Sales Innovation Conference

My mindset is extremely strong. I'm an extremely determined individual. Whatever I've set my mind on to do, I normally achieve. I haven't had any experience in life where I've set my goal at something and not achieved it. The current British record is 11 days, 22 hours, and my plan is to be the new British record record holder of the Race Across America.

Guy's gonna bicycle across America in 12 days. The guy's got to be butchered. He's got to be a bad boy. Well, the math works out around about.

Sort of being on the bike for a minimum of 20 to 21 hours per day with 3 to 4 hours sleep per day.

The race is not known as the toughest endurance event in the world.

For without reason, sleep deprivation is just an unknown. It's a curveball that I'm just going to have to handle as and when it crops up. And of course, I'm very mindful of those dangers purely because two people have died during the race.

We're going left, but we don't know if this is the right road yet. I tell you what, that first day, it was almost like they should have had a big banner, welcome to hell.

This is about a normal guy, I me, that's pushing himself beyond what, what most people would think is possible. Just feel sick, that's all.

He needs, a bed. You've got to respect this race.

It's just exhausting.

He is experiencing severe stiffness and the neck muscles are starting to fatigue.

I can't hold it up anymore. The neck muscles are gone.

I can't believe it. I have to say, I cannot believe what I'm seeing at the moment.

I want to get in there, Jim.

Want to do it right.

It will be really, really down to the wire.

After 12 days of riding, every cell, every cell in your body is just buzzing with aliveness and you're fully aware that you're almost completely and utterly depleted of all energy. It's not considered to be the toughest race on the planet for no good reason. You know, it's a long way. So first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to. There's a real blind spot in the corporate world right now. How many people, just out of interest, out of curiosity, how many people who do the. Their own internal company surveys, you know, the sort of the. How engaged are our staff. Can I just have a show of hands? How many people experience those? Okay, so quite a few in the audience. I'm just going to get you to experience physically Experience the global data from Gallup. So their last stats were back in 2015, a global study looking at 1.3 billion people globally from organizations right across the world. So the data is really, really impressive and I think this is a current blind spot. The engagement figures are quite shocking. So looking at the room, we've got around about 100 or so people in the room. Can I just ask this row here, all this row, could you just stand up for me, please? Everyone stand up. And maybe just a few for the lady with the glasses. You guys as well, you four at the back, just stand up again for me if you could. So these people represent roughly 13% of this audience. Okay, what I'd like you to do is do some jazz hands. Just, just sort of do this. You guys are actively engaged in, in the stats that we're talking about here. So actively engage people. Bit of hooping and hollering. I know this is a British audience, but you know, come on. Okay, so you are the gems, you're the rock stars, you're the people that are actively engaged. You're massively motivated. You go the extra mile in your organization and we love you to bits. So grab a seat, grab a seat. So 13% are actively engaged. Now this is going to be an interesting one. So I'm going to say second row across to about this row here. Could I get you to all stand up as well if you could please. Everyone else remains seated. So roughly, don't have a go at me about my math, but roughly. This represents about 63% of this group. 63%. In Global's data, 63% are sort of. They come in at 9 o' clock and they clock off at 5. And they do a reasonable job. They're not massively engaged, they're sort of. But they're not massively over motivated either. So can I get you to do a bit of hooping and hollering as these sort of massively. Not too much because of course you're not way over the top. So 63% sort of there or thereabouts, middle cohort. Grab a seat, sort of. Can I get the remainder of the people in the room to stand up? Even the people that are standing at the side? Again, roughly, these are the rough stats. 24% of these individuals in our organizations, from Gallup's global data, 24% are actively disengaged. Very, very scary stats. Especially if you're looking at your own happy sheets and your own engagement studies and thinking, actually they're fantastic. These are people that are actually anonymously feeding back information on their organizations, whether they're engaged or disengaged. 24%. Can you imagine attempting to drive a car with a flat tire? You know, that's what's happening here. And you can put that into context in your own business. If you've got 24% of your business not being productive and producing on your behalf within your organization, that's going to have a massive impact in your organization. So I believe this is a bit of a blind spot for all organizations currently. So just pay attention. You might want to think about that. Make a note. 24% actively disengaged. Can I have some hooping and hollering from you guys? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Grab a seat, grab a seat. So those actively disengaged, they're the people that we classify as mood hoovers, energy vampires. These are the people that are actually walking around your corridors saying, oh, well, they're going to try this new change program. It won't work here. Or here's a new sales strategy. It's not going to work. The sales targets are too high. No way we're going to achieve that. Not with a competitive competitors that we're facing against right now. So, interesting data. In essence, what emotional intelligence is, is really what we're talking about. The, the old language. This is sort of Aristotle, Socrates, all that sort of stuff. So it's, it's a new terminology, emotional intelligence. But what we're talking about is mindset. What's the mindset of the individuals within your organizations, whether whether it is salespeople or whether it's other functions within your organization. What's the current mindset? And as you've probably already read before I've even had a chance to sort of explain and unpack this slide out of 181 organ, different jobs, different positions worldwide. Emotional intelligence was a significant player within, you know, the people that were performing well in these organizations. ATT did a study, looked at their top performers, and 91% of them were high. They scored high in emotional intelligence. 91% of the top performers had high levels of emotional intelligence. Again, I'm just going to skim across this stuff again. Motorola, they actually invested in a stress management and EI program for their employees. Again, the results are overwhelming. There's tons of this data out there. You know, in the early days of when we used to sell soft skills training, it used to be a really tricky sell, but actually the data is overwhelming. Neuroscience is backing so much of this stuff up so it's, it's a very compelling argument for, well, why would we invest in training our people within our organization around this mindset stuff. The previous speaker spoke about making sure that you actually train people specifically around mindset. And some of the core issues that were actually issues when you're training people were mindset issues. So typically we tend to recruit for skill, but actually do they come with the right mindset? Question mark, another bit of data. When Siemens actually trained their senior managers on emotional intelligence, they had a massive impact on the profit compared to those people that didn't receive the training. Again, really good, compelling data in terms of this actually does have an impact on your bottom line as well within your organization. So we're starting to get better at measuring before a program, before a training program, before a change program within an organization. And we're getting better at looking at the improvements seen post programs as well. So really good data. And again, another bit of exceptional data from Zenger and Folkman. Let me just explain this really quickly. What you see is top your left technical quotient. The technical quotient is if it's a strength and you haven't got the motivational quotient and you haven't got the emotional quotient, the emotional intelligence, it doesn't really amount to much at all. So they haven't got the motivation, but they've actually got the skill and they haven't got the EQ to be able to use it and apply it, then it's not going to be great at all. If they haven't got the technical quotient, but they've got the motivation, but they haven't got the emotional intelligence, then again, it doesn't amount to much and of course you've probably already scanned all the way. So really what you want is you want someone that's got the technical skill, they're motivated and they've got the emotional intelligence to be able to actually use that within your organization and sell your products and services or whatever it is that you're attempting to engage your clients with. So again, very, very compelling data to say, actually, yeah, we recruit on the technical and on the cv, do they have the motivation? Well, at interview they can probably sort of blag it a little bit. But do they? Do they? And are you as leaders within your organizations, are you measuring their emotional intelligence as a part of the recruitment process? Maybe an untapped or maybe an opportunity for you when you're thinking about it for the future? Because actually you're investing a lot of money in training and developing those individuals, especially if you're talking at the senior level in your organizations. So let's have a look at one of the models that we use. We've partnered with a company called JCA Global. They're one of the companies out there. You will have heard of Daniel Goleman and his group, the Hay Group and there are lots of organizations out there that actually measure emotional intelligence. I've been qualified in this stuff for the last 15 years and I've looked at various tools and I'm a great believer in some of the things that are out there. This is my platinum, this is my go to tool. If I'm one to one coaching whether it's a senior leader or it's an individual that needs to gain great awareness. The core framework of the JCA model is their model is quite special because it actually measures bits that other tools don't actually measure. It measures self regard and regard for others. The transactional analysis stuff that you may have heard of in the past, it's one of the grandfather psychotherapeutic pieces. So this is, we don't use this as a couch session by the way. It's not a sort of like it's all because of your mum and dad, but actually what it does is it gives you an awareness of the lenses that we use as human beings. You know, which is all, which all comes from conditioning of course, you know, from little grasshoppers. As young babies as we've grown up, we've been conditioned repeatedly, you know, throughout our life, you know, life experiences, etc have done that for us. So it's almost like a set of glasses. Your self regard and your regard for others is basically the set of lenses that you see. You view the world through self regard is measuring how comfortable are you in your skin as a human being, warts and all. Are you okay with yourself as a leader, as a partner, as a husband or as a wife within yourself? And then regard for others is measures. What's your regard for others? Do you care about other people? And as a leader this is really, really critical that you have a high healthy self regard. Of course you have a high regard for other people as well. And those two parameters actually play out significantly. You can imagine someone that a leader that has a high self regard, that is they're comfortable in their skin, they're not arrogant, they're just actually really self confident and self assured. But they have a low regard for others and you could see how potentially that might play out in terms of their patterns of behavior that show up. And of course the reverse is true as well. If they have a high regard for others, if they have high care for other people, yet they have a low regard for others. Again, that plays out in certain patterns of behavior that show up within themselves as leaders within your organizations. Of course, what you can see is on one side is very self centered, which is self regard, self awareness. And then it looks at six scales, I should say within the self management. How do you self manage yourself when you're under pressure? It's all okay when things are going swimmingly well. Most of us can, you know, have a great day when things are going well for us, when we're on a roll. But actually what we're interested in is how do you show up when shit happens and curveballs get thrown? Because really that's the difference that makes the difference. Peak performers are able to actually access their ability under pressure more consistently, more regularly than us mere mortals. And there are tools and strategies to actually as to how you do that. On the other side, it's very all about others, regard for others, awareness of others. What's your awareness of others like? And then we look at six scales within the relationship management aspects of emotional intelligence as well. So I'm not going to go deep into that, but that's a little skirt around one of the measurement tools that we use when we're working with organizations to give you leaders within your teams the awareness that you need to actually then look at the patterns of behavior that you're running as a human being, or patterns of behavior that you're unaware that you're running that you need to be aware of. So that's a great measurement tool. The other tool that we use, which is Patrick Lencioni's work, which you probably have seen over the last few years, a very, very powerful model. So this is looking at measuring team. So this is just a sample view of a team report. At the bottom you can see trust is the foundation of this model. So if you haven't got trust within your team, you don't get to the next levels. And what I'm talking about here in terms of trust is not predictive trust. If I'm in your team and we've been working together for a couple of years, you and I will have predictive trust. I'll know that you might do some stuff if I ask you to sort of commit to it. And I'll know based on our sort of time together that I can trust you'll do that. What I'm Talking about is this stuff that lots of gurus out there have been talking about more recently is vulnerability based trust. So within my team have I got that vulnerability based level of trust where I can actually speak my truth in that team meeting. If we're going down, if we're saying this is true north, have I got the ability to be vulnerable and stick my hand up and say, actually I don't agree with this, I need to understand it a bit more before we agree and walk out the door and then start moaning about it, you know, like the Mood Hoover's this 24% might have done. So it's about being vulnerable and if you haven't got that, you then don't get into the next level, which is healthy conflict, not looking to have conflict here. It's actually having healthy conflict as opposed to destructive conflict, which then of course has an impact on the commitment that I might have within the team, has an impact on the accountability, which ultimately then has an impact on the results that you achieve within your organization. Okay, so that's just a little skim across some of the data, some of the tools that we use within our organization. What I'm interested in now is I just want you to have a quick conversation with the person next to you. Have a bit of a yap. Think about someone that is a phenomenal peak performer that you, that you can think of. It could be an athlete, it could be a parent, it could be someone within your organization that you've that you think, yeah, they're fantastic, they're world class at what they do. What I want you to do is have a quick chat with the person next to you and say, what are the attributes that make that person phenomenal? World class? What are those attributes that are common within those people that you might be thinking about? So just have a quick, yeah, I'll let you have a conversation question. What we tend to do is we come up with this list of things. They're enthusiastic, they're motivated, they've got great vision, you know, they're good listeners. There's a whole load of those sort of attributes. Typically when I ask an audience, any audience, actually, it doesn't really matter what industry we're talking about, whether it's sales, whether it's marketing, whether it's the whole organization, typically. And Gavin mentioned this in his talk yesterday, if you got along to Gavin's talk yesterday, typically it ends up roughly 80% is attitudinal and 20% is skill. And actually the last speaker was talking about this element as well. He was talking about the importance of the attitudinal component. And when we talk about attitude, we're not trying to, we're not attempting to belittle skill in any way whatsoever. You need the skill, you recruit for the skill. What you're hoping for, what you're praying for, is that they've got the attitude to go with it as well. So a key part of the whole process is making sure you've got the right attitude within your organization. You know, increasing that, that 13%. The ideal, by the way, is to actually, you know, thinking back to the Gallup data, the best bang for Buck that you can have in your organization is to actually engage and inspire that 63%. Where do we tend to focus on as leaders? We tend to focus on the 24% that are a nightmare. And we go down a performance management route. We go down HR and we spend so much time and energy on trying to motivate the 24% that really actually probably have gotten values, alignment, misalignment within their organization. So the big bang for Buck is the middle cohort, you guys in the. You happy little fellas in the middle that are sat there that if you were to just motivate those guys, you get a massive increase in your performance within your organization. So we've got a fairly simple model which is called the ABC of Success. The A. The A is for awareness. So if I had a cup in my hand right now, and we use the metaphor of a fingerprint, so each time I pick that cup up, I leave my personal fingerprint, my unique DNA on that cup. Similarly, in every conversation that I have with someone within the organization or external of the organization, I'm leaving my fingerprint in that situation. And as leaders, as people, as business people within your organization and when you're engaging with others, how aware are you currently? Good question to ask yourself. How aware are you currently of the fingerprint that you're currently leaving in all of those interactions that you're having? Especially if you think about the corporate treadmill that we're on? You know, it's all next, next, next, next. You're going from one meeting to another meeting. And how aware are you of the fingerprint that you're leaving when you come into that new meeting? You know, because it's all back to back stuff. That's all I'm seeing as a coach when I'm working with leaders. It's all back to back and the pace is frenetic. So the first step to the model of The ABC of success is awareness. And it's a key piece of. When you're working as a coach, that's a key piece of the big equation of, you know, trying to increase performance is how aware are you. Hence the reason we go down that route of measuring emotional intelligence as one of the first steps. Okay, so the A is the ABC of success awareness. And if you think about it, I had a fantastic conversation just recently with a sales leader that was having a meeting, a sort of a drinks do with one of the people that was leading the organization. And it was one of the good ones. So it was one of their star performers that was leaving the organization. And the sales leader had a conversation after a few drinks of wine, normally the elixir of truth, you know, a couple of scoops of wine, and the sales leader was saying, it's such a shame that you've actually, you're leaving the organization, you know, because you're a rock star. You're an absolute gem. You're a role model for our organization. And that, that individual said, what a shame. You're telling me that now? Because three months ago, if I'd have heard that message, I wouldn't have been. I wouldn't have gone out onto the marketplace and looked for another job. Because actually they liked the company. It's just that they. They weren't getting feedback. They weren't getting any feedback at all. So one of the good ones got away. We don't mind one of the 24% getting away, but actually one of the good ones, one of the 13%, snuck off. So not great, not fantastic at all. Just very quickly, I'm going to skim across this model, which is the scale of 1 to 10. So a couple of things to remember. So we talked about attitude, and that was a key determinant of the, you know, what are the attributes of a peak performer. So this model is in play. It's a life. I call this a life model. A scale of 1 to 10. One is. I'll give you an example of what a one looks like. In fact, this is Monday morning. So this model is in play for all of us. So whether. Whether it's personally or professionally, when we wake up in the morning, this is in play. So we get to choose. This is what I love about this particular model. We can choose whether we play from A1, which is a bit like Eeyore, thanks for noticing me. Or we can choose whether we play from a 10, which is more like Tigger. Now, there's not a lot of difference in energy in terms of a 1 or a 10. But it has a massive impact on how you show up and how you interact with the people that you're interacting with on a daily basis. So a massive model and I'm not going to go into it, I'm short on time. What I'm going to share with you is just very quickly the other aspects of the model. So just sneak to this back slide here. So awareness is the first step. It's a key step. It's such a big part of the coaching piece. Once you've created the awareness, we then look at the beliefs of the individual. So what are the beliefs they hold about your products and services, about the leadership team, about the way the organization is going, what are their beliefs about the current climate, the market conditions? All those things are sort of delved into. And then the final piece, and this is the Achilles heel actually of the ABC of success. This is the thing I see consistently as a coach constantly is the thing that trips people up the sea, is the Achilles heel. And it's commitment. It's the commitment to seeing it all the way through, to get it, getting it done, to making that last few phone calls at the end of the day when you can't really be bothered. Whatever it is, it's the commitment to seeing it all the way through to completion is the piece that actually is the bit that actually lets organizations down, lets people down when they're trying to achieve stuff. An example of someone that was extremely committed in his career as an Olympic athlete. You know, five time Olympian, broke the world record eight times. You know, there was a lot of, a hell of a lot of commitment that actually went into achieving that result. So the ABC of success, that's the three and a half steps to success. And it's, as I said, it was skimmed across the half. The half, sorry, the three and a half. Three and a half. The half is about don't ever, and this is a really good point, the half is about, don't ever do things by halves. So you've got to fully commit. It's reinforcing the commitment piece. You know, you're either gonna do it or you're not gonna do it. It's a bit like Yoda, you know, either do it or don't do it is the whole point around. If you're gonna lean into it, then lean into it with gusto, with great passion, commitment, determination, all those great attributes that we've, we've talked about very briefly this afternoon, set you all up for that and I'm conscious that we've got another speaker after me. So apologies. No questions. But happy to talk to you. Happy to engage. Thank you very much this afternoon. Thank you.