S1E6 Corey-osity Unleashed with John Blakey

Welcome to Curiosity Unleashed, where we turn bold ideas into action and help businesses and leaders step it up.

We're your hosts, Deborah and Ken, obsessed with fresh takes, bold moves and shaking up the way we lead and work.

Alongside our amazing guests, we'll dive into the good, the bad and in the actual what the hell of the workplace. Served with a side of sarcasm and a splash of wisdom.

Oh, and fair warning, this is an adult podcast. Expect swearing like Ken just did, brutal honesty and the occasional dramatic reenactment of some of the most epic workplace fails we've ever seen or done.

So grab your drink, get comfy, and let's unleash some curiosity.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to our podcast. Really excited about our guest today. We have Dr. John Blakey. And welcome, John.

Yeah. Hi, Deborah. Hi, everybody. Really looking forward to our little chat today.

Yeah, us too. I mean, you've got an amazing cv. I'm going to read a little bit about it. Hopefully you won't blush too much as I share all of your accolades. But you are the UK's leading executive coach for purpose driven CEOs, which is amazing. You are an absolute authority and I know that because I've interviewed you for at least two of my books on Purpose driven leadership. With your expertise being sought out by ambitious leaders who are aiming to be a force for good and achieve the triple bottom line, which is profit, people and planet with a unique track record. You are a pioneering coach, a global thought leader and a former FTSE 100 international managing director yourself. So you've walked in their shoes before. You've worked with over 130 CEOs around the globe, Huge number, including leaders of the gold winning team GB Olympic squads, the title winning Premiership football clubs and England cricket. You are a keynote speaker with the London Speaker Bureau and you are an author of three acclaimed books on leadership and coaching. And if we had three hours, we'd talk about all three of them. But today we're really going to focus on your new book, which, first of all, huge congratulations. It's a great book. We've both read it and I know it's doing really, really well so far.

Yeah, thank you, Deborah. Thank you for that introduction. It's no wonder I'm so tired most of the time.

All those things that you're doing and you're working with sporting teams, so you always have to have your energy up, right?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. No, it's been. It's been a real joy to do this work over many years. And yeah, the latest book, Force for Good is keeping me busy, keeping me out of trouble and sparking a lot of interesting conversations like this one. So that's great. I mean, that's what I think books can do, is spark great conversations. So looking forward to having one of those today.

Well, why don't we just start at the beginning, which is the. The book itself force for good. So what was it that inspired you to write this book? You'd already written two already. Was there a certain moment, an experience, conversation? What was the reason that you thought, today is the day that I'm going to start working on this book?

Yeah, the last book I published, Trusted Executive, came out of academic research. So that was the reason and the trigger for that book. This book is very different. It's come out of lived experience and it's really the lived experience of myself and my clients over the last five years. And I guess it was probably in the midst of lockdown that I first had the thoughts about writing this book because I was working with a lot of leaders who were struggling, who weren't thriving. I mean, the subtitle of the book is how to Thrive as a Purpose Driven Leader. And I was working with a lot of clients who weren't thriving for different reasons. Obviously we were in very special circumstances globally and I think it put us all under a certain stress, a certain pressure. And I guess this book is trying to make sense of what we learned from that time and offering it back to the readers as a toolkit to help them deal with times that whilst we're not in a global lockdown, we've still got lots of weird stuff going on in the world and I'm sure that's going to carry on into the future. So I think leaders do need to get fit for the times in which we live, and particularly purpose driven leaders. I think purpose driven leaders are now swimming against the tide in the way that they weren't back in 2020 or 2016 when the trusted Executive book came out. If you're swimming against the tide, you have to be fit because it's not easy and people need help. So this is my of contribution to that challenge.

It's also a great opportunity to capture some of those amazing lessons that we had during such a difficult time and make sure that we don't lose them and as you say, just start swimming in another direction, whether that's against the tide or with the tide.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, I partly wanted to make sense of things myself. You know, I've been a leader in these times and it's Been difficult. You know, I've had my own challenges, like all of us. And so partly when I write books, it's for me.

We'Re the same. We're the same.

Yeah. To make sense of stuff that has confused me or disturbed me. And partly it's for my audience, my clients and purpose driven leaders.

Brilliant.

Well, the title alone catches the eye. Force for Good. It's such a bold and energizing statement. What does the phrase mean to you personally, especially in the context of leadership?

Yeah, the title Force for Good has both a practical meaning for me and a more philosophical meaning. The practical link is that one of the purpose driven business communities that I'm engaged with and wanting to support is the B Corp movement. And the strap line of B Corp is making business a force for good. So B Corp is a global movement of businesses that have been accredited as being businesses that are focused not just on profit, but also on people and planet. So they have the badge around that. And this is a global movement and the strap line is Force for good. So there's a link from my book to that world which I intentionally wanted to make. And at a deeper level, the Force for Good. You know, I tell the parable in the book, Ken, about the parable of the two wolves. And I paraphrase that really that inside each leader there is a force for good and a force for bad. Which one wins? The one you feed. And so I do think that inside every leader and inside every person we've got different drivers, different motivations, we've got our angels and our demons and we are all capable of responding to those drivers in different ways. Which one wins? The one you feed. And I think as leaders, purpose driven leaders, we have to be very conscious about the diet that we are consuming. Which part of us is that nourishing? Is it nourishing that purpose driven driver that wants to contribute something positive to the world or is it nurturing that fear driven driver that wants to distance us or disconnect us and narrow down the boldness of our visions.

That does make me want to ask a question, a follow up question on that one. If the there's a CEO, if there's a leader out there that doesn't understand the two wolves and doesn't understand feeding the good wolf, is it, is that leader by default then feeding the bad wolf? Is that the way generally it goes?

I think it's good. It's a good question. I think if you're not consciously making your own choices around that question, you are being bombarded Every day by other people's assumptions about what is a force for good and what is force for bad in the world. Know, we live in a time when the media is very sophisticated. We're all connected 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So we're subject to influences in. In both literal way, but also, again, in a. In a very sort of practical way. Stuff is influencing us. People are influencing us all the time. But I think we have to also make time and space to listen to our internal compass, our internal voice. What is that saying to us? You know, what is that prompting us to do? What choices does that want us to make? And that's often a lot about getting connected with our personal values, being very clear about what they are, and making our decisions based on those personal values rather than getting swept along in whatever the fashion of the day might be. Because there's a lot of fashions and there's a lot of people pedaling a lot of stuff out there. So I think it's just a time to be very discerning about which voices you listen to and also to find that inner voice that can help you connect with your values and your purpose.

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

Yeah. And I love the concept that it is different for each of us. It's not like you can just in your book say this is what it means to be a force for good, or this is what it means to be a purpose driven leader. It's going to differ based off of our business and our values and everything that you've talked about.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. There's room for a lot of diversity in being a force for good because we've all got different values and we're all going to stand for different things and do that wholeheartedly. So, yeah, it's not an exclusive, narrow understanding. It's very much a wide open space.

Yeah. And that's where the magic is. Absolutely. So I'm going to take a step back now because we've been using the term purpose driven leader a couple times already and we're going to be continuing using it. What do you mean by that? How do you define that in your book to your clients when you work with organizations?

Yeah. Purpose driven leaders. I explain purpose driven leadership using Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which I think is a very ubiquitous leadership model that a lot of us have been familiar with. For those that aren't familiar with it, typically there were five levels in Maslow's hierarchy. And the idea was that we as human beings are Motivated and driven at different levels. And first we're looking to satisfy those basic needs, a roof over the head, a meal on the table. Then we move on to all those psychological needs of self esteem, a sense of belonging, status, achievement. And then in that fifth level, Maslow talked about self actualization, the idea that we focus on our own growth and the growth of others. It turns out that the sixth level in his hierarchy, which isn't quite as well known, which was intrinsic values, that he said that there was 1% of the population called the growing tip, he called them the growing tip that were motivated by their intrinsic values. So I think when we come to talk about purpose driven leaders and how they differ from profit driven leaders is that purpose is driven by those higher levels in Maslow's higher hierarchy. It's not to say that we no longer want a meal on the table or a roof over a head or achievement or success, but we're saying we're going further than that. We want to build on that. We want to get to the next stage of the game. And the next stage of the game is that focus on potential growth and be motivated by our intrinsic values. And I think purpose driven leaders are leaders that have crossed that boundary from living a life of success to. To live in a life of significance. It doesn't mean, say, you have to sacrifice one for the other. It's about embracing both and entertaining the idea that you can aim for and deliver both in a leadership role.

Yeah, absolutely. Do you have a lot of challenges trying to get that concept across to leaders or when you explain it, they're like, I never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. Or are they like, I can't focus on both things.

It varies a lot. Deborah, some people have done a lot of work on themselves and they, and they get this. And it's. In a way, they know the theory and they're working on the practice of it, which is very difficult. Others, it is a bit more of a wake up call. You know, there are leaders that I presented this work to who have suddenly realized that they were living a life of success and they want to live a life of significance. And it's been a little bit of an aha moment to say, oh, you know, I didn't realize I could look at things this way. So I think it varies a lot depending upon where a leader is in their own journey. So sometimes it's more of a practical challenge, sometimes it is a bit more of an aha moment that opens the mind to other possibilities.

Now in the last five years. I don't know how you feel, but it does feel to me like the news that we're reading gets more and more dire. Now that could simply be media playing up to try to sell more newspapers or, or TV time or whatever, but it does seem that the news is getting more and more focused on short term, on, you know, making a profit at any cost, that sort of thing. Is, is that something that you've seen? Do you, do you get that response a lot from leaders when you speak to them?

I think what I've noticed is that there are cycles of response to this. So when I first started talking about the trusted executive in 2016, which has some very similar purpose driven ideas behind it, a lot of the audiences that I spoke to thought that it was quite inspiring. But blue sky and, you know, this is something we'll, we'll aim for in some utopian future world, you know, that hasn't quite arrived yet. When I got to 2020, the second edition of that book came out, I found there'd been a shift. A lot more leaders were saying, yeah, we get this, we need to do it. We know about the issues the world has that are global and systemic and we want to be part of the solution to that. How do we get on with it? And then in the last six months I've had a different reaction, you know, whereby a lot of leaders, particularly given the change of sentiment in political leadership in the us, have had seeds of doubt sown in their mind and are questioning themselves in a way that wasn't the case, as I say, sort of 12 months ago. So I think we can see that there's these different stages and cycles, things wax and wane. But I think if you took a longer term view, there is an overall shift to more awareness, more appetite for purpose in the world as a whole. And obviously younger generations have also brought that into the workplace much more strongly and I don't see that that will change. So we've got to both deal with the short term ebb and flow and then we've got to also feel where is that longer term trend heading over a period of time?

I do apologize, Deb, I'm going to pile onto that. One more question. Does that mean it's more important than ever before to be a purpose driven leader? What's changed?

I think it's more important to make an informed choice. Yeah, it's more important to know where you stand. People stand in different places and that's got to be, We've got to have tolerance around that. Not everyone's going to want to be a purpose driven leader. And you know, that's, that's fine. But I think it's more important than ever to be clear about where you stand and why you stand there and to find your own authentic voice around that so that you can contribute in the best way to, to the dialogue that needs to happen about how we get into the future in the best way. And that's not a, that. No, no, no one's got a monopoly on that conversation, but we, but we need to be able to have it as in, in a skillful a way as possible.

I love the approach of being intentional and doing it on purpose. I like that. Sorry, Deb, your turn.

No, that's okay. I mean, I just want to pick up on this as well because you mentioned, John, about how expectations of people entering the workplace have changed as far as expecting businesses and leaders to be more purpose driven. But I don't know about you, but I've seen it change from the boardroom perspective and shareholder perspective. So when I've worked with organizations and we have to build people strategies and such needs to be more purpose driven. So I think that personally, I think that's going to force more leaders, whether they want to or not, to be more purpose driven. I don't know what you've seen on your side.

Yeah, if you look at the flow of money, for example, investment funds and how investment funds are being managed now compared to 15 years ago, I mean we have this ESG, environmental, social, governance factors that are now a weight in amongst other weightings as to which companies will get the investment. And again, that weighting has changed and will vary, but it, but even the fact that it's there, that it's a factor, I mean, 20 years ago it was an acronym that none of us had even heard of or hadn't been created. So yeah, I think the money folk are aware of risk and they understand again some of these macro trends in the world and they want to see companies that are sensitive to those trends and adapting to that rather than sticking blindly to a formula that might have worked 20 years ago, but might not work in 5 years time.

Perfect. So I think we've tackled the why and hopefully everybody listening. If you weren't convinced before, you're convinced now. So I want to roll up, I say roll up my sleeves, but I don't have sleeves. Roll up my virtual, my hypothetical sleeves and really talk about, okay, how do you do it? And one of the things I love about this book and your other books is that they're very practical and actionable. And in your book you talk about a framework and three dimensions of purpose driven leadership. The up, in and out. Can you maybe explain these to us so that people can understand how to use them?

Yeah. So when I was thinking about the challenges that my clients have faced and trying to sort of understand the themes, there were, there were three themes really. I was working with leaders and have worked with leaders over the last five years who have lost touch with that purpose, that upper purpose, as I call it. And therefore the upper purpose driven leadership is all about how do you identify that purpose, how do you stay connected with it and how do you make sure you're still feeling the joy of it? Because again, I've worked with a lot of leaders who are great purpose driven leaders, but the purpose has become a burden rather than a joy. And so that OP of purpose driven leadership is all about helping leaders with that higher purpose. The in is a different aspect of the agenda that refers to the inner resources. So again, I work with leaders in the last five years who have struggled with their own motivation and resilience. Perfectly understandable. You know, I've worked with some leaders, chief executives of hospital trusts in the pandemic, and clearly I worked with them as they were going into the second winter of the pandemic and understandably, their motivation, their resilience, the resilience of their staff was put under extreme pressure. So that in a purpose driven leadership is all the tools and techniques that help you renew and refresh your motivation and resilience so you can run the race to the end. And finally the, the up, the up, sorry, the out. The out refers to the, the, the, the outward followership. So the idea that when you look over your shoulder as a purpose driven leader, you, you've got to make sure that the right talent is following you down the purpose driven path. And again, I've worked with some leaders and, and I, and I probably suffer from this myself a little bit where the, the intensity and the passion of purpose, it means that sometimes I go too, too fast and too, and too sharp down the path and not everybody else is getting it, not everybody else shares that passion and, and you know, I need to sort of slow down a bit, spend more time getting alongside those people, pace, pace them right, and then lead them, you know, all of that good stuff. So the outer purpose driven leadership is all the aspects that can help with that dimension and typically with that up, in and out model. Deborah, what I found is that leaders are more natural at two out of the three of those challenges. I mentioned myself, you know that I'm, I write books, I speak, I'm quite natural at the op, the out. I've learned a lot about the out at the in the inner purpose of leadership. I learned a lot about that because I'm a coach and I've been coached and that's helped me with my inner resources. The one that I need to continue to work on is that out building that followership, making sure that I spend enough time getting alongside the people and the talent that's needed to get us from A to B. So that's a language, a model. I find models help have better conversations and structure things. So that's the model that I put in the new book.

Yeah. And I love it because it's holistic. Because I see too many times people think they can just do one of those and they think it's going to tick the box. So I think it's great that it's holistic and also that it's very honest in that we're all not necessarily great at all of them. Not every leader can do everything, but it's really about trying to figure it out or even, I don't know about you. It's like if maybe you're not good at the out, getting other leaders around you to help do the outside that aspect of it so that you don't just ignore it.

Yeah. You know, no leader can be perfect, but a team can be. And so yeah, you're dead right. It's sometimes you can work on yourself, but sometimes it's about bringing someone into the team or recognizing someone on the team who, who naturally plays the role better than you.

Yeah. It's like when you play sports and you bring in that, the. What is it when you have a penalty point, you bring in that special kicker to come in and score the goal. There you go. That's my sports analogy. Since you know, you help sport. Don't tell them that I messed it up, but I did try everything you can.

Okay.

Okay.

You also introduced three types of purpose driven leaders. Can you walk them through, walk us through them and share how they show up differently in the real world?

Yeah. So these three Personas, these leadership Personas that I created in the book, it relates to the conversation that we just had about the two aspects of the model that you're strongest on and then that, that potential to kill his heel. So the profile that I am, where, you know, I'm strong on the up, strong on the in, weaker on the out. I call that in the book the zealot profile, because, you know, zealots can be very passionate, very intense. They know how to look after themselves. But sometimes they can alienate people through the intensity of their, of their vision and their views equally. You know, there are leaders who are very strong at the up and the out. They have great vision and purpose. They get people to follow them, but their Achilles heel lies with the in. Their own energy and resilience may fall away because they have a temptation to self sacrifice. And that leadership Persona, I call the martyr leadership Persona for obvious reasons. And then finally, we have leaders who are great at getting people to come alongside them. They know how to look after themselves, but they get disconnected from their purpose. And I call that leadership Persona. The Pied Piper, which comes from the German fable of the. The piper that was called into the village to rid the town of rats. And he did that by playing charismatic tunes on his pipe and he led all the rats out of the town. And unfortunately, the town parishioners, in their wisdom, didn't pay him as they promised him to do. So he came back to the village, played a different tune on his pipe, and led all the children into a cave. So not the best politically correct, maybe a story for the times we live in, but nevertheless demonstrates a point that charismatic leaders can lead people anywhere. And sometimes they lead people, you know, down a good path to a good place, but they can equally lead people down a bad path to a bad place. So I, I call that the Pied Piper risk. So these are the three Personas. I have a questionnaire with, with the book that allows leaders to self assess just to raise their awareness around where the risk for them might be. And obviously depending on where that risk is, there are different tools and techniques that I have in the book that, that could help that leader with that particular profile.

Sure, sure. Just as an aside, I think I worked in that place, or at least I have worked for a Pied Piper boss. I'm not sure if I was one of the rats or one of the children that got left in the cave, but either way, it was not a great experience.

No, I think we can all think of Pied Pipers that we've worked for and yeah, it can be very exciting. But yeah, the end results are not always what you expected.

No, not at all, Deb.

Now, I'm just curious, sort of tagging on to that. If I think about, you know, the, the three types, and you talked about how you help people deal with them. Is it something that can change over time? So, you know how, like, we take personality tests and, you know, we're a red, a yellow, green, and no matter what we do, we're always going to go towards those tendencies. How does it play out when it comes to these three types of.

Yeah, I think it can change over time. I mean, I've used the questionnaire now with quite a number of leaders since the book was published. And again, we've had some interesting conversations like, like the question you've raised. You know, people have, people have recognized that it has changed over time, that people went through a phase of their career or life where that martyr risk was maybe a bit greater. And then, as you mentioned earlier, Deborah, depending on the team you're in, again, that can change the dynamics of a team and you might suddenly find yourself playing a different role because of the other characters in the team, and that brings different risks with it. So I think it is something that's dynamic to an extent. And then, of course, we do have lifelong tendencies that we will all recognize. And so I think it's a combination of character traits and then circumstantial aspects. And like all tools and models like this, being a zealot is no better than being a martyr or being a Pied Piper. It's simply a way to raise your own awareness of what might be going on and help you to make better decisions about your next steps.

And it's getting people to talk about it as well, which is important as well.

Yeah, I mean, had a great session recently with a group of leaders where they started to talk about, oh, you know, we're in Team Zealot and, and we're in Team Martyr. And so I, I, I heard this going on and I thought, oh, I, I know what I can do now. I can put you into teams and I can get all of the martyrs and give them a question and get all those others together and give them a question. So we, so we now, I didn't talk about this in the book. We now talk about Team Zealot, Team Team Martin. But this is the great thing about when you start engaging real with your work because they start to then influence it and shape it and give you new ideas. And so it's, it's always, you know, evolving in that way.

Yeah, absolutely. And you contributed to our book. And if anybody's actually watching this, as opposed to just listening, you can see behind Ken, you know, we, we have the 10 types of bad bosses. And to your point, it sometimes makes it A bit more comfortable and easy when people can, you know, put a name to it, as you've just done with your three types, and then you can admit it and then do something about it. So. No, I think, I think that's great.

Yeah.

We've heard about purpose in leadership circles, but it doesn't always turn into action. We have a big meeting, we all get together, we all go rah, rah, rah, and then we go back to our regular daily grind. What gets in the way of turning the purpose into practice?

Yeah, yeah. I think we can have, as you say, big visions, grand dreams and aspirations, and then the daily routine takes over. In fact, I've just been working with a client this morning, and we had a similar conversation about what was getting in the way, and he referred to it as the Daily Beast. The Daily Beast of sort of to do this and tasks and urgent things that, you know, are not necessarily important, but they're urgent. So I think we're always, we're always struggling to, to be proactive. I mean, purpose requires you to be proactive. And to do that, you have to make time and space to focus on the things that are important but not necessarily urgent. And so I think there's some very practical things like, you know, to do with time management that get in the way. And a lot of the exercises that I put in the book are daily, weekly, monthly, habits, disciplines. Because if you can get those disciplines embedded and automatic, then I think you're much more likely to go from the theory of purpose driven leadership to the, to the regular practice of it. But if you, if you set an aspiration and then, and then, you know, you, you don't make it a reality. I think, you know, people can get very disillusioned with that type of cycle because it's, it's lifts you up but then leaves you very disappointed. And, you know, so my book's a lot about discipline and sometimes it's not everybody's favorite word, but I think in leadership, without that, you're going to struggle to go from the theory to the practice.

Now, I do want to point out something. Just then when you were talking, you called it the daily, weekly, monthly, and that sounds like you're lifting a mountain 24 hours a day, all month long. And it really sounds onerous, but in your book, you don't say it that way. You say 10 minutes daily, one hour weekly, and then one day a month, which, put it in perspective, does not sound onerous. It does not sound like you're lifting a mountain Anymore.

Yeah, great. And thanks, thanks for sort of clarifying that because, yeah, in my own head I'm thinking about that, you know, one minute, one hour, 10 minutes. You know, I'm not thinking about this being, you know, an obsessive sort of 24 hour thing. So yeah, it's a bit like cleaning our teeth. I mean, how long does it take to clean your teeth? No, not that long. But if you didn't clean your teeth, you know they're going to drop out at some point much quicker than they would have done. So these habits are very similar. They're short, sharp interventions that regularly taken, you know, that over a period of time it's a cumulative positive impact that you can get from, from these routines. But you know, so, so yeah, I mean, you know, it's not rocket science, but discipline is still hard to achieve.

But again, a little bit of discipline, it's not that hard. This isn't training for the Olympics, unless of course you're coaching the gold medal winning Olympic teams. But for the rest of us, this is not that big of a deal. It shouldn't be anyway.

No. There's one exercise, Ken, that I have in the book called How I Honored My Values. And it's, it's an exercise that I've done for the last 12 years. I do it on a Sunday night, round about seven, not exactly the same time every week, but roundabout seven, it'll take me 10, 15 minutes max. And in that exercise I basically ask myself the question, how am I going to honor my values this week, the week that's coming? And what I do is I look at my list of values, I've got seven values in a list. And I look at my diary and I'm trying to map my values to my diary and say what activities in my diary are going to honor these values? And if you do that for 12 years, 10, 15 minutes on a Sunday night, I can tell you I can guarantee you will be living a more purpose driven life than you would have been if you hadn't done it. And so it's 10, 15 minutes on a Sunday night. It's sort of nothing. But how many people do it, you know, And I'm not saying that, you know, I just happen to be immersed in this world. That's why I do it, you know, and I, and I, I sort of enjoy sort of trying these things out. But, but I do think there's a big opportunity for a lot of people to have those 10 minutes, those one hours and for it to really make a difference.

It's interesting because I wrote a book on values called Bringing youg Values out to Play. And it's talking more about the corporate values than personal values. But it's that same idea and that mindset of what are you going to do each week to do it. But one of the things that we find in our work, and you've talked a little bit about this already, is that you can't really get people to actually change until they understand why it's important. To your point, what happens if you don't brush your teeth? What happens if you're not a purpose driven leader? Then also the other part that we focus a lot on, I think we use the word traps. So what are the things that are stopping you? So if you don't get past those two things, the people are never going to brush their teeth. So I mean, how do you get people to, you know, first of all, we talked about the why already, but then understand what, you know, overcoming those traps and those hurdles and those types of things.

Well, I think the why, the why is important in that process, you know, so starting with why, as we know from Simon Sinek, is key. So in my, in my talks on these topics, you know, if it's, if it's a half day workshop, the first half of the workshop is going to be about the why and the business case, you know, the benefits, the statistics that says that, you know, if you clean your teeth, you know, you've got x percent chance more of having a lovely smile when you're 60 years old or whatever. You know, it's that type of appeal to the head, but also appeal to the heart. With the why story, I think there's a lot about being able to share, you know, your own story and being been seen to be authentic about how it's helped you and how it's helped your clients. You know, I mean you talked at the beginning, you know, about, I've had the good fortune to work with over 130 CEOs and, and so I can talk about what's helped them. You know, there is, there is a track record there that, that hopefully helps give this credibility. So I think you draw on all of those things that you can, as much as you can to create the motivation to get people to make the first step. And then when they make the first step, you're trusting that they will start to feel benefit and impact and that if you can get them to do, you know, that exercise on a Sunday night, you know, if you get them to do that 40 times in a row or, you know, you know, it's become a habit and then you don't need to do anything after that because they will, they will have internalized it. So, yeah, there's a huge process that the likes of you and I work with every day to help leaders get to that point of change, real lasting change.

So anybody listening on a Sunday night, if you want to begin doing it, and then you can message John on LinkedIn and say, I've done it, I've done it. There you go.

Yeah, I talked about this exercise quite a lot since the book came out and it seems to have caused a lot of interest, a lot of curiosity. So I'm sort of thinking, yeah, there's some, there's something in that exercise in particular. I think there's a lot of appetite for people to try it out. So, yeah, Deborah, I hope that some, hope that some leaders would be listening to this and thinking, yeah, I'll give that a go.

Fantastic. So, sorry, Ken, just one more quick thing just to put you on the spot. You talked about all these great stories and storytelling. I'm going to put you on the spot and I don't want you to have favorites. But, but is there an example that you can think of one that you use all the time when you've got someone who just doesn't understand the importance and you share this story and people are like light bulb moments. Anyone that you want to share?

Well, the first one that came to mind relates to the opera purpose driven leadership. And I mentioned working with hospital CEOs in the pandemic. And I worked with a hospital CEO in the autumn of 2021, just as we were going to go into this the second winter. And this CEO was describing to me how their staff were at their wit's end and they were on their knees, they were demoralized, they didn't have any energy. And he was trying to sell them the purpose, the vision, the three year purpose and vision, which involved building a new hospital and getting new technology and this and the other. And of course the answer response he was getting back was we don't care about what's gonna happen three years time. We're just trying to get through the week. And we, and we can't even see how we're gonna get to the week or the day. And I said to him, well, okay, so what about the one year plan? And he said, no, he said, that's not gonna work either. It's too far in the future. And I said to him, well, do they believe that the daffodils are gonna come up next spring? And he said, yes. He said, I think they will. They'll believe that. And I said, well, there's the hope. There's the hope that you have to rekindle it. You have to find that hope in there somewhere. And that is how Project Daffodil started in that hospital trust that he, he was inspired to, to launch Project Daffodil, which is all about hope and building hope through immediate daily, weekly examples that staff could relate to in the middle of a pandemic. So, so there's a story and, and you know, there's stories like that that can sometimes stir people into saying, yeah, yeah, I need to have a go at that or I need to try my own. What's my own project? I could do it. What would, what would that look like? You know, it's, it's so, so there's stories like that in the book from different sectors, different times, different challenges.

Brilliant. And I love that story also because it talks about the importance of taking a step back and redefining it when you need to, like in the middle of a pandemic.

Absolutely, absolutely. Sometimes the old things don't work anymore and you can fight that and moan about that, but if they don't work, they don't work. So find something new.

That's great advice. You have worked with leaders in many industries. In most of those industries, the business is there to make a profit, full stop. That's the end. That's why the business exists. This, this purpose driven leadership helps all of us follow for a reason and go in a general direction. But how do you convince those leaders who are a little bit more pragmatic, if you, if you see what I mean, they're, they're more focused on the profits than the purpose. How do you convince them?

Yeah, I think again, you have to draw on credible research. I mean, there's some research that I talk about a lot at the moment. I talk about the B Corp community and B Corp has commissioned research from independent agencies to look at the performance of B Corp organizations relative to non. Equivalent, non B Corp accredited. And their recent research showed that in the UK the average B Corp was growing revenues at 23% a year relative to an average of 17% for companies of that size. So I think that's the sort of statistic that makes people question whether this is a mutually exclusive thing. You know, I've got to stand for purpose or I've got to stand for profit. And I can't have both. And I think the more abundant mindset that I'm wanting to encourage people to think about is maybe doing good is good for business. And there's a separate piece of research that looked at the UK as an economy as a whole and talked about the purpose dividend and said that over seven years, if every company shifted to a purpose driven mindset that 149 billion pounds of additional GDP could be generated, which is like 7% of GDP now that, that those are big numbers and there are all sorts of assumptions made in these studies, but nevertheless, there are some credible, respected research agencies that will put their name to these sorts of benefits. And I think that ought to make us sit up and think and really explore and be imaginative about how we get both profit and purpose for our businesses.

I love how you speak the language of the people that you're talking to. You're not trying to preach your philosophy in your own terms. You're talking about what's necessary and critical for them, which is to increase profits. And this is one tool by which they can do that. I love that.

Yeah. And I've been. Because, Ken, I'm not an academic. I've been an international managing director in the FTSE 100 company. I know what it's like to have profit breathing down your neck every day. And I know what the reality of that world is like for my clients. So I can't come to them with some, you know, idealistic notion, you know, I have to. Have to come with something better than that.

No, thank you.

I mean, I face that all the time as a, as a people leader and, you know, trying to make them see that it's an enabler and not a disabler, because a lot of times they think it's going to detract them from or take them away from what they're doing. But actually it's a superpower, whatever you want to call it. And that's why I love the statistics that you share. And I think that can really show that it's not just us saying these things, but there's proof.

Yeah.

Yeah, fantastic. So, unfortunately, we could talk forever, but there's so much more in the book. So if you've been listening and you've been thinking, oh my gosh, I want to hear more, definitely get the book or give John a ring. But if there's just one key takeaway, and I hate when people ask me this question, apologize for it. But if there's one thing that you want to leave people with, what would that be?

Well, I'm going to be boring and repeat something I said earlier, which is inside. Each leader is a force for good and a force for bad. Which one wins? The one you feed.

Absolutely. Do you know what? There's a reason for saying it twice because it's so important. And I think it's a really, you know, I can picture it now and I think it's something hopefully that listeners can picture and again, think about and use it to challenge yourself as a leader or for leaders that you support. So, no. Brilliant. Thank you for that.

Thank you.

On the way out, for anybody who wants to learn more, hear more or reach out to you. How do they do that?

Yeah, LinkedIn is the best place to find me. I do a lot of posting on LinkedIn. I have a website, www.johnblackey.co.uk. those are probably the two best places to find me or connect with me. And yeah, if anybody wants to reach out and have a chat, I'll always make time to respond to questions and observations that people throw in. So, yeah, great.

And I can attest to that because you didn't know me when I contacted you to interview you for my book. I was just this, this person on LinkedIn and you very generously gave me your time. So you're, you absolutely live the title of your book, you are a force for good. And I'm, I'm really excited about the change that people like you and the people that you're supporting are going to make, not just in the business world, but in the world in general. So thank you so, so much.

Thank you for that encouragement. Great.

Thank you for being with us today, John. I learned a lot. Thanks.

Thanks.

Thank you. And that's a wrap on this episode of Curiosity Unleashed. Huge thanks to our amazing guest and of course to you for tuning in.

We hope you picked up some useful tips and hey, if this episode sparked a minor existential crisis because you realized, oops, you might be guilty of this at your company, don't panic. We've got your back.

From consulting and leadership workshops to our one of a kind 360 degree feedback tool, we're here to help you and your leaders step it up.

Let's keep the conversation going. Connect with us on LinkedIn, visit stepituphr.com, subscribe to the podcast or drop us a line at infotepituphr.com Together we can make work, work for our people, people, our leaders and our businesses.

So until next time, stay curious, stay bold, and keep unleashing that curiosity.