Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 As a, as a leader or manager, I used to find what I would call difficult conversations, very difficult. So when you're giving negative feedback, I used to find it really tough. I would actually like it, find it emotionally challenging or ingrain a lot of energy from the I'd get kind of stressed out beforehand. And to be honest, I probably did quite a bad job of it. Um, cause I was worried about how it would make the other person feel the kind of receiving these messages. And, um, actually I have a coach and he gave me some excellent advice and that is, which is I actually no longer think about them as difficult conversations, kind of mentally reframe them as direct conversations. And um, it's not for me to worry about how the other person is going to bill. What I've got to do is focus on doing my job in that conversation, which you live in the message and actually how that, how the other person feels about them.
Speaker 0 00:00:55 That's that's for them to decide. And I can't control that. What's really what I can control. And what's really important is that give a clear message that they would seek that feedback. Cause we all, you know, we all want to improve if you, if you believe that, then if there's things that you need to improve on, it needs to be told about them. And so, um, so my job is to give that clear message and then it's up to that person to sort of take that and do, will get what they will. And then if they're willing to do something constructive and positive with it, then I can support them doing that as well. So that's for me, uh, being a big learning over time and that kind of meek brain difficult conversations, product conversations, and kind of letting go of the emotional connection, how someone's going to create that, hearing those things, but, um, just taking on responsibility, but
Speaker 1 00:01:44 Folks, Matthew Ellis here, founder and CEO at seed, super excited to introduce today's guest on scaling so far, we've heard insights and perspective on scaling orcs from founders, heads of talent, people, directors, um, but a chief operating officer, not yet until today. That is so big. Welcome to Martin <inaudible> C O O open banking, FinTech, YALI. Um, we're going to jump straight in Martin. How's everything going for you
Speaker 0 00:02:16 If I get spring is springing outdoors. So a definitely a defender.
Speaker 1 00:02:21 It makes such a difference. Doesn't it? I was saying to somebody in certainly the other day that I, uh, I sort of butterfly a bumblebee and some sunshine and there was just a huge, huge lift. Brilliant. So Martin, to kick things off. Um, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your story so far?
Speaker 0 00:02:40 Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I'm, uh, an engineer by background. I studied civil engineering, uh, in London. Um, but of course my degree decided not to go into that industry or the chore I did want to be. So, uh, the well-trodden path of moving into consulting, um, spent a few years at Deloitte on the, on the grad scheme, they're doing operations and salting, so large project management systems, implementations, that kind of thing. Um, moved from there into a smaller strategy consultancy to get some strategic experience, but we're not strictly over time that actually wants to be in a different kind of organization, a different size and scale of organization. Um, and so moved into, uh, moved into startups. And so I joined the startup business, uh, around 10 people happened to be in the payment space and essentially that's where I've been for the last sort of 10 or so, uh, 10 or so years. And I guess what's now called FinTech, wasn't it? That wasn't a thing at the time. Um, and uh, within that, in the, in the payments space, in, in, uh, startups and scale-ups, so I've been in a few businesses, uh, over that time, many in operations, leadership roles, um, being a co-founder of a business growing from scratch over a few years and, um, I've recently joined the athlete.
Speaker 1 00:03:58 Awesome. So let's, let's talk about that. So now CLO Yappa league, um, can you tell me and the listeners a little bit more about the company's, um, vision and purpose?
Speaker 0 00:04:08 Yeah, absolutely. So as I mentioned with FinTech business in the open banking space for listeners who might not be familiar with open banking center, just give us a couple of sentences on that essentially over the last few years in UK and Europe in particular regulations have changed to force banks to open up their systems so that customers that banks customers can grant third parties access to their transaction data and also enable third parties to initiate payments out into their accounts without having to use a card. Um, and so it's been a huge revolution, which is enabling lots of great innovation, lots of new products and services for consumers and businesses, and in fact, globally, many other countries announcing following that, that, that trend. So yeah, we exist to enable companies to build fairer and better financial services for everyone through the power of open banking. So we sort of consider ourselves an invisible backbone for open banking. So we power our customers. People are Amex people like Intuit, QuickBooks go cardless to, to this kind of industry, even brands to enable them to build open banking products for that for their customers and make it really easy for them to connect into open banking and access that capability.
Speaker 1 00:05:25 Awesome. Thank you very much for that explanation. Um, so as I mentioned, we've spoken to many heads of talent people, directors, uh, CEOs on previous episodes would be really keen to understand sort of where your role as COO sits in the organization and helps it achieve its, um, its vision. And, and I realized that the role of CIO can take many shapes and sizes. So definitely, definitely your, your perspective.
Speaker 0 00:05:52 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's an interesting one Cox, as you say, it does have many shapes and sizes and organizations, um, and it's always, it's a pretty buried role, um, from my experience in terms of, of, um, my specific role within the Minneapolis. So I kind of break it up into three chunks. I've got some, uh, functions that I own, the business operations of things, our people and talent, along with your legal finance, these kind of, these kind of areas, um, service operations. So things like customer support and some other things that are specific to our particular business and, and such as we provide. And then the third part of my remit is really making sure the organization as a whole is working, uh, working well, making sure it's functioning well, making sure it's coordinated, et cetera. So, you know, obviously a rapidly growing business, uh, raised a series a funding last year. And so there, there there's a lot of growth across the business activities development. So it's trying to make sure that that's coordinated and you know, people know what's going on and how it all ties together.
Speaker 1 00:06:59 Yeah. I think that's a massive part of, uh, I've always been fascinated by the COI role, like desserts or operational octopus in some regards and yet kind of having the overall visibility of our business performance and making sure that everything's all about putting in the right direction. So good stuff. Thank you for that. And you joined back in November, 2020, um, and since then you have pre has launched hubs in Germany and Lithuania, I believe. Um, and you've made it into auteurs rocket list, uh, 20, 21. Um, so super exciting, first of all. Um, but what's your journey at jeopardy been like so far? Um, I mean it seems like a lot has happened in that very short space of time.
Speaker 0 00:07:44 Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, it starts up life is pretty busy and uh, to be honest, that's partly what I love about it. Um, a lot back at the end of the day or the week or the month, and you can see how the businesses has moved forward and, and how you've contributed to that. So that's something that I've always loved about startups. So for me personally, there's obviously been getting to know the business, getting to know the people in this virtual world where you meeting everyone through, uh, through a screen, um, you know, getting to grips with my remit. So there wasn't a COO before. So, um, it was kind of working out the shape and size of, uh, of that role and, and much of that involved for me, a good partnership with the CEO and, um, and making sure we work well together and working out where we each focus within, uh, within the business. Um, I kind of, uh, I think of growing a business as you know, you're growing a complex system or organization and, um, it's got lots of bits to it. There's lots of things going on and you've got to try and move them all forward in, in unison in a sort of coordinated way. And, but because this is the real world that's actually impossible to achieve,
Speaker 2 00:08:56 Um, you're faced with reality, unfortunately. So, um, at any point in time, there's always some bits of the business that are maybe lacking a bit for versus others versus the rest of the pack. So what I tend to do myself is sort of make sure that that me and the rest of the leaders across the business have an understanding as to what the whole picture looks like what's going well and where the challenges are. And then, you know, applying my time in particular or other people's findings, um, just sort of making sure the bits that are lacking a bit a, a quarter off. And ideally you want to be able to see which bits are going to be bagging in a month or six months time, as opposed to always reacting to what's happening now. So you can, as you can kind of get ahead of things. So that's, that's like, it's how I've been our attempt to spend my time is making sure you've got that visibility across the piece and working out where focus needs to be applied.
Speaker 1 00:09:45 No, that's great. I'm really interested in perspective, and I'm very honest that this is my first time CEO position and I've learned very quickly the, the co-dependencies I guess, um, on across function, um, particularly if we're all driving towards the same mission and vision, and like you say, some are ahead some of behind and trying to make sure that from a leadership perspective, you can, um, support, um, or ideally spot these things before. Perfect. Thank you for that. So WEX Europe, currency, cloud modular, properly, you know, as you mentioned before, over a decade, um, ex you know, building FinTech as they're called now, um, startup and scale up teams across Europe. One thing that we ask everybody, um, is, you know, what have been some of your biggest learnings, um, over that period, especially when it comes to the talent or people practices.
Speaker 2 00:10:41 Hmm. So I think there's probably probably two for me. One, one is a sort of genuine one and then one a personal one that I've sort of worked on and developed. I think that the genuine one first is sort of a, probably a common one is that the importance of being open and being human in your interactions with people being willing to engage, listened to people, also showing that you are only human too. And, uh, and, and, you know, I've actually been listening to a really good, uh, audio book related to this called the culture code. And it talks about principles of, of safety principles of, of being willing to show vulnerability and then, um, having everyone aligned around a purpose. And, um, I think that those really sort of ring true for me as to, you know, we all, we, you know, we all come to work and we're trying to do our best, and we want to be part of something. And we want to feel that we were achieving things, but we've got all this other stuff going, going on as well. And, um, and so, you know, recognizing that and being willing to just sort of talk to people on a kind of human level and understand what's going on and how to help them achieve what they want to be achieving in the context of the organization. So, so, yeah, that's a
Speaker 0 00:11:54 Big one for me. It's been willing to have those kinds of those kinds of conversations with, uh, with people. And I think, especially in startups and scale-ups where you really, you do form strong connections with people. You're part of a relatively small team, especially in the, in the earlier days. Um, and so, and people want to feel that connection to the business. So, uh, I think that's really important.
Speaker 1 00:12:13 Excellent. And just to, to, to pull that out, you mentioned you listened to the culture code, um, platforms is that, uh, uh, uh, I'm probably going to have to, I'm basically asking for myself because that sounds fantastic. I'll have a look, you can
Speaker 0 00:12:31 Take it, I I'm listening to it on audible
Speaker 1 00:12:37 And you're gonna jump onto the second point, but like, I completely agree. And we have conversations in certainly the, in, in senior leadership teams, you know, the majority of your time is spent sobering opera, preventing problems, right? So you're kind of in this, this problem space. And so being able to create the environment where this is, okay, this is normal. How would you think about this? How do we solve this together? You know, is, is super important,
Speaker 0 00:13:01 A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And people being willing to talk about that and recognize that it's not a blame environment, actually, it's all about kind of what you stand for. Everyone is aligned behind achieving joint objectives. And it's all, it's all about how we will get that together. And, um, being willing to sort of face into the challenges that are involved in getting there is really important. So yeah, I think it has to be fun for me. And, and the other one on a personal level is, um, is actually about feedback and the importance of feedback for all of us in our, in our sort of journeys in our development. And as a, as a leader or manager, I used to find what I would call difficult conversations, very difficult. So when you're giving negative feedback, I used to find it really tough.
Speaker 0 00:13:47 I would actually like it, find it emotionally challenging or drain a lot of energy from the I'll get stressed out beforehand. And to be honest, I probably did quite a bad job of it. Um, cause I was worried about how it would make the other person feel to be the kind of receiving these messages. And, um, actually I have a coach and he gave me some excellent advice on this, which is I actually no longer think about them as difficult conversations, kind of mentally reframe them as direct conversations. And, um, it's not for me to worry about how the other person is going to bill. What I've got to do is focus on doing my job in that conversation, which is delivering the message and actually how they, how the other person feels about them. And that's, that's for them to decide. And I can't control that.
Speaker 0 00:14:33 What's really what I came consult. And what's really important is to give the clear message so that they received that feedback. Cause we all, you know, we all want to improve if you, if you believe that, then if there's things that you need to improve on, you need to be told about them. And so, um, so my job is to give that clear message and then it's up to that person to sort of take that and do with it, what they will. And then if they're willing to sort of do something constructive and positive with it, then you can support them through doing that as well. So that's been a big learning over time and that kind of reframe the difficult conversations, direct conversations, and kind of letting go of the emotional connection, how someone's going to feel about hearing those things. But, um, but just taking on responsibility for delivering it to them.
Speaker 1 00:15:17 I like that. And I can see how that really works as a mental shift, right? Because you're, you're being responsible for the part of the conversation you can be responsible for and not trying to control the bit of the conversation that you can't right. And that's just a super important narrative in, in the world of business anyway. Right. You know, if you community control it, control it. If you can't, don't worry about to the next thing. Cool. And you mentioned as well, that part of your responsibility and often responsibility of, of the CEO is that kind of people and talent organization, um, conversations that we have, you know, with organizations from pre-seed all the way through to, you know, post IPO is the timing of building talent as a function or a product of the organization. And I'd love to get your perspective on, is there a such time as, too early, there's definitely such time as, too late, you know, how do you as the COO balance that juncture particularly let's focus early stage, right. You know, we're in an early stage organization, we've hired all of our friends that we want to be part of this organization. We're now in that situation where, okay, we're tapped out our leadership team is spending a lot of time doing recruitment. Yeah. We don't have any tools, systems and processes sort of becoming a bottleneck for our organization. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 0 00:16:36 Yeah. So, so I think there's probably a couple of factors that the influence, when is the right time or, or, or where might be too early or too late, I think w one of those trends bit on the business that you're building and the type of people that you will, that you bring in, especially in the early days. So, um, our value, you know, what functions you them and what kind of level of experience are you bringing in? And they're very experienced or, or a lot of people that are you in their career. And, and therefore, to what extent are they likely to need to come support from a, um, from a people, uh, sort of perspective. And then I think the other factor as well is, um, to what extent is this a strong suit or an, a focus and a passion area if you like of the, of the founders. Um, and I think the more there is then the more you can probably leave it a bit later before making it a formal structure, a formal function. Um, whereas if you, this is not a thing that the, the, you know, the founder CEO is, uh, is focused on themselves, then you probably need to bring in that support earlier to, uh, to, to start bringing in the right kind of approaches and structure. So no hard and fast rule for every business. I would say that, you know, you start getting to
Speaker 2 00:17:51 40 or 50 people, certainly by that stage, you starting to have, you know, people kind of people, uh, challenges that you might want, uh, might want some, some level of focus on. You've probably got quite a lot of recruitment going on that you, uh, that you need some proper structure around by that maybe by the time you get there. So kind of 30, 40 people. And, um, uh, yeah, obviously it depends a bit on how fast you're getting to, um, to, to that kind of stage. So those are some, some of the factors, but it's probably one of those things where it, you know, in that between 30 and 60 range, depending on some of those factors is where you hit that tipping point as with many other tipping points. It's also probably the stage where you, in terms of the people that you're hiring in the very early days, that, you know, your first 10 and 20 people, that they're there to be part of something very, very new, very different. Whereas when people are joining in sort of 50, 60 person organization, it's a bit more of a thing. It's a bit more of a, a business stablish business to some extent. And so you will tend to attract people who expect a bit more of that kind of structure to be, uh, to be coming with it. So you've said that I think it also plays into it as well.
Speaker 1 00:18:59 Yeah. I can definitely relate to those points. And I guess as, as founders, as you know, we have to ask ourselves the question in terms of sort of capacity and capability, right. You know, in terms of bringing in people around us and people that can do the job better than we can. Um, yeah, absolutely. I, I can pinpoint times in our organization where it's going, okay, cool. Where we're just this startup, we have no expectations around processes and people practices, and then you do get to a point as an organization where the business does expect you reach a level of success under whichever brackets you have and maturity and people that are cool. I start talking about benefits that stop talking about roles, levels of progression. It starts with all of this type of stuff. So, no, that's great. Thank you for that. And I guess, again, calling on that, um, you know, deep experience you have in, in startup land, uh, is there anything that you think should be avoided and traps that you see people kind of falling into consistently or, or myths you think that should be busted when it comes to building and leading teams?
Speaker 2 00:20:02 Absolutely.
Speaker 1 00:20:03 Yes. On that one.
Speaker 2 00:20:06 Well, from personal experience of something that I've got wrong and on the point of vulnerability, um, so I think so one thing that I tried previously, but, but, and I thought would be a fantastic idea that was going to work really well and just didn't really work toward it. It surprised me quite a bit was, um, taking a sort of disparate group of high performing individuals from across the business and pulling them into together into a kind of virtual team on top of that, that data group. Cause they were people from, from different functions across the business, putting them together into a sort of virtual team to try and get them to just pick up and solve challenges that were going on across the business. And a bit to your point around capacity of, you know, founders and leadership team. It was, you know, for some of those things that we knew were challenges in the business, but the leadership team didn't have capacity to focused on it. And there wasn't a clear kind of functional owner.
Speaker 1 00:21:02 This sounds like a brilliant idea. Right. But the best brilliant minds are coming together to solve problems.
Speaker 2 00:21:07 Yeah, exactly. We've nailed it. It's what I thought. But then, but then what happened? Is it just, well, it just didn't, it didn't work. And despite everyone in that group being really strong individuals, they, they didn't self-organize to actually be effective in, in what, you know, what I thought I was asking them to do. And as I've kind of thought about it afterwards, I think what was missing was that clarity of purpose, like in their individual roles, it was very clear where they fitted within the organization, what their objective was, how that lined up to the company's overall objective and contributed to it. And therefore, you know, w how, what they should be doing, how they should be going about it in, in this kind of virtual team that they were pulled into, they were like, well, how much time do I spend on this versus, uh, versus my sort of day job, if I, and what's my role in this versus, you know, this person's role or that person's role.
Speaker 2 00:22:08 And, and there was no hierarchy or anything like that. I kind of, I think probably didn't give enough guide rails flection after. So I didn't, didn't give enough clarity of what the purpose of this group is and how, how it should work. And so even though they were fantastically, um, uh, talented individuals, uh, just without that context and clarity of how this fitted with what w what else they were doing, um, it just didn't work out. And, you know, that was kind of left scratching my head weeks and months later as to why nothing was coming out of this, uh, of this team. So it's definitely helped me realize the importance of sort of clarity of context, creative guidance, uh, around those things and not to expect people, um, just to be able to sort of come up with that themselves if they, if they're not given any direction on it.
Speaker 1 00:22:56 Yeah. You and I both on this one, I'm, I'm guilty of even sometimes to this day and I have to correct myself for thinking, okay, I'll give a broad task to a group of super smart people. And the exciting thing is to see what they come up with. Um, that's not always the best possible,
Speaker 2 00:23:12 Particularly if I have an idea in my head of what it needs to be
Speaker 1 00:23:15 Exactly. Kind of gives some framework. And I think if, if, um, if other leaders are very honest with themselves, I think we've all fallen into that trap, or even still do fall into that trap. So thank you very much for sharing that one and being so open. Um, so on the, on the scale and the expansion, um, vibe, you know, some really exciting things that have happened already, um, for Napoli with Lithuania and Germany, um, that we mentioned, and I'm sure lots and lots of other exciting plans ahead. I'd love to hear a bit more about the planning that goes into something like launching a new, new territories or new countries, um, particularly from an ops and even, uh, uh, people and headcount perspective, lots of the, the people that listen in and the people that we talk to from a client perspective, or are looking to do this, you know, either enter new markets from a product perspective or, and, or launch new engineering centers or, or business operations, didn't do new company, uh, countries rather. So where do you even start on something like this and where do you prioritize?
Speaker 2 00:24:24 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it, it's interesting, especially in this sort of new world, you can question whether it really matters where people are already more, I could be sort of talking to you from anywhere right now. And so to some extent, you kind of think what does that geographic element actually matter? But my personal view is that it still does to some degree in Austin of connection to the real world and the cultural linkage with that and things like that. It's, um, it's still pretty important, even if we did spend a lot less time together, uh, than we used to, you know, a year or so ago. So, um, so yeah, definitely some different, uh, different things think about in this. One of it is being really clear on what you're looking to achieve in that market. So as, as you mentioned, you know, launching a product or service into a, um, into a country, it very different from setting up, uh, operationally there.
Speaker 2 00:25:15 So being, being clear on that, and, you know, if it's a product or service, then obviously there's the elements of understanding what your, like, we'll go to market, got to look like, how do you fit in, in that space? What are the competitors, what do you need to do to sort of localize your products and services that might be from a language perspective or, um, or, or might be some others. So, um, uh, and, and certainly, you know, talking from my experience in the payments market payments markets is one of the things I find really interesting actually, is that they're very different in different countries. You kind of go about our lives and unless you've got experience of living in different countries might just assume that things work. You know, people use debit cards and credit cards and bank transfers and things like that in the same way everywhere, but actually they don't.
Speaker 2 00:25:56 And so that's, uh, that, that's really interesting. So understanding how your product fits into the local market, obviously, obviously critical if you're going down the path of building a team, there's obviously, um, you know, many of the practical elements of, you know, the local labor laws and, and, and all those kinds of things, which are relatively simple to, to work out even just a little bit complex in themselves for that. They kind of obvious things. I think the thing that's, um, thing that's been most interesting to me is understanding how you're actually going to attract people and what peelers. And again, it's like, how do you, how do you fit in that market? So if you take the same kind of approach and thinking as you would to how you're launching a product, but you think from a, from an employer proposition perspective, how am I going to attract not customers, but applicants and people to come and work, uh, work for me.
Speaker 2 00:26:51 And, uh, most you might have quite a big presence or awareness in your home market as an employer. And, you know, from all the marketing you do and events that you would attend and all those kinds of things, when you appear in a new country, people may well be like, Oh, you know, it's just another tech company who's trying to hire developers, or what have you, no idea who you are, et cetera. And also you can go back to some of what we were talking about, and especially in startups, and scale-ups when you bring in that sort of people function. And when you focus on benefits, actually the benefits that are important in different countries and how you build that employee proposition is quite different. It can be quite different between one place and another. So it's definitely important not to, um, not to ignore that or, or not to miss that and not to think, Oh, we'll just, you know, start advertising, start head hunting and, and would attract people there.
Speaker 2 00:27:41 But, um, but you've got to put a bit of thought into understanding what the local market looks like, and what's appealing to people. And, you know, some of this stuff just takes time in terms of building a local presence in the market, building an employee proposition, you know, being members of relevant trade associations, or what have you attending events. Um, all that kind of thing is, is necessary to build that, that local presence and start attracting people. So yeah, you can accelerate these things as always by sort of putting more money into them, on your strategy and approach and, and budget. But, um, uh, but yeah, some of them are, uh, difficult to shortcut to kind of zero timeframe. They, they do just take time and investment to, uh, to, to,
Speaker 1 00:28:25 Yeah, thanks very much for that. And I, I, I've seen this on a number of occasions, particularly in circumstances where organization does have strong consumer brand, but that brand is not prevalent in, in new location. And assumption is okay, we'll be able to hire, attract and develop people at the same pace. And it's not always the reality. Cool. Thanks again. Um, so as you move into the next kind of critical stages of growth that you actually, um, what's on your agenda operationally for the next six to 12 months, I'd imagine there's a massive focus on being able to drive quickly. Um, but without breaking, right. Um, are there any kind of key pressure points that you take a read of to know where your time and efforts need to go in this, or, uh, when you, when you're driving so quickly?
Speaker 2 00:29:17 So I guess I kind of think about these challenges as, too in the different stages of a business. What should, what should we be optimizing for at this point, and at this point in the business's journey. So in the very early days, you're often sort of optimizing for flexibility because you will, you will still learning, you're trying to work out and put market fair to et cetera. And so, you know, in, in, in, in the first year, or maybe a couple of years,
Speaker 0 00:29:42 Depending on the trajectory of your business, um, that might be where you optimize and you don't really want to try and build very scalable processes because actually you're trying to, you're trying to work out what that process looks like. What's the business actually gonna sell what's he gonna do? So, w we're we're sort of beyond that point and moving away from that, but you know, a good degree prior to their product and services where it's in the market, how we inscribe it and sexually it's, it's that switch more about consistency? Um, we've got a big focus on quality within businesses, as part of our proposition as a kind of infrastructure provider. We believe it's all about, um, or about finding great quality service that people can rely on and want to build their products on top of and so forth to deliver a quality service.
Speaker 0 00:30:29 You've got to have consistency in how you do things the way in which you go about doing things. And so you've kind of got to move away from some of those early stage habits and practices, which are the right things in the early stage where you have everyone chasing the ball. And so, you know, there's a problem, let's thing, that's all go after it and solve it. And we kind of run together to a point where you've got more of an organizational structure and clarity as to, okay, when this thing happens, it's this team that does it in that way. And they might rely on with your partner with that team and that team as well to do it, but you've got more cars around the ownership of things. And then based on how often those things happen, what the prompts are around them, you know, okay, well, how many people do I need in that team? Or what tools do we need in it? And is it something that needs to be covered 24 seven? Or is it something that we do during the day, et cetera. So there's sort of that thinking that that comes into it. So maybe it's about bringing, bringing in more structure and, um, and making sure that we're delivering the service really, really consistently now as we, uh, as we move much more into that sort of scales stage.
Speaker 1 00:31:36 Cool. Thank you for that. And we've touched on a little bit of this previously, but as a key member of the leadership team, how do you and someone who's kind of has this responsibility of making sure everyone's in, in the boat rowing in the same direction, um, how do you keep everybody focused on that kind of vision and purpose of the organization, especially when operating remotely across distributed teams naturally when things are happening quickly and evolving around them?
Speaker 0 00:32:07 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's a really good question. And, and, um, as you kind of touched on before, I'm really big on, on, on that, or having one vision and knowing that you're all working towards that vision. And so that's really important. I think this is a really important factor in, uh, in, in the business and having that clarity of people understanding how they, how they line up to it is, is critical for, uh, for, for success. And so, yeah, but how do you think that, um, well setting it is the first thing, so, and that's a lot tougher than it than it is than it sounds, but, um, and this is, to me, this is probably to the role of the, of the leadership thing is being really clear on where we go. And what are the objectives, both in the sort of long time, long-term your, your vision of where you want to get to over a number of years, and also in the shorter term of a kind of three to six months time, what does success look like?
Speaker 0 00:33:06 And, and then the sort of challenging thing within that is having it at a manageable number of things that people can, uh, can understand and can consume when they're not spending all day everyday, just with you this, but actually that they're sort of maybe working on one of these, but you want them to have the context of, you know, five things or eight things that once you start getting much beyond that, there's just too many and there's just a lot of stuff and I'll just focus down on my individual thing. So, um, so yeah, leadership team setting, it it's difficult conversations. What are the priorities, having those challenging conversations between one another is what's really important and, and that's an important process to go through it. And I think we need really valuable process to go through as a leadership team and then communication of that.
Speaker 0 00:33:54 And it's one of those things that you almost can't communicate too much. I mean, but if you talk about it in every single meeting, but, um, that's, uh, but you know that talking about these kinds of things weekly or fortnightly on, on, in a company stand ups or whatever your relevant forums might be, which it looks you might be different in today's world, how they were before. Um, but yet bringing those things out all the time to remind people, especially again, in a growing organization, we've also got new people coming in all the time. So repeating these things so that you catch them, move a new join us as well. Um, and, and reminding people. And I think what's important as well is it's not just saying what the objectives are, but being really clear about how you're performing again, it's, um, say that, you know, going back to that point of, there's always some of it that's lagging behind somewhere. It's good for people to understand that and know why you're focusing there, and it's not because you know, that bits corner or your favorite bits or something like that is that it's to, you know, address these challenges. And if we're all trying to get that together, then it's only fair that we will understand why their challenges
Speaker 1 00:34:57 Perfect. And you touched on the kind of the, tell them, tell them, tell them again, uh, communication based that I can relate to that. Um, and something that we try to do as an organization on a, at least a monthly basis, as well as everyone being aligned sort of daily in terms of what they're doing, but are there any other than kind of spoken communication, um, in company rituals, are there any tools or systems that you use or methodologies that say, or practices that you use to, um, align people from a goals perspective and create transparency and visibility in terms of where people are against those goals?
Speaker 0 00:35:34 Yeah, so, um, okay. Is probably the classic one that, that many people use and upset, and they certainly use that to say, um, you know, people often kind of sit on the spectrum in terms of OKR system, perhaps have dominance now, but the sort of strict application of them, I, I haven't necessarily stuck always with the very strict application, but you know, something, you know, just kind of midway on the ramp, you kind of sticking with the essence of what's trying to be achieved. But, um, I will say to me there's an importance. I think one of the important principles within grant businesses is having momentum and, you know, sometimes it's better to say, yeah, do you know the objectives that you sell with key, key results that you set? They're not perfect, but it's better that we just accept them as they are now.
Speaker 0 00:36:20 And we use these for the next quarter and then we can integrate them both the next quarter, as opposed to spending another two weeks trying to tweak that wording or what have you. So, yeah. Okay. Also a key one in terms of tools, et cetera, to be honest, I've often found in the keeping it simple is the best. So, um, you know, communicating if you've got clear presentation or something that communicates that and, and things like that, um, I think it's, it can be quite easy to tie up up in knots trying to get, you know, trying to embed them really deeply and using tools to pick that. And actually so long as everyone's clear on what the company wants are, what their own ones are, and they've got, they know where they can find them and they communicate it clearly. Then to me, that's the key element.
Speaker 1 00:37:01 This is the essence. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. We use our cows as well. And I think it's fair to say that we have some adaptation, um, to that to suit our business. Cool. So as we move into a few closing questions now, Martin, um, what is, and we ask this question of everyone, it's a magic one question. What would you say is one challenge when it comes to building a business that if you could wave a magic wand, you'd love to be able to fix.
Speaker 0 00:37:32 Yeah, I'm going to cheat slightly and say to me, my first wave is to get, to get two more. So, uh, you know, hiring, building a business is, is all about people and bringing on people and bringing on the people, um, with the right skills, right. Experience, all that kind of thing, um, at the right time is if you achieve it, is, is fantastically helpful to your, to your business. So, uh, hiring is definitely a key one. And then the other one for me is communication skills. Um, I find if peop the more you can have all of your team communicating really clearly with one another, then the less you have to, uh, end up dipping into things and making sure that different people have got the right context or understood what's actually going on elsewhere. So having really good structures and, and people who can communicate really well with one another and really clearly set context and all that kind of thing is, um, is super useful. So kind of upgrading everyone's communication skills, um,
Speaker 1 00:38:37 It's an evolving and evolving ask, isn't it? The communications thing. Cool. Thank you for that. Is there anything that you are unapologetically passionate about? Something that you're maybe even obsessed with that people might not know about? Uh, it can be a lot hearted or, or very serious if you will.
Speaker 0 00:38:59 So if you asked me about a month ago, uh, I probably would have said married at first sight Australia because me and my wife were binge watching it. It's fair to say I was quite addicted to, uh, to that through the dark winter months. Um, but, uh, the, the other thing I'd say though, is, uh, it's running actually, it's probably, it's, it's my passion outside of, uh, outside of work. So I love being outdoors. I'm a keen distance runner, so I'm not very fast, but I like to do is do sort of long distance events. So that's my, that's my outlet that I find it really helps me get balanced and clear my head, et cetera. So, yeah, getting out on the trails for a few hours, this is definitely my thing.
Speaker 1 00:39:37 And that's in parallels with the distance running and your professional life as well. Cool. Thank you very much. And is there a thought or value or phrase that you live by
Speaker 0 00:39:52 Pretty, quite simple ones, but beknownst, and try your best as simple as they sound, but if you stick to them, you can go go too far, too far wrong. And I think sometimes try your best. People sees a bit of a, cop-out like, Oh, you tried your best, but you didn't say that that's okay. And actually, I'm, I see it slightly differently in that for me try your best means. Being able to sort of look yourself in the mirror or look your teammate in the eyes and be like, I've really tried our best here. And there was nothing else we could have done. And we, you know, we really did everything we could and, and, you know, so it's not just the, Oh, you know, you tried your best that's okay. But it's like really knowing that actually you're okay with the outcome, whatever the outcome might be, because you really did give it your best shot and knowing that's inside. That's it.
Speaker 1 00:40:39 Brilliant. Thanks again. So last question. Um, is there a business leader, COO founder, or source of inspiration that you have, uh, someone that you admire or think as a kind of unique or impactful approach to scaling, um, that perhaps we should even try and secure as a, I guess on a podcast?
Speaker 0 00:41:01 Uh, uh, I mentioned, uh, mentioned earlier, but, um, my coach, uh, who I've worked with for a few years, uh, is actually going to have a strong background in, uh, in, in people. So Chuck Collins is a startup, uh, executive coach executive coach for super sort of startup founders, et cetera, and, um, and has a really strong background in it. So I've found his insights super helpful over the last few years since he's certainly someone that, um, yeah.
Speaker 1 00:41:30 Cool. That's Collin Knight. Brilliant. Well, thank you very much for that, but it's been brilliant speaking to you today. Um, many of the points that you raised that kind of really resonated with me, and I can kind of understand that it's those deeply from personal experience, um, especially what you mentioned around, you know, being able to reframe difficult conversations and alignings, or the planning in terms of what you're trying to achieve and understanding what you're trying to optimize for different phases of company growth. So thank you so much for joining, um, lots of learning for me and hopefully lots of learning for, for the audience. Um, we're very excited to follow your journey. Yeah. And I'm sure it's going to be an exciting and successful year ahead for you and that the rest of the team very much enjoyed it. Our pleasure.
