How To Spot If Your Boss Is Toxic & Surviving The Modern Workplace | Ben Askins

0:00Today we welcome Ben Askins. Ben has seen the best and worst of leadership up close. from the thousands of horror stories that he's been sent for his own social media content to the traits that he believes defines the greatest leaders people actually want to follow. This is The Room Where It Happened. First-hand accounts from behind closed doors in business. With big thanks to our awesome partners, IFS, it's time for Ben Askins to take us into The Room Where It Happened.

0:32so ben take us to the room where it happened for you yeah of course so i sold my first business in 2021 um and so me and my business partner we've sort of been friends for a long long time now we basically decided that we'd use the extra time we had to kind of grow our personal brands and start posting videos and things like that and it started off with all the stuff that people try to get driven up the wall about in the sense of it or the really cringe entrepreneurial stuff that no one's actually interested in but you think you make yourself feel very important when you say it um but i remember someone sent me a recruitment story really sort of interesting one in regards to they've gone for this interview this company completely shafted them and i got their permission i saw a message saying you know that's actually a wild story can i read it out um i remember really clearly like posting um published on that and it opened the absolute doors and the next morning I woke up and I had dozens of stories similar around recruitment, around work, and but all pointing towards one thing.

1:25And that was their boss. Within months, I was getting millions of views weekly. And what was quite so fascinating about it is everyone would immediately try and guess what country, what receptor, and the amount of arguments to have, oh, that's definitely law, or that's absolutely hospitality, or that's definitely the US, or that's 100 % Germany. And it sort of occurs to me that one of the few universal things that we can actually all agree on is a bad boss and bad management is something that seems to be impacting everyone a huge amount and it just sort of spiraled from there really and off the back of that you know i think i've probably had about 200 000 stories shared with me um and it's a real insight into how people view management what they actually think and their sort of perception on working life and it's changed my thinking on the matter enormously over the last couple years so how would you now describe your thinking on the matter over 50 percent of men think they could land a plane in distress.

2:16You know, the plane's in trouble. Inexplicably, they turn to the people sitting in rows 1 to 30 and say, we need someone to step up. And generally, about 50 % of men think they could land it in distress. Management's similar. Everyone thinks they're really good at it. And the lesson I've learned is it's people fundamentally not. And there's one very good reason for it. No one trains. No one practices. No one gets taught how to manage anymore. and it's that reason one of the wildest stats I've seen recently is 80 % of people now are accidental managers with no training and what I mean by that is basically what's happened is you join a business, you work there a few years you're pretty good at it and just by default you become a little bit more senior and suddenly a couple of juniors arrive and they're just now reporting into you great, that's a very different skill set and when you look at sort of the challenges it's not that surprising that you've got 24 % of people now think they work for their worst ever boss, ever 24%, so a quarter of the working population.

3:11And for me, the reason why I like this topic is, I mean, look, I'm an entrepreneur first and foremost, right? And it's a very ironic situation that I'm the one handling these stories. But I think for me, this is one of the very few win-win moments in the sense of you can do the right thing about your team. But if we're talking about productivity and economic inactivity and driving countries forward and getting the nation's productivity going again, let's start with the people are sitting there with 24 % of them thinking their boss is the worst person ever. Because if you want people working hard, you've got to motivate them, you've got to incentivize them.

3:47And no one disagrees with me on that. And that's what's quite ironic about all of this. And yet we're in a situation where everyone thinks they've got a terrible boss. And it's because no one gets told how to do it anymore. So it's basically just made me realize how bad we are at it. And it's not a natural skill that people think they just pick up. Because I don't think anyone goes in thinking, I want to be a really bad boss, right? Everyone has the best of intentions, right? No one. Everyone has the best. And even if you don't, right? Even if you don't have, because I agree with you, most people set out.

4:12But even if you don't, you'd have to be a really poor entrepreneur to think having a de-incentivized, hacked off, quitting team is better for you from a monetary perspective. So even if you really don't think you want to be a bad boss, even if you do want to be a bad boss, it's still worth playing the game. And that's what I find quite weird about the situation. So what sort of things are you seeing? What kind of stories are you getting that you can share with us? Interesting, the ones that get the most traction, the ones that kind of resonate with people, it's almost it's all the normal stuff.

4:41It's pay rises, it's promotions, it's annual leave, it's work life balance, it's all the sort of basic stuff. And it kind of boils down to the same thing, which is people talk about loyalty a lot at work. And I'm a big believer in that. And a lot of most founders and entrepreneurs will say, you know, I want people to, you know, commit to this next part of the business. I want people to stay here three, four, five years. And what I always say to that is if you do have someone who works for five years, there will be a point in that five year journey where personal life will impact your professional, right?

5:09That's just a fact. You know, it could be something very positive. It could be weddings, birthdays, anniversaries. It could be something, you know, horrendous, like illness or injury or whatever it might be. But something will likely happen. At that point, you kind of have a choice. And like, it won't be a long disruption often, it's week two, three, four weeks. But you have a choice in entrepreneur, if you want someone to give you that loyalty back, that's the moment where you kind of show that you're willing to give it yourself. And it's amazing how many people fail that litmus test. And I think that's the big issue at the moment is everyone will talk about loyalty without recognizing it is a two-way street.

5:41And this is, by the way, genuine entrepreneurial advice in the sense of if you want your business to grow, you know, and make the most successful you want, huge commercial wins, etc. This is kind of the way to manage because every entrepreneur knows they need a team. But it's amazing how often they forget that in that moment when they do need to stand up a little bit. Look, if you haven't already, please hit subscribe. It means you won't miss an episode. It also helps us attract the brightest and best business minds to the show. So how do any leaders listening to this, or indeed anyone working in a business where they're questioning their leader or looking at their leader, how do they work out the kind of value, if you like, of doing the right thing?

6:19Yeah, so there's a really good, there's two stats which I have, which I roll out all the time, because I think it's so valuable is a motivated person will give you 21 % more output. And a motivated team, if you compound that across the whole team, it's a 43 % increase in output. So that means you get 43 % more productivity, which essentially equates to 43 % more revenue, which basically means if you have a team of 10, I can give you four free people. And all you need to do is motivate that 10 that you have. And this is kind of what I mean by the win-win, like there's no downside to having an engaged, motivated team.

6:51and the management element is not even that hard. It's just doing the basics right and kind of treating it as part of your job and having a discipline to it. So it's only commercial success towards actually doing this properly and yet it's stuff that gets completely neglected compared to the amount that gets wasted on, not wasted, but the amount that you get pumped into sales, marketing, all the other parts of the business that people are very happy to turn the taps on. The second someone says, how about a bit of management training to make sure that our middle management layer are kind of engaging and motivating their team properly oh no that's quite you know that's quite it's wild the sort of disconnect between the cost versus the potential reward So you've already said that 80 % of people are accidental bosses Accidental bosses They've sort of fallen into this leadership role Yeah they've just heard you say that a motivated team can give you 43 % more So if they know the number it's 43 % but they're an accidental boss they're not really sure how they get that 43 % what are the tools they should be thinking about right now today to motivate that team What are the things that you've heard and seen?

7:52It all comes down to communication. Basically, and it all comes down to the one-on-one that you should be having with your team. So I have quite a strict rule. I say you shouldn't be managing more than five people directly because it takes time. If you have 10, 15, 20 people reporting into you, that's too many for you to kind of give that sort of time that they need. And so for me, I think one-on-one communication. Once every two weeks, you should be sitting down and there's three things you need to be covering off in that one-on-one. Hear the things you're doing well. Hear the things you're not doing very well and how we're going to improve them.

8:19and then checking in and seeing how they're actually doing. And those are the three things. If you tick those things off every two weeks, it's amazing how many things you start to catch. Because when people quit, when people burn out, when people get so fed up, they storm out the room and think, I'm done and I'm going to be looking for a new job. It very rarely goes from gear one to five overnight, right? It's very rarely one big thing. Instead, it's two or three small things that build up, build up, build up, are not caught when they should be caught, become these huge problems and end up people leaving the job or quitting.

8:48and they're often the people that people you don't want to quit right it's always the you know the 18 players is the phrase that's used a lot but it's always 18 players who kind of feel like they're not being managed properly they expect competence back and if they're not getting that they're going to look elsewhere and should it be the the employee or the leader who is the one sort of setting the parameters talking about what they're doing well what they're not doing well because i think one of the biggest challenges for a leader is to to look at someone and work out if they are or aren't doing a good or a bad job yep except that is their job isn't it i mean you're You're only one person as a manager, right?

9:19The best way you can impact the business is to get the other people who are reporting into you having a bigger impact because that's what makes you look good and actually that's where you're having the most value. If you're only one person, you can only impact things so much. So if your defense is going to be, I'm just not really sure if they're good at it or not, I would say, well, it's your job to find out and you should be very aware of where your strengths and weaknesses are in your team and you should be looking to kind of support them. Because also the basic stuff like, Like if someone's doing a good job, remind them that they're doing a good job, reinforce that good behavior.

9:51That's such a basic thing. And yet it's just monumentally forgotten across the board. And equally, if you're not giving constructive feedback, if you're not being critical, for want of a better phrase, you're also not being a good manager. You're benefiting no one by just saying continuously, oh, you're doing an amazing job. And no one's perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. There are always areas you can develop. And if you're not looking to develop your team, you're also not being a good manager. Because I always talk about good management. And I'm not just saying be a nice bloke, right? I'm not just saying be a good person and go around saying you're wonderful and clever little boy, you've been incredible.

10:24It's actually about saying, right, here are the bits you're really good at and I'm going to praise you if you keep doing that. And here are the bits I want you to focus on and here are the kind of training plans in regards to how I'm going to develop you. And then the final stage is, tell me about how are you doing? What's going on? Obviously, you don't have to go into the personals in and out. But if you know they're struggling with something, you can take steps to mitigate that. You can protect the business by ensuring that this person is protected for the week or two or three weeks he might need or she might need to kind of say, actually, I've got this horrendous issue going on at home.

10:53I don't want to go into the details of it. And you go, obviously, that's fine. But at least you're now aware. And so if they suddenly have a bad week, rather than you going in on them, you know, without the context of, OK, I knew they were struggling. And then they sort of think, OK, well, I've given you four years amazing service. This is the first week I've had a struggle and you've gone in on me that hard. I'm not going to put up with this. And so that's the bit that people kind of don't think about. And the cost of recruitment, the cost of hiring, the cost of people leaving, and the impact has on clients.

11:22And it's millions and millions. And it's the bit I never quite understand, right? There is such an obvious cost to doing this so badly. And I've still yet to work out why businesses don't prioritize as much as they should. I think it's really interesting, this whole recruitment thing, because I've kind of created this idea of gathering great people. Because I think, let's say there's a job available, right? What are the actual odds that a job is available, you put an advert in, you know, online for that job, and the perfect person just so happens to see it, just so happens to be in a job that they don't want to be in or they don't need to be in any longer, applies for it, they make it through the process, you end up sitting in front of them, you click straight away and they do a great job.

12:04I think the chances of that happening are so infinitesimally small that when you hire the wrong person, it's a 6-, 12-, 18-month job to unpick it. And as you said, the costs are huge for unpicking the wrong recruitment. Actually, we should all be striving to improve the people that are in our business, right, rather than looking to replace the people that are in our business. Yeah. And I think what's so interesting is, and this again, the reason I talk about management so much, right, is the single biggest impact. So your boss has a 70 % impact in regards to if you take your total of how much you like or dislike a job, 70 % of that is your boss.

12:38And what I mean by that is a boss can make a really shit job pretty amazing. And then you can have a really amazing career that a boss completely ruins. And you hear that a lot. The phrase you get a lot is, I used to love my job, but now I have this person. Because it's such a power dynamic. One of the things I always get asked is like, oh, you know, there are bad employees as well. Why do you never share those stories? And I say, well, because you can fire them. The obvious power dynamic in the sense of, of course, there are examples of people doing a bad job at work, but the power dynamic is if you are a boss and you have a bad employee, you have a lot more control over that than if you're an employee with a bad boss.

13:12So it's just such a sort of fascinating element, but it's why I like it so much is because it's such an obvious win-win for me. And it broadens out as well because everyone's talking about economically inactive population, all of that. Obviously, I'm all for encouraging people back to work and putting process in place to allow people to do that. But we're not doing much to look after the ones right and who are actually doing the work at the moment. And if you've got 24 % of that population think they've got the worst ever boss, do you think their productivity is particularly good at the moment?

13:43Do you think their output's great? Like, do you think, and that's the thing I think about a lot, is think about the potential gains we have if we just get people to start hating their job a little bit less. I struggle, though, with why that number is so high because I see more than ever books about leadership, books about management. social media posts about bringing your team along for the ride. I see successful businesses telling the world that the reason they're successful is because they've got a fantastic culture and these are all the things that we've done to create a great culture. So why are a quarter of the working population believing the boss they have right now is the worst ever boss?

14:17Because I think there's a disconnect between the glitz. I think it's a reflection of social media versus reality. It's one of those absolute classic comparisons. And Simon Sinek compared it best. he said, you know, everyone sort of reads a book or they go on a course or they go to a, you know, management seminar and they go, woohoo, you're a manager. But he compares it to brushing your teeth, right? It's a discipline. It's something you have to practice to get good at. And if you're just going off sort of cobbled, you know, books that you've read, if you've not had actual sort of training in a process where you can then implement it over years, it's a skill like anything else.

14:49You know, 10 ,000 hours is obviously that sort of classic line into developing a skill and management is no different. And this idea that you can just read a book and be an amazing manager, and, you know, speaking to somebody who's released a management book, that's probably not a great plug, but it's something that you do have to think about. It's something you can start off with, have a technique, but you develop it, and you develop your own style, and, you know, there's no good and bad management in the sense of everyone's got a different style that suits their personality, and it's about understanding from your personality what bits you'll do naturally quite well and what bits you're going to struggle with.

15:19And once you identify where the sort of struggling bits are, you can double down on that and make sure you don't slip up there. So if someone listening to this feels like, you know what, I'm one of the 80%. I never intended to be a leader, never intended to be a manager. Things have happened that now means I have to make decisions that I'm not that comfortable with. I don't really like having awkward conversations. I'm not really sure how to inspire a team. What's the conversation you and I can have for that person right now to leave them a better leader at the end of this chat? I would honestly say, just ask someone how they want to be managed.

15:49It's a really underrated tool. If you're not sure, sit down. One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a manager is manage your entire team in the exact same way. Because everyone's different, right? Some people require a lot less contact. Some people want just to be left alone. Some people are happy with one-on-one every two weeks. But other than that, some people want to really check in and kind of feel like they're highly involved. And the best that you can do is just ask someone, you know, look, I'm here to sort of manage you. How do you like to be managed? What do you need from me? And it's really weird how often people don't ask that.

16:18Nothing frustrates me more than a manager who just monologues his way through a one-on-one. That's not the role of the one-on-one. It's them to talk to you and you to learn and listen because that's kind of where you get the information from. That's your cheat sheet. And they know how they want to be managed. And if you've not asked them, that's a weird thing to not have done. What about recruitment? Recruitment is an interesting one because I think it's about knowing what you want and the type of personality that works well in your business. I think it's really important to understand that someone who's a good candidate for one business might not be a good candidate for your business.

16:49So a good example, for example, like what you can't do then is you cannot hide the culture of the business by saying things you think people want to hear. That's the quickest way to ensure you get a failed recruitment hire. And what I mean by that is if you have work, you know, some people do just say, look, this is an incredibly intense business. We work six days, we work weekends, we work evenings. But if you do that, I'm going to absolutely financially incentivize the shit out of you. I actually respect that as a message. I don't necessarily agree. it's the most sort of productive long term.

17:19But I do respect that. What you can't do if that's your culture, though, is say, we're all about work life balance. And yes, it's unlimited annual leave. And of course, if you need to go pick up your kids, and you need to drop off, we'll just work around you like that's the quickest way to fail. Because although you might think that's what they want to hear, if you hire someone on that promise, and then you deliver that, that's going to be a pretty sort of short stay. And that's going to cause all sorts of issues in your business. So I would just really understand the culture of your business and be super upfront to bounce it.

17:46And if you still can't find anyone to work within that culture, then maybe you need to re-examine that culture a little bit. But it's really important you know what you're giving as a business because the biggest mistake you see is people say all the little buzzwords they think they should say. And then when it comes to walking that walk, they fall pretty miserably short. The number of times I've gone into a business where a leader has said something like, my door's always open and the door is always closed, right? Exactly. Or they say things like, we don't have a hierarchical culture in this business.

18:10And the first thing you see when you turn up is a parking space for the managing director. Yeah, exactly. And you're like, oh, really? There's no hierarchy here, but you've got your own partners. 100%. And like the closed door thing's classic, right? Whereas if you are a closed door manager, and some of them are, just say, look, I need really autonomous people. Look, you're not going to get much contact from me. I'm just full transparency. That's not my style. I'll obviously give you all the tools you need to succeed, but I'm not going to be that available because of my schedule and all of these other things.

18:33So I need a really autonomous person to join. I'm not going to need someone who wants that multiple levels of contact. Really easy, right? Whereas if you go in saying, yeah, you can always talk to me, and they go, oh, amazing, I really want to talk to my boss. and then they can never get hold of you. I mean, it's basic stuff. But it's amazing how people are almost afraid of saying what they truly want in a person to hire and that causes issues. But then if you are in that situation where you can't find anyone who wants to work for your business, at some point you have to look at your own business and say, right, do we need to change the culture and think about how we want to set things up?

19:03See, one of my businesses is a production business called The Whisper Group and it's 300 staff, right, more than. Creating a culture with more than 300 people is actually a real challenge. And I'll give huge praise to our CEO, my co-founder, a guy called Sunil Patel, because what he does, he has created a culture where you are hugely rewarded, really well protected. It's an amazing place to work. You know, at the same time, there's really high standards and you have to work really hard. And there's an expectation that there are moments where you just have to deliver in that given moment. You know, there are standards that are expected of you.

19:40Yeah. And I think trying to tell both of those sides of a story is really difficult in modern business these days. It is and it isn't. Like, high standards are good. People want to work for high standards because they feel like they're doing good work. But if you can't, and this is the bit, right, you can't say you have high standards and then have, and it's even worse when it's senior people, not do their good enough job, right? And I think often people feel like everyone says, oh, we've got really high standards, expect the world from more juniors, and then more senior people seem to be able to get away with murder.

20:08And I think that's the kind of challenge people have is, a lot of companies will say, we have a high standard. A lot of people like to work for high standards because it feels good. They want to test themselves. They want to work with other competent people. But if you then don't have clear standards where people aren't delivering the work they have and you don't take steps to ensure people are doing a good job, that's where it starts to fall down. So it's getting that balance right. It's key. And like I said, there's nothing like people, I really do believe this. People really want to work hard and be really proud of the work they do.

20:37I fundamentally believe most, the vast, vast, vast majority of people want that. And yet the environment is telling us that a lot of people are nowhere near feeling that. And that has to be the environment. The numbers are too high for it not to be environmental rather than the individual, if that makes sense. And so I love companies that come in and say, yeah, we've got really high standards. I want people to say we want to work really hard. But you then have to offer the packages and the incentives and the motivation and the structures and the environments to the competent people. You want to have a competent business, if that makes sense.

21:08So you can't say, I want the absolute best people and then offer peanuts for pay, right? Because the best people will look at that and say, I'm not going to do that, obviously. So that's what I mean. It's the trade-off of just being upfront about the culture of the business and then backing that up with financials, with incentives, with motivation, with progression, with all those other things. That's the kind of key bit. And from the research that you've done and the information that you are gathering every single day, do employees want the kind of hard stuff like days off and snacks and free yoga and um after work drinks or opportunities for counseling or is it or is what they really want is the soft stuff where they go i just want to work in a really inclusive culture i just want to feel like i'm understood i want to have a voice what's the balance there yeah i mean perks are fun perks are great like everyone likes a beer after work everyone likes to do you know all this sort of staff ultimately though the where people get frustration is where perks become in lieu of culture so people sit right say oh yeah we've got a great culture we all get absolutely hammered on a thursday every night and you go well that's fine but that's not a culture right and i think ultimately where people get frustrated with the perks is if they're just sort of sitting there going look the yoga mat's great but i actually dread going to work at the moment because of x y and z so i think it often gets to a point where the perks do very little to kind of win you back but that's a sort of package deal.

22:30Yeah, I'm all for it. But they've got to contribute to something, right? You can't say, for example, your perks should back up your culture rather than just be random little nice things you do for the team. Because if you haven't got a strategy, then you're just doing weird stuff, basically. So I put a question out to my followers knowing that I was going to be talking to you today. And I said, what are the things as leaders, if you are a leader in your business, you struggle with the most? Yeah. So the first one was, and this is interesting, and I've got some research to back these up. So this is some research from Gallup.

23:01It says here, manager engagement fell to 27 % in 2024, costing$438 billion globally. So under half of leaders are getting formal leadership training. So if you're a leader in a business and you're suffering burnout yourself and you're feeling disengaged from the workforce, I don't know what you do as a manager because people are looking to you to be the leader, to have the answers. Yeah, and there's two types, right? You have the sort of leaders in the sort of founder sense who actually lead the company. And then you have kind of the middle management, that sort of engine room, who are kind of caught between a rock and a hard place in the sense of they're kind of being managed by people above them and they're having to manage the people below them, right?

23:39And I think for them, it's about recognizing that everyone is just a little bit hacked off at the moment. And I think being honest about that, but it all just comes with a conversation of just people starting to be a little bit more vocal and not in a don't do it when everyone's angry, don't talk about it when it's, you know, but in that sort of controlled setting where you say, look, how are you actually doing? Like, talk to me genuinely. What's wrong? What can I do to help? And just starting the conversation. Because sometimes it's just light at the end of the tunnel. Like, a lot of the reasons why people sort of despair so much is they just feel like it's never going to get better.

24:10Sometimes just a nod towards slight progress can actually be enough to get the ball rolling. Like, this isn't something that, you know, goes away overnight. But sometimes just feeling like you're being heard a little bit goes a hell of a long way, right? It just feels like you have a slight ally there. and whatever the context might be. And so I totally understand those engagement numbers. I'm also much more positive around how much more they can be turned around than people think. I think it's very rare that you can't rescue something. And so I'm always encouraging that. And it goes back to all the things.

24:41I want businesses to do well. I want companies to grow. I want the economy to move. I want people to enjoy work and enjoy their careers. Because I'm very fortunate. I've enjoyed the vast majority of my career. And I'm very lucky that I'm in that situation. I know a lot of people don't get to say that. And I want more people to kind of be in that position. I think it just starts with management because it's such a big impact on how you're feeling. So some of the answers that I got from people were around the challenges around AI. I had so many people saying AI scares the hell out of me. I went online and according to the Financial Times, 84 % of senior executives feel unprepared for what they call the perfect storm of AI disruption, global instability, and social polarization.

25:27And I think it's important that we talk about this as well because I think that we can talk a lot about a great culture to help employees, and that's important. But I also think there's a loneliness in leadership that can't be ignored among this conversation. Sometimes the leader is the person with nowhere to turn for support. I tell you, I mean, I've said I'd never start a business without a co-founder. I just don't think I could do it. Like, the loneliness is 100 % a thing. and I mean you've named some big issues there and I kind of agree with all of them but I think for me when it comes to loneliness it is hard and when you don't know if you're doing a good job that's often harder than if you think you're doing a bad one like you're sort of doing things as a manager and as a leader and it goes back to what we said earlier most leaders are doing things with the best of intentions but either it's a good idea that they've bungled an implementation or they've communicated badly or it was the wrong call based on poor intel or whatever it might be, right?

26:20You make so many decisions as a leader, a lot of them fall short, right? But if you don't know if they're good changes or not, that's the bit I don't understand. It's like, yes, you can make mistakes. Yes, you can feel lonely. Yes, you can be unsure about what you do. But you can ask for feedback from people. Ask, you know, are you feeling well-managed at the moment? Look, free space. This is an absolute, I wouldn't hold nothing against you. But don't be one of those leaders to take things personally. Don't ask for feedback, then get really defensive about it, right? It's two ways for you. You've got to be able to handle people saying, look, you're doing this bit well, and this bit you need to sort of improve on.

26:52Where do you sit on the argument that culture beats strategy? I think culture is a strategy. I've never understood the sort of disconnect for that. Like, culture is what the business is and what it stands for, and it's the elevator pitch. But basically, your culture is how you deliver the strategy. And like, I told the age, oh, we've got no time for culture. Like, I know this one's in my book, actually, but they say, oh, yeah, we've got no time for culture. It's all about hard working. I said, that is a culture. Your culture is you work hard, but you've got to structure it like that. You can't just say, I want you to work incredibly hard, but I'm not going to pay you well and I'm not going to offer you sort of support around it.

27:27I'm not going to give you the tools that you want. And, you know, like if you want an incredible salesperson to work for you, you need to pay them an incredible amount of money for that role, because otherwise the incredible salesperson won't want to work for you. And if you kind of try and trick them in through like weird promises and sort of just saying things out just to get them through the door, the drop off is even worse because not only do they feel a bit hacked off they actually feel fundamentally let down because they feel like they can't trust your word and so this is the this is what i mean right the sort of short-term gains of sort of saying all the right things without then backing them up and again what the right things are debatable because we've already touched on i think a lot of people are afraid to admit their culture is really hard working but in doing so hiding that they cause more issues so like i said this isn't about me saying one culture is better than the other it's about me saying you've got to understand your culture and then you want to hire people for it and then you have to engage and motivate them around that culture and you know making it sound perhaps easier than it is because obviously as you know every best play best day plans and all that and it goes completely wrong because something happens etc etc and that's just part of the game but i really i really i used to phrase win-win for a reason like i really do think getting people to like their job more is one of the easiest ways to grow your business and it's weird how that agreement doesn't seem to land sometimes i stand so often on stage at business events and talking to a group of people in a business and the leader, the CEO, the founder, the co-founder will step up and do a presentation.

28:53Sometimes the chairman, they'll talk about turnover, hitting up EBIT, hitting the profits, rewarding the shareholders. And I'm standing there thinking, these people are on a salary, which is minuscule compared to what your shareholders might be getting when their dividend payments come out. And I'm always amazed by this disconnect that like standing and telling your team, that a business needs to exhibit just leaves people feeling cold. I think it's also understanding the motivation of the people in that team as well, right? 100%. And if you look at the most successful companies in the world, you know, the Nikes, the Apples, money does not appear anywhere near their mission statement because they understand that, right?

29:32Because Facebook's trying to connect all these sort of phrases. It's never, we're trying to add X value to the shareholders. No one cares about that. Obviously, if anything... And we know they are, right? Of course they are. That's the game. That's what everyone's there for, ultimately. Everyone gets that. But you don't say that in your mission statement. That's not the time and place to do it because the vast majority are not going to be benefiting from that. Whereas if you give a mission of saying, look, this is what we're trying to do. This is how we're trying to impact the world. This is what you're going to be a part of, something great.

30:00That's an appealing message. And that's, again, something that's missed. But that is culture for me. That is understanding what we're trying to do, why we're getting here and why. And so when people turn around and say, oh, no one wants to work hard, it's like, well, what are they working hard for? Have you offered them anything? Like, you know, nothing frustrates me more than people complaining that Gen Zs aren't motivated. It's like, what do you think your job is if it's not to provide the motivation? Like, the idea that people should show up self-motivated is, I think, ridiculous. I think it's such a key leadership role is to get people motivated and working as hard as possible.

30:32But if they're not motivated, that's your fault, not theirs. Like, this idea that this expectation of everyone just to be able to show up and work extremely hard, it's like, well, offer them something. Like, you know, incentivize them, motivate them, engage with them. You know, give them that progression, give them that challenge. You know, there are so many tools that you can pull from. But if you're not using any of them, you can't just expect everyone to show up and give the best day's work ever if you're not offering any sort of leadership option like that. One person replied actually to that message and said, look, this can't also be the job of a boss.

31:02We're trying to run a business. We're trying to make sure that everyone has a job at the end of the day. We're trying to pay our taxes, pay our pensions. it can't also be the responsibility of us to make sure that the mental health of our team is in a good place. What do you think to that? I mean, I think there's two parts of it. I think there's sort of a responsibility element in the sense of if they are your employees, I think you do have a duty of care in the sense of trying to look after them the best you can. But the second part I would say is that that's a classic leadership challenge, right?

31:30You're a bottleneck. You're always going to be a bottleneck because especially in a growing business, you have duties that you've got and then as your business grows, you have more duties and you can only do so many of those duties. And so the big challenge and one of the biggest reasons why companies don't grow as much as they should is because of that bottleneck sort of leadership situation. So it comes down to where you should be deploying your time. And again, it goes back to the point, right? Like, where do you think you have the biggest impact? Like, if you think part of your job as a leader is to set the vision of the company, to define what that vision is, to define the targets and to work out how you're going to achieve those targets, I'm going to really struggle to buy into the fact that you don't think culture and how engaged the team are and who's actually working on what isn't part of that.

32:11Like, I'm really going to struggle to buy into that line of thinking. But ultimately, if you are one of those leaders and you say, look, I'm just not that person, fine, but someone's got to do it in the business. So you need to make sure you've got someone who's absolutely owning that and doing that. And I don't think you can completely, I think there are some parts of being a leader and the CEO and the founder or whatever your title is. I think there's some part of it always there is going to be a leadership element. But there are plenty of examples of perhaps more traditional COO or CFO types who have perhaps more charismatic MD to kind of take on that side of things.

32:42Like know your weaknesses. Just because you can't deliver it doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. It just means perhaps you need to look elsewhere to do it. So I think that's one of the skills the leader is recognizing what you're good at, recognizing what you're not so good at, and making sure that if you're not so good at it, you have additional support. But this idea of, oh I'm not very good at it therefore I'm just not going to touch it and we're just going to let it simmer that's not going to help your business in the long run I don't think. You know another response I got a lot to that social media post was people saying my boss is affected by mental health but because they're affected by mental health they are such my boss I can't possibly go to them.

33:17I don't know what advice to give to people who are in that position where they simply don't know which way to turn and they can't walk away from their job because they have all kinds of commitments at home. Agreed. I sometimes find it's quite unhelpful to say quit or go start your own thing, which, you know, I'm all for encouraging entrepreneurship, but it's not always practical to say that. It's really hard because it's very context-specific in that sense. I mean, traditionally speaking, you should be able to go to HR, and that should be a completely free and easy conversation and something you should be able to completely open up to.

33:48Again, a lot of people feel really uncomfortable with that because they feel like, especially if your boss is also kind of their boss, like there's a sort of power dynamic there, people get really nervous about. the honest truth is you need to find someone to talk to in the business there has to be someone you can try and trust and open up to and it could be outside of work to give you that little bit more freedom ideally someone a little bit more senior who might have the ear of someone who they can help but you do need to ask someone and talk to someone you can't just figure that one out on your own so the honest advice if you can't talk to your boss directly try and talk to someone but i do appreciate the context of that it's very dependent one thing i see a lot of online is people criticizing people fresh into the workplace fresh out of uni fresh out of school oh they don't have resilience they don't have the tools that we had when we first emerged into the world of work the first thing they ask about is days off in lieu why are young people getting such a bad rep so i think there's two things i mean firstly i would say every generation has had this ever there's an amazing clip that i did sorry that's making sound like my content was amazing the content i got sent was amazing and basically it was newspaper clippings going back to about the 1870s basically and every 15-20 years they found a new title just basically around how the next generation just don't want don't want to do a hard day's work and they're all lazy and they're all absolute reprobates and they all don't understand what it's like to kind of roll up their sleeves and get cracking and it was so funny you had an article in the 1870s the 1890s the 1910s and it just it just seems to be one of those absolute classic things it's why there'll always be successful new social media platforms because fundamentally the next generation don't want to be the one on the one that their parents run basically and so yeah i mean one of the stats that just consistently blows my mind is 20 % of managers have fired a Gen Z within the first week and 27 % have fired a Gen Z within the first month.

35:29And you go, really, have you given them enough of a chance? They're like, unless they're all coming in and just lamping their boss, like it feels unlikely. You know, at some point you have to look structurally and internally at that. And again, like the reason why that frustrates me is that's possibly one of their first experience in the workplace. And so you have all these sort of Gen Zs being fired really early on and then you have these same people sort of going, all these Gen Zs just don't really want to work and they're feeling a bit disillusioned. You go, well, you can't have it both ways can you so as we come towards the end of this conversation whether someone listening to this is a leader or is an employee what would you love them to be thinking about as they finally come to the end of this conversation i think as a leader i think there's three things i would always try and recommend firstly what is your retention rate and start treating that figure as important as your ebit as your operating profit as your revenue figure and And the reason why I say that is I think it's the biggest indicator of how well your business is going to do over the next year or two.

36:23How happy are your team and what is your retention rate? Because I just think that tells you so much about a business. So I'd really want that to be in the SLT meetings and the SMT meetings. I think the second thing is really encouraging people to ask and not guess. Honestly, I've seen people with consultants and brand advisors sitting there trying to work out what their team are feeling. And they're just not asking their team, stop Stop guessing, just ask. Create environments where people can give honest feedback and just actually just, and that's such an easy way to improve your business. And then finally, I think when it comes to your culture, like really build out what your culture wants to be and then build out your perks and your benefits around supporting that culture.

37:01So for example, if you want to encourage flexibility at work, don't make people come back to the office five days a week, right? If you want people to encourage, to kind of explore, and one of the best things we actually had and one of the few things I think we worked really nicely was we had something called Take Two. And basically, if you work two years for us, you get two months off sabbatical to go traveling. And the reason we did that was, one, a lot of our team wants to go traveling, but that's because they were mostly 23, 24, right? And so people can't join us. We train them up over two, three years.

37:27And then we realized we're losing loads of great people because people want to go traveling. And you go, well, hang on. Like, I mean, firstly, amazing. Of course you want to do that. That's what your 20s are for. So all for that. But it seemed crazy for us not to offer something that would encourage them to come back because, you know, you join at 21, you're not that useful. you worked for us for three years, you're incredibly valuable. So I do think like, but thinking about packages and benefits around supporting your culture rather than just doing random little stuff that you think might help.

37:52As the employee, one of the exercises I really like to do is just sit down and really think about what you want to achieve in the next 12 months. And what I mean by that is it can be a promotion, it can be a specific project, it can be a skill to develop. But if you have a plan, you can start talking that plan through with your manager. Like I'm, I'm the first to criticize managers, as you know, but they aren't mind readers okay so you have to start thinking about what you want to do because if you don't know your manager is never going to get that and you end up this feeling of frustration that no one gets you but if you've not done a little bit of due diligence yourself you're not really helping yourself or getting the best outcome so have a think every 12 months just because you think everything changes right you know i'm sure you've run a forecast and that changes in about three weeks but sit down with a piece of paper and say what do i actually want to achieve in the next 12 months.

38:38And it doesn't have to be about salary, though, if that's important, obviously, bear that in mind, because that's fundamental. But think about skills, think about projects, think about clients, think about whatever it might be. And then go to your manager and say, I'd like to do this because you never quite know, right? There are a lot of businesses that really do encourage one of the one I think one of the greenest flags you have in a company, by the way, is allowing people to change roles within the company, especially if they're younger, especially if they joined a company in a certain role, they've got an interest in something else, and you give them an opportunity to move departments and stuff like that.

39:08I think that's such a healthy culture because the odds of you landing on your dream job straight away is really unlikely, right? The odds that you've been picked for your perfect skill set that's going to suit you the most, that's going to benefit the business the most, really unlikely you've absolutely hit the lottery in your first ever role. So a company that recognized that and actually sort of looks out and says, okay, this person seems to be quite good at this, or they've got quite a charismatic nature, or they seem to be particularly creative, or they've got a really good headset for figures or whatever it might be.

39:34looking out for skills that they knew you can use elsewhere in the business, I think is such a healthy culture. So really think about that as an employee, I think. And we've spoken so much about what leaders should be doing. If you're an employee and you don't like the culture, you're struggling with your boss, you have some serious issues, and you are one of the people going to work, counting down the hours till you get to leave again, what are the first things they should do? I think it's really important. I say this in the sense that I'm very aware that often it's the person directly above you is causing a lot of these issues, so it can be really hard.

40:05But it's always worth voicing your issues. And what I say is be specific. Rather than just saying, I'm feeling burnt out, say, I'm feeling burnt out because of X, Y, and Z. And it could be a horrendous client. It could be a co-worker. It could be just the hours that you're working, whatever it might be. But it's amazing how often management are just simply unaware of your challenges. In fact, I would say the reason why things have become so big is because often your manager simply has no idea. And look, obviously there's an argument to say they should know. that's part of their job but like this isn't a perfect world right so it's really important you try and help yourself by speaking up where you can don't do it when you're emotional don't do it when you're angry don't do it when you're upset like this is a time to take emotion out of it but it is always worth saying look do you mind if we if you have a regular one-on-one do it then and do it at the start like again don't do that doorknob question at the end thing i see a lot of that where people get a little bit nervous about bringing up a topic wait to the very end of the meeting and then drop it on and then you don't have enough time to discuss it because you might another meeting and to help yourself by raising as soon as you can, but do it early on in the meeting.

41:04Like I know that's a really small recommendation, but that makes a lot of difference because then you have half an hour, an hour to actually talk about it rather than a garbled four minutes at the end where, you know, I want to talk about more, but I've got another meeting and, you know, suddenly your day's behind. So I think it's really important to talk where you can and raise it and be specific. I think if you have solutions that you know will help you, bring those up as well, like you know yourself best. So if it's a case of, look, I'm really struggling with drop off or kids, or I've got an issue with a sick parent, or I've got, you know, especially as a personal thing where your boss probably won't have any idea.

41:36I think if you have a solution that might help you raise that as well, they might say no. But if you know, it will help you rather than let them guess like if you have something that suggests there. And then finally, like just double down on things that do make you feel good, you know, hobbies, coping mechanisms, you know, stuff like that. If you are feeling burnt out, like book a holiday, all of this sort of stuff. But ultimately, my advice would always be, if you've tried everything, just leave it it's not worth like you're not helping yourself you're not helping your colleagues you're not really helping the business like there's no shame in leaving a job I think people often associate quitting with like giving up it can be really really hard it can be a really brave courageous thing to do to actually quit a job so I'm always for if you really don't think it's going to get better look elsewhere brilliant thank you so much for your time thanks for having me that's had some real value for people no pleasure thanks for having me you know I think the biggest thing that I think about when I reflect on that conversation with Ben, which I really enjoyed, is how it would be so helpful if we stopped having a blame culture in our businesses.

42:33Because as Ben said to us, no Gen Z employee walks into a business wanting to be fired in the first couple of weeks or the first month. They're doing their best, right? No employee is looking to generate a toxic culture or create problems for people. No boss is looking to be a bad boss. 80 % of bosses, 80 % of your bosses have stumbled into that place. So I think it's time that we realise that our bosses are doing their best, that our employees are looking to do their best, that people fresh into the industry looking to learn things are all doing their best. And if we stop pointing fingers, if we stop shaking fists and start shaking hands, I think it would be really transformational, actually, for the business landscape.

43:15And I also love at the very end there when Ben was talking about people being promoted. A good culture is people being promoted, is jobs changing. I think it's really important. people don't start out at a business and it's their dream job 99 % of the time. So to have a flexible mindset, a flexible leader, a flexible business where if you've got a certain skill, you can be molded into something completely different, then that signifies a powerful and brilliant culture. And as someone that's founded businesses, co-founded businesses, has owned and run huge businesses and small businesses, I honestly kept having this little checklist in my head of things I was ticking going, that's a great point, that's a great point, that's a great point.

43:55So I really hope that for you, whether you are an employee or an employer, whether you're a leader, whether you're a follower, whatever your position in the business, I hope there's something in there that you can think about and reflect on. And I hope it was a valuable conversation for you. Thanks so much for joining me. I hope you feel you've got loads to take away from being in the room where it happened. If you can just take a couple of seconds to subscribe, it means you get each episode directly to your inbox. And it also means we can attract more incredible guests, like George Heaton, Rory Sutherland or Richard Branson.

44:25Thanks for joining us. See you next time.