36 | Democratizing companies to build great cultures

Welcome to the Inspiring Change Podcast on all things internal communications, engagement, leadership, and change. Hello there, and you are very welcome to this edition of the Inspiring Change Podcast. I am a huge believer in serendipity, and the, the guest I've got on today, whose name I shall reveal in a second, came to me very serendipitously. Probably, I'd say the journey kicked off about 6 years ago. When, because of the stuff, the kind of stuff that I look at on the internet around values and purpose and meaning, a conference popped up, the Meaning Conference in Brighton. And on further research, it popped up that it was run by a company called Nixon-McInnes, which I thought was weird. So I went on and there was a chap, Will McInnes, and I thought that was really weird. What a small world. I couldn't go, that was that, and then a few years rumbled on. I was here in the office then, probably the end of last year, and grabbed— Will will laugh at this in a second— grabbed a few books off the bookshelf to prop up my monitor, and I look and there again is the name Will McInnes with a book called Culture Shock, and I thought this is just too odd, it can't be the same person. Quick bit of research, apparently the same person. So today it is McInnes on McInnes, Scott McInnes on Will McInnes, as we talk through Will's book and some of the thinking behind that book, Culture Shock, that he released back in 2012, and some of his learnings since. Before we kick into Will, I want to read just a little bit of the intro, and perhaps that'll give you the reason why I wanted to have Will on the podcast. Here's just a few paragraphs from the introduction of that book. People say business is broken. You know what? I agree. Screw how that kind of business is the 20th century rapacious school of business that ruined its people, corrupted its environment, and lumbered like an eyeless, earless giant from room to room, smashing plates, breaking doors down, and filling its pockets with gold coins. We've had enough. We the people, we the workers, the shareholders, the managers, the community members, the entrepreneurs, and the everyday folk. So what do we do? Do we give up? Do we throw out everything of business and patiently wait for some new kind of thing to emerge that can solve the problems that need solving? I cannot. I cannot leave the future to the lumbering eyeless giants any more than I can leave it to the short-termist politicians or the stretched and challenged not-for-profits. And I cannot patiently wait. The warning lights are blinking urgently. There are problems that cannot be left any longer. And to hate is not enough. Because to sit back and criticise business and bonuses and bankers and the way things just are will not make the slightest difference. What we have to do is change business. We is you and me and your colleagues and mine and them over there. If we really decide to do this, we can. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. So with that cry of freedom. I'd like to say hello to Will McInnes.

Hello, Scott McInnes.

Hello, Will McInnes. Thank you very much. That was good. You'd think we practiced that. That was excellent. They're big words, and I'm going to come on to the book in a little while. Thank you for coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.

Great to be here.

Let me kick you off with a really easy one that I ask all my guests, and why don't you tell me a little bit about you and your career to date, how you've gotten to where you are?

Oh, okay. I have an unusual path, I suppose. I went to university because that was what I thought I needed to do. Didn't get on very well, dropped out, and like a lot of people early in their career, got a job in sales. I was making 100 cold calls a day to people who really didn't want to hear from me, and my life changed when I found a book and the book was Selling for Dummies. And suddenly I started actually succeeding and actually helping people and realizing like what it was we were offering, what it was that these— why the bet, why this was of benefit to the people I was calling. But from there I realized that the people in the office having fun were working in marketing, and I thought, that sounds like fun, maybe I should get into marketing. Did some courses, became a marketer, and And after a while, I wanted to start my own project. I got really inspired by entrepreneurialism, reading Inc.com and FastCompany.com and this kind of American entrepreneurial zeal. And I decided that if I was going to start a business, I'd need to not work from home because I'd be distracted by video games and food.

Toast.

Yeah, which I still am. I decided I needed a desk in a freelance kind of shared workspace and met this guy Tom Nixon, and he was running a web agency, and we ended up just deciding to work together. And, and in the end, that became one of the first social media consultancies or agencies in Europe, and we did some really interesting groundbreaking work for the British government and Barclays Bank and Coca-Cola and Then after doing that for about 10 years and helping with what we now call, I guess, digital transformation, Giles Palmer, the CEO of Brandwatch, approached me about the job that I've been doing for the last 6.5 years, and that is helping Brandwatch grow, which is a company that helps businesses and agencies and not-for-profits around the world understand what people are really saying about them and what matters. So it's been a really fun journey. It all kind of makes sense looking back, but for me, at each point, each key moment, I've not really had a plan. I've just been following my instincts, if I'm honest.

And I think that's often the way life goes. It's not until we look back and we can see the path that we've walked that it suddenly makes sense.

I couldn't agree more.

So tell me, so back in 2012, when you were in the midst of, I guess, the Nixon-McInnes era, before you moved over to Brandwatch, you took it upon yourself to write a book, to write this book on culture shock. Why? What was it made you write the book? What was it that made you put pen to paper?

Yeah, the reality is one thing led to another. I was speaking and sharing ideas about how I could see the world changing. We were in those early days of digital technologies becoming ubiquitous, and I could see that the transparency that the early Amazon reviews exposed would become a huge part of everyday life. I could see that the bloopers and slip-ups in the public eye where previously the power and the media were able to either exploit or contain and cover them up. I could see how social media was kind of evening that playing field and bringing, you know, really smart collective intelligences to bear. And so I felt like I had a point of view that I was very lucky to have, which was that the world was changing before our eyes and that and that was exciting to me. So I started writing and speaking about it, and our work was in that area. And I ended up doing a talk at TEDxBrighton that I was really pleased with. I really enjoyed the format and the, the fact that with a TEDx talk, you know, you have to do it in 18 minutes, and it encourages you to be to really get your message across. We've all watched so many brilliant TED videos. And afterwards, I just was approached by a publisher who said, "We saw your talk." They happened to live in Brighton, they were in the audience. They thought that there was some material there for a book. They asked me for a few ideas, I gave them a few ideas, and the third idea on the list was I could just write a book about the talk. And they were like, "Yep, we'll take that one." Done. And that was it. I wrote a book, and it was really, um, hopefully it's empowering and doesn't disappoint, but I'd built up a PowerPoint master deck that every talk I'd do, I'd draw snippets from. And over time, that had become 8 or 10 sections, and in the end, that provided the framework for the, for the 8 chapters in the book. So I guess if I was talking to my kids, I'd just describe that you know, that one thing became another, and a series of good decisions, accidents, you know, lots of hard work just kind of rolled into one day writing a book.

And a couple of pints of serendipity.

Lots of serendipity. I've been extremely lucky. Yeah, very interesting.

What I love about the book is that, and as listeners could maybe tell just even from those few paragraphs of the introduction, that that I read out. It's very energetic, it's very honest. When we spoke a few weeks ago lining up this podcast, I said to you it was actually like having a conversation with you because it's written in that very conversational tone, very accessible, very interesting. And I think a lot of the ideas in there focus on the very basics of the fact that culture is primarily to do with people and getting people pointing in the right direction. So I wonder, just from your perspective, what are some of the main pillars of the book? What are some of the main cornerstones?

Yeah, a few people have said that about the tone of voice actually and the writing style. One colleague said that while she was reading the book, it was like I was right there with her, which made her slightly uncomfortable. So, bit creepy. It is a bit creepy. But the cornerstones of the book are purpose and meaning. Like, I believe Purpose has become slightly clichéd in branding circles, and sometimes organizations in our lives get a little bit— not above their station, but sometimes, you know, like, we don't always want every experience that we have to be laden with meaning. But it strikes me that the organizations that we are most motivated about and that that we can really get behind have a very sense, very clear sense of purpose and meaning. So that's where I begin the book. And the next chapter is about democracy and empowerment. Before Tom and I started Nixon McInnes, I read an article online about a cardboard box factory and these two brothers. I think they'd been to one of the fancy business schools like Harvard or somewhere, But they decided to get into the cardboard box game, which I thought was brilliant because, you know, so kind of unglamorous and practical and real. But they themselves had been inspired by a Brazilian entrepreneur called Ricardo Semler and his book Maverick. They decided that being inspired by Ricardo, that they would run their cardboard box factory democratically. I found this article absolutely fascinating, and I found the book Maverick just mind-blowingly energizing and motivating. It's really about how most organizations are hierarchical, top-down. We believe that money motivates people. We're often driving for the wrong outcomes with, with the wrong information. And so that, that's really That's really about how do we solicit much more of the collective intelligence that's available to us, both within the walls of our organization and beyond. And then the other chapters move through what is it like to be a leader in this world, which I passionately am interested in. What is it like to run an organization amongst so much openness and transparency? How do we cope with all of this change?, and then finishing with some stuff around technology and finances. So I guess the goal is to give some practical insights and some case studies and ideas around all of that stuff and how putting all of that together makes for a more digitally fit 21st century organisation.

And I think there's a huge amount to be said for that people piece, and particularly that I enjoyed the chapter about democracy and empowering staff, because that whole idea I think still is is very strong in organizations among leaders that, you know, I have to have all the answers. If I go looking to my staff for answers, that suggests I don't know the answer and therefore I'm not a good leader. And that's just backward.

It's amazing, isn't it? And it's pervasive and it's powerful, and I cannot pretend to have been immune to it myself. In fact, in the last year or so, I've been been actively trying to get back to my more balanced position as a leader myself and realizing that we, you know, our company Brandwatch, we merged with— we merged two companies to create the company that I am in today. And in all of the pain and stress that we went through, I think I lost my way and I became under that pressure, I defaulted to some, to some of those, you know, non-democratic, non— not very intelligent ways of working and jumping ahead and driving for faster, clearer, more certain answers and outcomes. And I'm noticing that The more I let go, the better I do. So I guess it's a constant work in progress.

Yeah, I don't know who it was that said— it may have been Richard Branson, it normally is somebody like him— who talks about, you know, why is it that we hire the very cleverest of people and then spend our time telling them what to do?

It's just such a brilliant point. And, um, there's that other one that's like, um, well, what if we 'What if we spend all this money on training and then people leave?' And then the counterpoint is, 'Well, what if we don't and they stay?' Yeah, yeah. Similar thing. It's like the thing we're afraid of isn't as bad as the alternative.

Yeah, no, for sure. Thinking about culture, I'm thinking about creating cultures. And I've always had this kind of thing in my head, be in my bonnet, call it what you will, about, you know, about whether or not you actually create a culture, whether you actively create a culture. Do you create a culture, or is a culture simply the byproduct or the output of the things that you do in the organization, the types of people that you attract, how your leaders lead those people, the types of values you have, the story and the purpose that you have? Is the culture just an output of all those things, or is a culture actually something that that you can shape?

I think yes, yes to both. I think that absolutely it is the— a bit like brand for me, culture is the output and outcome and aggregate of every little moment. And you absolutely can shape and influence it. And it doesn't mean it's easy, but it does mean— I believe strongly that that we can, and especially— and this is where there's a tension, I guess, between these ideas around democratizing things, but also the reality that leadership or leaders, which in itself is a whole loaded term and interesting area, the people with more power cast longer shadows and have a greater ability to shape culture. So it's well and good to sort of suggest that, you know, everyone can make this organisation better. I do actually believe that. At the same time, there are— there's a smaller list of people who have a more significant role to play, and for those people in particular, it is all of the behaviours that they or we exhibit and that People watch how you are as much as what you say.

You kick off the book in Chapter 1 where you're talking about purpose and meaning, and you talk a lot about values. And what's really interesting is that this book is now 8 years old, and it's really only probably in the past maybe 18 or 24 months that we've really started to talk about purpose and values and the importance of these things in creating really strong cultures in organizations. Talk to me a little bit about values and the role they play in creating really strong and powerful culture.

Yeah, I guess what we all need to steer a ship or to contain a group is we need some things that are visible and are shared that we can navigate by and align ourselves around. In the absence of things being written down. I'm a big believer in the power of putting pen to paper because of the clarity that that forces. For me then, values play a really important role because they try to describe or capture the essence that it is about our organisation or our group and how we want things to be. And I think that there are people much smarter and more practiced in this than I am, but what I've seen from them is that values need to move from being kind of passive words to being— I like it when they are describing a behaviour or where they expose the tension within. It's all very well to say innovate or collaborate. But innovate requires mass, you know, requires failure 9 times out of 10. It requires risk. It requires everyone to buy into the fact that we may not get where we wanted to get. We may waste time and money. Collaborate requires acknowledging that people are annoying and messy and difficult and that there's loads of friction along the way. And so I really like values that try and unpack a little bit or bring to life the tension that's buried within the things that we want people to strive for.

I think without that, it's very hard. If you just say to people, you know, innovative or collaborative, to use your two examples, are our values, go ahead and make them happen, I think people's first question is, well, what do you want me to do? They're not action, you know, innovative. It's not an action-oriented word. It's not a verb. I don't know what you want me to do. Do you want me to be innovative? Do you want me to think innovatively? Do you want me to do innovative things? Do you want me to not be innovative? What is it you want me to be? What do you want me to do?

And when is the right time for innovation? You know, there are moments in medical emergency where we may not want the innovative approach. We may want the tried and tested approach. So yeah.

Yeah, and I think the same actually, Cara, is interesting to your point about, you know, for the past couple of years you were saying from your own leadership style where you'd kind of moved away from that very democratic empowering style to maybe something else, but actually perhaps in some situations is there not a need for that more autocratic style in an emergency, to your point there?

Yeah, I agree. I think of leadership as situational and And I think the people I, I want to work with, people who are building their portfolio of styles and skills and behaviors, and, and, and I want to do that too for myself. And there's a brilliant Harvard Business Review article around the 7 styles of leadership. And for me, things like that, you know, regardless whether it's thinking hats or leadership styles or anything that helps us characterize a different way of being or a different way of perceiving. I think those are really helpful because, as you say, sometimes being dictatorial is the right, is the right leadership behavior. Sometimes being affiliative and democratic and participative is the right behavior. Some of the times it's setting the pace, and I think It's really hard leadership, but we can all strive to add to our portfolio and stretch into the styles that are least comfortable.

Yeah, for sure. Let's turn back a second, back to culture, just for 2 minutes. I think people talk about, you know, we want to have a— we have a great culture in this organization, we have a good culture in this organization, or a dynamic culture in this organization. What do you believe a good or a great culture actually feels like in an organization?

I love that question. I love a culture where, to the best extent possible, people feel able to voice their questions and concerns. So I think any good culture, whatever we mean by that, is is, um, can sit with the truth, uh, encourages people to speak truth to power. Um, I think that generally leads to really good outcomes. So that was— that's the quality that I, I seek to— I seek to build and, and seek out myself. Um, I love organizations or teams where where you can see people really thrive and contribute no matter where they're from, no matter which team, what rank, what background or gender. I really think that the organizations that win, and they're gonna win more and more, are to some extent meritocratic. And I think that's what the internet does to organizations anyway. It's The internet is a driving force for a marketplace of the best ideas winning. And so I love that. What else? I mean, personally, just selfishly, we spend so much life at work. I want to have fun and I like to be silly sometimes and I like to be rude and swear sometimes. And I like a culture that has that knows when to switch on and be professional and that it's time to show up and be absolutely on our game. And I also like it to feel comfortable and informal at the right moment too.

And I think you can draw a really nice analogy, that whole idea of dress for your day, if you work in a bank, but we're not doing suits and ties anymore, we're going to dress for our day. So if you are going to be sitting typing a report all day, wear a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. If you're going out to see clients, do something different. And I think that whole idea of being able to have a culture that can stretch and change and reform itself almost minute by minute is a very powerful thing.

I really like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So if we think about that culture that you've described there, what do you believe is a leader's role in helping to shape that? What are some of the things, if leaders are listening to this podcast and they're thinking You know, yeah, that's the kind of culture that I'd like to create in my organization, or whatever the type of culture is that they want to create in their organization. What are some of the things that they need to be doing to do that?

That is an awesome question, Scott McInnes. I'm going to go with a few things. I think you need to be— you need to get a reality check. You need to make it safe to find out what the culture is really like for real people, today. And asking them publicly in front of others is probably not a good way to do that if you are the leader and the authority, but there are all sorts of just basic ways of finding out. But like, you need to know where you are today. I think you need to take the view that you are a gardener or a curator or something where it's less directly within your control and more of snipping off the bits that you want to see less of and encouraging and putting more sunlight on the bits you want to see more of. So underlining the behaviors, appreciating the people who speak up or contribute or push things over the line or whatever the behavior is, take risks. So I think I think that's the second, and then the third is really stand in the responsibility that how you are casts a very long shadow. And that's about how you use your time, it's about how you speak to people and engage with people, it's about what you are seen to do behind closed doors rather than just proclamations that you make on the record. So I think if you do all three of those, then you're off to a cracking start because you've got a reality check, you've taken a view that means that you understand the limits of your power, and then you've also taken responsibility for your role in all of that.

Brilliant. And that whole idea for me of risk-taking is so absolutely critical that if we're not taking risks, if we're not failing, we're not growing. But so many organizations— and I've worked in organizations where the CEO stands up and says, you know, we all need to make mistakes, we all need to fail, because it's the only way we'll learn, it's the only way we push things forward. And everyone's nodding, going, "Yes, we absolutely agree," and in their head they're going, "Absolutely no way. I'm not going to be the one that fails, thank you very much," because actually the culture isn't there to allow that failure.

Yeah, and maybe that's a practical concept that we can draw from the book, which is a couple— we had an offsite in the hills of Wales and we split into groups and we were working. I can't even remember what the brief was, but one team decided that maybe the brief was how can we be more innovative. And this, this group came back with the most compelling, bizarre, simple, and powerful idea, which was borrowed from improv. So in improv, one of the first things you're taught is how to receive applause, which which is actually really hard. You don't realize until there's a small group of people looking at you and clapping, or a large group of people, like, just how awkward that feels. And so there's this, this kind of skill that's developed early in your improv training, which is receiving applause, where you, you learn to just stand in the applause. And they combined that with this idea of, you know, kind of confession. And so in the book, it's described the Church of Fail initiative, which is one by one, volunteer— voluntarily, and not everyone has to do it— people walk to the front. You can have a pulpit or not, it's really up to you, it depends how wacky you want it to feel. And you look at the group and you say, in the last month or last quarter or whatever, the failure that I would like to share is you know, X. I lost my temper yet again in this creative review meeting, and I promised myself and the whole team I wasn't going to do it again, and there I was doing it again. And what I learned was— and you describe what you learned, and then you stop, and then everyone applauds wildly. And it does sound awful and cringy and wacky, But it was just one experiment, one practice to celebrate failure and to actually try and create a better ground for risk-taking to prosper in, because ultimately innovation requires failure and people will avoid it, as you said, Scott. Unless it is truly institutionalized. And that was just a little experiment that we came up with.

Interesting. And it's actually, it's really interesting that you should, that you should celebrate failure so overtly, because I'm often telling clients when I work with them on, particularly on values projects, where, you know, defining the values and working with groups of staff to define the values is only really the start of the journey and the very easy bit of the journey. Actually bringing them to life and embedding them day to day is much harder. And I often say to clients, you have to be really overt with them. You have to say, you know, this is a great example of us being one team. This is a really good example of us doing the best for our clients. This is the very best example of insert value here, until they become part of the psyche and second nature in the organization. And it's a little bit what you've like, a little bit like what you've described there in terms of very overtly putting failure out there front and center to get people comfortable with the concept of, of it being okay.

Yeah, definitely. If you're a leader and you want your team to take more risks and be more innovative, then, you know, when was the last time you told them about how you failed? How often have you stood up there and described the failures and the learnings that got you to where you are?

I've often, I've often asked the question on this podcast, what makes a great leader? And so often what comes back is humility and authenticity are the two big things, the two big buckets that so many previous guests have said, and I guess that is part and parcel of those two characteristics. So what companies do you believe have got great cultures and why? Can you even name them? You know, I think we immediately go to the places like the Zappos of this world. I think we think, and we immediately think of Virgin, But do they have a good culture, I wonder? I don't know. We think they do just because of Branson and all the things he does and all that stuff, but I wonder, do they or not?

I don't know. I suppose where I've got to in my own life is having worked different places and met people on the inside, and like, I still don't think— I still, for everything that I've said and written and championed about how Glassdoor reviews are the kind of ratings and reviews of the workplace and LinkedIn recommendations. I still don't think that that is an entirely effective market yet. I don't think it's entirely porous. I do think some companies have, and organizations have, better cultures, and I do think there are those that are famous and have great PR for great culture. I think the best way is to ask the people around us. Because I think that also varies, and I've learned this as we've scaled Brandwatch, is that even if there's a core, it can vary at the fringes by team, by leader, by geographical office. So yeah, the ones I talk about in the book are W.L. Gore, the makers of Gore-Tex. I love how they work. I talk about Patagonia, I talk about Google, and there are plenty more. But I suppose as I've got a bit older, I've become a little bit more skeptical, and I think that some of the most interesting organizational cultures that I would be looking at if I was to write the book again are newer organizations. So, you know, the remote the remote working trend. I'm really interested in how do you scale a culture when many of the most talented employees want to be remote first? And I think that presents the leaders that listen to your podcast and that you work with, Scott, with a whole new set of interesting question marks and challenges.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Let me just— one last question to finish up. Very quick 30 seconds on what the one leadership— what the one piece of leadership advice that you would give to your 20-year-old self, um, given what you know now. What would that one piece of advice be?

Ah, what would I say to 20-year-old me?

I know it wasn't that long ago.

Apart from go on a diet. Um, what would I say? I think I was doing a better job then than I am now. Is the honest truth. I think then I was— I was— I wasn't grasping quite so hard. I was— the— what came naturally was, was pretty good. I think it's— I think it's just as time and the years have accumulated, I've, um, I may have gone backwards. So I guess my advice would be keep doing what you're doing, keep breathing, look after yourself, you're doing a good job.

Excellent. And on that, bon michel, I will leave it there. If you want to know more about Brandwatch and you want to hear more about what Will and his colleagues do there, you can go across to brandwatch.com. Culture Shock, I had a quick look before we started recording, Culture Shock is still available on on Amazon on Kindle and in hard copy, and that is well worth a read, so well worth a look. Will McInnes, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for taking the time, and hopefully someday when I'm in Brighton, I'll be able to meet you and buy you that pint that we talked about.

Thank you, Scott McInnes, no relation.

Yes, thank you. Take care.

Cheers.

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