are as a person as well as a leader. If you're a leader or want to offer support, make sure to check out this podcast.   Click the image above to watch the episode on YouTube!   You Can Read the Full C-Suite Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Hello. You're at a podcast. Welcome to the world's stickiest learning. We're with Kim Randall and also Pudding who you're stroking there. Kim-Adele Randall: I am to try and get him to not join in. I think he might be the more vocal of the two of us this morning. Darren A. Smith: It's probably true. That's probably true. The title of our podcast is where Do C-Suites go to for support now? I'm joined by Kim, who is a C-Suite coach. Is that right? Kim-Adele Randall: It is. Darren A. Smith: OK, now in the nicest possible way. Kim, I'm going to ask you, why should we listen to you about this? Kim-Adele Randall: Great question, Darren. So I guess for me, I started off as in C-Suite and was there for a number of years. And then when I became a mum, I decided that I could have a bigger impact by coaching of the C-Suite leaders. Having been there and realised that it might be lonely at the top, but it's certainly not quiet. Everyone is looking to you for the answer. Everyone expects you to always be on your game. People forget that our cease suite leaders are people 1st and leaders second and we are all perfectly imperfect. We have things that go wrong in our lives. We don't always know the answer. Darren A. Smith: True. Kim-Adele Randall: We're not always feeling like we're firing on all cylinders and so if we can, when we understand the human side of that C-Suite, that was one of my passions as part of my purpose, which is how do we help those C-Suite leaders connect with who they are as a person as well as who they are as a leader and give them that support? Because no human being in the world can survive without support for long. And it's this way you think the phrase comes from lonely at the top. I think so, yeah. Because when you get to the top, you both from. From my own experience and also from, you know, coaching at hundreds of other C-Suite leaders, one of the things that is so common throughout is we all fear becoming irrelevant. Kim-Adele Randall: And when you get to the very top, you know that everybody wants your job. You're doing one of you, so there's nowhere to go. So actually all you are is hanging on for dear life until somebody comes to step into those shoes and that is that plays in, in their head. It's that, you know, am I still adding value? Am I still relevant? Am I still doing stuff? Cause where do you go for your help? You can't. If you have those moments of doubt, we all have them. You know, in Process syndrome hits us all at some point in our life, you kind of go well, where, where, where do I go? Darren A. Smith: True. True again. Kim-Adele Randall: So I'm having this moment of doubt and I can't go to my direct reports because they're one looking to me for support and equally looking for any element of weakness so that they might be able to take and I can't go to the board because they might doubt my confidence or credibility and therefore you know that might have ramifications. So where do I go in those moments? Where I need to get out of my own head and we all know that we all have blind spots for the reason we're blind to them. Kim-Adele Randall: So no amount of looking at ourselves in the mirror is going to highlight those blind spots. What we need is a sometimes a sounding board, sometimes a trusted advisor, sometimes just a safe space where I don't know if you've ever had these moments, Darren, where you've been saying something in your head for a long time. So plausible, it's so likely to be real. Darren A. Smith: Yes. Kim-Adele Randall: And then you say it out loud to another human being, and at that point you go. So can I don't help you or I've just heard from myself how ridiculous that is But you need that space to be able to do it, cause saying it's yourself in the mirror still sounds plausible. Related resource - C-Suite Coaching Cards Click the image to watch our C-Suite coaching card video showing you what you get in the deck and how to use the cards   >> C-Suite Coaching Cards << >> Branded C-Suite Coaching Cards << Darren A. Smith: Alright, try very trick. When we talked to companies about training our office and talking to these C-Suite type people, then we might say to them and what about for you and they're like, what do you mean, what about support for you though? No, no, no. Let's do it for our people. Don't you need something as well? No. Why is that? And I think it is that fear. They're not sure that they want to show their underbelly. Yeah. Kim-Adele Randall: Yeah, because it takes courage to show vulnerability and there is that line. It's like you know, how do you show vulnerability without losing credibility? There's a balance and it's helping them find that balance and that confident balance that says, OK, this is OK because actually when we inadvertently when we say I don't need any help myself that you all need help. We don't have the impact we expected to have, so our impact is we're trying to be magnanimous. Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Kim-Adele Randall: We're trying to say, like, you know, I'll give it to you that because I want to be supportive. Darren A. Smith: Yes, yes. Kim-Adele Randall: What instead comes across is I don't need it, but you not do, which is the exact opposite of what our intention is, and I think for me, that's one of the big things I talked to see sweet about which is impact versus intention. Their intention is usually really positive, but very often how they're delivering it. They're impact they're having is so misaligned and that's when you see people starting to really question whether or not the values are really there, whether or not there's as a a disconnect, which in a world where we are constantly battling how we win, attract and retain top talent. The last thing you want is a misalignment between your intention and your impact. Darren A. Smith: Absolutely. I like that you and I talked about it in our prep and it's impacts an intention. Can you give us an example that my brain that to life for us, something real life where you've either experienced it or seen it in someone your coaching? Kim-Adele Randall: Yeah. Yes. Darren A. Smith: Because I really like that impact and intention. Things. Oh, I got that. Kim-Adele Randall: Yeah. So I was. Darren A. Smith: OK. Kim-Adele Randall: I was doing coaching for an entire season suite for one organisation, so individual coaching it had been driven by the CEO and when I was talking to their direct reports they were like ohh if you know doctorial he can't tell him anything. You've not got this, and so if you given him that feedback and there were lots of shaking heads looking surprised like no Kim and that was like, why not? Well, I don't think I know we couldn't do that. We couldn't possibly do that was like, OK, but he's instigated this program, so he's doing it's part of his development. He's brought me in. Kim-Adele Randall: I just as well as other coaching. I do stakeholder driven coaching where you get the stakeholders, you get them to give the feedback as well. So yeah, he's driven this to say he wants the feedback when we don't think he really does so. And they said, well, could you give him the feedback? That's fine. Darren A. Smith: Virgin volunteer. Kim-Adele Randall: Absolutely I can. And I will. That's part of my job, I said. But let me play out for you. What will happen? I give him the feedback that this is how you all feel. He comes out to talk to you about that and you will go. I don't know what she was on that day. I didn't say that must have been somebody else as it how likely is he to really believe that this is a challenge, that he has an opportunity to overcome and they were like it's fair point. Kim-Adele Randall: But could you give it him anyway? So I went into to talk to him. Right. Others giving them the feedback and he was like no, definitely not. And I said, OK, let me let me start from a different place because the first thing that we do when we're given feedback is we defend what we were trying to achieve. Darren A. Smith: Could. Kim-Adele Randall: So he's trying to be supportive, to be open minded to the areas that he needs to develop. I said so, so I shared this with him. I said let's start with what I think is your intention. I think you're trying to be an open minded leader. I think you're trying to create a culture where need back as part of the DNA where it's the positive because everything is about moving you forward. It's allowing you to be the best that you can be. It's shining that light on your blind spots to allow you to see them. Darren A. Smith: Nice, that's. Kim-Adele Randall: And therefore respond to them, would I be correct? And it was like absolutely came one brilliant. So that's great. That's what you're trying to be. That's your intention. That is what you were putting. You think you're putting out into the world? Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Kim-Adele Randall: Can I now share with you the impact you're having? Because while that's what you're trying to do, the impact you're having is people are scared to come and talk to you. They don't think you will listen to the feedback they are afraid of making a mistake. And that's the culture that they are now permeating throughout the organisation. Kim-Adele Randall:

Cultivating a Culture of Belonging Join us as we explore Chelsea Kirk's profound perspective on EDI (equity, diversity, inclusion) and, above all, the significance of belonging. Discover how these principles can transform workplaces into vibrant ecosystems where every individual feels valued, heard, and empowered to contribute their best. Also, we talk about the EDI Coaching Cards and how valuable they can be. So get ready for a journey that goes beyond the surface, into the heart of creating workplaces that truly reflect the diverse tapestry of the world we live in.   Click the image above to watch the full episode on YouTube!   You Can Read the EDI Coaching Cards Podcast Episode Below: Darren A. Smith: Welcome to the world's stickiest learning. I am absolutely over the moon to have Chelsea Kirk with us. Hello. Chelsea Kirk: Hello, thank you for having me. Darren A. Smith: Hello how are you doing? It's Friday weekend soon. Chelsea Kirk: Absolutely super excited. Darren A. Smith: Good, good, good, good. Now we wanted to ask you to come to our podcast because you're an expert on EDI, is that right? Chelsea Kirk: That is. Darren A. Smith: OK. So Chelsea, would you tell us what you do and in the nicest possible way, why should we listen to you when you talk about EDI? Chelsea Kirk: Yeah, of course. So my current position is head of equality, diversity, inclusion at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn been in that post for around 2 1/2 years and done EDI for probably near enough four years. Darren A. Smith: Wow. Chelsea Kirk: And kind of a generalist for about 8 years in HR prior to EDI. I suppose in terms of listening to me, I've got kind of a lot of experience in sort of that HR field in the EDI sort of field and landscape and. Darren A. Smith: OK. Chelsea Kirk: We're quite well connected with different sort of professions and different EDI leaders, and I think as well sort of keeping yourself current. It's really important that you know, as the landscape evolves constantly, it is around, how do you kind of keep yourself current? So you know, well connected, you know, net networking with different individuals. It is really important as well. So I would say in a roundabout way that that to sort of summarise. Yes. Darren A. Smith: Alright, alright, cool. Cool, cool. So EDI is something that's relatively new to most people, although it's becoming, dare I say, on trend, it's becoming more topical, which is a good thing. So if I new to EDI, would you just summarise for us what is this thing and why should we start understanding it better? Darren A. Smith: Run. Chelsea Kirk: Why is really important one? I think creating that sense of belonging in the workplace, having that safe space to be their true authentic selves and bring their whole selves to, you know, the workplace. And I think that for me is really, really important. And I think as you know, EDI has really sort of grown over the last sort of few years. I think there's a few topics that have really elevated that. So I think you know the Me Too movement, the Black Lives Matter. Employees who feel welcomed contribute to a healthy workplace environment   Chelsea Kirk: Have really sort of pushed the dial and organisation. Darren A. Smith: There. Chelsea Kirk: Sort of. You know, waking up to some of that and, you know, EDI is becoming quite a top priority in organisations and now becoming that golden thread through it all really. Darren A. Smith: Yeah, and what about organisations that are still sort of we're too busy, we've got too much on, we're just not going to think about this now, does it matter? Why should they really start thinking about it and caring about this stuff? Chelsea Kirk: Yeah, I think it is really, really important. I think because you know similar to what I've said, it's about how do we ensure that our workplace is safe for people to be there, to authentic selves, but also what is creating organisations, EVP, what is making me want to join your organisation. So you know, if I look to apply what is enticing me, what do my, what do the values bring? What does the culture bring? So I think it's really important that organisations have an EDI function. Darren A. Smith: Wow. Chelsea Kirk: To really drive home that you know, within our organisation, within the AHS, we have a really diverse workforce. So over 70 different nationalities in our workforce alone, you know 27% of our workforce are black and Asian minority ethnic background people. So it's really important that actually organisations have an EDI function within their within their sort of set up. Yeah, yeah. Darren A. Smith: OK, OK. And just so you can bring it to life for us, what do you do day-to-day? Because I I get it, but I'm thinking what does, what does Chelsea do? Do you go and talk to what do you do? Darren A. Smith: OK. Chelsea Kirk: Absolutely. It is really about networking, engaging and talking to people. So a large proportion of my role is leading the staff networks. So we have reach which has raised ethnicity and cultural heritage disability. LGBTQ plus and spirituality. So again, it is about leading the programme of work that's happening in those, those networks supporting the chairs and Co-chairs with delivering some of that piece of work as well. Chelsea Kirk: And I think importantly, is around what is it that we're doing? So monitoring that progress and tracking that, but also celebrating the diverse cultures that we have in our organisation. So working with them to go, you know, prize coming up, what are we going to do as an organisation to support that event? The Black History Month, what are we doing to support that? So a lot of my sort of work underpinned by kind of our staff network and driving that, there's a few sort of mandatory elements that we have to do. So when we look at our res and Dez, which is the workforce race equality standard. Darren A. Smith: OK. Chelsea Kirk: The workforce Disability equality standard that is something nationally we have to sort of annually submit data and track and monitor our progress. Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Chelsea Kirk: So there's a few things that kind of legislation Equality Act that we have to sort of, you know, guide ourselves with. But there'll be the other stuff that is the kind of staff networks engaging with colleagues around these. These are things that we are doing in the organisation to make it more inclusive. You know, what more can we do building those relationships and connections because communication is so important? Chelsea Kirk: To kind of really cascade and share what we're doing as an organisation and how that's making, you know, improvements for our staff. Chelsea Kirk: Yes. Yeah. We love an acronym, don't we? Chelsea Kirk: Yeah, yeah. Darren A. Smith: OK, OK. Res and des, I've never heard of those acronyms. I get it. OK. Yeah. So you the, they're probably quite normal, aren't they? Like resident days everyday. OK. All right. That was brand new to me. OK. And what? What's something that you've been proud of over the last couple of years in this changing of EDI, making people feel more included. What have you done where you go? Do you know that was brilliant. Darren A. Smith: Mm hmm. Darren A. Smith: Yep. Chelsea Kirk: Oh God, there's quite a couple I would say, but we did a reverse mentoring programme and we partnered with an external organisation called Remedy Project. So reverse mentoring for EDI and it was led by Stacey Johnson, who sort of is the leader of the organisation and she's supported it with that programme. And I think we had some real, really powerful moments and conversations and feedback about their experience. Chelsea Kirk: So we have senior leaders that were being mentored by junior staff with a lift experience and really kind of how do they share that? How do they know that and how they more aware themselves as a leader? So really put themselves in their shoes and you know, walking alongside them in some of those lift experience elements and that really did spark some really good conversations. Some were difficult, a time for some of them that were in those pairs together. Darren A. Smith: Yep. Chelsea Kirk: But some were really, really good and we got some, you know, really positive feedback. I think we developed the EDI calendar, which again is really important for me. Education is so important for us to learn and change as people, but also as leaders and managers as well. So that EDI calendar also guides us around, you know what events are really important to our staff and how we going to celebrate that as a, as an organisation, as a network, as a community. Chelsea Kirk: But also what is? What is, you know, black history? if I didn't know what Black History Month meant and what the history is, I can go on to that platform. It's interactive and you can find out more about that event or that day or that month in particular. So it helps one that person, but also two helps you know potentially their team because they're more aware of if they do have someone in their team of a diverse background and they could be more aware of different culture dates that would be celebrating, you know, checking in asking those important questions so. Chelsea Kirk: I think there are a couple of sort of proud moments really. Darren A. Smith: Lovely. And you see, is it Diwali at the moment Diwali, it is Diwali, Diwali because. Chelsea Kirk: Yeah. Yeah, Diwali. Yeah. So we had an event this week actually and one evening this week. So again, love culture, bringing it to life and having our staff there celebrating with them. So yeah, happens over 5 days. Chelsea Kirk: Yes, that's it. Yeah. Of light? Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Darren A. Smith: Lovely. I only know because there's a lot of lights on houses around here which are early for Christmas. I say. Oh,

Use HBDI to Get Your Prospects to Reply Are you fed up with not getting hold of your prospects? Learn to use the HBDI quadrant to your advantage and get prospects to reply. Join us in this fourth instalment of this HBDI series with Darren Smith and George Araham. You Can Read the Full HBDI Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith Hi and welcome to the world's stickiest learning. I'm here with George Araman. George, how are you? George Hi Darren, I'm good. How are you? George I'm sure it won't be. Darren A. Smith Hey, I'm good. I'm good. I'm excited about our next podcast, so I'm gonna read out the title 'cause. It's a bit of a mouthful, but I think it works. I can't get my prospects to reply. Use HBDI to get your prospects to reply. So that's the title of our 4th podcast on HBDI. George is going to be excited for the next 20 minutes. What do you think about that title?   Finally, get prospects to reply   Darren A. Smith That's certainly the plan. George Well, show me the money like they say so I'm pretty sure people are gonna like our audience are really gonna love it. George Yes. Darren A. Smith Fantastic. Fantastic. So let's do a few minutes bringing people up to speed on HBDI so we don't want to make an assumption they know now you've kindly lent us your profile for HBDI. So HBDI is the Herman brain dominance instrument. It's a way of understanding how people think. And this is your profile. It's split into four quadrants as everyone's is now. George, what does the left brain normally mean? George So the left brain is more of the rational brain. It's more of the logical brain. Whereas the right side of the brain is more the emotional side of the brain or more, the idea, the onceptualising side of the brain. Darren A. Smith Fantastic. So HBDIL, Hermann, asks us to understand our thinking preferences. Now, Hermann. Ned. Herman back in the 70s, split it also into the top half of the brain in the bottom half of the brain, giving us these four quadrants. Now, Herman, colour them as well. Obviously, they're not coloured in our head, but they are coloured here. So the further your profile goes towards this outer circle, the more you prefer to think in that way. But you can do all four of these. George Yes. Darren A. Smith Alright, now let's see from our other podcasts. George, what does the Blue quadrant mean? Darren A. Smith Yes. George So the blue is analytical side of things. This is the part where I don't really enjoy doing for me. Facts tend to be more boring, very flat, and very not imaginative. I'm more into the imagination side of things. The creativity. I think Leonardo da Vinci would agree with me somehow. Yeah. Darren A. Smith I think he was. I think he worked and you're in good company. Alright. So this is the fax. The fax quadrant will use an F just to make it easy. This is the future quadrant. And you talked about creativity. Entrepreneurs love this quadrant and this is where you are. You're quite creative. Lots of ideas. Then as we come down here, the Red Quadrant. Let me quiz you. What's the red quadrant? George So the Red Quadrant is more about the relational side of the quadrant. It's more like we liked how we relate with others. It's more about the passion we bring into it. It's about like you mentioned in one of our podcasts that for example, the red is very important because they tend to bring the team together and it's so even if sometimes people might think they're not really actually adding value, they are in the back scenes and they're really. Only the team together in a very efficient and effective way and even energising others to have better and more efficient results. George Yeah. Darren A. Smith You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. And it's the Red Quadrant that largely gets to dismissed by people because it's emotional and particularly as a British man, I'm not supposed to show any emotion. I get that. The thing is, it's the red that drives us. You know, it chooses our career. We're passionate about retailing or engineering or whatever it is. It all comes from this Red quadrant. Let's move on to our last quadrant. Coming back to the left brain, now green, this is our project management. So this is feeling. George Planning. Darren A. Smith This is form. What do you remember around the green one? George So green is about planning. It's about structures, it's about systems. It's about like building systems, following structures, following rules, following guides. Being very like efficient on time, it's about time management. It's about all those like Stricker to the rules and very particular and very it's a box basically putting someone in a box. Darren A. Smith Perfect. Perfect. All right. So our four quadrants go blue, which is our fax based quadrant over to yellow, which is our future based quadrant. Red is our feelings quadrant and form structure is our green quadrant. Now just to reiterate, we can do all four, but the metaphor I use because I'm a yellow, I'm a creative, I talk in metaphors. I get that and it has its strength and its weakness as do all quadrants. The metaphor I use. Is that I can do yellow in fifth gear. Darren A. Smith It's quite easy for me. The idea's come to me quite a lot, whereas green I do it more like first gear. I can do it but it's hard and that's how we all should look at our profile. There are things that are easier for us to do and things that are harder for us to do. George Exactly. Darren A. Smith OK, so when you originally saw your profile, which was a few weeks ago now because we've done a few of these podcasts, what did you think in terms of that mirroring you or not? George Oh, it was spot on like, because basically when I did the test and I was asked the question where do you see like your own quadrants. I was more or less at 0.001 degree. Exactly where, where I got the results because I already knew. I know that I'm like my yellow and red are very prominent, the green is more when I'm at work and OverDrive and the blue is like I'd rather delegate it to someone else or. Darren A. Smith Fabulous. Now I get that I get that and also just for interest you've seen on your profile there's a solid black line showing where you prefer to think and also a dotted line. The dotted line is how we work, sorry, how we are under pressure. And normally pressure equals work in the modern day 'cause, there aren't many jobs now where you can sort of just not do a great deal. Unfortunately, like there were in the 80s. So you have two profiles and they don't always change, but they can do. So you have the profile of how I think normally and the profile of how I think when I'm under pressure and some people's change and distort others don't. George Like me. Yes. Yeah. Darren A. Smith Like yours so well, it's just on yours. They won't be able to see it on the camera, but what basically happens when you're under pressure is you actually go more green. You look for more structure and you do less red, so you are less emotional. How? How does that manifest itself in real life? Yeah. OK. George So usually when I when I'm at work, I really I love plan planning systems and I spend like lots and lots of time building the perfect system. Maybe it's the fear of whatever. So I build the systems and then I move to either the ideas or the facts and then like I the people or the red side, I leave it on really the very, very end. So yeah, this is how I would do it. Yeah. Darren A. Smith All right. And what we've talked about in other podcasts is how Herman and understanding your profile can help you in negotiation or in conflict. The way I like to understand the what I think is the biggest advantage of Herman is it enables us to talk with each other about each other in the third person. So, for instance, I might say, oh, I see why you need that meeting where you see the whites of my eyes because you're red or a green might say, OK, I see why you need a plan. I might say to agree, I see why you need a plan because you're agreeing you want to see, want to see all this in next steps. Darren A. Smith And it can help us avoid some of that conflict. But let's come back to the title of what we're talking about today. Prospects. So would you just bring to life? What do you think's going on in the real world? Why are people fed up with not being able to get hold of their prospects? George Well, my guess is as good as anyone, but I would say that. They're probably not using their own quadrant to their advantage. So for example, a rent when they I'm pretty sure that each quadrant has an advantage or a specific way that would make them convince a prospect in a better way. And it also goes to like in both ways, knowing the prosper which in which quadrant the prospect is helps a lot in order to help to like. Talk to them the way they want to be talked to and the way they want to be heard in order to give them what they want. That makes sense. Darren A. Smith Let me try and put you on the spot a little bit. I work on a Mac that's here. If I was trying to sell that over, let's say an e-mail marketing campaign and I was talking to a blue or I thought I'll try and connect with the Blues, what things might I share with them about this Mac that I'm trying to sell? Yes. George So since you're selling a Mac, you and you're talking about the blue Quadrant. You're probably going to emphasise on facts, so it's going to be like probably the pricing how much the Mac would cost, why it's better like you compare it to other to the, to APC, for example, why the Mac is better than the PC, what are the configurations? The like how many people bought the Mac versus how many people bought the PC. Those kind of things. So it's basically numbers. Darren A. Smith Yes, I could perfect. George You're putting all the good use of numbers, the good numbers that are better than like other competition. Yeah. Darren A. Smith

struUse HBDI to Manage Conflict at Work Looking to manage conflict at Work? Well, you can use HBDI, the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument. Join us in this third instalment of this HBDI series with Darren Smith and George Araham. You Can Read the Full HBDI Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Hi, you're at the home of the world's stickiest learning. My name's Darren Smith, and this is George Araman. George, how are you? George: I'm great, Darren. Thank you. How are you today? Darren A. Smith: I am good. I'm good. I'm keen to share with our listeners about HBDI. This is the third in our series of podcasts and I'm just going to read the title out to make sure I get it absolutely right. It says I really don't know how to manage conflict at work. Use HBDI to manage conflicts at work, so that's the title of our podcast. And George has kindly allowed us to share his HBDI. Herman brain dominance instrument profile. So this is a profile. It's a bit like Myers Briggs is a bit like disc. It's a bit like insights. The reason we favour Herman is it's lovely and simple, simple to use and it really just has four colours and it's a it shows the thinking preference.   Conflicts are a natural part of life   Darren A. Smith: So there are blue, yellow, red, green and this shows almost the thinking preference of George's brain. So what this tells us is he likes to think in the big picture, creative. He likes to think in the people feelings area. But when it comes to facts, struggles a bit and when it comes to form and structure. Plan he struggles with that as well. Now the thing to say is we can do all four colours, we can do all of this. My metaphor is that George does yellow and red in 5th gear and maybe blue and green in second gear. George: Spot on. Darren A. Smith: All right. So that's a really quick summary and an overview of HPDI for anyone who hasn't seen it before. George, what have I missed on there? Your news HBDI, what have I missed that people would want to know? George: So far, like from what you mentioned, it seems great. We already talked a lot in our previous podcast like how we can overcome the differences and how we have like I think what would be really interesting for us to delve into is with regards to conflicts, how what is the best way to like manage conflicts from different perspectives. Darren A. Smith: OK. OK. Well, let's, let's start with conflict hard now. I've been doing soft skills as a training provider for 20 years and I've come to 11 absolute fact on conflict. It's hard. It really is. It's exhausting. It takes energy, it consumes our brain. It's those things that we lay down at night and think, oh, how did that happen? How did I get to that place? So conflict is not easy. And what I read a lot lately about is people. Let's avoid conflict. George: OK. Darren A. Smith: Just can't you imagine there's seven 8 billion people on the planet. With all these microcosms of banging together and they're gonna bang together, they're going to have conflict. They're not going to think all the same way. And do you know that's all right. We don't have to agree. George: Yeah. And it's a good thing, or else with the own robots. If I'm thinking the same way. Darren A. Smith: Well, we would, we would. Well, let me give you an example. So George, what's your favourite food favourite meal? George: Depends on the like. I would say sushi or pizza or. Darren A. Smith: OK, so you love sushi. I mean, I happen to as well, but let's say you love sushi and I didn't. And I liked only fish and chips. That's OK. Now we have a small conflict there. We don't have to disagree, but let's take that into the more passionate disagreements that we might have. It's still OK. It's still OK that you have a different perspective to me. And maybe that's a good thing that you have a different perspective to me. George: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: OK, so conflict is hard. George: I was just like, I was just wondering if you had like. In in your years of experience as a trainer, if you could give us an example of a conflict that you experienced or that you witnessed. That can maybe represent each of the four quadrants, the blue, the red, the like either on both sides or in the same side. So for example a red fighting a red, yellow, red or yellow and maybe like the opposite quadrants and how things were. Like we're actually diving deep into the practicality and things now. Darren A. Smith: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. That's good. Well, let me do it in two ways. First, let's do it. Something close to home. Moving home, our house, our home. Where we all go back to. So let's take these, these four colours. So if a blue is buying a home, well, let me ask you. They're the facts. But fact based people, what do you think they're looking for in a home? George: OK. How much does it cost? How much can I sell it later on? Is the location prime? How can I improve? Sorry. Darren A. Smith: How far is go? George: Yeah, basically everything that's factored like how many square metres is the apartment? Do we have a garden? Do we have a terrace? Do we have, like, any secret chambers? Darren A. Smith: Yes. Yes, brilliant. And it might be. It's 3.1 miles to the school. That's an interesting fact. It costs £150 to heat it per month. OK, these are all facts. And the Blues are absolutely right. They're seeking information. George: True. Yeah. Darren A. Smith: Then then let's move over to our yellows. Our big picture people. What are they looking for, do you think? George: Actually the example I just gave, so they're looking for the Harry Potter kind of secret chamber, the big ideas, the beautiful. Villa that is hidden somewhere in the wander nurse or maybe in the middle of the like something beautiful. Big, inspiring something. When you wake up, you're like, whoa, this is my home. So it's more like it's a bit close. I think when it comes to home with Reds and yellow. But maybe the idea is bigger. You know, if it makes sense. Darren A. Smith: OK, OK. So these guys were looking for a home. They're looking for. How does it sit within my life? Can I live here comfortably? If we're a young family, will it allow us to have another child? Could I knock down that wall? Put that wall in and make a lovely Conservatory. These are the things that yellows are looking for. So they're, they're creative. They're big, picture their future. And then let's come to our greens. Our next steps. What do you think these guys are looking for in a house? George: So when how are gonna we do the installments? When are gonna we pay the installments? How many installments can we pay? Darren A. Smith: Yeah. George: How far is maybe the house from the office? Darren A. Smith: You're right. They're planning their day. They're planning their new. Yeah, they're planning weekends where they've gotta go and visit the in laws. They're thinking about all those good things. All right, fabulous. And then let's come to our Reds. Our feelings. People type people. What are they looking for? George: Planning and process and stuff like this. Yeah. The feelings I wanna live by the sea. I wanna live by the mountain. I wanna live here. This reminds me of that. This is. Oh, I'm nostalgic. I'm looking at there and like those kinds of things. Darren A. Smith: Brilliant. Brilliant. OK, so we understand our four quadrants and how they think. Now let me ask you a question. Are any of them wrong? Of course. So what we then have is, let's say these four people were buying a house together and the Blues pushing for the facts and the yellow for the creative, and you get the idea. But none of them are wrong. And what we've got to do is accept that people have different views to us and it might be using the Herm model that we can then talk about each other with each other as third party. So I might say to you, George, I want to buy this house. I'm a yellow. You're red. I can see why you feel that way. Darren A. Smith: That's important to you. It's important that it feels good because it's next to the sea and I'm, oh, I want to knock down this room and change it into three rooms. You might say, OK, I can see that vision. Thank you for helping me. George: That's easy part. Darren A. Smith: So none of none of these perspectives are wrong, and yet they all cause conflict. And the more conflict happens across because it's harder to understand. George: Yeah. Now this is like I was gonna ask like imagine you have a Philly like a red person versus a blue person. One is gonna talk about feelings, the other is gonna talk about facts like no, the investment is gonna cost like £500,000. The other is gonna be like be like. But I love this home with me. It's me. Feel nostalgic. It makes me feel. So how do you resolve that conflict? How can you like each one understands logically or in their mind. But like the their visions are like so far apart that. Darren A. Smith: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough, it's tough and it's not gonna be easy. Conflict coming back to what I said is hard. So the first step is accepting that everyone thinks the same way we do. OK, so I think, like this, I accept. You feel like that or think that or think this way. So that's the first part. The second part is we need to be able to articulate it. George: Yeah. OK. Darren A. Smith: So I'm articulating that because I'm yellow, I think like this, I see this and that will help with the communication because I'm a red. I feel this I'm going to try and expand all my feelings to help you understand him and then wouldn't it be great if we can put all those views together and buy the house that suits them all? George: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: Or agree a way that we might problem solve it together. Where we're what we're not going to do is take 4 coloured straws, pick one and that's who we go with.

Use HBDI to Build a High-Performing Team My team is not performing well, so what can I do? Well, you can use HBDI to Build a High Performing Team. Our second video in this HBDI series is all about building high-performing teams. Join Darren and George as they explore ways you can super-boost your team for success. You Can Read the Full HBDI Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Hi, my name's Darren Smith and I'm here with George Araham. George, how are you? George: Hi Darren, how are you? Darren A. Smith: Very good, very good. We're at the home of the world's stickiest learning MBM, and we're talking about HBDI now the 2nd in our podcast on HBDI. And I'm going to read out the title because it's taken George and I a while to get an absolutely cracking title. My team is not performing well. What can I do? And this is based on feedback we've had from other people, OK, what can you do? And the second part is use HBDI to build a high performing team. So this podcast is all about HBDI and teamwork. And high performing teams, George, why did we come up with this as our second in our range of HBDI podcasts? George: Today, there's a lot of problems around the world with Teamwork and team working together or not working together. So we found out like around 15 to 16 topics around that and we want to delve into them and discover how can we tackle each one of them using HBDI and how HBDI can take team performance to the next level. Love it. Yeah.   Here's how to use HBDI if your team is not performing   Darren A. Smith: Brilliant. Love it. So for a couple of minutes, let's do a recap on HBDI is, we'll share a profile just so the viewers can see what we're talking about in case they're new to HBDI. And then let's get straight into Team conflict, team dynamics and all that good stuff. All right, all right. So let's check in with you HBDI Hermann brain dominance instrument. That's all well and good, but what does it mean? What's your take on? What is HBDI? George: As in the title. Darren A. Smith: What does it mean to you? George: Well, it's a profile. An assessment profile type that helps you navigate into your like understanding or discovering your thinking style. If you're more left-brained right-brain conversion, divergent feeler or thinker, all those types of sorts of things and to help you to help guide you to use your best assets and your best tools as well as improve the areas that you need in certain circumstances to develop better work. And work better in teams as well. Yeah, indeed. Darren A. Smith: Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. I put George on the spot of there a little bit because we did a podcast last time, and I'm just bringing back his memory of what he retained. I've been working with HBDI for about 20 years. George, you're relatively new to it. And we did your profile, didn't we? So you did. You did 80 questions and then this thing pops out. Is that right? Yeah. OK. George: Yeah, yeah. Darren A. Smith: And what George was referring to is the left half of the brain, the right half of the brain, which most people know. This is largely logical. This is largely creative, but what Ned Herman said was there's a top half and a bottom half of the brain as well, given US 4 quadrants. So the four quadrants, if I do it as four FS fax. So this is a thinking preference for retaining lots of facts. If you've got a mate who's good at pub quizzes, brilliant. Darren A. Smith: This is future, so this is me. It's not my profile, but I do have a tendency to think more in the yellow quadrant, which is big picture creativity type, then we've got. Darren A. Smith: It is. George: That's what we that's why we get along very well. I love yellow and red. Darren A. Smith: Yes. And we're gonna come back to that. That's why we make a good team. And the red is F, which is feelings. So these people make good nurses, good teachers, particularly vocational and the greens are our form. They like structure. They're like project plans. They're like next. They're like timelines. And each we can all do all four of these. But we have a preference for pretty, for pretty much one or another. So I have a preference up here in yellow. You have a preference for some yellow and some red. Darren A. Smith: Less blue. George: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: And less green. OK, so that's a whistle-stop tour of HBDI. The Herm and brain dominance instruments. What have I missed that we need to tell people about HBDI profiling? George: Well, actually, I'm very curious on how, since we're talking about teams, I would like to know the difference between an individual assessment profile and a team assessment profile. Like how do they defer and like, why would it be important for a team to do an HBDI assessment test? OK, no. That's the problem. Darren A. Smith: Imagine we haven't got one here just because of GDPR, but imagine this is your individual profile. Then we took that and we mapped it with thirty of your friends or teammates onto one of these, and so you probably come out as a red. Let's call you a red. I've been mapped as in yellow and then we put George and Bob and Ron and Julie and blah blah blah, we mapped them all up here. And then what we do is we say to them, what does that mean? Now imagine if all of them were thinking in the Red Quadrant and they didn't have any yellow, blue or green. George: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: So this is what happened when we did some work with the NHS. Now the NHS are largely about nursing about doctors, medical looking after people bedside manner and they were Reds all Reds, which has a strength of course as each quadrant does, but each quadrant also has a weakness. Now what was happening with the NHS? These guys were really looking after their patients. But the problem is they had no analysis on what was going on. They had no future and their processes were crap. Darren A. Smith: So that was the challenge for them as a team. Now the answer isn't to try and shift who we are. We can only be the best version of ourselves. The answer is to try and make up for the weaknesses of the other quadrants by forcing ourselves to think in the other ways, because we can do all four. George: That's super interesting and it leads me to follow up question. So let's say in this example most of the in of the people in the company are red. Would you recommend for example in this instance that HR managers hire people from different quadrants in the future to help balance it? Or is it more like no, no, we like we don't want to go to this extreme like how would you tack on this problem? OK. Darren A. Smith: Hmm. Hmm. We work with a lot of companies who use HBDI as a recruitment tool. But here's the warning, the health warning. Make sure it's one of a number of pieces of information you use to select the right candidate, not the only one. And if there was a first thing, it must be. Are they right for the job? Skills, capability, experience. Are they a good fit for our culture? And then second, we might use HPDI and 3rd. We might look at something else, but don't let your recruitment policy be driven by trying to put all the colours together. Darren A. Smith: It's part of building up a picture of people. George: Int. George: Yeah, I mean that is my question, yeah. Darren A. Smith: Alright, now if we've got 99% Reds and we've got to hire 100th person, should they be another red? Or if they are, then we know how to deal with Reds. That's good. If they're not on there a yellow, then they might become or let's say even a blue, because opposites are where they struggle. You might bring this one person in, then they feel like a lone wolf. Their voice is not heard because it's one against 99 and that's the problem. And then these guys over time go hold up. I've been talking about analysis for three years and you guys aren't doing it. George: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: We don't need analysis and then all of a sudden she goes and they go. Why'd you go? Well, I wasn't. You weren't doing any of that analysis stuff. We don't need it. So in the team we have to be very aware of our lone wolves, those people who aren't part of, let's call it the core, and we need to listen to them disproportionately because their voice can be very minimised. George: OK. That's super interesting. That's super interesting. And so OK. In general, like do you? Do you know which? So you said that opposing teams like red and blue are usually very much into opposition. Is it the same with green and yellow? Darren A. Smith: Yes, so it's the toughest communication and the toughest understanding is across the quadrants and this is because they're furthest apart from ourselves. So if I put that in the vernacular, the yellows can see the Greens as detailed monkeys. George: Hmm. Darren A. Smith: And the Greens see the yellows as we've got a head in the clouds, loads of ideas, but no clue what to do. And then if the Reds look at the Blues as sort of robots, they just want data and the Blues look at Reds as touchy feely, pink and fuzzy people. Now here's the thing. It's really easy to do that. It's really easy for me as a yellow to see a green as just someone who wants to fill out Gantt charts. George: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: But here's the crazy thing. A yellow and a green get together if they don't want to understand each other. Two and two make 1/2 because they just don't go on. This isn't going to work. We're never going to see each other's world. OK, now, what about if they were to see the strengths in each other? The yellow has the ideas, and the green can make them happen. Two and two. Can it 3? George: Mm. Darren A. Smith: And that's where the power of HBDI is. George: That's interesting. Interesting. So OK. OK. Yeah. I'm just thinking in processing. It's very interesting. I love it. Darren A. Smith: Here's the power of HBDI is, yes, understanding our profile.

Use HBDI to Understand Your Opponent to Avoid Stalemates Does you constantly reach a negotiation stalemate? Well, today's podcast will explore using HBDI to avoid a negotiation stalemate. Join Darren Smith and George Araham as they tackle this exciting topic. You Can Read the Full Negotiation and HBDI Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Hi, my name's Darren Smith and you're the home of sticky learning. We are with George Harran. George, hello. George: Hello, how are you, Darren? Darren A. Smith: Hello. Hey, I'm good. I'm good. So I'm Darren, this is George. And we're here today to talk with you about HBDI and negotiation. In fact, the title of this podcast. I'll read out my negotiations. Always get to an annoying stalemate. Use HBDI to understand your opponent to avoid stalemates. So George, we're talking about negotiation and HBDI. The reason you're here is your what we would call naive results. You've just completed your HPDI profile, is that right? George: Yay, correct. Darren A. Smith: OK. Fabulous. Fabulous. So you're gonna ask me lots of probing, challenging questions, particularly around HPDI and how we can use it with negotiation. All right, all right, so let's do a couple of minutes on your understanding of HBDI and what this profile meant to you.   The HBDI brain is split into four coloured sections   George: Love it. Darren A. Smith: What did it mean to you doing your profile? George: It's interesting because I found a couple of like things. It was interesting. I discovered things I was aware of, some I wasn't really aware of. Darren A. Smith: Mm hmm mm. George: A couple of the so when I was asked to anticipate the results, I actually nailed it in a way I got all my 4 quadrants more or less precisely the same. I was surprised though, by stressful flow. What's it called? This. Yeah, exactly. The results were a bit different than I was expecting, but like, it is what it is, I guess. Darren A. Smith: That's not. OK, alright. Well, let me give you and the viewers a quick summary of my understanding of your profile here it is. I'm sure you don't mind me showing it. So what Ned Herman said was that we all know that the brain is split left and right. So let me ask you, George, what's the difference between left and right of the brain? George: Yeah. No. The conversion side of the brain and the right side is more like the creative, intuitive side of the brain, or the diversion. Darren A. Smith: Perfect, perfect, perfect. OK. And this was discovered now probably 50 years ago now. Not what Ned Herman said was actually left and right. Absolutely. But he also said there's top and bottom given US 4 quadrants to the brain. Now, Ned, Herman or HBDI, which is the Herman brain dominance instrument, measures how we prefer to think. And there are four quadrants in how we prefer to think we've got the blue Quadrant, which is all about facts. So if you've got a mate who's very good down at the pub quiz. Darren A. Smith: He's probably a blue loads of facts. The yellow. This is the creative, the entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial type. People who have got a million ideas and might be described as having their head in the clouds. We've got the red people. These are the touchy feely people. People what I love about the Reds is if you walk into a room they normally come over and touch your elbow and then we've got our greens, who are our structured plan. Next project managers. All right. So this just describes how you prefer to think. George: Interesting. Darren A. Smith: You can't get it wrong. You can't get it right. This is George. George: Hello. Darren A. Smith: So if having understood that you have a tendency to think more in the right side of the brain, your creativity, your big picture thinking's fairly high. George: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: Your people skills, your feelings fairly high, but your ability to do facts in the blue is quite low and your green is, let's say it's fairly low too. All right, so your right side of the brain thinker, nothing wrong with that. Nothing. Right with that, it's just who you are. And now what's particularly interesting is this solid line versus this dotted line is under pressure. Your green shrinks so you've become less structured, less planned, and you become more read, more emotional. George: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: So if you think back, how does that manifest itself in your life becoming less emotional? Sorry, more emotional and less planned? George: Well, that's actually the site that I really didn't understand in a way because like when I'm under pressure, what happens is I turn off people like my right side. Actually I turn it on off and I go full on left side and I go I could become very analytical and very plan-oriented in general. So this is like what my experience has been. Darren A. Smith: OK. So let me just rewind and make sure I've got this right. So your solid line, you are a right-brain thinker, that's where you're dominant. You like creativity, big picture people and then under pressure, the dotted line, I think I might have misspoke your structure. Your green goes out more right now. We've got it now. We've got it. So that ties in with what you actually do. All right, so let's come back to negotiation skills and stalemate. George: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: So let's say I'm a negotiation expert. What questions would you like to ask me? That would help you to avoid stalemate. Understand your opponent using this type of stuff. George: Mm hmm. Darren A. Smith: What questions do you have? George: OK, so first of all, I know that when you're negotiating with someone, it's important to bring in the facts. And since I do tend to have a low fact-based quadrant. How can I maximise it? How can I increase my blue quadrant or my unethical skills when I come across to this particular negotiation or negotiation. Darren A. Smith: OK, great question. So we can all do all four quadrants. It's just if I use a metaphor, you do yellow and red in 5th gear. If you were driving blue and green, you're probably doing in second gear, but we can all do all four. It's just where we feel more comfortable where our preferences. So you can do blue, it's accepting that it's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to take you a bit longer and you're probably going to procrastinate more to look for the facts. George: Yeah. No. Yes. Darren A. Smith: But you can do it. You can do it. So firstly it's accepting, we can do it. Secondly, it's accepting, it's going to be a bit harder than normal. It's not like doing the red or yellow stuff. And then thirdly, it's getting on doing it because you know the value of doing it. All right, now the other the second part in answering your question is remember that if you're negotiating, not everyone wants facts. Now I understand negotiation is a very logical piece that we do in the workplace. George: OK, OK. Darren A. Smith: But if you're up against a yellow negotiator, let's say they're probably going to want to understand the big picture. So the trick with HBDI and avoiding stalemates is to know who you're negotiating against. George: That was my next question. How do you know that? Like, how can you on on on the spot, know who your opponent, or who you're negotiating with? Darren A. Smith: That one is the first one. You're not going to like it. It will take years of practice to understand. All right, but OK, let's give you the silver bullet in most face-to-face negotiations. Don't start with a face-to-face negotiation. You've probably been probably been speaking to them or emailing them. So let me ask you a question. If you were to get an e-mail from someone like this, what would that e-mail look like? Bear in mind there are factors. George: OK. Yeah. Lots of numbers and stats and. Darren A. Smith: Perfect. So you're picking up now if you were to get an e-mail from a yellow-type person, what would it look like? This is big picture. George: Big ideas. Things that you want to do that are different, innovative, creative. Darren A. Smith: Very good, very good. OK, let's do the green. George: The green is more planned. So what are the steps to do this? What are the next steps et cetera, et cetera? It's more geared toward that and the red is more about like people who do, you know. Darren A. Smith: Yes. Lovely. George: Who do you know that can help me with this negotiation or et cetera? It's oh, who can you refer me to or? Who was your client? How those kind of things of questions? Darren A. Smith: Very good, very good. What we particularly look for in our red negotiators when we're identifying them over e-mail, they might share something they did at the weekend or something about their family. These guys are very sharing of what's going on in life. And also they're very warm and very enthusiastic people. So you can imagine the Reds on a call like this are like that, which is great. Like, you are the Blues are very much like this. George: Then. Darren A. Smith: Yeah, it is. And it's all good. They're right. We're right. It's just who you are. The trick here is if we can understand ourselves better and understand others better. And if I'm going to negotiation or you are and you're yellow to yellow, you're speaking French to French, right. Got that. But here. And it's hardest to communicate with people diagonally opposed to you. If you're going into a negotiation, you're talking to a green. You're talking French to Dutch. George: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Darren A. Smith: So what's going to happen if you're talking French to Dutch in that negotiation? George: Better speak English. Darren A. Smith: It's gonna be hard. It will be hard to communicate, hard to understand. The green is saying to where's the timeline? Where's some of the detail? How do we map this? And you're thinking? No, no, I just want to talk the big picture and say you're doing this. George: Yeah,

Mastering the Art of Service Join Darren A. Smith and Andrew Stotts as they explore our deck of Customer Service Coaching Cards. Dive into the world of customer service with Andrew Stotts. You Can Read the Full Customer Service Coaching Cards Podcast Transcript Below: Andrew Stotts: So first of all, welcome back. This is a actually very special edition of the Weird Human podcast. Just to remind you about why we exist. We exist really to kind of shed light on the extraordinary. Once again I am joined by a truly extraordinary chap Mr. Darren Smith from Sticky Learning. Again when Darren reached out to me a few weeks ago and he asked me whether I would kind of partner with him in it on a small project. We kind of thought that we would just talk a little bit about that project today with you guys and get down, kind of ask me a few questions. Primarily it's around exceptional customer service. So Darren tell us about the project. Darren Smith: Well, the project is mainly about four years ago we looked at coaching cards, little playing cards like, you know, with the ACEs spades and that on. We thought there'd be a great learning tool if we could turn into 80 questions per topic. This one's about customer service that would help a manager with a report to coach that person to be fabulous at customer service. We also have coaching cards on negotiation skills and others, and each time we find an expert who rock and rolls on the topic like you do on customer service, we ask you to write the questions, and then we put it online as a cheap resource and tool to use. Read our return policy   >> Customer Service Coaching Cards << Andrew Stotts: I have to say that the, well, first of all, the coaching cards I use them regularly in coaching. They are absolutely on the money, really fantastic. Slightly my kind of my kind of, I suppose my imposter syndrome kind of gets in the way around you explaining how amazing the customer service cards are. But I do believe that the collaboration between Darren and myself around customers are particularly is absolutely excellent. So I'm actually going to just sort of like switch the coin today. So Dan was going to ask me a few questions just around kind of customer service. I'll let you into a little secret. I don't really know the answers. I don’t know what he can ask me. So I'm slightly apprehensive, but hey I'll do my best to, to answer his questions. Darren Smith: That's fabulous. Well, we all know, and the people watching that you know your stuff. So I'm going to throw a few questions your way. Let's talk about customer service. We're going to do a shameless plug for one or 2% of the cards, but 80-90% of this is about helping people to be rock and roll at customer service. Alright. Andrew Stotts: It sounds like an absolute plan. I mean, it's always been a deep kind of like, passion of mine. Where I like to start it, if you don't mind, Darren, the reason it's been such a strong passion of mine is it's because I suppose I'm quite selfish, really. When I went to work as a very young man about 400 years ago, I suppose I kind of learned really quickly that if I gave people—I started my job as a waiter. Well, actually I started slightly more junior than the waiter. But as a waiter though the few moments at the beginning of my career as a waiter were absolutely critical. Andrew Stotts: I always say that because, you know, for me, I learned very quickly that if I gave people what they needed and I understood what they needed usually that translated into them giving me what I needed, which was a big tip. Yeah. Simple. So that's kind of how I learned the art really, of customer service. The better I got at it and it wasn't unusual for me. I mean, I think it's quite funny these days, and people would laugh at this, but I think my weekly salary was about four pounds a week. Andrew Stotts: It kind of gives my age away a little bit. But it wasn't unusual for me to be able to get a hundred pounds a day in tips. Back to my earlier point of it being quite selfish. So I kind of learnt about mastering the art of service and of course I kind of picked up on that a little bit from my father because he was a major influence in my sort of learnings there. Darren Smith: Okay. Okay. So in the nicest possible way, why should we listen to you about customer service? Andrew Stotts: Well, because it gives you what you need. I mean, for me it's like about loyal customers. I love the idea that caring is probably the greatest marketing tool you have. I've always kind of led with a strong kind of do I look like I care, I think in the relationship. But critically, just from a, a selfish point of view, if customers come back and they repeat business with you. I'm not going to bore you with the story today, but my father for example, had customers who were using him week in, week out for 60 years. You can kind of imagine the idea that a customer was that loyal. So that's really the essence of it. Andrew Stotts: So from a business point of view, delivering masterful customer service, guest service actually drives loyalty, creates relationships. Of course that is obviously going to be a massive revenue generator without really any real outlay because you're not having to market that customer. It's about member, it's about customer, it's about guest retention you think is so important. Darren Smith: We've all experienced great customer service, and we've experienced bad customer service. It's the latter one we go and tell 200 people about afterwards. Now, trying to get good customer service consistently in a business is damn hard. You did it, I believe, at etti Airways. What were some of Andrew Stotts: I am guilty. Has charged for that. I mean, and I think even with P and Os. I think one of the proudest moments for me was when I was working with P and O actually moving P and O a net promoter score. But moving it from about by about 20% or about 18% positive which was was spectacular. But it's really down. There's some really nice, simple tricks. That's really what the cards kind of help you to understand. So there's some really useful questions. I know Darren alluded to those questions earlier, but there's some really helpful questions that can help service providers, leaders, managers in those types of roles actually start to trigger thoughts about how we give experiences to our guests, which of course, drive exceptional customer service. Darren Smith: If someone's watching and they're a sort of you before and they're running a customer service team or frontline team, and they're thinking, okay, we've got this survey, we get it. We need to improve the gap. We get that. What do they do? How do they improve it without taking forever to achieve it? Andrew Stotts: Okay. I remember pitching what I'm going to tell you, I've actually pitch this to a couple of boards around the world. Both times I have to definitely, the last time I had a sign amount of doubt. I remember sitting outside the boardroom and I'd been asked to kind of like, pitch something around NPS and how we would close the gap on NPS. Now we'd improve NPS. I remember thinking, well, this is a relatively simple solution for me. So I remember sitting outside kind of clutching my little bits of paper waiting to go and talk to the board of this organization and then having this massive kind of fit of doubt because I'm thinking, this is just Andrew, what you're suggesting is just too simple, right? Andrew Stotts: But anyway, I was committed and then of course my name was called and I kind of stood up almost like going towards the executioners block. I went in and I kind of did my kind of little bit of my Andrew show. But what was interesting was that I sort of pitched the idea, and I'll pitch it to you in a couple of seconds, but I pitched the idea and it took about six or seven minutes for me to pitch the idea. But immediately afterwards there was a kind of like spontaneous round of applause in this board meeting. Andrew Stotts: The CEO said to me, Stotts, you've absolutely got it, nailed it on the head. If we can kind of do that, then actually that would be a completely transformational. So, yeah. So happy to share that kind of story with you. Should I share, share it with you now, Dan? Darren Smith: I'm dribbling a little bit thinking what is this that turned this ball on? Okay. Yeah, please. Andrew Stotts: Gosh, some people they've said, well, it's a bit simple starts, but I think it starts with a high level of being present. I think that's really important. I think we sometimes live too much in the past or live too much in the future. We're not really enjoying the moment. So for me, there's always going to be kind of five things that I focus on when we're talking about customer service. But before we kind of go there, what I would like to do is just try to help people understand what customer service is. Because I think one of the challenges that most I've worked in Fiji and I've worked in New Zealand, Australia, and Russia. Andrew Stotts: Lots of places around the world. It's the same situation. I think often service providers don't understand the basic dynamic of customer service. So for me, there's always going to be three levels. There's what I would call the expectation. The problem with expectation is that what Darren expects or what Andrew expects is probably going to be different to what Mohammed expects or what Feist was going to expect, or what Sally expects. So there's immediately some challenges there. We probably have some similarities when we are dealing with a person, a product, or a service and it's quite, quite broad. So it applies really to any sector, any industry. I suppose what people misunderstand is that if I meet Darren's expectation, so I give Darren what he's paying for, for whatever that is, whatever product it is, but I meet the expectation. Andrew Stotts:

Discover the Personal Rule Book Join Clare Walker - a practise leader at Vodafone, an expert in personal values, and Darren Smith - the chief executive officer at MBM, as they explore the exciting topic of personal values. Discover the trick to finding your number one value with Clare using a special tool - personal values coaching cards. Our new addition to our set of cards is Personal values coaching cards. Unlike other cards, these are not questions, but rather one word. There are about 70 cards in this exciting new pack! Check out the podcast to learn more! You Can Read the Full Personal Values Share Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Hi and welcome to another podcast or video depending on whether you're watching on YouTube or on our podcast platforms. We're here with Claire Walker. Claire, how are you? Clare Walker: I'm very well. Thank you, Darren. How are you doing? Darren A. Smith: I'm good. I'm good. We're sitting here on Thursday afternoon. It's hot. Is it hot where you are? Clare Walker: It has clouded over a little bit, but I'm very fortunate. I've got an ever-changing view outside my window because I live in the Lake District. So yes, it may change to hot in a moment's time. It may rain. Darren A. Smith: Lovely. Lovely. I'm jealous. We're here talking with Claire because you are an expert on personal values and we have just collaborated on some coaching cards. So we have a bunch of coaching cards. I'll grab some here like this. But these are premium grow coaching cards and we've collaborated on some personal values and we want to talk to you about personal values and coaching cards. All right, so. More about our expert on values   Clare Walker: Indeed. Darren A. Smith: Claire, what do you do at the moment? What's your day job? Clare Walker: My day job is that I am the coaching community of practise leader at Vodafone and I'm very fortunate with that. I have a wonderful team of internal coaching coaches who are both certified and credentialed. There's about 100 of them. And it's great and a coach will pull within Vodafone of probably in the region of about 80,000 people. So we have a lot of work to do here. Darren A. Smith: Wow. OK, alright. So you working for a very big company. You're doing coaching all day long and you've got a whole bunch of people who coach with you for you around you. Alright. Fabulous. Fabulous. So before we get started on personal values, would you tell us a little bit of something weird and about you? Clare Walker: Ohh gosh. It's gonna start with. I'm very modest, but that's really hard when you ask that question, isn't it? What do I what's where do wonderful about me? I'm a member of the local acting group and I recently played a 75-year-old woman who finds her neighbour's ecstasy tablets and proceeds to take them with some very interesting consequences. So I love doing that. That's really good fun. And I think actually I really enjoyed playing her because I think one of my life's quotes is that you don't stop playing because you get old, you get old because you stop playing and. And so I think I love playing her because of that. And I think that kind of leads to the fact that I love practical jokes. One of the things I really miss about working from home is that you don't get to do them quite similarly anymore. So yeah, probably the weird thing about me is my little practical joking. Darren A. Smith: Lovely. Lovely. Wow, wow, wow. OK. And in the nicest possible way I'm gonna ask this question, but particularly for our viewers. Why should we listen to you about personal values? What do you know about it? Clare Walker: I think because I can speak from experience about how values have changed my life and my relationships, but also about what I've witnessed within my coachees and colleagues and within teams that we run this session with as well. So I can tell lots of really good stories in confidence about those experiences of what I've seen and really bring to life, the values looking at them and looking at those around us as of those of people around us as well. Darren A. Smith: OK, OK, alright, cool. Cool. You and I got to know each other over LinkedIn. Great platform. We collaborated on some coaching cards. Would you share those coaching cards that you've got that we collaborated on? Clare Walker: I have them here. Darren A. Smith: OK, so we got these coaching cards, and each one just show us some of those cards and a bit about them. Clare Walker: Yeah. So each one of these cards, they're a little different because all that they have on them is a word and an icon and that's all that they have with them. So there is a lot of MBM cards are question stacks that you can either use. I used them very much too and I've got quite a few of them. I've got time management and leadership and Grow model and most recently the Imposter syndrome ones. They are great for being a Bank of cards, a Bank of questions that I read through and think that's a great question that I wonder where I could ask that one. They're amazing because they pop up every so often. You'll be coaching someone, you'll listen, you'll hear them say something and you think oh, that great question that I've read the other day on the cards. It pops into your head and you think this is really relatable and what they've just said. So using them as coaching prompts, certainly not ever going through them. And although saying that they do actually use them sometimes. If you've got a coach who is very nervous or a little bit sceptical about coaching, I will kind of fan the cards out, especially if I'm doing grow model or I'm doing you know those are coming useful and say to them pick a card and you answer on. Darren A. Smith: Yep, Yep. OK. Nice. Clare Walker: So I'm not asking the questions they get to then get what it feels like. To answer a question, I'll let them choose the question sometimes as well. I'll lay out 10 or 20 and they'll say I'm going to answer that question. It builds that confidence in being able to be a little bit more open than answering questions. So whereas a lot of MBM's cards are a stack of questions that are very useful, the personal value ones are very different because they're not questions. They are literally, as I say, one word. So we've got leadership, humour, punctuality, contribution, dependability, all of those. And there are about 70 cards. Always a value on them and an icon on them and each one of those values will mean something different to the person who's choosing it. So yeah, there it's a great, great set of cards in the way. The reason that I love them is because of people. It's that tactile thing. People look at them, feel them, and I have somebody who did this two weeks ago with me picked out one of the cards and just, well, burst into tears almost because the word on that card resonated with them so much that it was just so solid that they kind of. That was it. The tears came. So yeah, a great coaching moment where I can see there's some emotion there. What was it that came up then when you saw that word? So there a little bit different in that they're single words as opposed to questions. What makes people tick   Darren A. Smith: Ohh wow. Okay. So these cards are not questions. They're more prompts. I think you and I called it when we were collaborating maybe team activity cards. Would you just bring to life for me, for the viewers, how do you use these things? You gather a bunch of people and give them some cards? What do you do? Clare Walker: Yeah, okay. So we've got within the culture, there is a 10-step exercise as to how to do this, but I'll walk you through how you do it. So really you get either an individual to get an individual coaching or you get a team together who worked together and might know each other and might not have done this with people who've known each other for a long time. I've done it with new teams and it works perfectly well with both. So you start off using it as personal values and you would give each member of the team a pack of these cards. So there's about as I say, 70 different values on them. I normally find 12 to 15 minutes for them to go through the cards. These 70. Wwhat they tend to do and it's very interesting when you watch people do it. Some people will do it this way up and they'll look at each the front of each card and go, yeah. There are other people who hold the cards this way up and they'll flip each card and then have a look and then layer it down. It's always very interesting to see. But what the purpose is for them to go through all of these cards and they tend to put them into three different piles. We'll say. Yeah. OK. This one really resonates with me. So that's gonna be in my top 10. And that's the point of doing this is that they find their top ten cards. That one's gonna be my top ten. They look at the next one and go, No, that doesn't resonate with me. They'll put it in probably a discard pile at the side because that's never going to be in my top ten. Might still be important. Might still be part of their life. But really what they will do is put on site. Darren A. Smith: I'm good. Yep. Clare Walker: Then there'll be other cards that they'll not be quite so sure at, so they can put those in the whole pile. Though it might be my top ten, I've not quite yet beside it. So what they will end up with after those sorts of 10 minutes? It is a line of 10 cards that are what they will say is up to 10 cards. We always get people who go Oh, can I have 18 and my answer to that is always as long as nonconformity is at the top of that list. But what they will do is then sort out those top ten cards and even by just doing that is an eye-opener because people go, yeah my values are honesty and trust but when they actually see them in front of them and they start laying them out there will be values in there that they've never thought of as being.

Expert Tips for the World of Negotiation Join Darren A. Smith, Dr. Anthony, and Andrew Stotts from the Weird Human podcast, as they tackle how to be a better negotiator. You Can Read the Full 'Better Negotiator' Transcript Below Andrew Stotts: So guys, so first of all, welcome to another edition of the Weird Human Podcast. Our 25th actually. So we've got some fantastic guests again today. Huge. As usual. I'm joined by the brilliant Dr Anthony, but also today, which I'm joined by the Fantastic Darren Smith. I've known Darren for many, many, many, many years. And we've worked together in different organizations around the world, which has been fantastic. Today's question, just to remind you guys, is really how can I be a better negotiator? Andrew Stotts: And before we kind of tackle the question I'd like to just remind you upon the mission statement, really for the Weird Human Podcast. That mission statement is really about exploring the extraordinary about the human beings who are around us. And that's a very, very important point. So it's about making you and really kind of bringing out the extraordinary of being a human being. So, Darren, perhaps it'll be helpful for the people who are listening, just to have a brief introduction from yourself. Darren Smith: So we are MBM, we're also known as the Sticky Learning Guys. We are the guys who want to achieve behavioural change with you because we know that most people go on a one-day training course, come back and do nothing different. So we're the guys that ensure by prodding, poking, doing everything we can, you come back and be the very best version of yourselves. That's me, Anthony. Learning that sticks   Andrew Stotts: That's a great introduction. Dr. Anthony. I can't believe, we did a show last week. That show actually had had more than 11,000 views now. So again, massive thanks to Michelle. That was the one around kind of like wealth coaches and kind of like tips around kind of money. So if you want to go back and look at the catalogue that's an incredible episode. We also started to delve into the kind of relationships and kind of what made relationships. Then of course that kind of took us into the path around negotiating, particularly between couples. Dr Anthony's obviously married to Dr Michelle in the previous show. Andrew Stotts: The first time I met his beautiful wife. We obviously then started to explore kind of what made their relationship successful and that kind of brought us to our conversation today. So if I can go back. So Dr Anthony, love you, my friend. Dr Anthony: I hope that Darren can actually then teach me how to negotiate better because there's one thing for certain, every man is know how to negotiate better to be a good man. You start to seek love, that's for sure. Darren, how do you negotiate? Andrew Stotts: How do you? Darren Smith: Well, I'm starting to feel like I should have some awards on the wall like you've got because wow, they're very impressive. The first thing that we need to do in answering that question is understand the difference between haggling and negotiation. Now, there are eight ways to solve a conflict. Haggling is one, negotiation's another. So, Andrew, I know you do this. You've been to the bizarre market stores and you've haggled for the Ray-Bans, and you started at 40 Euros, didn't you? Andrew Stotts: That's just an obscene amount of money for those, the Ray. I'm kind of more in the two-euro range, to be fair. Darren Smith: So we've all been there, haven't we? We're trying to buy these Ray-Bans, we're on holiday and the guy behind the stool starts at 40 euros, we start at two, and you meet somewhere in the middle. A valid form of resolving a conflict. But don't kid yourself that it's negotiating. It is not. It is haggling. Now, if you get a chance, Andrew, look up on Google, a Monty Python sketch about haggling. It's really brilliant about how to do it. So I love that. But let's come back to negotiating. First thing is to know the difference between the two. Andrew Stotts: Yeah. It is fascinating because as soon as you talk about kind of the Friday market for me it was the Friday market. So we lived in Kuwait for a long time and brought my children up in Kuwait primarily. There was a fantastic location called the Friday market and there were lots of kind of Ray-Bans available and Oakley bonds and other kind of like sunglasses, let's put it that way. And other kind of curious merchandise, which is always quite fascinating. The challenge I always had was that my daughter was always too quick to kind of like share her position when she was negotiating. So she wanted to buy. She had in her mind a particular pair of Ray-Bans. Andrew Stotts: So she would kind of go into the market and she would find the Ray-Bans that she wanted and then obviously start to salivate around these Ray-Bans. And of course, my big concern around that was that as she was salivating, I was kind of watching the store owner who was also going, whoa. Now I've got dad by the short and curlies. Effectively I can charge my 40 kinds of euros as opposed to the two euros for the Ray-Bans. And it's a nightmare. So I would have to then come discreetly grab my daughter and sort of take her away and say, we're not going to have to find those Ray-Bans on another store. Andrew Stotts: Yeah, there were other stores, but it was often quite a pain finding them because she had a particular taste in Ray-Bans. So then we would eventually find them. But I would say when you go there, do not show your position. I think that's a really, really important point. So I'm kind of curious, Dr Anthony, to understand about kind of positional and why we shouldn't really be sort of showing our position when we're negotiating. Dr Anthony: Well, it's letting the cat out of the bag. I mean, no one actually goes in with a cat out of the bag up front. Negotiation is about getting to a point where both parties find an amicable agreement. And if you leave the cat out of the bag, then you have no back foot to actually reverse back onto. So it is a gift. It is a skill and it can be learned. That's why we're speaking to the master Darren himself. So Darren talking about negotiation, how do you negotiate with a five-year-old? They have their own way and they wanted their way. Is there any negotiation? You tell us. Darren Smith: Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you some great advice here. Dr. Anthony, I've been negotiating and teaching for 30 years and I used to run a billion-pound portfolio and I've learned one thing. You don't negotiate with kids, you won't win. I don't win. I've never won with my kids. It's just not worth it. So what I do is I put all my energies into winning at work. Andrew Stotts: That's a great question. Dr Anthony: Brilliant. Andrew Stotts: So how do we get better then? As human beings, how do we get better at negotiating? So what are your kind of top tips, Darren? Darren Smith: So the first thing is, let's understand the difference between haggling and negotiation. Yeah. So once we've got those, we're then negotiating. Okay. The next thing on negotiation is preparation. Now, Andrew, what you do or others do for preparing for a negotiation is they normally open PowerPoint and start typing. Andrew Stotts: Yeah. Darren Smith: They create their slide and their images and the ooh, ah, blah. But here's the thing. PowerPoint is not a negotiation preparation tool. There I said it. Andrew Stotts: I agree because what I tend to classically see when we are putting people through you know, real playoff simulations around negotiation, which I think is quite fascinating. Is people tend to when you give them a scenario to negotiate 100% of the time, particularly if they've had no real exposure to professional negotiating, they tend to come only from their position. Yep. So they prepared their position and they're kind of like fairly fixed on that. It normally takes me about a day to knock out the idea that they're going to give their position away because they're kind of walking with their position. This is my position, this is what is what my boss has agreed, this is how much I'm prepared to pay for whatever it is, bang on the table. Andrew Stotts: For me, it's the biggest kind of no-no. When we're negotiating. I think we need to be, I always say to people, we need to try to start to. It's back to one of my Coveys, which is, you know, seek to understand before you seek to be understood. So if you understand, if you can be lucky enough to get Darren's position or Dr Anthony's position early part of the conversation, actually that's really useful to you as a negotiator. Because you've got basically then a very nice set kind of framework. So I know you have a really cool framework, Darren. Perhaps you could share that framework with us. Darren Smith: It's very simple. So there's a template available online because we realized a long time ago that people needed a preparation tool. Something simple, easy to understand, easy to use. I'll just draw a part of it here, Andrew so you can see. It's a downloadable free template and we call it the square dance. We've never quite understood why we call it that. But do see do and all that seems to conjure up people. The Squaredance Template   Andrew Stotts: It kind of works for me, Darren. That kind of works for me. Darren Smith: Sort of does, doesn't it? I mean, you've done a band dance and so have I. Andrew Stotts: I'm not sure I like it. What are your thoughts on band dances, Dr Anthony? Any kind of thoughts on band dances? Have you ever been to a band dance in South Africa? Darren Smith: It took the wrong time to negotiate. Let Darren talk. Darren Smith: I'll do what the man said. So there's this A4 template we've created. Download it for free, it's all yours. And roughly it looks like this. What are you hoping for?

Mental Health Expert Interview with Simon Blake CEO of Mental Health England by Darren A. Smith MBM Today's podcast features mental health questions and answers by our expert Simon Blake. Here's a quick overview of the questions: What is the definition of mental health? How has Covid-19 affected mental health? How accurately is mental health reported in the media? How does mental health affect physical health? How does mental health affect your life? Why is mental health important? - Why is mental health training important? Why is mental health on the rise? Please tell us about mental health month/week. When is mental health too much? What does mental health mean to you? Where can someone get a mental health diagnosis? You Can Read the Full Transcript on Mental Health Questions and Answers Below: Darren Smith: Welcome to Sticky Interviews. My name is Darren Smith, and I'm the Chief Executive Officer of MBM Making Business Matter, the Home of Sticky Learning. We are the soft skills training provider to retailers and manufacturers around the globe. The idea of these interviews is to bring to you the expert's inside knowledge of how you can be the very best version of you. Welcome to the show. Welcome Simon Blake. We are here at Sticky Learning, MBM, and we have the great honour of talking to you. Now, I know that you are the CEO of Mental Health England. I know that you ride horses and you've got a competition tomorrow. But what I'd like to do is, for the guys that are watching is say, why should we talk to you about mental health? Simon Blake: Simon Blake, on Mental Health Questions and Answers   So, I mean, the first thing, of course is that everybody should be talking about mental health and talking about mental health properly and seriously. So great to be here talking with you. But I am Chief Executive of Mental Health First Aid England, which is an organisation that wants to train one in 10 of the adult population in mental health first aid England skills and knowledge because we think that will create a cultural tipping point in which enough people have the skills and understanding around mental health to make a real difference. Simon Blake: I also, of course, have lived experience in terms of live with a partner who has their own mental health conditions, friends, family, my own ups and downs in all sorts of things. So, yeah, I have some professional expertise and then some personal expertise. But just go right back to the first bit. We all need to be talking about it, and that's why you should talk to me because hopefully, I encourage some people too [inaudible1:47]. Darren Smith: Fabulous. Alright, we've got about 12 questions. Most of them are those that either come from people on LinkedIn or they are searching for them on Google. So we saw these questions and we thought, who better to ask than you? So we are going to go through these questions, ask you, we might go off a tangent, we might ask you to share a few stories. But for the viewers at home or at work, what we are really trying to do is get all those goodies that are inside your head around mental health out so we can help each other. Simon Blake: Cool. Darren Smith: So our first question is, what is the definition of mental health? Simon Blake: Sure. I mean, the World Health Organisation, I know Donald Trump's not their biggest fan. But the World Health Organisation defines mental health as a state of well-being in which individuals realise their own potential can cope with the normal stresses of everyday life, can work productively and fruitfully, which is obviously a good term for those working in supermarkets and be able to contribute to their own community. So that's the World Health Organisation definition. I guess the key bit in that is this is about well-being. Simon Blake: We often talk about mental health when we mean mental ill health, and it's really important to recognise. We talk about one in four people experiencing poor mental health each year. What we talk less about is that four in four of us have mental health and that we rely on that to help us get through every single day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Darren Smith: Right. Because you're right, I talked to my mum and dad, obviously, they're a generation of about 70, 80 years. And they talk about people, oh, he's got mental health. So they use it almost in that negative, which is wrong. And I guess they, and even I haven't wrapped my head around mental health actually. We're talking about either illness or well-being. Right. Simon Blake: Yes. And of course, it's a continuum, isn't it? That some of us will have a clinically diagnosed condition. Some of us might have highs and lows. We will have bad moments and experience bereavement or divorce or separation or whatever it is. So our mental health is a bit like our physical health. We don't either have pure physical health or an illness. We are all different parts and there is a similar sort of thing with our mental health. But we may not have a clinically diagnosed illness, but we may be operating 80% for a few weeks for whatever reasons, whether that's external or internal. Darren Smith: And that perfectly brings us onto our next question, which is what we're all going through right now. For some people, hell on earth, for others, even worse. So how has, I think I know the answer, but interesting for you to elaborate. How has covid affected people's mental health? Simon Blake: So, I think it's fair to say it have affected people in numerate different ways. And I just want to start by saying, of course, that there are some people who have been locked down, who have not been locked down in safe houses, in safe experiences. So maybe in violent relationships. Some people have experienced homophobia or transphobia or whatever it is within their home life. So I think there are some, some key things which we just have to acknowledge. Because I think sometimes people forget that we don't all have the luxury of a safe home. But also once you sort of acknowledge that, that even though lots of people have had awful experiences which may have include being bereaved and not being able to go to the funeral and grieve properly. Simon Blake: So some really bad things, most people have adapted incredibly well. That moment with an hour a day, whatever it is, notice that it's going to be different tomorrow. Whether it's going to be different tomorrow and you are going to still come to workplace, or it's going to be different tomorrow, you're going to stop coming to the workplace. Yeah, there's lots of things where we've adapted incredibly well. What we also know is that a much higher level of people have experienced anxiety during lockdown since Covid began. And whilst we don't have all of the information now, of course, as the restrictions, ease there is much, much more room for people to get anxious about all sorts of different things. About am I going to be forced back into the workplace? Am I going to have to get public transport and is that going to be safe? Simon Blake: What's happening with our borders? Am I able to do X, Y, and Z? The reality is that most of us are a little bit confused and, of course, being confused because the rules are not being as communicated as clearly as they could be, in my opinion. And the variation across the four countries, it doesn't help that. But what that means, of course, is that when we are not sure it can exacerbate worry and concern and anxiety. And for some people it is also important to say no commute, more time at home, an opportunity to slow down, an opportunity to not travel internationally as part of their job has brought some real positive benefits as well. So I think it is really important that we acknowledge the adaptability that as human beings, we've done incredibly well. However hard it's been, we've done incredibly well. Darren Smith: Yeah. Simon Blake: And that it has been difficult for some people and will continue to be, and that there have been some positives for some people, and that most people, of course, have gone back and forth. If you asked me last week how it was a very different answer than how it is today. Darren Smith: Very true. You're right, it's a very changing picture. I mean, we as a family, we went out on Saturday and the whole mask thing, it's just, I don't know. We wanted to go out and sadly, we went into a weather spring for lunch. There was no mask in there. Or we went into a clothes shop and it said, you must wear a mask, sanitise your hands. Absolutely. We went in, there were six assistants without masks and you're thinking this is all a bit confusing. Simon Blake: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Darren Smith: Well, we got it. Simon Blake: Yeah. And I think that that is, yeah, I've used public transport probably three times since March. On Sunday I got on [inaudible 8:49] railway, and there were probably similar six or seven people without their masks on and I was furious. I'm not a person who gets furious about much. And then I was like, just breathe. By the time I got home, I was like why were there so many people? Why weren't the people on the train saying to them that they should be doing it? Of course, yeah, actually I had my mask on. I was far enough away. But there's something about our interactions with each other, what's happened in this period and our own. Clearly, it triggered something in me. Simon Blake: I don't normally go from not 60 in quite the speed that I did in that moment, which suggests that it worried me rather than it made me angry, even though I felt fury. Then of course, I'm 45. No, I'm not 46-year-old Blake. So always sort of equipped like many of us with the nuance of emotion. So it took me a while to just step back and go, okay, what's happening? And that's what I think all of us are going to have to do a bit more of. Darren Smith: That's very true.

Are You an Amateur Negotiator? Join Ben from Innovate Podcast and Darren A. Smith with their talk on how to become an effective negotiator. Learn useful tools like the squaredance for negotiating and disregard bad practices like running to PowerPoint first. Read on to discover the basics of effective negotiation that you can start using today. You Can Read the Full Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: What else could we do? What could I explore? What do you want from me? Could we talk about a contract that's 50 years long? No, we can't, Darren. Alright, what about one's five years long maybe? Okay. Could we talk about improving the quality, and reducing the packaging? Could we work together on blah, blah, blah? There’re a million things we could talk about. Now. None of them might bridge the gap between a 10-pound case and an eight-pound case. But let's try. Ben: Welcome to the Innovate Podcast, a show where we discuss, dissect, and attempt to rebuild the world of product and category within consumer goods. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Darren a Smith a veteran of the grocery industry with over 3o years of experience, I think working either for retailers or advising manufacturers and brands. Darren and I briefly crossed paths as buyers and category managers at Sainsbury back in the very early naughts, which we may discuss in a moment. But Darren, welcome to the Innovate Podcast. Delighted you can join us. How are you? How are you today? Negotiating is a key business skill   Darren A. Smith: Hey, Ben. I'm good. We're in process of moving house, not today, but in the next couple of weeks, so I am struggling with that process. There's a reason it's stressful. Ben: So yeah, you just thought you'd add another huge seismic life event onto the already kind of generational economic challenges that we're facing. Darren A. Smith: That's absolutely true. I think we just squeezed in for the interest rates went through the roof. Ben: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a joking matter actually. Yeah. Okay, cool. Good. So, Darren, just for the benefit of the listeners, I guess a natural place to start would just be to introduce yourself, talk through your kind of background from Sainsbury through to now and just talk about what you're focusing on with your current business MBM, if that's okay. Darren A. Smith: Of course. So I started Sainsbury in 1990 and at that point, I was the assistant. Now that's the important part. I was the assistant cottage cheese buyer. I wasn't even the real one. I didn't even know what cottage cheese was at the rightful age of 19. So that's where I started. Then I took on various buying roles for the next 13 years. My last real job was looking after the fruit team for Sainsbury, where I decided that actually I wanted to go and see if I could do something by myself, set up MBM, and ever since we've worked on soft skills training. Ben: Okay, awesome. Darren A. Smith: For the last past 20 years now. Ben: So soft skills training, I guess that could be quite broad. It's clearly focused on people. What are kind of the key areas that you focus on in terms of developing skills? Darren A. Smith: The key ones that people want are how do I get the most out of my time — time management. How do I get the most out of my people — people management, leadership skills, and how do I get the most out of my deals, particularly in the industry that you and I are in? So it's negotiation predominantly. It's time management and it's people management skills. They're the three. There are a number of other soft skills. The bit I really like is Jack Ma, recently the chairman of Alibaba said that with the progress of AI, soft skills is the only way forward. Love it. Ben: Right. Awesome. Darren A. Smith: Which is great. So we can try and process data really quickly and be analysts, but ultimately it's about how you and I interact about the teams we build and about how we lead people is the future. Ben: Yeah. That's very interesting. So we're recording this in mid-November. It is an incredibly challenging market both within grocery and food and drink specifically. But you know, generically we have just kind of western consumers, we've kind of lurched from the generational challenge of covid through to the kind of the latest generational challenge of the economic crisis. So you talked about negotiation skills there, clearly manufacturers, private label and brand. That's probably one of the main things that their commercial teams are doing at the moment. That process in terms of working with their retail partners, and their food service partners to effectively kind of reach a commercial position that can enable survival. Not to sound kind of too dramatic about it, but I think that's what many manufacturers and in fairness retailers are facing at the moment. So that's the topic that we're going to dig into today. It's looking at negotiation, negotiation skills, and how our listeners can kind of improve those skills from their own personal perspective and kind of bring some of those ideas into their businesses as well. Do you want to just give a little bit of background, I guess, to start before we kind of delve into some of the specific areas about how you know, what the kind of the key principles within negotiation that people should be thinking on? Then we'll move on to this kind of seven areas that we're going to discuss today. Darren A. Smith: I think it's firstly worth saying, Ben, I'm feeling for all those people Both account managers on this side, and buyers on this side. It's tough, it's hard. Yes, they get paid the big bucks as you and I did as buyers and as account managers, but it's hard. Conflict is hard. Anyone who says that they enjoy conflict, or they don't mind conflict, they're lying. Conflict is tough. It's mentally gruelling. You go home at the end of the day and it's still spinning around in your mind. So it's really tough for these guys at the moment. Now here's the real crux of this. It's harder to negotiate with an amateur negotiator than a professional one. The reason for that is amateur negotiators tend to do fight or flight or sanctions. If you don't give me that, I'm off to find someone else. That's really hard because they're not working with this art form. They're not dealing with the complexities of the negotiation. It's just fight or flight. So what we aim to do is try and help the buyers and the account managers to be more, let's call it professional or we prefer effective negotiators because they're easier to work with. They understand the science, the art, the game, and they understand that a win-win must happen. Ben: Yeah, that's interesting. The empathy piece I think is quite important because the buyers that I still know in the industry, they've had a pretty miserable 18 months actually. I know it's on both sides, but the amount of kind of requests coming into them from a cost and commercial perspective has been unremitting. That's pretty much certainly the ones that I talk to. That's all they've dealt with. That's not a particularly kind of joyful thing to do at all. You and I know as former buyers, that actually the much more kind of positive elements of a buying role are looking at kind of category strategy and how you increase the size of the pie, not how you kind of shrink margins and all that, all that type of thing. There's very little of that. I think it is just unremitting. So I do think that empathy is a good place to start. Yep. Darren A. Smith: It is. It is very tough for them on both sides. They both want to get through this. They don't want a fourth or fifth or sixth round of price increases on either side. Unfortunately, it's the way the world is. They've got to get through it and they've got to try and be friends at the end of it. Ben: From your dealings across the industry, do you see the retailers giving their buyers a lot of support at the moment in terms of kind either negotiation skills, training or just general kind of support for what they're going through? Darren A. Smith: I think there is a lot of support out there. It's also not forgetting that it's damn tough. I think no matter what support you give, ultimately, you've got to go up against that cold face and you've got to face into every day, 3, 4, 5 price increase requests. Yeah. That you just don't want to deal with. You'd rather deal with the other stuff that grows the category; not just makes you stand still. It's a bit like getting service on our car at times, isn't it? You go to the garage, you get your service, you pay your 500 quid, get back in your car, and nothing's different. Price increases can feel a little bit like that. A lot of hard work for not a lot. Ben: Yeah. And there's certainly the benefit to the consumer is not obvious. It's not front of mind, is it? There's no real kind of change to shelf price in many of these instances. So yeah. Difficult times. Darren A. Smith: No one's going to thank you for it. The shop is not thanking you for higher increases. Ben: No. Darren A. Smith: The buyer's not thanking you, and so forth. Let's see if we can help some of these guys to be more effective negotiators and make their life maybe 1% better. Ben: Yeah. Indeed, indeed. So, on that note, there are seven areas that we're going to talk about today that you work with on a daily basis in terms of the work that you would or the kind of approaches that you would advise people to adopt when it comes to improving negotiation skills. So I guess in terms of the obvious first one to start with is preparation. I've heard you reference this term of the squaredance before. How do you kind of work with people when they're preparing for a negotiation, first of all? Darren A. Smith: So it's worth providing some context first of all. There are roughly four stages of negotiation. If you were to Google it, there are four or 5, 6, 7.

Is Drinking No Longer an In-crowd Kind of Thing? Join Janet Hadley and Darren A. Smith in an all-new podcast episode on the British drinking culture. Hear why the British drinking culture has changed in the 21st century and its impact on how leaders encourage inclusivity in the workplace. Learn other cool things like the origin of beer and statistics on the leading cause of absenteeism and fights in the workplace. You Can Read the Full Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Welcome to S***s and Giggles with HR. We are with the lovely Janet Hadley. How are you? Janet Hadley: I'm very well, thank you. Darren A. Smith: We've entitled this podcast or video if you watch it by video — this was Janet's idea — the Elephant in the well-being room. Is that right? Janet Hadley: That's correct. Okay. Darren A. Smith: I'm intrigued and I'm going to ask you more about that. But firstly, before we move on, why should we talk to you about British drinking culture? Because that's what I know our topic's about. Janet Hadley: So the reason why you should talk to me about British drinking culture is because I am on a mission to create a drink-safe workspace without killing the boss and that is what we do here at Choose Sunrise. I guess what brought me here is my own personal experience. I've worked in large corporations since all my jobs apart from my pay ground have been in large corporations basically. Darren A. Smith: Right. Janet Hadley: I've always been a big drinker. Those two things go very nicely together actually as it turns out. So I was a big drinker at school actually, from the age of 14. A big drinker through sixth form, a big drinker through university. I thought, do you know what? I'm going to have to calm this down a bit when I get my first proper job. I was wrong. I had to dial it up a bit because when I joined the trading floor of a large supermarket whose head office is based in Leeds, I was quite shocked actually. It was such a boozy culture. So it suited me down to the ground at the time. We would be out from 4:00 PM till 4:00 AM on a Friday. Darren A. Smith: Oh. That's heavy. Janet Hadley: It's probably heavy, isn't it? I never saw anything wrong with it. It was almost a culture where you had to be part of that in-crowd in order to be considered for promotion. Darren A. Smith: Right. Okay. Janet Hadley: I do remember there being a couple of pregnant, well, not pregnant women. Well, there were pregnant women or people who were recently back from maternity leave who I feel so guilty for now knowing I was in this. But they weren't part of the in-crowd. They weren't ever out in the pub with us, and they were passed up for promotion. There was a real culture of, well, they're only part-time and they're not really serious about their careers. It's a horrible toxic culture actually for someone to work in who has a young child. I actually do feel incredibly guilty now looking back on it and thinking about how I was part of that. Actually, I mean, fast forward to a couple of years ago when I decided to stop drinking, which I've obviously missed out on. It's a huge amount of story. I really only saw for the first time how much British drinking culture in the workplace had influenced me. I would never say it was my employer's fault that I developed a problem with my drinking. But it certainly didn’t hurt. If you wanted to create a culture where someone would develop a drinking problem, that would be it. Many people develop drinking problems due to the drinking culture in the workplace   Darren A. Smith: Okay. So there's a hell of a story there from heavy drinking. Now, you haven't had a drink for two years. Janet Hadley: Two and a half years. Nearly three. Darren A. Smith: Okay. You were by no means an alcoholic. You were just part of the drinking culture. Janet Hadley: Well, this is a very interesting question because there is no formal definition of an alcoholic. So I don't really use the term alcoholic. People tend to think that there are normal drinkers and there are alcoholics and there's not a lot in the middle. And the truth of the matter is that most drinkers are somewhere in that grey area in between those two ends of the spectrum. Actually, sometimes what happens is, like, in my case, I had some really devastating news. So people do face death and bereavement and trauma and serious illness and things like that as they get into the forties generally. Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Janet Hadley: It can really, be for someone who's always turned to alcohol at the end of every stressful day or at every Friday night, or for every celebration and commiseration ever for their whole life. When you get some news like that, you end up drinking. My relationship with alcohol really changed, became much darker and it started to be a kind of drinking-to-forget relationship with alcohol rather than a drinking-to-have-fun relationship with alcohol. I think that's, well, it is very common. There are all kinds of reasons why people find themselves in trouble with alcohol. And there doesn't have to be a reason, let's face it, it's an addictive substance that we are subjected to marketing on a daily basis. Active marketing, passive marketing, it's just everywhere. It's no wonder really that some people find that they're having trouble controlling it. So I'm not sure about the word alcoholic. I'd almost argue that anyone who drinks regularly probably is something of an alcoholic because they keep drinking. Darren A. Smith: Okay. Alright. I'm intrigued by something particularly you said so far. So you said drink safe workspace. Janet Hadley: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: I've heard that before. Janet Hadley: Yeah. So that's a phrase that I've coined to describe what we do here at Choose Sunrise. I'm not in the business of telling people to stop drinking and to have teetotal workplaces. I am in the business of making the workplace a place where people can find support if they need it. I'm in the business of making the workplace more inclusive for people who choose not to drink. I'm in the business of making the workplace somewhere that is psychologically safe for people to speak the truth about how they feel about their drinking and their relationship with alcohol. I run a  peer support group called the Sober Curious Society in the workplace. Darren A. Smith: So Curious. Yep. Janet Hadley: Yep, yep. That is a safe space where people can explore their relationship with alcohol, with no judgment in the workplace, with all the people who are their colleagues and peers, perhaps, you know, there'll be some senior leaders in there, there'll be some very junior people in there. Everyone's in there for the same reason. They're interested in exploring their relationship with alcohol and potentially doing something to change it. They get all the resources that they need to do that if they wish to. There is no pressure for them to go sober or do anything other than turn up and listen and chat. Darren A. Smith: So, it's not as if you're a vegan society trying to stop the meat eaters. Janet Hadley: Exactly. It's about giving people a different perspective. When I was growing up, my heroes were people like Zoe Ball and Sarah Cox. I was a proper nineties ladette drinker, and all my role models were drinkers. My parents were big drinkers. All my relatives, like my friends, my everyone was a drinker. I never ever had any sober role models. I think that's true of a lot of people my age. I think going into the workplace and being a sober role model and actually sharing stories about the journey to deciding to stop drinking in a workplace setting can be so important and inspiring for people. I get emails on a fairly regular basis saying, I saw one of your talks six months ago, nine months ago, two years ago, and it's only now that I've decided to stop, but I just wanted to say thank you because you were the first person I'd ever come across who like just told their story about stopping drinking. It's so relatable for so many people, but it's become quite a taboo subject and people find it very difficult to say, I need some help with my drinking. Darren A. Smith: I get that. Well, we're seeing more and more sober October, Dry January. Janet Hadley: Yeah, February. Yeah. Darren A. Smith: I read the other day something like, there's a high percentage of millennials who don't drink. I got that right? Janet Hadley: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. There really are. One of the big factors that affect that is the rise of social media. So there is a real fear amongst younger people of drunk photographs appearing on social media and that has been an important change. You know, let's face it, if there'd been social media when I was that age, I don't think I would've had a career. Darren A. Smith: I would've gone out. Yeah. Janet Hadley: No, exactly. So there's that enough, but also you can't get served under 18 anymore. You need ID to get served everywhere. That certainly wasn’t the case when I was that age. Young people are much more health conscious. I've got teenage daughters and they go climbing and bouldering, they go to coffee shops, they go into town, they go shopping, but I don't stop them from drinking. They're allowed to drink. They just choose not to. Darren A. Smith: That generation, they seem much more aware than we were. They're aware of the planet, they're aware of what they're eating, aware of diet, that they're drinking water. I don't think I drank water until I was 35. Yeah. They seem much more educated. They know what they want. Janet Hadley: Yes, I agree. I think they've got the heads screwed on better than certainly I did at that age. Darren A. Smith: Feels like it. I've got a list here of questions. So we're going to do a quick fire round if that's alright. There're questions that people type into Google and they want to get the answer from an expert.

Shits and Giggles with HR Episode #1 What is Right About the Recruitment Industry Could Be Written on a Stamp! Join Lisa Haggar and Katrina Collier to discuss what is wrong with the recruitment industry. The horror stories of people going through 6 rounds to get a job and then getting no reply, or how people receiving job offers then leave their job, only to be told that the job they applied for & won, has been made redundant before they even start! Sharing Resources Mentioned By Katrina in the Podcast Katrina's Website The Robot-Proof Recruiter Getting back to people: https://circlebackinitiative.com/ https://end-ghosting.com/ Places to feedback: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/interview/ https://indeed.com https://www.kununu.com/ https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell You Can Read the Shits and Giggles with HR Episode #1: What is Right About the Recruitment Industry Could Be Written on a Stamp! Transcript Below: What is wrong with the recruitment industry?   Darren A. Smith: Let's start. Welcome to the Shitz and Giggles with HR podcast. We're here with Lisa. Haggar, Lisa. Say hello, please. Lisa Haggar: Good evening. Hello everybody. Darren A. Smith: And we're also here with Katrina Collier. Hello, Katrina. Katrina Collier (Guest): Hello. Darren A. Smith: Hi I'm your host, Darren Smith. We'll come back to these lovely ladies in a moment. Our topic for tonight and I'm going to blame Lisa for this is what is right about the recruitment industry could be written on a stamp. Katrina, I'm just gonna come to you and ask what's your name in this game? What do you do? Darren A. Smith: Let's stop listening. Katrina Collier (Guest): So I am best known as the author of the Robot Proof Recruiter that I have been in the recruitment industry for nearly two decades, and I spend most of my time delivering design thinking workshops to fix candidate experience and recruitment. And I also have a coaching and mentoring group that's probably me in a nutshell, but plenty plenty of experience in their recruitment and talent acquisition space. Darren A. Smith: Brilliant. Brilliant. But we wanna get into that and ask you what's wrong with this industry. Let me just come to Lisa for first. Lisa, what do you do? Lisa Haggar: It's a good question. I tell people I knit Jelly for a living because when you tell them the work in HR, it switches people off quicker than if you're the tax man. So I knit Jelly Darren. Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: Yeah. It's. OK. That's good. Lisa Haggar: Or otherwise known as the ******** from HR Queen of HR on LinkedIn, the opinionated small 5 foot blonde who has a lot to say about most things. Darren A. Smith: Lovely. And how do you guys know each other? Katrina Collier (Guest): LinkedIn. Lisa Haggar: Uh, Katrina's fabulous, and I know everybody who's fabulous on LinkedIn. Simple. Katrina Collier (Guest): Is it LinkedIn? I don't know how we know each other. That's hilarious. Yeah, LinkedIn. Lisa Haggar: It is, yes, yes, I remember. I remember the day we met Katrina. Do you mean you? You can't remember that wonderful time? I don't know. Katrina Collier (Guest): Yeah. Darren A. Smith: Well, thank you both. Katrina Collier (Guest): Menopause. Katrina Collier (Guest): Hmm. Darren A. Smith: Thank you both for joining us for ***** and Giggles, HR podcast. Katrina, let's start with you. So at the topic is what's wrong with the recruitment industry? What's wrong with it? Katrina Collier (Guest): Ohh I thought it was what's right with it that you could write in the back of a postage stamp. Darren A. Smith: Ohh, actually let's start the then. See even better what's right with it. Darren A. Smith: But. Katrina Collier (Guest): Yeah, because that that really, really made me laugh. Because when Lisa sent me that, I just thought Katrina Collier. That'll fit on the back of a postage stamp. And I thought, you arrogant little so and so, which just totally I was actually sent Lisa a voice note because I was laughing so hard at my own joke because I just thought it was so funny and so arrogant all the world into one. Katrina Collier (Guest): But you know it. Katrina Collier (Guest): That we have lost the human touch. That's what's wrong with recruitment. Somehow we've put all the tools and all of the technology and and even data, everything. We just put everything in the way of human connection because it really is about. Katrina Collier (Guest): One human trying to find another human to work with another human. This is complicated as that. Darren A. Smith: Yep. Katrina Collier (Guest): And we've just, we've just made it. Katrina Collier (Guest): So ridiculously complex with all this technology. Hence the book is called the Robot Proof Recruiter because it's all about, let's just clear out the technology that's in the way and use it to create a better human connection. So that's what I think I would be interested to hear what Lisa thinks having been through the recruitment process a few times. Lisa Haggar: Uh, yeah. What can I say is we do have technology which I get allows companies to be efficient and I'm using air quotes even though you can't see me to be efficient in dealing with the thousands of people who may respond to a job advert. Katrina Collier (Guest): Yeah, like the 50. Lisa Haggar: Yeah, right. Yeah, right. The my biggest bug bear. And there's a few. I'll just list them in. No particular order is one they use a, you know, some kind of a TTS system, which from the HR departments point of view we talk about inclusion and yet it's the most inclusive inclusion. Katrina Collier (Guest): Umm. Katrina Collier (Guest): Hmm. Lisa Haggar: It it just doesn't, you know, if you don't write something the right way, it doesn't highlight it put you to the top of the pile. It's not inclusive as in, you know, people who are neurodiverse. They may not have a three page full of word, CV. They might have an infographic CV because it expresses them how they need to be expressed and how they learn and how they need to read things. So it's just not inclusive. And I love the fact that we have automation and yet you'll go onto LinkedIn right now and on the bottom of nearly. Katrina Collier (Guest): Hmm. Katrina Collier (Guest): Umm. Lisa Haggar: Every single job advert says if you haven't heard us back in four days, you haven't made it love. Sorry about that. Move up. And yet it's two clicks of a button on an eighth to reject somebody and I and it just blows my brain. It's just lazy. Recruitment is my view. Katrina Collier (Guest): What's? It's not only that as well, it's 86% of applicants. Katrina Collier (Guest): If they're ghosted so they don't hear back from the recruiter, become down or depressed. Darren A. Smith: Wow. Katrina Collier (Guest): Now recruiters complain. Lisa Haggar: Yeah, it's the effect you're dealing with another human being. It's disgusting. Katrina Collier (Guest): Yeah, well, yeah. But it's, it's that we we we create. We're making people down or depressed. Recruiters get ghosted by candidates all the time. And I think you know what says you're right. Cause you've been ghosting people for like 2 decades. So yeah, paybacks a bit. However, we don't get when we're ghosted. It's just annoying. Katrina Collier (Guest): We get irritated, you know? OK, there'll be some recruiters out there who probably like, well, I lose Commission. So I do get a bit upset. It's like, well, yeah, you know, don't bank it until they start, but it's not the same as this poor job seeker who over and over and over is getting ghosted and is feeling down or depressed. And it was actually really interesting writing the 2nd edition. Katrina Collier (Guest): Is to put some new examples in and I saw a girl had pasted her spreadsheet of her 32 applications as she put this as a post on LinkedIn and she showed all the times that she was ghosted cause to her just applying for a job and not hearing back was ghosted. And that's really different to what recruiters think as well. So that's certainly a big problem, and Lisa's right you are more than capable of using it to send hopefully a slightly personalized, helpful rejection notice. Katrina Collier (Guest): Uh-huh. Katrina Collier (Guest): Sure. Darren A. Smith: And Katrina, just on that, the the difference in the ghosting there, can you just explain that a bit further so we as humans think that we've been ghosted by the recruitment person, doesn't what what what's happening there? Katrina Collier (Guest): Yes. So when somebody applies for a job. Katrina Collier (Guest): I don't think a recruiter thinks that if they're not. Darren A. Smith: Umm. Lisa Haggar: Yeah. Katrina Collier (Guest): Saying to them, no, we've gone ahead with other applicants. I don't think they think ohh we are ghosting an applicant whereas the applicant thinks no. You're ghosting me because I haven't heard back. Even if they've never even had a screening call. They've never even had an interview. They're like, well, you ghosted me. You've not come back to me, which is really interesting. Darren A. Smith: Hmm. Katrina Collier (Guest): So, but it's the the fact is that no, not every single company has an applicant tracking system. I mean, in the startup world, they're probably lucky if they're on anything more than an Excel spreadsheet, but in general, people are more than capable of replying and letting somebody know and. And to be honest, even if they don't have an applicant tracking system. Katrina Collier (Guest): As as that fury gave me this tip, she's like, change your e-mail signature to a rejection signature that you can just then use and just quick shoot back an e-mail, change the signature, personalize it a bit, shoot it off. Lisa Haggar: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Katrina Collier (Guest): But Lisa's right.