76 | Brewing Success: Cultivating a Culture of Purpose and Fun at Paddy & Scott's Coffee | Johnathan Reed

Welcome to the Building Better Cultures podcast, where I talk to leaders about how internal communications, engagement, and leadership all play a key role in creating amazing and successful cultures.

I liken leadership just to being a decent parent, right? I think it's much easier to parent my kids if I invest in them and I give them a chance to form their own opinions. Collectively, we make some decisions rather than just being, I'm telling you how to act and what to do and where to get there and how to get there and what time to do this, that, and the other. Well, no. What do you think works for you?

Hello there and welcome to this episode of the Building Better Cultures podcast with me, Scott McInnes. Firstly, as usual, big thank you to Workvivo, our friend and sponsor, for their support. It really is very much appreciated. It's interesting for those of you who've listened to, to many episodes of this podcast, how often I talk about the power of values and linking and labeling values. And if that's something that you're struggling with in terms of the day-to-day work in your organization, then Workvivo, from a communications and engagement perspective with your people, is really well worth a look, particularly when it comes to recognizing people in alignment with your values. So you can find out more about that at workvivo.com. On with today's guest, who came into my sphere through a recommendation from a friend of mine because he forwarded me on an article that, um, today's guest had written on LinkedIn, which basically started with, I was looking around our company today and I found 53 internal policies that nobody looks at So, I burned them. And I thought, my God, I have to chat to that guy. And since then, there've been a few others that have really caught my eye around board meetings and bringing frontliners to board meetings and stupid interview questions like, how many elephants can you fit in a lift? So, very pleased today to welcome Jonathan Reid, who's the MD of Paddy Scott Coffee over in the UK. Jonathan, hi there.

Hi, how's it going?

I'm very well, thank you. I keep wanting to call you Paddy, but of course, as we discussed before we came on air, despite the fact that your middle name is Paddy and you are half Irish, Irish. You are not the Paddy in Paddy Scott's.

No, I'm my very own Paddy.

Proudly.

You're your own Paddy.

Exactly.

Yeah, proudly Irish, but sadly not that Paddy.

So listen, tell me, why don't we just kick off as we always do on the podcast? Because I think listeners like to get to know you a little bit. Tell me a little bit about you, about your background, and about Paddy Scott's in general.

Sure. Yeah. So Paddy Scott's is a really lovely business that I'm really proud of. We are a coffee company at heart with a real social focus on how we trade. We're based in the east of England in a lovely part of the world called Suffolk. You might, listeners might have known Suffolk for lovely beaches such as Southwold and Aldeburgh, that sort of stuff. We operate a number of our own coffee shops in the region. We have a coffee farm in Kenya and we supply coffee to hundreds and maybe thousands of businesses around the UK from the hospitality, leisure, and retail sectors. So it's a really fun business to be involved in. I've worked with Paddy and Scott for for about 3 years. As people can imagine, the impact of COVID has been a real interesting challenge for us, where we were forced to close our own businesses and those other businesses that used to buy coffee from us were also closed. But actually it's been a real interesting voyage of discovery over the last 18 months or so. And we've learned a lot about ourselves, about the business, and I think importantly, what we want to be famous for. So yeah, that's Paddy and Scott. I guess my background, I trained as a hotel manager many moons ago, Worked for some large corporate organizations for not too long once I graduated and found out actually big companies that I'd worked for, I found, were quite stifling and lacked entrepreneurial flair. So I didn't stick around those big companies too long. What I did was join a tech startup in London. So it was 13, well, 13, 14, 15 years ago maybe. And had a great time. You know, we grew, it was a tech startup that was focused around employee culture, employee engagement, all that sort of fun stuff. And, you know, we built tools that would help companies really, I guess, get more from their people, which was, you know, a fun thing to do. But after 13 years of commuting in and out of London, I kind of got to the realization that maybe I wasn't spending enough time looking after myself. And I remember playing rugby one Sunday with my lad, who was about 4 or 5 at the time, One of the coaches hadn't turned up. And so they asked, they sort of looked at me and said, "Oh, would you mind popping this belt around your waist? We'll put the tags on. And there's going to be 20 or 30 5-year-olds chasing you around the pitch. Does that sound okay?" So I was like, "Yeah, no problem." I mean, at the time I weighed about 25 stone, but I still thought I had a good chance of keeping up with these little rugrats. I didn't. So after about 30 seconds, I was laying on the floor, blowing a gale, and not particularly in a very good place. I thought, oh, okay, all of this commuting, all of this time that I'd spent in and out of London, working really hard, being on a train needs to change. So I decided to leave that world and was all set to start my own sort of company focused on, you probably just got some of yourself, culture and that sort of stuff. And then came across Paddy and Scott. So made the move back into what feels like a startup business that isn't particularly focused on technology, but that's becoming more and more important to us as we evolve.

Yeah, brilliant, brilliant. And I guess often I think for people that change of lifestyle is what drives a change of lifestyle. It's just that realization that, oh, I need to actually make something happen here. And there's a phrase I often use, awareness precedes action. And I presume lying on the ground being attacked by 35-year-olds was the awareness right there.

Yeah, and I think it taught me a lot about myself. So I went on in the days after that, or I guess the 12 months after that, I lost 11 stone in body weight within 12 months. So I thought, oh, actually reflecting back on that, how have I done that? 'Cause that's not an everyday, you know, achievement. And really it came from having a really strong purpose and desire and being really obsessed with what I was doing. And, you know, it wasn't about me, it wasn't about what I looked like, what I felt like, it was about me wanting to be a decent dad to my kids. And that very image of me lying on the floor, you know, not very fit and not very capable of helping, um, those— yeah, those kids was something I kind of kept in my mind for the 12 months after. So, you know, I think, um, if you feel strongly about something, you can, you can generally do whatever you want and take on the world. And that, I think, it also sort of gave me the shove to say, okay, well, look, you can probably do a little more with your life, um, and, you know, are the things that you're doing today allowing you to be a good role model to your kids? And if the answer is no, then time to do something else.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think those of us with kids have experienced that in spades over the years. So really, really powerful stuff. You mentioned something there. You mentioned the P word, purpose. And you mentioned in your intro about the fact that you've got a coffee farm in Kenya. And of course, if anybody goes to have a look at your website, they'll see that you are quite a purpose-driven company in terms of the social aspects of how that coffee is grown and where and how that happens. I'm interested in understanding just from a business perspective, why do you think that being purpose-driven is important? And how do you instill that sense of purpose in the people in Paddy Scott's?

Yeah, good question. I think it's really important for people to go to work and feel fired up and to have hopefully a sense of pride and a sense of ownership as to what they're doing. So, you know, if we asked, if we employed people and we said, you know, your purpose is to come to work and help make someone else money, I think that's pretty boring. I'm not sure, as good a leaders we are, we could really get the best out of people if we were honest and sort of said, that's why you're here. Versus saying, well, look, every day you come to work and we sell more coffee, you know, we can have a really good impact with other people around the world that need help ultimately. You know, so every bag of coffee that we sell maybe funds a free school meal in coffee-growing regions around the world, or, Every bag of coffee that we sell maybe means that someone at the age of 6 or 7 in the Ruga School, which is a local primary school that neighbors our farm, can have a bit more hope, a bit more ambition about what they could achieve in their life because they see, you know, how the economic landscape can actually make a difference to their livelihoods. So yeah, I think it's really important to give people a little bit more than just a job. And I think that also reflects in our customer, interactions as well. So, you know, I'd love to think people buy coffee from us because it tastes better than anybody else's coffee. And I think it does, but there's more to life than just taste and what you enjoy in a cup of coffee is different to what I enjoy. So what else can we do to make it interesting and to really engage people with what we're trying to do? And, you know, I think if we can shine a light on how we trade in our organization and make people feel like we're authentic and we care about more than just making a buck, we're probably gonna keep them as customers and improve employees for longer.

Yeah. And I think that whole idea of sustainability and ESG goals, which is becoming more to the fore now, I think customers are going to start thinking about, well, what are you doing environmentally? What are you doing from an ethical perspective? What are you doing from a social responsibility perspective? And I guess at some point, if Paddy Scott's decides to be sold or invested in, then that's something that investors are looking for too. So as well as being the right thing to do, it also just makes sense financially, I guess.

Yeah, well, I think, you know, I think it's, I think everyone's got a role in this world to make the world a better place, really. Whether people choose to proactively take up those reins and do something about it or not, you know, is up to them. But yeah, you know, if we can get people coming to work and we can pay them to make the world a better place, then that fits well with my moral compass. You mentioned investors. I have no idea if investors understand that, most investors, venture capitalists, I really don't know. I suspect a lot of them probably don't, because you can't tangibly measure that stuff. You can't sort of say, is it good for business that we donated 1,600 school meals to India last month? Don't know. Don't know. Feels right, though. And would a business analyst in a VC firm or investors get that? Don't know. I haven't asked them. But it feels right. Then we'll keep doing it.

Yeah, yeah. Just a great way to think about it. A totally great way to think about it. From a leadership perspective, what do you think that great leaders look like? What's your take on that? Obviously, you work in a distributed environment. You've got lots of strands to your business. For me, customer service is front and center when it comes to coffee and walking into a shop and being smiled at and hello and just a second. How do you, what type of leadership do you think you need in order to make that happen?

I think really important is to be authentic and be yourself. You know, people buy people, not companies. So when we employ people, yes, they need to have a real connection to what we're doing. And if they don't from day one, we need to believe that they can build that over time. But we also, we need to be obsessed with setting our people up for success and absolutely not processing them. I mean, again, I've worked in big companies, I've worked in small companies, to feel like a statistic in a large organization, like you're being processed, and that's probably why I left some of the employers I worked with in my early days, doesn't bring the best out of people, I don't believe. So, I think we can have a lot of fun. We can get people to come to work and enjoy what they're doing. I don't think that's difficult. But companies spend hours and hours and hours seemingly trying to take the fun out of what their people could do. Like I say, processing them. So, I love a quote by Herb Keller, who's the founder of Ford, at Southwest Airlines, and I think he said something like, think small, act small, and you'll get bigger. Think act large, act, and you'll get smaller. So for me, that's kind of what we try and create is a real startup mentality. Paddy Scott's has been around for like 13, 14 years, but I still feel like we're a startup just because we're full of energy, we challenge the status quo, and we genuinely want people to touch our brand, be it employees or customers, and have fun.

And there's that piece. I mean, it was Jeff, Jeff Bezos does a similar thing as well. One of their, one of their values, a friend of mine works in AWS, Amazon Web Services. And he said one of Bezos's values is a day one attitude, which is exactly to your point, that whole idea of if we were just starting out, what would we do? Because that's when the passion and the energy and the enthusiasm and the creativity and the innovation is all there. And that stuff tends to ebb away, doesn't it, as companies grow and you get into the habits of just, this is the way we do things around here. Actually being consciously aware of that and breaking out of it is a really powerful thing.

I think so.

Yeah.

I mean, I thought, you know, we're not perfect by a long stretch. My gosh, you know, we make mistakes every day. But, you know, again, I think almost allowing people to make mistakes is a really important facet of a culture. Because if you you don't screw up, the chance of you learning is less. And I do believe as leaders, that's probably our biggest responsibility is to help people become the best version of themselves that they can be. And, you know, people spend a lot of time at work, don't they? So yeah, why can't you really embrace what you do at work and love it? I mean, I've kind of always loved what I've done really. So I don't see why people can't, but, you know, maybe, Maybe other organizations overthink it, I don't know.

Yeah. Denise Black, who was a previous guest on the podcast, who's the Chief People Officer in Invest Northern Ireland, said that FAIL is an acronym for First Attempt in Learning. That if you're not failing, then you're probably not trying hard enough to do things differently, to innovate, to test, to see what happens and what works. And you're absolutely right. When somebody fails, leaders have two options. They either drag them over the coals and throw them out the door, or they say, right, let's sit down, work out what went wrong, work out how to do it better next time and not make the same mistake again. And it's that latter one for me, that is that first attempt in learning, how do we build on what we've learned here and try something different?

Absolutely. Absolutely. There's actually something also quite brilliant about seeing someone screw up and then collectively the team around them jump in to support them. That's a really important part of culture. You don't get that if you do hammer someone for screwing up. You know, you've got to have— I think you've got to create a culture of acceptance and support.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

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Your recent LinkedIn post caught my eye about board meetings and that they weren't— it's very hard to do board meetings versus board meetings verbally because it doesn't work with the spellings. But you talked about board meetings and how you do them slightly differently by bringing in people from the front line. Tell me, tell me a little bit more about that.

Yeah, so, I mean, board meetings are something that probably happens the world over in the same place, the same style. And, you know, we kind of think, okay, well, if Paddy and Scott was to rewrite the rulebook for board meetings, let's say, what would it look like? So, we just said, well, rather than starting with our finance review bit, or we start with, you know, minutes from last time, whatever it may be, let's start with what's really important to us. Our culture and our people and the impact they're having on our business. But then, well, then we said, well, then they should be here. Like, why would we just talk about our people and their successes without giving them a chance to have a voice and tell us what's happening in their world and how they've achieved it and what they've learned from it and that sort of stuff. And I know we can't bring everybody into the board meeting and nor can larger companies, but for us, we just said, okay, well, let's bring, one person that we kind of randomly select into each board meeting and give them like even just 15 minutes of fame, whatever it is, just to give them a chance to talk. So typically, we ask everyone that comes into the board meeting 4 questions. We say, okay, from your point of view, what priorities do you think we should be discussing at board meetings? Give us the inside track on how we're doing as a business, and importantly, how we're doing as a business that really gives a shit. Tell us about the impact you're having or want to be having at Paddy and Scott's. And what are the barriers that limit your brilliance? So I don't think they're particularly scientific questions, but what we found is that people prepare for them because they feel like, oh my God, I'm going to the board meeting, that's quite important. So their shoulders kind of peak up a little bit, their effort to come to that party prepared, you know, spikes. And actually they leave feeling 10 foot tall because they feel invested in, they feel like they're having an influence on the larger decisions that are being made around the boardroom table. And it just gives some of that insight as to what a board meeting looks like, because typically what, you know, 2% of people get to a board meeting in their lifetime. And there's nothing particularly weird about them. You know, I hate the idea that companies are run by people in ivory towers. So, I mean, our board meetings and our meetings in general are quite informal. I mean, the next board meeting we've got, actually, I've just said, well, look, I mean, I'm not very good at sitting still at the best of times, but the next board meeting we have, we're just gonna walk around outside and just record it on a phone. And then, you know, hopefully the powers of technology will somehow put it together in some words and we'll see what it looks like afterwards. But I think we're gonna, you know, we're gonna have a far more energetic conversation if we're walking around the street. And let's see how that goes. It might be awful. There might be confidentiality issues. I don't know, but we'll try it. Doesn't matter, we'll do it again.

And of course, in a smaller business like yours, it's probably easier slightly to have a handle on what's happening on the frontline because you're probably there or thereabouts a lot of the time anyway. But as organizations get bigger and bigger, and leadership teams and boards actually get further and further away from the frontline, that whole idea of bringing in that frontline thinking just makes so much much more sense. So actually, the bigger you get, arguably, the more you should be doing it.

Absolutely, yeah, I think so. Departmentally, geographically, location, whatever it may be, you should be doing it. But again, it's difficult in larger organizations, isn't it? Because it becomes a thing, it becomes a process. And as soon as you create— it happens all over the world— as soon as you have this great idea, you have the spark of new. Newness. And okay, brilliant, we're doing something new and here's what it's going to deliver. But then after a while it just becomes a thing and the impact and the influence drains a little bit. So you've got to constantly be challenging what you do. But yeah, I mean, one of the favorite TV shows from years ago— I've not seen it for a while— was Undercover Boss. I'm sure you've seen it. You know, some, some fabulous CEO would don their beard, put their sort of padded stomach on or whatever, and walk into their business undercover and try and see what the score was. And it was, I mean, obviously it was made for television, so of course, you know, it had to be interesting to people sat at home. So you don't know how true it was, but it was just the most basic simple stuff, wasn't it? Oh, well, you need to talk to us more. You need to, uh, you know, live a day in our shoes, see what we have to go through. If only we could tweak the smallest thing, it would have a monumental impact on the business. There's loads of stuff out there, you just have to ask. Yeah.

And often the things that can make a real difference to people on, for people on the frontline to do their jobs is just the smallest little things. You know, these door handles are a bit rubbish and we go in and out of them 2 times, you know, twice an hour. Can we just get those fixed? Our chairs aren't very comfortable and we're off with bad backs, you know, whatever it might be. There was actually a client of mine, I was down with them last week, did a walk in my shoes day and they were, they're a manufacturing client and they were the the chief commercial officer was lifting a box off of one of the machines. And she said, my God, you'd have to be really tall to really get these boxes off safely. And learnings like, well, maybe we should just put another step beside the machine.

Yeah.

Such a ridiculously small thing that might save somebody from injury, might make their job a little bit easier, might make it easier for them to come to work, all those things, but such a small tiny thing. And you You don't get that unless you either physically go back to the shop floor or bring the shop floor into your meetings in the form of, as you said, somebody from the frontline. So it's a really, really clever idea. I wonder why more companies aren't doing it.

Yeah, I wonder. I mean, I think organizations sometimes have an issue with this transparency thing. We don't want to give people too much information, because they might get distracted, or because they might get overwhelmed. And actually, you know, if you're a slightly older school leader, then maybe, you know, you want to command and control. And if you ask people too many questions, you might get the answers you don't want to hear and don't want to have to deal with. So if we ask less questions, we'll find out less stuff. But sometimes it's politics as well, isn't it? I mean, you know, let's be honest, there's a lot of ass-kissing that goes on in organizations still to this day. And maybe that face doesn't fit or that leader doesn't fit. And maybe I wouldn't want to, I mean, I wouldn't want to have one of my direct reports going to a board meeting in case they threw me under the bus. OK, maybe—

Well, I'm not sure that's the best reason to bring them.

Maybe you should worry about why they would throw you under the bus and try and solve that rather than the issue of them coming to do it, more so. But what do I know?

Yeah, absolutely. And it's really interesting, actually, because when you talk about the impact that it has on you as a board getting that feedback and the impact moreover that it has on the person giving the feedback, it reminds me of the work— and you'll be aware of the work that Nita Clarke and McLeod did back in 2009. Engaged for Success work. And one of their four cornerstones of employee and engaged employees was employee voice. And you can kind of completely understand why when you listen to the story that you've just told there, it just makes complete sense.

Yeah, I think so. Again, this stuff is not science, is it? You know, I liken leadership just to being a decent parent, right? You know, I think it's much easier to sort of parent my kids if I invest in them, and I Give them a chance to form their own opinions. And, you know, collectively we make some decisions rather than it just being, I'm telling you how to act and what to do and where to get there and how to get there and what time to do this, that, and the other. Well, no, what do you think works for you?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Talk to me a little bit about how you personally hire staff and some of your ethos around hiring really, really good people. Because effectively, you know, the work that you do, particularly, I suppose, from the coffee shop perspective, Lives or dies on hiring really, really good people that have a really customer-centric ethos, that want to go the extra mile, that want to do the extra little bit. And you said in one of your LinkedIn posts that I referred to earlier, that you didn't want CVs and robotic assessment centers. So what do you look for in people that want to come and work in Paddy Scott's? And how do you go about getting that?

Yeah. Well, I think with recruitment and people in general, there's this push-pull thing, which I think is really interesting. So I try and meet people as often as I can, sometimes with no agenda that just says, oh, you know, I've heard there's a connection somewhere. I've had a good experience and I've come back to you because of that. Let's have a coffee. So typically what I would do is if I'm looking to recruit a senior person, I've probably got 3 or 4 people in my head that I would talk to about that role. For each particular discipline in our company at any one time. So my approach to recruiting someone is probably gonna be me going into my head, drawing on the people that I know and thinking, okay, if I was to put that person on that square, what would happen? So on and so forth. So again, typically what happens is if I meet somebody on my travels that just blows my mind, I'll just create a job for them because I can, because we can. And I recognize the influence of a really good hire in a business like ours. Notwithstanding, in our coffee shops, we need to have great baristas. But again, you know, we get approached all the time from people that want to be baristas in our coffee shops. So we do have a little bit of a bank of people that have expressed an interest. And I'd much rather talk to those guys first, if we're looking to recruit baristas, than I would go to market and have to deal with 10,000 CVs that have come through, you know, cookie-cutter approach have not been, have not been thought through. Just, you know, oh, that job, I'll just send my CV in. Um, often the jobs boards, you just get people applying for everything within a postcode, don't you? So I'm not talking about that. So I think it's, um, yeah, you know, I think it's really important for organizations to have connections and a good bank of people, um, on their books all the time in case they need people. But to come to your question, what do we look for? So I guess, um We look for people with really good energy and really good values. I think we can teach people most things, except kind of what's in their heart. And, you know, again, actually, I rarely make recruitment decisions in my business because I much prefer the team to make decisions about the sort of people they wanna work with. Because ultimately, you know, if they get it wrong, or they get it right, whatever that decision may be, they will sponsor the person that comes through the door on day 1. They'll look after them, they'll coach them, they'll help them. And equally, if they don't fit, they'll sort it out themselves pretty quickly and we'll know really quickly what the reasons might be. So, you know, it's not a formal thing, but we do have a little bit of a sort of informal sign-off that says, okay, you've come for your final interview, let's call it. Now it's time to meet the team. And the team will tell me whether you've got the job or not, not me. So, I mean, sometimes that freaks people out, but I think it sets them, we come back to what I said earlier, I think it sets new people up for success. You know, again, when someone joins us on the first day, I think it's really nice for them to have a contact that is not their line manager that can almost meet them, you know, around the corner, bring them in, get them settled, talk to them, have a chat with them the week before and just see, are they ready? Which to some might sound completely overzealous and unnecessary. But I think starting a new job is quite a big deal for people. And you wouldn't not do that if you were, I don't know, buying a new car or something. You'd want to make sure you'd done your homework and that you had a connection, you knew where to go and who to talk to about that as well.

Yeah, and I think that buddying idea is really powerful, just giving somebody else to have the chat with to ask what you might perceive to be an utterly stupid question. You know, how do you do the squishy up the milk carton thing with the steam? Because I've never done that before, like melting your hands. How does that work? You know, just the silly questions that might just pop up that you don't necessarily want to ask your boss because you don't want to be seen to be inept or kind of not able to do the job. So interesting. Yeah, so I definitely think the buddy thing is absolutely critical. At Inspiring Change, we help our clients to implement sustainable change and drive business performance by putting their people first. We do that through a focus on strategic internal communications, employee engagement, and leadership consultancy. If you're struggling with change or getting your people aligned behind your purpose, vision, or strategy, then get in touch. Simply visit our website at www.inspiringchange.ie for more. I often think about coffee shops that when For those that don't have, that aren't maybe, I'm using the word connoisseurs, I'm putting inverted commas for listeners, of coffee, that an Americano is an Americano is an Americano. So whether I buy one in Caffe Nero or Starbucks or Paddy and Scott's or my local independent coffee shop, it's just an Americano. So coffee can become quite commoditized and it has become, I think, there are coffee shops, the smallest town in the UK and Ireland you could go to and there's probably a Starbucks or an in an Irish setting, maybe an insomnia. So I wonder how important customer experience is to you, because for me, that's the one thing that determines where I go. Somewhere could have slightly better coffee, but actually I'd like to go to the place where they know that I like it with a splash of cold milk, where they go, "Hey Scott, morning, how are you?" Or as we discussed when we had our little pre-chat, when you walk in the door, there's nothing I hate more in a coffee shop than being ignored when I'm standing in the queue. 'cause it takes half a second for someone to go, "Be with you in a second, sorry." That's all it takes. And I'll stand there for 10 minutes then going, "Oh, that's okay, at least I've been recognized that I'm here." Maybe I'm just extremely needy, I don't know. But I just wonder from a customer experience perspective, how important is that to you? And how do you instill that idea of customer in your people?

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting question. And for us, actually, we've learned a hell of a lot over the last 18 months about, the impact of technology, not in the physical environment of a coffee shop, but more so online e-commerce platforms, that sort of stuff. And how can we make our touchpoints and our experience really frictionless for the customer? So how easy is it to trade with us online? And what can we learn online and apply it in the context of our coffee shops? So, I mean, last night, actually, we had an event in one of our coffee shops. And, you know, I guess normally, you probably wouldn't expect to see the managing director on the floor, dishing out food to people. But for me, it's just a really good opportunity to sort of see what's happening, you know, in the real world and get involved. And I'm not very good at serving food and drink. My gosh, I'm horrendous. So it's sometimes a little embarrassing, actually. I'm almost walked out by my team, but I love that. But last night, yeah, you know, I can, and you know, I'm stood there and I'll be honest, I'm seeing like a spider's web in the corner. I'm going, "Oh man, how has someone not noticed that before now?" Well, it's probably because the guys and girls that are there every day are looking in different areas for different things. And it's really difficult, isn't it, to go somewhere every day and see fresh opportunities and things that need to change every single day, because you just get used to them. So you do need that extra set of eyes. So for me, it's really useful. And I think last night I was sat thinking, OK, we need to do more of this. We need to get everyone that maybe works in our HQ out into the stores doing some stuff. And just getting involved, getting their hands dirty, and just reminding ourselves that actually, you know, first and foremost, we are a coffee company. So it's really important that people know how to take pride in the coffee and understand what sits behind it. So I think that's really important. Yeah, but ultimately it comes back to this thing about fun, doesn't it? So I think if our team are having fun at work, chances are that will rub off on our customers. And if you walk past, you know, a window in a coffee shop or any business, and you can see people enjoying themselves, you're probably gonna go, okay, I'll pop in. That's a currency that the world over people enjoy. It's fun, isn't it?

Yeah. And I definitely think, and again, I've said this 100 times in this podcast, that the whole idea of we put customers first or customer first as a value has become very, very popular over the past few years as a marketing gig. And actually, I'm kind of opposed to that because I'm more in the Richard Branson camp of, well, let's make our let's get our staff really buzzing because what that's gonna do is result in the customer-first piece. We're gonna actually put customers first by putting staff first. And I'm way more in the Branson camp on that one. I think if we look after our people, they're gonna look after our customers. You, Jonathan Reid, cannot look after all of your customers. So that's what you have teams in your coffee shops for.

Yeah, definitely. Fascinating, actually, I was talking to a guy yesterday who comes from a hotel-specific background. And we had this very conversation about customer experience in hotels.

Hotels.

And all the big hotel companies say, oh yeah, we are obsessed with great customer service. And he's like, OK, but why do you charge customers 5 or 10 quid for a bottle of water in a bedroom? Is that obsessive, or is that just downright rude? Why do you charge them 5 quid tray charge for your room service? I mean, is that customer obsessed, or is that just harsh? Why do people have to spend 25 quid on their breakfast to have this huge buffet when all they want is a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. Is that great service? I don't think so. So, you know, yeah, I think there's always opportunities like that to go, well, what do customers actually want and how can we make it easier to trade with us?

Yeah. And actually, moreover, what is it as an organization that we are trying to achieve? Are we just trying to get as much money out of people as we can? Is that what we're trying to achieve? Because if we are, Hmm, that to me doesn't seem like a particularly long-term business model. Let's absolutely spank it, you know, as much as we can now. And, you know, future-wise, people are going to go somewhere else because another hotel will come up with better customer service, with a better customer offer, with better pricing, with bacon sandwiches and coffee for free for breakfast if you don't want the £25 buffet. And suddenly we're goosed, we're on the back foot. So it's very, very interesting. Let's talk a little bit about internal communications because obviously you've got HQ staff, office-based staff in your headquarters, you've got branch staff. So a little like a bank, you know, you've got people, a distributed workforce, I guess. What do you do to make sure that everybody has a consistent understanding of what's going on in the organization? How do you do your internal comms?

Well, personally, I write to everybody each week, you know, just as a little bit of an update as to what's happening in the business today. So I try and, you know, cherry-pick 3 or 4 brilliant things that I've seen or that I've heard, or that customers have fed back to me, that I can just say, awesome, incredible, you know. So that might be examples where someone has stepped up and just shown an incredible sense of leadership to achieve something, to solve a problem, or where they've had this excellent idea. So I think it's really, really good to share that stuff on a weekly basis. And I'm told people kind of look forward forward to that email that might come on a Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, because they want to see their name in that list, really. So simple as that. So we don't really decipher between HQ guys and people that work in the coffee shop, because it's kind of one family, really, one team. But notwithstanding, you know, there is obviously a slightly different operational thing going on, because we've got some people that are sat at emails and computers, and some people that are on the floor, busy, busy, busy, busy. Different worlds. So, you know what I mean, for the guys and girls that work in our coffee shops that don't maybe have Paddy and Scott's inboxes, they're pretty relaxed and pretty happy for us to send, you know, emails to their personal email addresses, which is cool. You know, as most people, we have quite a fun WhatsApp group, you know, that is sometimes hilarious and quite eye-opening in equal measure.

I'm not going to ask, just in case there's a lawsuit or anything. Yeah, let's just skip past that.

Yeah. And, you know, I think we try and get people together as regularly as we can. I'm actually, one of the things I'm sort of struggling with at the moment is, so we've come out of COVID we're riding this crest of a wave, everything's looking really good, you know, we're selling lots of coffee, we're having lots of impact in the communities in which we serve, team seem to be firing on all cylinders, you know, so what we've sort of invested in is lots of time in sort of data and scorecards and measurement as we come out of COVID which is cool and I like it, it feels good to me that I can know, you know, people are having, and I can, again, set them up for success. I can agree 2 or 3 things, and they can smash those things on a regular basis, and we can applaud their efforts. Versus, actually, crikey, are we now spending a bit too much time with structure and giving people too much stuff that maybe is limiting innovation? And maybe what we're doing is driving behaviors towards the data, and maybe we should be doing, actually, more of what feels right. So that's a real challenge for us as a growing business right now. And I think it depends on what people look for in terms of structure, in terms of culture, you know, really as to where they get to. But yeah, that's just one of the challenges we're facing right now.

Yeah, it's back to the old adage, I guess, of what gets measured gets done.

Exactly, yeah. And that's a phrase I love.

However— As long as you're measuring the right things.

As long as you're measuring the right things. And as long as, As long as the end game is highly measurable, because again, for us, I believe we need to give people the chance to make decisions based on their instinct and what feels right. So, your original point, we had loads of policies, we got rid of them, and now we just say to people, make your own calls on things as long as it feels right for you, our community, our partners, and our customers. You know, if you kind of, if you can get 2 or 3 of those tick yes, it's the right decision, then go with it. But I think, you know, if we put people in boxes too much, we risk limiting their opportunity to grow. So that's a challenge.

Yeah. And I guess the challenge is finding that balance, isn't it, between the two of those, between having something measurable, but also giving people the time, the space, the autonomy, the empowerment to go off and just try new things that can maybe improve that customer experience or improve how you do business with your customers.

Yeah, definitely. Someone came probably 2 months ago, one of the guys came over and said, "Oh, is it okay if I take some coffee home for me and my husband to have at home?" "Yes." And then someone else sort of jumped in and said, "Yeah, but you know, there's a policy or there's a process you have to follow." And I'm like, "Really?" I mean, of course we need to record stock, understood. But if somebody wants to take coffee and enjoy at home, that couldn't make me feel more proud. You know, that's brilliant. You wanna go and enjoy our stuff at home. And we're not gonna give you a quota. And we're not going to tell you how to get it or where to get it from. But equally, if I see it on eBay or something and it's come from you, I'm going to be disappointed. Or I'm going to say, jeez, OK, time for a role change here. You need to come and join our e-commerce team and put those talents to good use. Equally, if it ends up in the back of a car and it's being sold on a Sunday at a car boot, maybe come and work in sales, really. But we're not going to tell you. We're not going to process it. We're not going to turn it into a policy because then nobody will be bothered. They just go, "No, it's fine. I'll just have tea." Yeah.

It's all about recognizing people's talents, I guess, isn't it?

Yeah. Well, I think so. And yeah. And not, as I say, not processing everything.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Last question, just conscious of time and thinking about actually exactly that, people's talents. Coffee is such a commoditized space, or such a competitive, sorry, such a competitive space that there are so many options that potentially you could go for. If I just wanted to get a cup of coffee down the high street, what do you think is the one big thing, particularly from a people perspective, that sets you apart from the Starbucks, the Caffe Nero's, the Costas, the other stores, the other coffee shops that people might go into?

Yeah, I think it's It's really because we are actively trying to change and disrupt the traditional coffee supply chain. So, you know, traditionally there are 50 or 60 people involved in getting the coffee from the coffee farm into your cup. And we just think if they're all taking their piece of the pie, that means the guy at the start of the process, or the gal, is not doing so well, is not getting really a fair price for what they're doing. So our approach is try and share that sort of retail margin more with the farmer at the beginning of the journey that a coffee cherry or bean goes on. So, I mean, once you've paid your shipping agent, your broker, whoever else might be in the puzzle, then there's not a lot left. And we think those guys at the start of the journey should be the beneficiaries, more so than us actually. That have the stores on the high street. So I think that's quite a novel concept, and I think people engage with that quite well. And, you know, like many moons ago, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars every year getting organizations such as Fairtrade to rubber stamp our coffee and say it was produced to an ethical standard. And all of a sudden we thought, actually, do you know, do we believe in that? Possibly not. So let's take that out of the equation and let's just give more more money to those at the start of the farming and harvesting process and their communities. So from our point of view, that's kind of what we do. We look to support the communities in which we trade, and we can give really strong examples where someone in our coffee shop drinking a cup of coffee every single day, the impact of their purchase decision is literally life-changing. And I think that's quite special. Brilliant.

And what a wonderful place to finish. We started with purpose and we will finish with purpose. Before we wrap up, Um, you might be able to hear a helicopter buzzing in the background. That is the Irish Air Corps who are locally here at the moment with a helicopter dumping water on a brush fire which is burning on one of our local hills. So a big thank you and a thumbs up to them, uh, for, for doing that. And hopefully they'll be putting out shortly. Listen, Jonathan, really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I've loved the chat. I I love the fact that you've got purpose at the very heart of what it is you do at Paddy Scott's. And thanks for coming on.

Pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for listening. To hear from other leaders in our podcasts, to read our blogs, or to find out more about the work that we do at Inspiring Change, please visit inspiringchange.ie.