#68 - Inside Forensic Science, Royal Encounters, and Like-Minded's Success Blueprint

Hey, kia ora and welcome back. I also should say shamai or what would you say, Kathy, before I've even introduced you from your point.

Trying to get the use of Maori embedded in our normal workplace and it's, it's harder for us UK's fair enough.

I also, I like running with shamai. I'm connecting to my Welsh roots. So Shamay boddar. Yes. So with me today, I have Kathy Gillespie. Kathy and I go, we go years back, really, I can't. We'll, we'll, we'll flush out when we first met. But Kathy, for people who don't know who you are, Cathy Glass be from Like Minded Learning. Who are you? What do you do?

Who am I? I work in, in online learning. So I've got a real passion for, for learning. I've come from, you know, a history of teaching and delivery and training, but moved with the times. So I'm running a company with another business partner to work with anybody in any sort of range to help them take a concept of something that they want to teach into the online world. So often we'll get people who come in and they sort of say, oh, I need to have go online. I've been told to go online, or, you know, I need to, because that's where the world is now. But I don't know how to do it. So what our business does is it helps them right from that idea all the way through, helping them to build platforms and build content to go on it and get it out. And my focus is particularly on the instructional design side of it because I. It's the quality of what you put out. It's not just the fact that you can put it out and slap something up online doesn't mean that people learn it and do it. So I focus mostly on the instructional design and the learning and the adult learning theory. And my business partner is the technical guru who can tick the boxes and make clever things happen. So we have a really good complement together.

Nice.

And we've been doing that for probably nine years now.

Nice. So, yeah, yeah, I remember you started the business. Yeah, I've been in business about eight years. So, yeah, I remember that happening. Yeah, just about. But yeah, clearly originally from the uk, so, yeah, whereabouts is home in the uk?

Oh, I'm sorry to your. I'm a brummy from Birmingham. Yeah. I've carefully tried to cultivate the accent out by living with George's and Cockneys and met and married an Irishman in Scotland, came and lived in London and then moved out to New Zealand. So the accent's a bit warped, but if you know anyone from, you know that area, you'll pick up the odd thing that I say.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we came out. I mean, to be honest, we were in. Living in just outside of London. I've got two kids traveling an hour and a half. We're traveling an hour and a half into London, but my office was actually 110 miles from my home. So I was traveling to the office with young. Two young babies and care, paying 600 pounds a month in child care. And we just decided that we wanted to change. The oldest was only nine then, so we said, well, let's do something different. So the danger was my husband let me just go off looking and I decided we'd come over to New Zealand. And he didn't do anything. He didn't really.

He. He was thinking maybe move closer to the office. And then next minute you come out with a, yeah, New Zealand's lovely this time of year.

When we tell the story, it's like, my thing is, why did you come to New Zealand? It's like, look, I just wanted to break the cycle. I wanted to, you know, not have the travel and the stresses and the hassles of living in London. And when you ask Gary the same question, it's because my wife told me to.

Smart guy.

Yeah.

The happy wife, happy life theme is. Seems to be true.

The oldest, the oldest boy was nine. I've got three boys, the oldest boy is nine. And. And so we felt we got like three years to play with before high school, so it was like an opportunity, do something different. If we didn't like it, we could have just come back. But never once, not even in earthquakes or mosque shootings or whatever else we've had in Crasher. Who I ever even thought that I would be better off back at home. I mean, it's not like we were living in beautiful countryside in the Lake District or anything like that. We were in a busy 100,000 pound mortgage, which at the time, I might point out, pretty huge. Yeah, so, yeah, so we came for just really three years of doing something different. But we got our residency before we came. Because the worst thing could have been come find you like it and not be able to stay nice.

Yeah. And so what's. What were you doing back in the uk?

So I'm. Well, my history is a bit of a potted history and it does make sense when you work it through, but I work with a forensic science.

I feel, I feel Like I'm a little bit similar but not quite as cool as forensic science.

Well, yeah, you say cool, but it has its elements of boredom as well, you know, because, you know, I mean people sort of say, oh, it's so glamorous, you know, so glamorously career. And I sort of look at them and I say, if you think someone else has used socks and dirty, you know, dirty socks and use condoms is glamorous, you've got very different perspective. It's nothing like you see on csi. I was going to say, having said that. Yeah, having said that, what I'd done is I changed over. I started off as a forensic scientist so I've done the scenes and the scientific side, but then I moved into training. So I was training magistrates and police and I enjoyed the training thing. And then back in those days we were swapping from it we had a typing pool to type up the statements. So we got Windows 3.1. And then as I changed over I was looking for something a little bit different, looking to do maybe three days a week, not five days a week. I don't know whether that actually happened but that was the concept. But I enjoyed the training side of it. So actually I became the forensic science services first training specialist. So mostly in helping people to swap from to computer based report writing Windows and we swapped over to Windows nt. Then you see how long it is. It's last century. Sorry, yeah, around about 1997 or whatever, I swapped over to being a trainer more than I was doing the science side of it and that just gives me much more of a buzz. It always has. So I was very specific in Microsoft training, so I did that. Then when we came over here, I started working for CPIT or in the Computing for Free Polytechnic teaching, like applications training. But I then decided I wanted to broaden it. So long story short, I've got broader and I'm focusing a little bit more on the general teaching principles but in that corporate environment, rather than a being a teacher in school, I'm kind of bringing the experience of being in corporate together with teaching and making it accessible really for those people are now forming e learning teams. The environment changed quite a bit over Covid.

Yeah, I bet it has. So yeah, I mean, forensic science, how, how did you get into that? Like were you, were you an avid fan of crime? Yeah, and novels and stuff. As a kid you thought, hang on, actually I want to be the person that solves all these crimes.

Well, even now it's if I want to go and see a Film or something. I'll say, is there a body in it? As long as there's a body in it, I'm happy.

However.

Are you one of those annoying people who in scene two goes, it was him.

My wife does that all the time.

Yeah. Married to an annoying person. Because he looks at him and says, they're not got the gowns on, they've not got the masks on. And it's like it wouldn't make for good television if they all gowned up. I don't know whether you've ever seen Hot Fuzz, the. The movie at the beginning of that. They're all in their G and they don't know who it is. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously I came from. I had a physiology degree and then I went and did a master's degree in forensic science because I was interested in that use of science. And then I got a job in the Metropolitan Police Laboratory. So I've been there for like, it would be 14 years, 10 years of which I was actually doing the analysis, doing the, you know, the.

Bits and pieces. I mean, you know, little things like I've examined the Queen's bed spread once. You know, little things like that.

Well, hey, you can't just casually gloss over, examine like. Well, come on, what's the story here?

She had an invader. She had an invader.

Yeah. I mean, it was something a bit later on that we were doing. So. So, yeah, so she had the guy in the chemist. So it's just little things like that. You can say, oh, I did that. And when you look at some of the he. Crimes, it's really nice to have been a part of that, you know, even if it's behind the scenes.

So. So for that one, we like. Actually, I don't think we could do this in the lab. I. I actually need to go to the. To the, you know, to the scene here. I need to go into Buck palace and need to go into her. Matt's room and just, well, examine this. So did you.

Or I'll tell you. No, no. But I will tell you one story about our fire, that we had fire investigation team in there as well. And Windsor palace went up in flames at one point.

Yeah, well, they were. They were examining the room, you know, and it was. It was a bedroom. I don't know if it was her bedroom or whatever. And so of course, typically in the adult fashion that we do, they were bouncing on the bed and in walks the Queen.

That's brilliant. Oh, my word.

What do you say to that?

Yeah, sorry. Sorry, Mom. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it's a. It's a sort of business. You have to laugh a little bit because it could be quite depressing if you get too, too serious. I mean, it's like, you know, I remember showing some garments to a victim. I won't go. And it was a really horrible incident and she's lucky to be alive, you know. And I said, how do you know these are your. You know, because we're trying to match the scene and all the rest, identifying them. And I said to her, how are you? You know, how do you know they're yours? And she goes, well, I wove the fabric that made that jacket, know, and it's like they then start becoming real, real people, you know, and she. She really was lucky to be alive, but she became an advocate, you know, for talking about women's safety and things like that. So I think you just have to. You have. Have to put a barrier up that they're not people, you know, for. I think it's harder for people like pathologists and doctors than it is for a forensic scientist because usually they're just items of clothing or things like that, but to be perfectly honest, it's a grubby job. And it was more the fact that I'd actually been doing it since I'd left college and I was about 30 something. And it was like, well, I can do this for the rest of my life, but there are only bigger cases with more exhibits. It wasn't more complex. So things like bombings and things are really in. In interesting to a point. But then you have to spend hours and hours and hours picking fibers off, you know, tapes that are used to wrap and that sort of thing. I mean, it's changed quite a lot anyway because DNA only came in when I was doing it. And now you don't even have to say. You don't even that. So that was interesting for us, but now you don't even have to see the item and you can get profiles. So not sure it's quite as interesting as it ever used to be.

It's. Yeah, it's. Yeah, I think. Yeah, you know, you clearly did a lot. And so, yeah, sometimes it's just time. It's time to move on. Yeah.

Yeah. It's funny, a couple things you mentioned. Yeah. Like. No, well, the, the hot fuzz. You know, I spent 10 years selling medical devices, so in operating theaters and people always ask me, oh, is it like Grey's Anatomy? It's like, no, it's more like scrubs generally the comedy version of, of any industry is normally way closer than the really highly, like, honed, scripted version of it. And. And a queen story. One of my former bosses, James Bundy, I don't know if he's listening, if he is. Hey, James. He bought a Range Rover from the uk. He, he was all about finding these deals where you could export a car from the UK to New Zealand and there's. There's some tax deal that you get for importing a. A used UK car of certain ages. Anyway, when he got the car, he flicked through the logbook and it had one owner based in Balmoral Estate. And so he's pretty convinced it was a vehicle that was. And I said to him, man, you need to get this thing through an X ray machine because there has to be some secret compartments with guns and rockets. Yeah, there's got to be something really, really cool in this car that you just won't find with your eyes. So, yeah, no fun times. So. So, yeah, see, so you did the forensics and then. Yeah. So you got into the training and so you, you came over with a job or you just came over here?

No. Oh, that's a whole. Yeah, that's a whole other entertainment.

Let's go there. Come on. I'm liking. I'm learning a lot about you here today, Kathy. I thought I knew you pretty well.

Yeah, you probably have never asked me this level of detail. So we, we basically sat down at the computer. We got our residence visa and we got it in record time. We got it in three months. I think that's completely unheard of. So we've got the points to get in. And we sat down, the computer said, where should we go in New Zealand? Because we've never even been here for a visit or a holiday.

Well.

And so it was like Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch. So we decided on Christchurch because it was the right size of city to get a job but not be as overwhelming. You know, we didn't want to go from big city to big city. So we, we then just booked a flight. We had two weeks in a motel. We had. So we flew over here. All our stuff was in a boat coming over. So we had two weeks in a motel. No house, no job for either of us. And it was literally a week before we got on the plane that I found out I pregnant with number three. That shouldn't have been the plan. So it was like all these fans of, you know, traveling around with the kids and doing all these outdoor activities changed slightly. So it was. And we arrived and People look at me and they go, you're most mad. You're mad. But it wasn't that bad because we could have gone back, you know, I mean, I'm the sort of person, I never go back to anything. I'd go to something different and I can never say where I'd go to because I never would have thought I'd come to New Zealand. But if we hadn't liked it, it hadn't worked out. All we needed to do is get back on a plane and then move out of London. Like, that's what we would have done. If we hadn't had the opportunity for New Zealand, we'd have gone to somewhere like Yorkshire, which is beautiful, to live and change the jobs. But I'm glad we didn't because actually the whole forensic science service changed and it's no longer supported as well by the government as it was. So we'd have had to look for new jobs anyway. But being in training by that stage anyway, it wouldn't have been so hard for me. But it might have been harder for my husband, who was, you know, the chemistry side of things. But he's managed to. He got. He's got a job over here as forensic scientist. So he's still using his skills, doing what he wanted to. He's happy.

Oh, very cool.

And, you know, there's still a bit of a connection to forensics, so it doesn't quite go. I find it interesting, you know, kind.

Of keep your hand in and just see. See what's going on.

Just when there's something on the news, it's nice to just know a little bit more about it. But he, obviously, he can't say a lot, but.

Yeah, yeah.

I just feel like I've not lost it completely. Connection. And I still watch, you know, Agatha Christie and Morse and Burrow. So we're good.

Nice. You're all good. You got it covered. Yeah, no, I mean, I had a pretty similar story, really, getting here. I moved over here 2004. I'd lived in Aussie for a year. A couple about a year or so prior to that, met a Kiwi girl in the uk. Her visa was running out. I was on the finishing a graduate training program with a large global multinational company and it was either get married or move to New Zealand. And I thought, I'll give moving to New Zealand to go and similar kind of mindset. I just figured, I'll give it a year. If I can't get a job, you know, or whatever, I'll go and just work on the ski fields, you know, I had a working holiday visa but my plan was to try and get employment within about two months. I mean I didn't really look for a job too, in too much earnestly, you know, because I thought I want to enjoy New Zealand and have a bit, you know, your plan, like just have a bit of a tour around and then yeah, within a couple of months got a job and here I am, however many years later, quite a few years later.

Yeah, well I went, yeah. And it was like there was a job going and it was like I had the interview and I sort of said, you know, I'd really like the job but in three months time can I have three months off because I'm pregnant? And they said can you start on Friday?

Okay, yeah. So I mean it was, it was, I was working for that, the computing for free there, you know.

So, yeah, I think so that was cpit, isn't it? Which is.

Yeah.

Which is now to Pekinga.

Right. God, keep it.

Yeah, yeah. Or blinking it changes. No, I mean, you know, I think the, the thing for us is, you know, I'm very much shaped by a couple of things in my life. With one, that my dad died at the age of 51 and he had a lot of plans for future and everything. So the one thing I've learned is just don't wait and plan, do it. Because if you, if you take everything off your bucket list, you just add more things on at the other and, and then the other thing is one of my children was really sick in the UK when he was seven. And it's like you never expect to be in a position where you, your, your child might die before you. He didn't. The good news is he didn't. But it was, it's an awakening thing to don't wait. So if you want to do it, do it now. So I'm, you know, I think some people say I'm a risk taker but I don't know whether that's it. It's just, I'm just going to do it.

Yeah.

And then, you know, we can deal with the consequences because most of the time they're relatively.

Yeah, they're undoable. Yeah, I mean similar for me I think going through the earthquakes, you know, that was my big career change movement. It was like what, what am I doing? But yeah, unfortunately I just had a good mate of mine pass away in the UK so shout out to Benji, 45, married with three kids. And you know, I've just been starting, I've got a little pad on the floor over here. You know, when there's big. A fork, sticky pads. I'm just writing down what do I want in life? You know, what could it look like? I'd love for us to have a house in France. I love France, which is why I've got my French poster. It's like, life's too short to not think that you.

Yeah.

You know, why can't I do that? Why can't I go to France for a couple of, you know, I work remotely. I do everything through here. There's got to be. There's got a way that we can make that happen. Because, yeah, like you say, nine times out of ten, if you go and give it a go. I lived in Australia for a year and there was a guy, Gary Butterfield, I think his name was. He was a friend of the family. This family I ended up living with, you know, again, just sort of connected my way into living with a family in Australia for a year. And he. He just said, look, all you want to do is keep smiling and shaking hands and saying, good day. Good things will come your way. And I'm like, yeah, like, put yourself out there. Just say, hey, you know, I'm here. Most people will run around and help you achieve the thing that you want to achieve. And yeah, I've not had a moment ever in my life where, you know, like, coming to New Zealand, I didn't think I'd still be here now. I thought, yeah, a year. I remember saying to my parents, I could probably give it a year, you know, get the girlfriend's visa sort out. We'll be back. Yeah, I just think. And like you say, there's. There's so much. I was listening to a podcast this morning, taking the dog for a walk, and you know, how many songs are that. That have been produced today? Just today. And then you go, well, how many songs are there that have been recorded in the history of time? You're never going to be able to listen to all the music that's. So there's always going to be something more for you to want to go and do. So, yeah, knock them off.

Love it.

That's great life advice. So you got the job, you're pregnant.

Yeah.

What's. What's next on the. On the.

Oh, well, I've jumped, you know, sort of a couple of things. So I kind of. I had a sort of a. Several. Two years since when I first started. So I was two years at the politics, new changes going on there. I then got A job as training specialist at Christchurch City Council. So that was an interesting expectation because it's like 2,000 plus people and one training specialist. The math doesn't work. So you end up being much more of a training manager, sorting out things, putting a few online stuff. Still very much focused on the applications and Microsoft stuff. It was a two year.

Contract and I did get made permanent. But I saw an opportunity to go to.

Another.

An online teaching company. And that was a really good one for me to really hone some Microsoft skills. So I came like a Microsoft NAFTA instructor over those first few years. But it was really good going into corporates and the training program for them because I will never send anyone on a Microsoft Word course or an Excel course anymore the way that they did that. And I'll shout that out to them, which is David Jackson at Ripped Orange, he runs that now. It was a pattern where you go and sit with the person, you ask them, what do you do? And then I will tell you the skills in Word and Excel and PowerPoint that you need to do. And you'd spend half an hour with them each week or you know, on a pattern and you would actually get them to open their documents and work on it. And it is just the most efficient and effective way teaching. If you go on a Word course, you can be there for a day and you can learn 10 minutes of stuff, maybe, you know, very few of them. So I'm definitely a one on one person, but I'm also focused on, tell me what you do and I will help you to do that. So that was a really, really useful period. But it was, it was an odd environment and it was time to the change on that one. So I found something which is more what I'm doing now, but for another employer, which I then stayed there for like seven years. Yeah, but I just felt like, you know, I wanted to do something a bit different. And we'd had the earthquakes and gone through the earthquakes with them and there was an opportunity to be a project manager for Skirt Learning Legacy, which is the rebuild of the horizontal sort of infrastructure through the quake center, which was part of the university. And I thought I was leaving to do a 20 hour a week, you know, job. And I thought, oh, that sounds rather nice. But that's never happened because like minded as a business, it's grown up around me, the networking, the people. I kind of, they come to me and said, can you do this, you know, for us? Can you, can we start? And then I was joined by Hamish, my Business partner who was from the technical side. And what it did was it broadened. Rather than me just offering the course development and instructional design element, we could add the technical element as well. And so we can give them a broader end to end solution for our clients. And we'd work together and we know we just hit it off. We're very different. I mean, I have to say that's a challenge and it's a bonus. Very different. But we, you know, we. I don't know of any other business partnership that I've known well enough maybe bar one that is as good as ours. You know, anything goes wrong, we can talk to each other. You know, there are things that we need to work on. There always is going to be. But it's been a really good partnership that's made like minded offer a lot more than it would have done if it was either one of us on our own. And we're so we're going into our ninth year, so 10 years a big party. Just letting you know that.

Give me the invite, get in early.

Yep, yep. That usually involves two thumb.

So. Yeah, so it's kind of, it's like, I know it sounds strange to go from a progression from forensic science to where I am now, but it's, it makes sense when you look at the little steps that I've taken. So from forensic training, Microsoft training. Yeah, yeah. So I couldn't be happier where I am now. You know, I'm trying to just pull back a little bit of that like balance. So I'm now down to four days a week. So I have Wednesdays and I'm feeling like I, you know, that works for me, you know, at the moment. But we obviously have to put things in place to make sure that happens and doesn't impact on other people. So. Yeah, so there's a lot. I mean the exciting for us is we're working really hard on strategy and how to make the business long term more sustainable. Because it's been very much dependent on us as key people. And I don't want it to be like that. I mean, you know, it's like I'm not going anywhere yet. But you. An exit plan takes, you know, 10 years and I want to have the choice even if I choose not to still be engaged. Because I what. When we talk about like my purpose, my purpose is to make a good work environment for people because I don't believe that youngsters have to prove themselves working 60 hours a week and cap in hand to their bosses and yes sir, no sir, And I, I get really annoyed when I see that. It's like, no, you can young, you want to be able to have time with your family, grow up. I still need to run a business, but the pleasure for me is watching that those people are getting a better early career than I experienced or seen before. So it's that side of the business more than the bread and butter that we do. You know, we make it online learning. But now for me, the pleasure is in building the people up, I think.

Nice. And so, yeah, E learning that's probably, I'm guessing has had a bit of an explosion after the, the little blip of the pandemic a couple of years ago.

Oh yes, I remember that thing.

Yeah, yeah, it was great fun.

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's, it's changed. It has changed. The, the problem that we have is the fact that the tools are getting more and more available and people can do their own online learning. So rather than people coming to us to build stuff, they're doing it themselves. But the problem is that, and I use my example of a PowerPoint because have you seen a good PowerPoint? And people go, yes, yes, yes. It's like, have you seen a bad PowerPoint? And they go, oh, just because they have the tool doesn't mean they can build a good experience. So we're feeling that we're evolving a little bit in that area to be able to talk about best practice and the instructional elements. It's not taking, you know, a video and plonking it up online, that's not elearning, you know, putting in questions around it and build up and other stuff. So video is very passive and there's no guarantee of retention. There's no pressure on people to listen and think. So we do quite a little bit of capability training more now than I would say than we did before. So that's the bit that I found for me has been time demanding because it's in my head. So we're actually, you know, we still create stuff people, we still build learning management systems and we help them with that user experience. And we're also looking in the space to be able to develop online courses to teach corporate teams how to be how to create good online learning. So things like, you know, what's the process, who are the people involved, what's the questioning, how do you do? Questioning how do you assessment, how, you know, how do you do graphics and scenarios? So that's my current passion about it, is trying to build that to a place where we've got enough stuff to be able to put that out so that corporate E learning teams can come to us for capability training that they can do, mostly self driven and then we'll add mentoring option on top of that. If you want me to look at one of your storyboards or one of your courses or check it for accessibility and that sort of thing that we can maybe get into that, you know, do that space. But it's about what we felt with the pandemic and the change that people were doing it themselves is they were going off doing it because they were the person in the seat or the last one to say no. And the only other.

The only option for people is often a big, like a diploma or you know, something through the universities, which takes months and takes more time. A corporate team needs to get up and running quickly and actually they can, they can evolve to be better and better over time. But the core essence of how to run an E learning team. So we're targeting three audiences. One is the learning and development managers. You know, how do you cost a project, how do you do that? The second one is people who are already in a team and want to upskill and show that they can do it. And the third one is people who are transitioning from a career. So say a lot of teachers want to move into online learning, but how do they show and prove to somebody that they, their skills can be transferable? And so we've got, that's exciting for us for this year that if we can just get the critical quantity to get that out, it can grow. So we're looking forward to sort of launching some E learning capability. Really it is because as I say, the big gap for me is the fact that people can do it, they can put it up, but they think they can do it just because they can put a video up or just because they can use a particular tool when actually you're looking at it saying where's your structure, where's your stuff? Scaffolding of learning, where's your knowledge checked? And those sort of, that sort of language is, is not been taught to some people. So we'd like to be able to.

Help because yeah, I mean online learning, it's a really interesting idea because.

Sometimes I find like there's some online learning that I've done over the years and like I said, there's no like in terms of the retention, it's kind of. Well, there might be some stuff that I'm just gonna, I'm gonna learn to utilize right now. Great. And that kind of works. But I Do remember when I was doing the medical stuff, you know, there was a lot of online learning we had to do and sales guys and girls will always find a workaround. And, you know, it's kind of like you have the video, have the videos playing somewhere to prove that I've watched it and then I'll just have a go at answering the questions and as long as I pass, I pass. So, yeah, whereas if you're sat in a room with a lecturer and a teacher and then you have to take an exam that someone marks, but then, you know, how much do we learn anyway from taking exams? I mean, you know.

Yeah, it's about using the tools that we've got together and clever. So although you say we're online learning, that's just what we do. Most of. I still believe very much in blended learning because I think. And I get frustrated with the universities who just, I've just put the lecture up online and then they complain that people don't go to their 8 o' clock lecture because they can watch it at 10. It's like, duh.

And have you met these people called students before?

But I think the point is that people, you know, in, in terms of the blending approach, what we like is for people to have some stuff that they can do in their own time, you know, as many times they like, because then this allows for the different needs for learning, you know, differences. Yeah, I can do it as many times as I like. So then when I go into the classroom or a workshop, which is probably the better way to describe it, that lecturer should be doing activities that build on what they've done in preparation and they'll soon learn that they need to be prepared to get the most of that session. And then maybe they go away and they finish it. Or in some of our cases, they'll go back to the workplace and their workplace supervisor will verify that they can actually do it. And a lot of these exams and tests, like, if they're knowledge based, and obviously the common issue for us is AI, you know, talking about AI and I said, I don't see why it's a problem. Why don't you just build an assessment that I can't solve? Because if I asked you to upload a video of you changing a tire, best one in the world, AI is not going to be able to do that for, for you. You're going to have to do it. So what we do is when we give them a knowledge check so, you know, you've learned what A, B and C, you know, Means what does A stand for? What does B stand for? Of course you can do it. I mean, they're only teaching themselves. But there is a point where it's where adult learners we're talking about. But I feel like for us, it's the cleverness of the tools that are available that makes the difference between good online learning and it's mixing those up so that people haven't got. Can't lean on the forward button and do it.

Yep. And I guess, I mean that that's the real benefit of online learning is like, say, it can appeal to different learning styles. So I. I'm a very visual person. I like to watch, you know, it being done, and then I can kind of go and give it a go. Whereas if I have to read a whole bunch of text, I'm gonna get bored really, really quickly and I'm gonna have to read it four or five times for it to sink in. And then again, if I'm. If I just hear the information, I'll probably. I definitely wouldn't retain as much as if I saw it. So, yeah, it seems to be the education system historically. I mean, we could. We could go down the rabbit hole of modern learning environments, which would mean nothing to people outside. Well, I don't know. Is it hitting other countries? I don't know. I'm so disconnected from this.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Outside of New Zealand. But even just historically, there seems to be very little thought given to how do different people learn.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So thought we have a mantra for all of our learning. Where. And this comes from the work that I did a while back with training account, to be perfectly honest. But it's. It's often we have these, you know that. All these words and models in our industry. And I don't care about the model and the point is what I'm after. But we introduce a topic, then we develop it. So we explore it with them, showing them examples, giving them scenarios, and then we get them to apply it in their context, and that's the pattern that leads to the better retention. So I might talk to you about something. I might say, look, here's an example of Fred doing this in the workplace. And let me show you the video of him changing the tiles or whatever. Now I want you to go and change a tire and film yourself doing it, or write down five points that steps that you went. You went through and upload that, or get your. Your supervisor to tick off watching you do it. And so by taking them right from the theory. Yeah, through what the mistake That a lot of online learning does is it only delivers theory and it's just a push. It's like a lecture online. And if someone shows me that it's like that's not online learning, that you know that's not learning in the online environment, let me help you understand more. So that's where my passion is at the moment, is making people realize that it's not just about throwing stuff up on the web, which a lot of.

People are possibly doing.

Yeah. And we have quite a big responsibility I think because sometimes if it's. It's not so much now because most people have been exposed to online learning, but if we're building something and that's a person's first experience of online learning, if they don't like it, they're going to go around and say online learning is rubbish, it doesn't work. Which is a generalization about the method when actually it was just that we didn't implement it or do it properly. So I do try to get people realizing the responsibility they have if they're putting out an online course. This might be someone's first engagement online.

It's the same with in person trading. You know, I spent a year trading to be a trainer and then went out on my own and have obviously worked with Mr. Philpott on advanced adult learning techniques in person. But even still, there's only so much you can do, you know, if.

Need a horse to water.

Yeah. 100. You know, because if you're running an event where someone's been sent to the event. Right. We think you need to learn this. Well, you're up against it already because that person might be very resistant by the very fact that it was that person that sent them on this course through to. Well, I don't need to be here because I know everything anyway. Yeah. And then you can, you can do everything that you can to impart some knowledge in a manner that will help retain information. So yeah, when I'm running workshops I use the advanced adult learning techniques of using music, lots of interactivity, asking lots of questions, getting people to do activities, what have you. Using. Yeah, bright, you know, happy images with. With, you know, basically using a little bit of sort of neural neuro linguistic programming to get people to remember and think stuff. But I think the big, the big part for me with training is actually you need to go and apply it because it's kind of, you know, what is it? I think it's misattributed to lots of people. I think it was Edison is one person that's possibly misattributed to. But ideas without actions are hallucinations. And I think that's, that's a big challenge is a lot of people kind of, yeah, don't actually go and implement. And it's like, you know, listen to one of the, you know, it's like, yeah, get the information, write it down, go and do something with it. Otherwise it's just another one.

So the tricks with us are, first of all, we're writing it in a way that they want to come to do it. It's like, because I remember asking somebody and it was a university course, we were going online and said, well, why do they need to do it? And she goes, you know, very stern sort of approach when she goes, because it's mandatory. It's like, well, that's not going to win them over. You know, tell them how they're going to be different, how they're going to behave differently or be different, you know, at the end of it. And then they're going to want to come on the journey with you. And then at the end you're reinforcing that sort of thing. Can you see now how you can do things differently? What are you going to do? What are the three things that you're going to do from here? Let's. And we can, in online learning, we can connect that to managers so they could, you know, put in, I'm going to do a. And, you know, stop, start and keep sort of analogy. I'm going to stop doing this, I'm going to start doing this. I'm going to keep doing this because I'm doing it really well. And they can email that to themselves or to the manager. And so you're creating a longer experience. What the mistake is, people sort of say, I've done the online, I've done the first aid, you know, in 1903. And it's like, so if I fell down in front of you, maybe your CPR wouldn't be quite the right version.

Yeah.

So it's about, it's about keeping them going. And I mean, that's where we do things like expiry and how do you get into a refresher without.

And recognizing people's time? That's a big one these days. And for adults is the fact that I know you're doing it. Let's just give you a quite a comprehensive question quiz scenario to write up something about and if that's okay, then we'll pass you for the next two years. You don't need to go through the whole 40 minutes of learning because you're only learning the same thing. Again, we want to check that you can apply it. So again, our assessment is probably a big area that we could improve on, because people don't assess the right thing. They assess knowledge, not application. So I enjoy talking about that, as you can tell.

No, it's all good. I mean, you know, learning is so critical, I think. Yeah. You know, just being. Being an eternal student is. Is really vital, whether it's. Yeah. At work or just in life in general. You know, every day is a school day. There's always not.

That's what I say, to learn something. If you don't. Yeah. If you don't think you can learn and you're in the learning environment, you're in the wrong business because you actually don't understand it.

Yeah.

So, you know, people in the learning environment should be looking for, what do I need to do next? If I was doing what I was doing 20 years ago, I wouldn't have a job.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting how the world of trading has kind of morphed over, over the years. I listened to a podcast this morning. It was the same podcast. And they were saying, you know, it's insane to think that it was probably only, what, 20 years ago that we really started putting wheels on suitcases. You know, before that, you look like a 20 kilo suitcase. And as they said, you know, imagine Neil Armstrong wheeling his luggage, you know, to the spacecraft and all these smart people, and no one in that building had figured to put a wheel on the bottom of a suitcase.

And hey, do you know what? My thing. My thing is fitted shapes. Because long. I have long since been writing the size of the sheet, like a K or a Q, you know, king size, queen size, single in the bottom left hand corner as you face the bed so that I can put it on properly.

Yeah, yeah.

And nowadays they're starting to sew labels in them. So I feel like I missed out on my.

So on that one. We. We gave away a duvet because we thought the duvet didn't fit the duvet sheet. Turned out we'd be putting the duvet in the sheet the wrong way because it was a king and they're wider than they are longer. And we were like, why hang on?

You and my husband are at the same moment. Because I'm saying to him, do you not. Do you not realize it's a rectangle? You have to put it in the right way?

So.

Oh, Lord, I didn't Think there were two of you, so.

Yeah, well, there's three of us because my wife.

So, yeah, clearly there's work to be done in the sheet department as well.

But. Yeah, it's just one of those things you think it's. That's just blindingly obvious.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, why do we not think of it? Because we don't put the time to thinking about it.

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's only. Yeah. Every now and then when you're changing the sheets, it's an issue where it's not. Yeah. In your face every day, I guess. Well, some people maybe they do change their sheets every day.

So. Yeah. You talked about purpose a little bit before, so, you know, business for good. Obviously you are a B corp, which is why we're talking to you. I would suggest that, you know, forensic science, helping solve crimes, there's quite a lot of meaning and purpose in that. Was. Were you kind of aware of it being meaningful and purposeful?

No, I honestly don't. I think I'm a different person. I mean, it served my purpose because I was a puzzle, whatever person. But I don't think I thought about it in the broader sense quite as much. Not when I went into it or did it. Because to be honest, I feel like as I've got older or had the experience of working for people who don't look after everybody, whether it's client or worker or whatever. And I said to somebody, on my wall, which you can't see up here, I've got my dad's piece of paper, which is my dad's obituary. Like, not the obituary. It was like the message they sent around when he died around work. And when you read it, it's me, you know, it sort of says he wrestled a few feathers and he didn't suffer for gladly, but, you know, his heart was in the right place. And my mom said to me, when I. I sort of said to me, like, oh, I don't, you know, I don't know why I do this. You know, I run the business the way I do now. And she said, it's so like your dad, you know, it's exactly what he did. But I never knew that at the time.

Yeah.

But someone else said to me, it's like, I. What you? And I said, I don't know why I. This is important to me at the time. And I hadn't really worked through it as well as I have now. And she said, you're doing everything that you struggled with as an employee.

Right.

So you Know, I, it's like you're asking me, I mean, I remember somebody saying, you know, they were being resourced 80 hours in a week and they were in tears about it. And I just remember saying so clearly looking at, you know, the manager and saying, I don't want to work for a company that does that to people.

And you know, and then I, you know, as I say, it's just, I feel now a responsibility and a privilege to be able to manage that environment better for people. So if for example, you're earning eight hours a week, I should be employing a second person. Whereas when you're employee, you can't change that. Yeah, but for me it's like if you're working 50, 60 hours a week, it's as wrong as if you're working 30 hours a week, you know, if you rostered for a full time or time for full time. So I feel like as I've grown, the things that have had an impact on me, I unpicked them and worked out. And what it is, is about that work environment. And that's why what happened is the story of it really to get into to Big Cop is the fact that I left to be able to start to manage those things. And as I was doing it, I got introduced through Cat from Eagle. No, not Cass, sorry. It was through Duranda Britain actually. I went along to a talk that Steve from Eagle Protect was doing about B Corp and it was, that was a penny dropping moment for me. It's like this is the framework for everything I'm currently doing. So everything I'm doing now is, you know, this percentage of it. But this framework can help me improve on things. Things like processes were in my head, they weren't documented. I wasn't always being as transparent for, you know, things like finances and how we operate and how we govern clients. You know, it was always important, important to me to make sure they got good value for money because that was the place I was coming from where I felt there were profit over purpose, shall we say. And so it's my responsibility, if somebody comes, we quote them for, you know, a job that's $5,000 and it costs us 2. No way will I be charging them 5,000. Whereas profit over purpose. People say that they signed for 5,000. It's like, yes. And I was responsible for dealing them a bad quote or circumstances have changed. So when I listened to Stephen talking about it, I felt like I've got a real framework and because again at the time I was more on my own about Developing the company. So where do you go for help? The one thing again about a learning person is the fact that you know that you don't know it all. So you look to surround yourself by mentors and coaches and using models and framework to help you get better. And so what happened is the B Corp just knitted into what we were doing but gave us.

Places to improve, things to do, you know, guidelines on how to, how to look after people better or be more transparent even if it wasn't always comfortable, you know, and you know, it's the robustness of the B Corp assessment that I like because having got it is the biggest achievement for me. Getting B Corp is bigger than getting any awards for E learning development and courses. I'm not a big fan of that because often it's.

Often people in the industry patting each other on the back if that's a nice way to say. I mean there's some good recognition, I love the recognition of it. But to me, to be a business for good, that is that I can hand on heart say I look after my people or I try to do it, don't always get it right, trying to look after the people.

That, that to me is the most significant achievement of the whole of our nine years and the first time we got it. To be honest, I've done most of it on my own, you know, small company. I think that's quite a good message for people is because we often look at these big companies that do it have got hundreds of people and things. It was a company of, you know, six people and I filled in most of the stuff, you know, myself over time or had to create it because of question asked for it documented and I hadn't documented. So it took us a long time. And Cath from Eagle Protectors was great with a boat behind me saying just submit it, will you? And we've learned that submitting at your 80% or whatever you think you're at, then there was so much help from B Corp to get you over the line without compromising the quality of what it meant to get over the line. Because to me the most important thing is I am not doing any of this to get a B Corp tick. I'm doing it because I think it's the right thing to do and the B Corp tick is the bonus. But I'm not going to do anything just to get another point if it's not doesn't fit with where the business is going. But 99% of the time it's a good recommendation on how to be better or do better.

Yeah, 100% agree. Yeah. And that's a question we often get asked is, oh, you know, we're too big, we're too small. I always say no. It's about mindset and intent if, if you want to. And that's why, you know, we call our B Corp coaching program Be Better. It's like use the B Corp framework to be a better business. And yeah, yeah, for some it's going to be more of a, more of a, you know, workload because you're not behaving like a B Corp. But I think that's the, the, you know, your values were shining through by the fact that, well, you know, you were operating mainly like a B core people. And again, it's, it's not always easy to do good. There are tensions and you know, we're not all, you know, this is your first business that you've run. This is my first business that I've run. There's plenty of mistakes we're going to make. But I think in general, you know, as per your message on you, on your dad, you know, your heart's in the right place. I'm trying to do the best, best I can with what I've got and I'm not always going to be perfect at doing it.

And I think that's important when we look at the names of the people because I know there was a, you know, a lot of hoo ha about certain coffee company getting recognition when the reputation was, you know, for not being good. But I remember saying it, it was one of our B local meetings. It's like, hang on a minute. At least this company is standing up and saying, please hold me accountable, I can do better. And we go and go on the minimum piece of information. We know. We don't actually know that, you know, a coffee cup actually is, has a bigger carbon footprint than a capsule, you know, because we have this assumption. So I just feel like, you know, it's a fact of anybody who goes into B Corp says hey, I'm really happy for outside people to hold me accountable. And I think that's what I want to make sure that that assessment stays as robust as it is, that it's not about numbers and getting people through by lowering anything, any standards at all. Because anybody who's gone through the assessment.

It'S long, I would say, rather than complex, I would say it's long and there's a lot of areas to address, but it's not there to trip you up. If you look at every question it's got a real benefit too, whether it's customers, workers or whatever. So, you know, I don't want to see that coming down. It's sometimes it's hard. Some of the questions don't allow us to get points where I feel, you know, we, we could just in terms of, you know, the way, the way the business works. But we're covering such a range of businesses and look at the end of the day, I mean, we've just put in our recertification and we were only at 81.7 when we first certified. We're hoping to be over 100 for this next one and that's in the three years we've used that improvement plan to carry on ticking off and changing some things to get better. I hope. I don't know, I'll tell you soon it's been submitted. We'll wait and see.

Fingers crossed for you.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we worked at Riyadh, now I've got Elizabeth's helping as well. So it's quite nice to share the load a little bit. And having gone through it once months, I think it's really good to just get someone who's done it to reassure you. And for us, what we, the way we chose to do it was tackle five areas, pack our topic a month. So we do the workers and we do everything and then we do the assessment and we rectify where we think thought we could improve, upload the evidence and then the next month we look at the next one like community, what are we doing there? So it's about biting it off in the bite sized chunks. If you look at the whole questionnaire, it could be daunting to some people. So I would just recommend that you take it one, one area at a time and focus on, you know, where do you think you're good at. Get those ones written up. Because the way you're not good at it, like say if you haven't done a lot in the community, you can, you know, go into that and focus maybe a month or even two because you've got plenty of time. But I go back to Cass, kick up the backside, just get it done and get it in and they will help you. If you're not using a B Corp consultant, of course.

Indeed. Yes, it's, I mean that it's, you know, it's a great impact guide. You know, that's one of the big things we, we sort of say to people if they're sitting on the fence about B Corp, it's like you don't know what you don't know. So you use it. And yeah, it's not perfect. It's not the world's perfect framework, but it's the best that I can see. And it will just give you that. That, yeah, the ability to illuminate areas of the business that you haven't considered before, more than likely. And then, yeah, like you say, structured, you can kind of go, well, okay, if we want to be better here, these are the five things that we can look at doing. Do we all want to do those things as a company?

Okay, well, and I've had that as a. Yeah, I've had that as a conversation. Because it's like saying, well, you know, B Corp, you know, we were here before B Corp or what? You know, why. Why do we have to do it this way for B Corp? It's like. Well, because it's like anything. If you look at an example, you know, or a model or a. Or a guidance from somebody, or you listen to somebody talking, saying, hey, that's really good and that'll help me. And actually, all that it was is it sat over what we were doing already and crystallized that we were doing the right things in some areas and we'd forgotten about some other areas. So it's not that we're doing B Corp to be B Corp. As I say, I really enforce that. It's just the fact that it's my best help to be better and do better. And the consequence of that is on what I can do to show other people is get that certification tick. And it makes a difference to you, to your, you know, sort of your clients. If you're a B Corp, you've got more likelihood of people coming, you know, to you because of that, even if they're not B Corp. I mean, I had this conversation, you know, we had the, the local yesterday and I, we stayed on for groups and I had a conversation. It's like, I think if B Corps only ever worked with B Corps or talk to people in B Corps, they get a false sense of the world and how are we going to influence the people? So I think we should work with non B Corps and lead by example. You know, it's like saying, I'm not going to work with anybody if they don't align with the values. It's different if they're not even aligning with the values and they're treating like cramps. But I think it's really important for us as B Corps to be out there in the normal working environment. Because people will look and say, why are you different, why you're stepping? Why are you not having a, you know, high turnover?

Yep.

It's because of this framework. Why don't you look at it with me?

100%. 100%. Yeah. And that's. Yeah, I agree. It's as I said on the, on the event yesterday, it's like B Corps need to be having the best party on the street so that everyone else on the block is going, wow, what's the secret sauce down there? Like, why is everyone loving working with them? Why do customers rave about them? Why does everyone want to come hang out with them? And I think, yeah, it's at the front, it's quite a potentially dry, boring framework, you know, in and out, in and of itself. But if you, if you activate it, if you, if you bring the team on the journey and.

Yeah, then what does it mean for me, you know, transparency. What does it mean we have to do? Yeah, I'm looking after our workers. What does it mean we have to do? Yeah, and it's like, you know, if you, if you're in doubt, have a conversation with your workers because you'll find, you know, what is it. Yeah, what is it that's going to make us make it better to stay here or work here? And, you know, I mean, if it's because I actually want to be paid five times what the job's worth and sometimes there's nothing you can do about that with people if they're not on the same wavelength. You know, that's, that's the secret, I think, in the interviewing is, are people there to have that deeper purpose in working than just paying the bills? We all want to pay the bills, but do you want to do it at any cost?

Totally. And I think you can see that you can sense, like the real, the real companies with real purpose that are B Corp. There's just, there's an energy there that, you know, that's lacking in. In the opposite. So, yeah, I think it all sort of feeds into.

Having said that, it's actually hard. It is hard. When a couple of you really engrossed in doing the B Corp and things like that, that's a challenge for us to make sure everyone else feels as excited and on board as we are. That's a hard one for us at the moment. Just to make sure we have the time and energy to get everybody else in the same sighted position that we are.

Yep, that's cool. So anything. Was there anything unexpected or any highlights on over this recertification journey?

No, I was just. I was just excited that we've moved on so far.

I mean, yeah, so that's a pretty good without.

Well, I think it was without thinking about it from the points perspective. We've been slowly improving things and adding things. And one of the issues that we had in the last certification was the fact that we're education, but because we deliver to the clients and the client then distributes the learning, we don't get to ask the learners feedback and respond to feedback. And so we weren't getting the points for what we actually do because the client was happy. The client was giving us testimonials and rave reviews, but because it wasn't coming directly from the learner. And so they'll buy. They'll buy a. You know, we'll develop a course for them, we'll give it to them, they'll distribute it, and if they feel like they want to change in 6 months, 12 months, very few of them will engage us to be part of that evaluation process because they've got their own learning and development team. So that's something where sometimes the shape of the B impact assessment is challenging because it's like, look, look at what we do in the real world. The client's feedback should be able to compensate, but it was a difference between getting points or not getting points. So, thankfully, we've got enough over to not worry about that. And what we've done is we've just asked our clients to give us three examples of some feedback from the courses and we can put that in, but we don't have the control over redoing a course if feedback came back and said, Question 5 needs is ambiguous, not our call. So that was hard. I think, as I say, I was just pleased that we've scored some and we've actually put it in. To be honest, we've put it in at 120 points. Wow. But I, you know, I played the, you know, simpler thing. Let's assume they take off at least 10. Let's assume 20, because 81 to 100 would be a really, really good measure anyway. So some of those, they might come back and it's, you know, you have to be prepared for that. And that's actually fine. You put it in, it comes back usually 10 points lower than you think because you don't get the mark. But they really did help me last year to sort of say, well, here's one. You could probably. All you need to do is upload your policy. We didn't have a breastfeeding policy in the office. Five lines and it's done. And it's like, actually we would let people do that and we would have a policy if somebody needed it and we just never written one down.

Yeah.

So in that respect you're sort of saying, well actually what my intentions are all there, but I do need the evidence to be caught because otherwise if we all say, yeah, we, yeah, we'll do that. Yeah, we'll do that. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's not as robust enough for me. So I want them to maintain the robustness of the assessment. Yeah. But sometimes it's a little bit frustrating that you can't quite get the marks because it's not quite there. I mean the amount of halfway we had just trying to change our water, you know, and at a low flow and things like that. When you're renting, you see, when you're renting an office, you don't have the control over the environment as much either.

Yep.

So you can never score the points in that. So when we did the assessment, we went through and we looked at all the questions and we marked off any that we'd never change and say we don't have an advisory board at the moment, so that's not going to happen in this sign off year. So we just, so we bookmarked everything, took off the ones that we could never go back to and when we finished ones and we knew we'd answered the question, uploaded our evidence, took the bookmark off that and that way you're just ticking slowly through the assessment without it seeing, sitting, thinking you're going to sit for three days just doing assessment.

Yeah, that's a really smart way of doing it. Yeah. Chipping away at it over the time and yeah, I mean that's our advice to everyone is always be bullish, claim the points knowing that you think you've got evidence to support it because it's better for the auditor to say no, you haven't got those, rather than for you to not to declare them because the auditor isn't going to go through every question, say, oh, are you sure you're not doing this, you're not doing that. So it's better to be. Yeah, I always say it's better to be bullish and be told no rather than don't declare it.

So many people have laughed at me for my, for my preparation because I go through the assessment and I answer the question, I put the evidence in and then I answer the next question, I put the evidence in where a lot of people go and answer the question and wait to be asked for the evidence. So for me, I found it much easier to say I'm really confident this is us, this is my evidence. If it's not enough, we'll have the conversation. But then I didn't have to go find all the evidence later. And they, they laugh because it's like most people just put most of it in.

Yeah.

Maybe upload the financials and then wait for the questions to come back. But kind of most of it was there for him. You know, when he looks.

It's that, it's that forensic scientist in you. All the detail.

I think it is. Yeah, I think it is.

Which is good. Which is good to know that that's how you used to operate as a forensic scientist rather than, hey, yeah, I'm pretty sure, Pretty sure he did it.

Well, evidence based, like a gecko treat, like evidence. You asked me this question, I'm telling you and this is why I'm saying it's right, you know, but it is easy, it's easy to find it while you express in your mind and then maybe you won't, you know, the, the assessor won't come back and ask that question because the real problem is if he came back with 20 questions and you have to then go and find the documents to prove it, it's more time consuming and you have to get back into it. So as we go through the questions, we build up a folder with all of the evidence in and that's really easy then for us to go and find it again rather, I mean, financials is the pain. I hate financial side of things.

Yeah. So yeah, me and Zero don't get on.

Yeah. Anyway, then it pays. Yeah.

So what does bigger B corp mean to you? You said it was, you know, more important to you than, than any industry accolades. So.

Yeah, yeah. If I'm remembered for anything, I don't remember to being good E learner. I would remember that. I look after people and as I said, that's a bit. That's the same with my dad. He was always, you know, he was strong and firm but he, you know, but he. People were always at the heart and it's not at the expense of being a good business because at the end of the day it's like I'm not going to give you, you know, 50 days of annual leave because that's a really nice thing to do because I'm not going to be earning the money, be able to pay a cup, you know, who's paying Us, we have conversations like that and it's like. So I think if people, you know, if. If people have worked, it's like, I. I mean, one. One of my legacies is that the girl that really wasn't in the right place and because of the type of work. And we had a conversation and she decided. We decided that she really needed to resign and go and find something different. And as she left that meeting, she said, you're still the best boss I've ever had. It's like, I just told you you've not got your job. And, you know, we've just agreed you've not got your job anymore. And yet I'm still the best boss. So to me, that's my biggest accolade is the fact that I can still do difficult conversations, but with. With my evidence and things like that, I think. But I just want. I just want more people to not get into that stressed and troublesome situation and become leaders through that without having. Without having the stress and the burnout that's attached to it. And I feel really privileged that that's my responsibility as a business owner. So. Yeah, so being a B corp helps me because it's someone else's voice saying, she's doing what she says she's doing. Otherwise we can just say we're being nice, but who's to measure what nice is? So, yeah, so it's really the validation of the way that we're running it.

Nice. Yeah. I think that that's super cool. And the fact that I feel. I feel like there's probably more bosses that need to be able to have better conversations with. Because I think that's part of the problem with the modern. The modern malaise of the modern world is that there's so many people trapped in jobs that they don't like doing that they're not that good at that. Their boss feels like they can't go back and tell them, you shouldn't be here because it just. That's just the whole kind of worms or Pandora's box that no one wants to open.

It is a mine. Yeah, it's a minefield because of the. The constructive dismissal. Yeah, but what. But if you have the right sort of conversation. I watched a webinar the other day that is just a really useful tool. You know, when people are not performing, you have four pieces of paper. The first thing is, okay, we're not performing, you know what? Or it's not reaching the standard we're expecting for that role. What do you need to do in the next 90 days to make. Make me not have to say that. And the second page, so they write it down. The second paper is, what can I do as a manager to help you be able to achieve those things in the 90 days? Write that down. The third paper is, what's a small reward? You know, do you want some cinema voucher? If we get there in 90 days, should I buy you a meal or a cinema voucher or do you want an extra day off or whatever? And the fourth one is, what happens if you don't get there? Yeah, and they write that down and often they're writing their own. If I don't get there, I probably. I need to look for something different or something more suitable. So you write all that stuff down and you. I mean, sorry, this is going to more coaching, but you write all that stuff down and you sign it. And so actually what happens is it stops that being a difficult situation. It's like, look, we talked about it. We've got 90 days. Do these things. I've done everything, you know, I can to help you. And you've either paper three or you've done until paper four, you haven't. And paper four said, if you don't get there, maybe you're. You're going to question whether this is the right role for you and it stops you being in that position. Dangerous position of. Of trying to suggest that they go elsewhere.

Yep, great. There you go. Top, top. Free coaching advice. Although we should. We should also just quantify and qualify. Hashtag. Nothing that you've heard is legal advice or HR advice. Kathy or Nora or I are legal or HR advisors or traders such. Oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah.

Yep. That's good cover. Yeah.

So what does the future look like? Hopefully a second time. B Corp go you. But yeah, what's. What's the future look like for like mine and Cathy?

Well, we're focusing on strategy because we've been really good at being in the business, but not on the business. And one area that we struggle with is that accountability and talk about and plan what we're going to do, but doing it. So I want both Hamish and I to spend a lot more time on planning the strategy of and making sure we have a. Reportedly targets to what not targets in money, targets of. We want to have had one more member of staff. We want to have, you know, done this. We want to have got the courses, of course out online or something. So we've reached the point where in nine years, I think that Hamish and I have reached a point where we can't take the business further without. This is my perception, can't take the business further without some external help from people who do this all day, every day in terms of. Terms of making the business far more sustainable. If Hamish and I weren't in it, which gives us a better balance, because sometimes you get sucked in and you think, I'm the only one that can do this when it's not actually true. You just need to do some extra steps to get there. So that's really what our plan is for the next sort of five or six years, is to focus particularly on how this business, we're not particularly excited about, you know, becoming global domination with 100 employees. It's not something that, you know, we've got a good income from it. We just want to reduce some of the pressures and stresses that we have on it. Being dependent on myself and Hamish as individuals, key individuals. So that's really. I think over the next five years, we'd love to be in a position where there are more people who are taking away some of that job and it leaves us doing the bits we really enjoy. You know.

I mean, I still like mentoring and helping people, so I'm, you know, looking at opportunities for more mentoring and, you know, the atd, that type of zone, you know, they have mentors and things, and the capability training. I'd love to keep being a consultant advisor to companies to run their own internal learning teams better. So I don't want to lose that part of it because that gives me a buzz. But, yeah, we're not going to be world dominators, but we want more stable clients that work with us long term. How do we do that? You know, Tapu King has been a really interesting change for us because a lot of the entities that are out there building learning and using learning platforms will change with all of that work coming under the one umbrella. So that will no doubt have an impact on the learning industry, and we're part of that.

So, yeah, I think it's really. I think it's exciting. I'm excited in my own personal position now. I've done a lot more leadership training. I wanting to hone that skill. You know, I think maybe one day I might be sort of like, wanting to do more boards and advisory stuff. Maybe if you talk about future, I don't know, and I'm not there yet. I've got about five years of still working on the business before I've got time available to do that, but I'm four days a week now. I have told Hamish I want to be 3 days by 2025.

Nice.

See if that happens. And then I can do stuff but not get bored at home. I don't want to be a gardener or anything because I said my purpose, my purpose is to help people, build people up, make their environment good. So how am I going to do that if I'm retired at the moment? You know, it's not. It doesn't go. I've still got a lot to give the younger generation in my industry, and so that's really what I want to make sure I'm doing nice.

Well, I have no doubt that with your sense of expectation, exploration and general fluidity of following your nose to, to amazing projects and places, that it will be something cool that you'll. That you'll end up doing. Kathy's been really cool. If people want to get hold of you, we'll put some links to like minded learning and what have you. But yeah, no, really cool. And I don't think I'm ever going to top a story about people jumping on the Queen's bed, to be honest. And I think you've. You've broken the podcast in terms of stories, so thank you so much.

No, no worries. They're the usual dinner party stories. You know, people like to hear something about forensic science.

Shame they're not as interested in learning they are in forensic science.

Cool, I'm sure. Get them there.

Thank you for having me on. It's a great opportunity.

No worries. All right.

Hey, it's Tim here, that B Corp bloke from Grow Good. If you want more content on purpose, B Corp. How to do more good in the world as an individual or a business, then you know the drill. Hit the like and subscribe. Check out some of our other videos. They're probably floating around here somewhere. You know how it works. Thank you so much. See you next time.