Getting People Unstuck At Work With Johan Meyer

Rob: 00:00:00

Your work is getting people from stuck to unstuck.

Rob: 00:00:03

If you could just give us a bit of what's that about and where did that come from?

Rob: 00:00:08

Sure.

Rob: 00:00:08

I'll start with the

Johan: 00:00:09

second question maybe first.

Johan: 00:00:10

I think it's something that is a result of the stuff that I've focused on.

Johan: 00:00:15

So my background is really much more in operations sales

Johan: 00:00:18

operations and IT operations.

Johan: 00:00:20

And throughout my career, I've been fortunate enough and maybe cursed

Johan: 00:00:24

to always find myself in either the senior management or executive

Johan: 00:00:28

positions in the companies I were in.

Johan: 00:00:30

And that's what I enjoy.

Johan: 00:00:31

I enjoyed small companies.

Johan: 00:00:32

I enjoyed small businesses, haven't yet got the massive bank balances

Johan: 00:00:36

to say, what do we want to do?

Johan: 00:00:37

Okay, let's just go do it.

Johan: 00:00:38

We have to be really picky about what you do manage your resource as well.

Johan: 00:00:42

And then finding solutions both operational and in terms of technology.

Johan: 00:00:47

That put me in a position where I had quite a number of people reporting

Johan: 00:00:52

into me and working with me that were very capable, high potential, but they

Johan: 00:00:57

didn't necessarily have the opportunity to go and equip themselves with

Johan: 00:01:01

great degrees, or diplomas and such.

Johan: 00:01:03

And they had to work their way up.

Johan: 00:01:05

I found that even though I enjoyed the strategic operations and technology

Johan: 00:01:10

inside of the business sense.

Johan: 00:01:11

Quite a bit.

Johan: 00:01:12

I enjoyed a lot more working with the guys, who were there and they were

Johan: 00:01:17

trying to one, make a mark for themselves to make sure that they can support

Johan: 00:01:22

their own goals and dreams, support their families and build a career.

Johan: 00:01:26

And over the last couple of years, that's something that I haven't focused

Johan: 00:01:29

on too much, but I realized towards the end, towards the middle of last year.

Johan: 00:01:33

That is something that was missing on my side, I miss engaging

Johan: 00:01:36

with people who felt themselves.

Johan: 00:01:38

I want to go somewhere this is where I am now.

Johan: 00:01:41

I'm not sure how to get there, and not necessarily talking about

Johan: 00:01:44

life skills and life coaching.

Johan: 00:01:47

This is really a little bit more technical, a little bit more specific.

Johan: 00:01:51

So I started working on a concept for stuck.

Johan: 00:01:53

I was talking about June of 2023.

Johan: 00:01:55

And where we are right now is about a week away of getting it out properly.

Johan: 00:02:00

Over the last six months, it's really been working with a couple of

Johan: 00:02:03

people, asking questions validating some ideas, testing some structures.

Johan: 00:02:07

I think there's actually a need for this.

Johan: 00:02:09

If there are people who would find value in it, then one can potentially

Johan: 00:02:12

build a structure around it.

Johan: 00:02:14

In short, what it is, it's the focus.

Johan: 00:02:16

On helping people master key workplace competencies.

Johan: 00:02:20

You've got your, you've got your technical proficiency, your

Johan: 00:02:23

accountant or an engineer, software developer, whatever your job might be.

Johan: 00:02:28

But in order to be successful with that skill in the work environment

Johan: 00:02:32

there's quite a number of other things that you need to be able to do.

Johan: 00:02:35

There's managing yourself and your energy and, how you approach yourself.

Johan: 00:02:38

The expectations you set for yourself, the purpose to which you walk towards

Johan: 00:02:43

what you work for, the goals that you want to set for yourself then there's

Johan: 00:02:47

obviously how you engage with your job itself, do you understand what its purpose

Johan: 00:02:51

is, how it fits into the broader team and organizational structure, do you

Johan: 00:02:54

understand your business, understand how you guys make money, and how you service

Johan: 00:02:58

your customers, that kind of stuff, and then it's very much in line with

Johan: 00:03:02

how do you engage with your teammates?

Johan: 00:03:04

How do you Engage with your leaders?

Johan: 00:03:07

And how do you primarily take ownership of your own professional career?

Johan: 00:03:11

Instead of hoping that the environment you are in will provide you with the

Johan: 00:03:15

tools and the techniques necessary.

Johan: 00:03:18

This is about, I feel a little frustrated.

Johan: 00:03:20

I feel a little bit stuck.

Johan: 00:03:21

I'm not moving forward as fast as I want to.

Johan: 00:03:24

And I need to understand why.

Johan: 00:03:26

Once we understand what's potentially holding you back, then depending on what

Johan: 00:03:30

needs to be applied, we then work on.

Johan: 00:03:33

Firstly, learning any skills that might be lacking, within the context of that person

Johan: 00:03:37

and the environment in which they are in.

Johan: 00:03:39

And then secondly, within the context of what they are aiming for,

Johan: 00:03:43

what their own personal ambitions are, what they want to achieve.

Johan: 00:03:46

And that in a nutshell is what Stuck To Unstuck is.

Johan: 00:03:48

It's really taking your existing paradigm, existing reality, understanding what's

Johan: 00:03:53

keeping you where you are, what's frustrating you there, professionally,

Johan: 00:03:56

where do you want to be, and how do we map

Rob: 00:03:58

that trajectory out for you.

Rob: 00:04:00

So it's really going from potential to actualization.

Rob: 00:04:03

So someone has the technical competencies of whatever their job is.

Rob: 00:04:07

But they don't necessarily, if you go to be an accountant or you go to be a

Rob: 00:04:11

lawyer, they teach you how to do law or how to do accountancy, but they

Rob: 00:04:14

rarely teach you the human skills.

Rob: 00:04:16

They really teach you how to fit in, how to work with others.

Rob: 00:04:19

And that's what you do is filling in those gaps.

Rob: 00:04:24

Correct.

Johan: 00:04:25

Helping the person equipping with that, and it's

Johan: 00:04:27

really for their own empowerment.

Johan: 00:04:29

A couple of cliches that I'm throwing in here, but I think that's the key thing.

Johan: 00:04:33

It's realizing one, I can do something about it.

Johan: 00:04:35

And two, okay, I'm going to help you do something about

Johan: 00:04:38

it, and then we take it from

Johan: 00:04:39

there.

Rob: 00:04:39

What's your purpose in doing what you're doing?

Johan: 00:04:42

My purpose is very internal.

Johan: 00:04:44

It's what I'm describing with a number of people that work with

Johan: 00:04:46

me and for me it's also very much something that I experienced myself.

Johan: 00:04:50

I used to be the guy that spent lots of hours at the office, and it

Johan: 00:04:53

took every initiative I could find.

Johan: 00:04:55

And I remember when I was just starting out back in 1998 at a

Johan: 00:04:58

company called Junkmail I was first appointed as the head of training.

Johan: 00:05:02

And I thought that the training manual that they were using

Johan: 00:05:06

was completely inappropriate.

Johan: 00:05:07

So I spent about two weeks of my own time completely rewriting a five page training

Johan: 00:05:12

manual into a 60 page training manual.

Johan: 00:05:15

It changed the retention and the capability of new people, continuously.

Johan: 00:05:21

Quite well.

Johan: 00:05:22

But, it was one of those things that I just thought of, this needs to happen,

Johan: 00:05:24

but despite all of that, I felt that I'm still not moving forward yet.

Johan: 00:05:29

And that was the refrain throughout my career.

Johan: 00:05:30

I was always the guy that saw maybe an opportunity, maybe let's get this

Johan: 00:05:33

done, but I struggled to get that across, and I struggled to to really

Johan: 00:05:37

get blind sometimes or to just connect, with the guys that I'm working with.

Johan: 00:05:41

But very much a personal thing as well.

Johan: 00:05:43

And I remember the frustration I felt, I remember, often going back from home

Johan: 00:05:48

and my wife's here and it's eight or nine o'clock at night and I'm thinking

Johan: 00:05:51

to myself, why the hell am I doing?

Johan: 00:05:53

What is the, what am I trying to achieve here?

Johan: 00:05:55

And it took me the better part of 20 years.

Johan: 00:05:58

To really figure out, that your technical abilities and the amount of effort

Johan: 00:06:02

that you put in is very little to do.

Johan: 00:06:04

And if I can help a couple of people who's sitting with that same

Johan: 00:06:06

frustration to not have to go through the same anguish, if you will.

Johan: 00:06:11

It sounds trite sometimes, but that really, for me is the key thing.

Johan: 00:06:14

That's something I feel passionate about.

Johan: 00:06:15

Then the other thing that to me is very key is people who are joining

Johan: 00:06:19

the workforce for the first time.

Johan: 00:06:20

What I haven't mentioned yet is, if everything goes according to plan,

Johan: 00:06:23

what I would like to do within the next six months is put a specific

Johan: 00:06:28

structure together around this concept.

Johan: 00:06:30

That really just aims at helping young people, understand how

Johan: 00:06:35

to engage and be efficient when they get to the work environment.

Johan: 00:06:40

You get out of school yes, Africa, when you're 18, you get out of school, then

Johan: 00:06:43

most people go and they go get a job.

Johan: 00:06:45

You get a job as an intern somewhere or a clerk or something.

Johan: 00:06:49

And it's low paid.

Johan: 00:06:50

Nobody really respects you a lot there's not a lot you can do, even if you

Johan: 00:06:54

get out of university with a degree, you're starting at the lowest rung,

Johan: 00:06:57

and you still don't know what to do.

Johan: 00:06:59

You've got all this technical knowledge, but you still don't know what to do.

Johan: 00:07:01

And if we can help the workforce improve their ability to get these

Johan: 00:07:05

guys properly effective, maybe five to eight years now to get that level

Johan: 00:07:08

of experience, you can bring that down some effective work to maybe one or two

Johan: 00:07:12

years to really get them an effective part of a team that they're not looked

Johan: 00:07:16

down as a junior anymore, but they are considered proper part of the team.

Johan: 00:07:20

I think then everybody benefits.

Rob: 00:07:21

I can totally understand that.

Rob: 00:07:22

I've always hated politics and I've seen people say that you have to play the

Rob: 00:07:26

game on that and wherever I've worked, I've always noticed problems and I've

Rob: 00:07:30

always come up with solutions and, But just solving the problem isn't enough.

Rob: 00:07:34

I often felt that I didn't get the appreciation.

Rob: 00:07:37

I didn't get the, recognition for doing that because it solved

Rob: 00:07:41

the problem, but it was awkward.

Rob: 00:07:43

It was things that people didn't want to deal with.

Rob: 00:07:45

And there were people who had ruffled feathers.

Rob: 00:07:47

And so it just let that.

Rob: 00:07:48

Get done.

Rob: 00:07:49

And now, okay.

Rob: 00:07:50

It's done.

Rob: 00:07:50

Thank you.

Rob: 00:07:51

Yeah.

Rob: 00:07:51

So knowing the skills of how you communicate that better and how you

Rob: 00:07:56

can, because just doing the job isn't enough there are so many politics and

Rob: 00:08:02

whatever involved in corporates, correct?

Johan: 00:08:04

That's the key thing because you're working with other people,

Johan: 00:08:07

and human beings are complex and complicated and they've each got their

Johan: 00:08:10

own they've got their own reality.

Johan: 00:08:12

From their own experience, and they've got their own worries and struggle.

Johan: 00:08:16

We read a lot on LinkedIn about empathy and how important empathy

Johan: 00:08:19

is in skills, and that's true.

Johan: 00:08:21

But, if you really ask somebody, what does that mean?

Johan: 00:08:24

Is that a principle?

Johan: 00:08:25

Is that an emotion?

Johan: 00:08:26

Is that just a behavior?

Johan: 00:08:28

Is that a mindset?

Johan: 00:08:30

You'll get four different answers.

Johan: 00:08:31

And I think part of that problem is, some of the things that we describe

Johan: 00:08:34

sometimes and writers have described that become almost too theoretical.

Johan: 00:08:40

And we sometimes forget that, the other side of the table, the other

Johan: 00:08:43

side of the email, the telephone, there is another person sitting there,

Johan: 00:08:47

and as you, they've got things they want to do, and they've got things

Johan: 00:08:50

they want to achieve, and they've got their own frustrations and worries

Johan: 00:08:53

and concerns, and once we understand that, as a mindset, as a foundation,

Johan: 00:08:57

then many of these other skills, quote unquote, become almost automated, it's.

Johan: 00:09:03

Next action.

Johan: 00:09:04

I get an email, some guy I worked with, that was a great example.

Johan: 00:09:08

He continuously struggles.

Johan: 00:09:09

He heads up a service desk.

Johan: 00:09:11

And typical to most service desk managers, very specific,

Johan: 00:09:14

very rule driven, very fanatic.

Johan: 00:09:15

And this guy's personality just fits it to a T.

Johan: 00:09:18

And he's got this one guy who, he's genuine.

Johan: 00:09:21

He doesn't mean anything by it, but he just doesn't think that way, so he just

Johan: 00:09:25

phones him, listen, I've got a problem.

Johan: 00:09:26

And he says, have you logged a ticket?

Johan: 00:09:28

That's You know, it's that typical thing.

Johan: 00:09:30

And he tells me, why do people not understand the rules?

Johan: 00:09:33

My question to him is, how many people do this?

Johan: 00:09:36

Everybody or just a handful?

Johan: 00:09:37

He says no.

Johan: 00:09:37

Most people follow the rules, we can work together.

Johan: 00:09:40

I say, so for this one guy, how important is it for you to make sure that you and

Johan: 00:09:44

him have a great working relationship?

Johan: 00:09:46

He says no, it's important.

Johan: 00:09:47

I said, okay have you sat down with him and tried to figure out, is there

Johan: 00:09:50

another way that you can do this?

Johan: 00:09:52

But firstly, not believing so hard that what you have put in place

Johan: 00:09:56

is the ultimate and the best.

Johan: 00:09:58

You don't know that there might be different ways that

Johan: 00:10:00

you two can work together.

Johan: 00:10:02

It wasn't a message well received initially, but things that at the end

Johan: 00:10:05

of the day, they have a conversation and things are moving forward.

Johan: 00:10:08

Now, two things resolved there.

Johan: 00:10:10

One, there's a better working relationship, but technically

Johan: 00:10:12

this guy that I'm working with, he mental frustration is down.

Johan: 00:10:16

Yeah.

Johan: 00:10:16

Suddenly you can think about other things.

Johan: 00:10:18

It's not so frustrated anymore.

Johan: 00:10:20

Yeah, people are at the same side, very complicated, but also very simple, and

Johan: 00:10:24

Sometimes we just need to understand that.

Rob: 00:10:25

Yeah.

Rob: 00:10:26

And it's the nature of social media is like every social media platform has

Rob: 00:10:31

its own Facebook is very polarizing.

Rob: 00:10:34

Instagram is very visual visual representation.

Rob: 00:10:37

The nature of, we all write in LinkedIn and there's, you've only

Rob: 00:10:41

got this much space, and so you don't really have the time or the ability

Rob: 00:10:46

to go into nuance and so Correct.

Rob: 00:10:48

It does being, everyone saying the same thing, but it's, yeah.

Rob: 00:10:52

The d the nuance is what makes all the difference in when you're applying it.

Rob: 00:10:56

And it is so easy to forget about the humanity of the people on the other side.

Rob: 00:11:01

So now looking at the philosophy of what you've done, I understand the purpose

Rob: 00:11:07

that you felt called is something that you felt called to do, But now I'm

Rob: 00:11:11

looking at, so like you say, there's many other people that do the same thing.

Rob: 00:11:15

But you'll do it in your own slant because of your experiences and who you are.

Rob: 00:11:20

So I'm interested in, by philosophy, so for example I talk about

Rob: 00:11:24

relationships getting teams to work together by relationships.

Rob: 00:11:27

My purpose is nothing to do with relationships.

Rob: 00:11:29

I had little interest in relationships.

Rob: 00:11:32

It was about people being free of relationships because until people

Rob: 00:11:35

know how to master relationships, they get trapped in bad relationships.

Rob: 00:11:39

They feel insecure, anxious.

Rob: 00:11:41

But when I think of what's the philosophy of mine is that we've been

Rob: 00:11:46

given the frame that doesn't work.

Rob: 00:11:48

And that because that's what I saw.

Rob: 00:11:50

I saw patterns of people running on something that made the most sense.

Rob: 00:11:54

So in terms of your work so you saw a need.

Rob: 00:11:57

And now the philosophy is by philosophy, the kind of how you solve the problem.

Rob: 00:12:03

I hear what you're

Johan: 00:12:03

saying.

Johan: 00:12:03

I work from the premise or I'm applying the assumption, put it that way, that

Johan: 00:12:10

in most companies, and I'm saying this from anecdotal observation, reading,

Johan: 00:12:16

the stuff that's been put on LinkedIn, reading comments that are put on the post.

Johan: 00:12:20

Reading posts and comments that I'll put on platforms like Quora and also

Johan: 00:12:25

obviously my own personal experience that for the most part, people are not at work

Johan: 00:12:30

necessarily because they want to be there.

Johan: 00:12:32

There are a handful of individuals who are that blessed, they are at

Johan: 00:12:36

work because they want to be there.

Johan: 00:12:37

They don't want to be anywhere else.

Johan: 00:12:38

That's what they want to be.

Johan: 00:12:39

Have a good week.

Johan: 00:12:39

Good night.

Johan: 00:12:40

I believe in what they do, but for the most part, the, if I can think for myself,

Johan: 00:12:44

when I was back in a corporate environment I would rather have gotten on my GS and

Johan: 00:12:49

gone out in the felt for a hundred or 200 kilometer ride, than having to sit through

Johan: 00:12:54

another three project meetings, just.

Johan: 00:12:57

I don't want to do it.

Johan: 00:12:57

And, but there's a responsibility that you need to meet your work because it

Johan: 00:13:02

allows you to do things that can be very fundamental and help you to maintain

Johan: 00:13:06

a certain manner of living that allows you to put your kids in school and,

Johan: 00:13:10

to, to support them for what they want to do or allows you to just do things,

Johan: 00:13:14

hobbies.

Johan: 00:13:15

Yeah, we're fortunate, Cape Town where I live here on the West Coast,

Johan: 00:13:18

there's lots of good wind, in, in the bay and lots of kite surfing and

Johan: 00:13:21

surfing, open water swimming and it's a very sporty kind of environment,

Johan: 00:13:25

but these things all cost money, and somewhere for me to be able to do it.

Johan: 00:13:28

I can think of nothing worse than having to do something every day, just so that

Johan: 00:13:33

you are able to do something else and you feel absolutely nothing for it,

Johan: 00:13:37

because you thought that your mental.

Johan: 00:13:40

Capability stuff, the quality of the work you do stuff, but it becomes a vicious

Johan: 00:13:44

circle because you do bad work and now you feel bad about the bad work you're doing.

Johan: 00:13:49

There's no pride left.

Johan: 00:13:50

As a human, you're doing everything.

Johan: 00:13:51

It's negative.

Johan: 00:13:52

You're not feeling any level of satisfaction there, so for me, I think

Johan: 00:13:56

if I assume that at least 50 percent of people in a professional environment

Johan: 00:14:01

feel slightly frustrated, feel slightly.

Johan: 00:14:04

How else can I make, can I get meaning from this?

Johan: 00:14:06

How can I get value?

Johan: 00:14:07

How else can I move forward in my career?

Johan: 00:14:09

Then the way I want to do it is, really for a start, is putting together

Johan: 00:14:14

a bunch of validated assumptions.

Johan: 00:14:16

What I mean by that is, working directly with individuals who relate

Johan: 00:14:20

to me and relate to my approach and who think that, what I can help

Johan: 00:14:24

them with can add value to them.

Johan: 00:14:26

There are many people engaging On very different platforms.

Johan: 00:14:29

They are many cultures.

Johan: 00:14:30

There are many guys put themselves up as mentors.

Johan: 00:14:33

I don't think of myself as a coach.

Johan: 00:14:35

I think of myself more as the manager that's not supporting you.

Johan: 00:14:39

Or instead of the manager that's not supporting because I think that's

Johan: 00:14:41

where the other challenge lies leaders.

Johan: 00:14:44

It's not like Lisa Martin and the business that they put together in the U.

Johan: 00:14:47

S.

Johan: 00:14:48

It's all about coach like leadership.

Johan: 00:14:50

They try and teach people how to become in a leadership

Johan: 00:14:53

position, also a brilliant coach.

Johan: 00:14:55

But the number of leaders, supervisors, managers, Petro actually attain

Johan: 00:15:00

that level of competence that I suspect are few and far between.

Johan: 00:15:03

And as a consequence.

Johan: 00:15:05

I think the need for experts like you and me, the rest of the guys out there, I

Johan: 00:15:10

think our ability to provide that service is far outstripped by the demand of that

Johan: 00:15:15

service, I don't think what we're trying to do from outside of this stage is try

Johan: 00:15:18

and conquer the market, but there are enough people that will relate to the

Johan: 00:15:22

way that I do things and team that we're going to put together, do things that we

Johan: 00:15:26

can provide them with the right benefit.

Johan: 00:15:28

And then in time, potentially link up and network with other.

Johan: 00:15:32

Entities, like yourself and others who do similar work and then identify,

Johan: 00:15:37

the very specific niches that we focus on and then work together to

Johan: 00:15:40

provide that layer of support to the leadership structures out there.

Johan: 00:15:44

We know that you struggle, but we can provide you with that additional

Johan: 00:15:47

resource and firepower that you need.

Johan: 00:15:50

Let's work together on it.

Johan: 00:15:52

Yeah, I

Rob: 00:15:52

think that's so true is, one of the things I, I taught in talking

Rob: 00:15:55

about relationships, and when I was in a, looking at a field of.

Rob: 00:15:59

Personal relationships, you look out and everyone's talking about relationships

Rob: 00:16:03

and there's so many books, but actually I realized there's very few books

Rob: 00:16:07

actually on relationships because if you look at, if you ask people what are

Rob: 00:16:10

your favorite relationship books, they talk about the five love languages,

Rob: 00:16:14

that's a book on communication, men are from Mars, women are from Venus, it's

Rob: 00:16:17

communication when you look at, what is it, Harville Hendricks and His kind of

Rob: 00:16:21

work is all like developmental psychology.

Rob: 00:16:24

It's Dan Wile and whatever they're really talking about conflict Stan

Rob: 00:16:29

Tatkin is really attachment theory.

Rob: 00:16:31

So they're not actually relationship books.

Rob: 00:16:34

The only, one of the very few, I think is, I think the Gottman's.

Rob: 00:16:37

I would say are definitely relationships, but most of the

Rob: 00:16:40

others have got some other slant.

Rob: 00:16:42

And it's the same.

Rob: 00:16:43

There's a million people working with teams but whether it's raising

Rob: 00:16:46

performance, or it's communication, but again, everyone's got a different.

Rob: 00:16:51

Piece of the thing.

Rob: 00:16:52

This is why I like to understand the person behind the program, because

Rob: 00:16:56

in that you get to understand yes.

Rob: 00:16:59

If I'm learning about something I want to learn about and they tell about this

Rob: 00:17:02

book influence me in this book influence.

Rob: 00:17:04

I'll then go back into those books and you look at the lineage and then

Rob: 00:17:07

you can see a clear understanding.

Rob: 00:17:10

Okay.

Rob: 00:17:10

I've got a grasp of what you do.

Rob: 00:17:13

So it's interesting that you say that you're not a coach because I was around

Rob: 00:17:17

at the beginning of coaching where Thomas Leonard, who they call the

Rob: 00:17:20

father of coaching I learned from him and I watched him and he's brilliant.

Rob: 00:17:24

He's a genius.

Rob: 00:17:25

But his genius isn't mine.

Rob: 00:17:26

I know that's not my style.

Rob: 00:17:28

And I, yes, I think, a lot of people have followed, like I've

Rob: 00:17:32

done coaching and learned from coaching, but I'm not a coach.

Rob: 00:17:36

And I think a lot, I think if you go into speaking or if you go into coaching,

Rob: 00:17:40

people will try and pigeonhole you.

Rob: 00:17:43

And they'll get you to promote coaching.

Rob: 00:17:44

They'll get you to promote speaking when really we need to

Rob: 00:17:48

find what's our individual flavor.

Rob: 00:17:49

So I like that you've recognized that.

Rob: 00:17:52

What I gained from what you said is that.

Rob: 00:17:55

Not everyone has a good manager.

Rob: 00:17:57

Cause ideally you're looking for a manager to mentor you so that you

Rob: 00:17:59

can grow up and rise up with and so you're providing that kind of service.

Rob: 00:18:04

So someone that may not have a, the manager that's encouraging or

Rob: 00:18:07

got time or space to be able to.

Rob: 00:18:11

Coach them, not coach or mentor them or whatever.

Rob: 00:18:14

That's really what you provide.

Johan: 00:18:15

I think that's where we spot in.

Johan: 00:18:16

Absolutely.

Johan: 00:18:17

And again, I'll say this from my own experience where I found, when

Johan: 00:18:20

I got frustrated, I went to the guy I reported to sometimes right?

Johan: 00:18:23

To the CEO of the company and said, why is this not working?

Johan: 00:18:26

Why am I doing wrong here?

Johan: 00:18:27

And I found over a 18 year period where I did that.

Johan: 00:18:31

One person out of probably about 20 that I went to that question, one

Johan: 00:18:35

person sat me down and said, all right, let's try and figure this out.

Johan: 00:18:37

The rest of them all said, don't worry, you're going to get this, or

Johan: 00:18:40

are you encouraging and stuff like that, but not because they didn't care.

Johan: 00:18:44

It's because they had so much that they also had to focus on and

Johan: 00:18:47

other things that they try to do.

Johan: 00:18:48

And I think they were always, and when I was in that position, I fell into that

Johan: 00:18:51

trap myself, where in my mind, I appointed you because I needed you to help me do

Johan: 00:18:56

something and I'm considering us a team.

Johan: 00:18:59

It took me a long while to realize that part of that teamwork, if you will, is

Johan: 00:19:03

also to ensure that the way that we work together, the way that we support each

Johan: 00:19:07

other, and the way that we fill in the gaps that the other person has, that

Johan: 00:19:11

sort of almost intuitive, fitting like a puzzle kind of situation, that isn't

Johan: 00:19:16

something that just happens all the time.

Johan: 00:19:17

It's not magic, you've got to work at it and you've got to make sure

Johan: 00:19:20

that you understand how to do it.

Johan: 00:19:21

So that's where that reference comes in.

Johan: 00:19:22

I hear what everybody says to leaders, you need to be able to do this.

Johan: 00:19:26

And having experienced this myself, I come back and say, most leaders, one

Johan: 00:19:31

has never had the training to do it.

Johan: 00:19:33

And even if they had the training for that context, for that person, what that person

Johan: 00:19:37

is trying to understand, I think there's a conflict of interest in any situation.

Johan: 00:19:41

Because I'm training you so that I can get what I want.

Johan: 00:19:45

And, now I don't think anybody goes out there really well.

Johan: 00:19:49

I'm saying that knowing full well that there are people that do that.

Johan: 00:19:51

But I think for the most part, there's good intention behind it.

Johan: 00:19:54

You're not trying to exploit the person, but how am I able to really help this

Johan: 00:19:57

person grow and become the person that they need to be professionally

Johan: 00:20:01

if I'm focused on the agenda I'm trying to achieve and as I should.

Johan: 00:20:04

I would rather have that leader in a position where he has a, it sounds really

Johan: 00:20:08

technical, but fully capable and fully able person in the team to work with.

Johan: 00:20:13

I'm not suggesting that leaders shouldn't do that mentoring coaching.

Johan: 00:20:17

I sometimes just think that there's, that we expect too much of it.

Johan: 00:20:20

Given everything that they also need to do, I think they can find.

Johan: 00:20:24

Appropriate, resources and firepower that can help him solve that problem.

Johan: 00:20:28

Because, if you want to, if you've got a team and you've got technology

Johan: 00:20:30

challenges, you go to your IT guy.

Johan: 00:20:31

And if you've got, procurement or product challenges, you go

Johan: 00:20:35

to your raw materials challenge, you go to your procurement guys.

Johan: 00:20:37

And they say, let's solve this.

Johan: 00:20:39

Where do you go?

Johan: 00:20:40

HR guys, that's not their job.

Johan: 00:20:42

I know there's many thoughts about what HR should be doing.

Johan: 00:20:45

But for the most part they understand how to manage human resources within

Johan: 00:20:49

corporate environments, are they fully equipped to help that be the best they

Johan: 00:20:53

can be in that professional capacity?

Johan: 00:20:55

Maybe, or whether or not we're here to pick up that ball.

Rob: 00:20:59

It's also part of the mentoring coaching type of relationship to

Rob: 00:21:04

grow someone is being challenging.

Rob: 00:21:06

And if you've got technical work to do and you're delegating and holding

Rob: 00:21:10

someone accountable, and then suddenly you're challenging them personally.

Rob: 00:21:14

It changes the relationship.

Rob: 00:21:15

So it's like for me.

Rob: 00:21:17

I can go in and talk to someone about their relationships,

Rob: 00:21:20

within a team and it's okay.

Rob: 00:21:22

Cause it's impartial.

Rob: 00:21:22

It doesn't matter to me.

Rob: 00:21:23

I don't care either way, someone here who you're talking about their

Rob: 00:21:27

relationship with their friend or with them then suddenly they've got

Rob: 00:21:30

an investment personal investment.

Rob: 00:21:32

To be a manager someone has to be technically competent, then they get

Rob: 00:21:35

promoted and then they need to suddenly learn the management competencies and then

Rob: 00:21:38

they need to learn the coaching mentoring.

Rob: 00:21:41

Given how pressed and short people are of time, I think it

Rob: 00:21:45

is asking too much for someone.

Rob: 00:21:47

Obviously, there's a lot of Johan in this program.

Rob: 00:21:51

As a kind of summary, before you even got to work, gotta have been some.

Rob: 00:21:56

Environments or events or something that have made you look at life in this way.

Rob: 00:22:02

So I'm curious how aware you are, you have certain things that drove you and

Rob: 00:22:06

influenced you in your perspective.

Johan: 00:22:08

It's an interesting question.

Johan: 00:22:09

I haven't really given it much thought.

Johan: 00:22:11

And I think it's worthwhile to maybe for myself to go and dive

Johan: 00:22:15

into it and see what it is.

Johan: 00:22:17

I think one of the things for me as a kid, sport of was very much.

Johan: 00:22:20

an important part of my life.

Johan: 00:22:21

I was fortunate enough to be, to do fairly well in the various

Johan: 00:22:24

sports that I took part in.

Johan: 00:22:26

And it was varied, cricket, rugby, squash I played field hockey for a

Johan: 00:22:30

long time and a number of, swimming, a number of other things, and it always,

Johan: 00:22:34

one of the things that my dad taught me always is, look, if you want to become

Johan: 00:22:38

better at this, because I remember clearly when I was in, I was 12 years

Johan: 00:22:42

old, and, we called it standard four.

Johan: 00:22:44

Now, wasn't great.

Johan: 00:22:46

I think in South Africa in a cricket game, I was not related to the first team.

Johan: 00:22:50

Now, I shouldn't have been because it's only the year after that, which

Johan: 00:22:54

is the final year of primary school.

Johan: 00:22:55

They are typically the guys that get into the first team.

Johan: 00:22:57

But I was frustrated because I knew I was better than them.

Johan: 00:22:59

And he said to me stop whining about it and go and practice.

Johan: 00:23:02

Oh, how much are you practicing?

Johan: 00:23:03

So I took my cricket kit and I walked to school every day after and

Johan: 00:23:06

I went and I did my own practice.

Johan: 00:23:08

And then eventually I became a lot better at it.

Johan: 00:23:09

And, I selected people in the first thing in time.

Johan: 00:23:11

So that was a key lesson in order to say if you really want to be better

Johan: 00:23:15

at something, then stop waiting for somebody to do it for you.

Johan: 00:23:17

You're going to have to go and figure it out yourself.

Johan: 00:23:19

And if you've got something and you can teach you something.

Johan: 00:23:22

And that's what I learned when I was when I was in high school playing squash.

Johan: 00:23:26

Fortunately, when I was 16, I reached, I think it was number 7

Johan: 00:23:29

in South Africa, but the reason was not because of any innate skill, it

Johan: 00:23:33

was because I practiced my butt off.

Johan: 00:23:35

I spent 3, 4 hours a day, doing cardio work, doing technical

Johan: 00:23:39

draws on the court, etc.

Johan: 00:23:41

And I was fortunate enough to have three people who were really good

Johan: 00:23:43

at the game, who looked at what I did, and gave me pointers and said,

Johan: 00:23:47

no, stop doing this and go do that, this, you're doing this wrong, etc.

Johan: 00:23:51

And I realized this is how much.

Johan: 00:23:53

Quicker.

Johan: 00:23:53

The learning went.

Johan: 00:23:55

Gary Player used, I think Gary Player said this, It's not about

Johan: 00:23:58

how much you practice, it's about how much perfect practice you do.

Johan: 00:24:01

And that's what makes you better.

Johan: 00:24:02

That's a sort of the key thing for me.

Johan: 00:24:04

It's having from, from school age, being in filth, say that you want to

Johan: 00:24:08

get better, you can sit and moan and groan about it, or you can wait for

Johan: 00:24:11

somebody to do something for you, or you can try and go do it yourself.

Johan: 00:24:14

And that's really, for me, those are the people that I find I relate to most

Johan: 00:24:18

in this work, are the guys that say, I really want to do better, I just don't

Johan: 00:24:22

know how, I'm not trying to convince anybody to do better, but if you are

Johan: 00:24:26

frustrated, then maybe I can help you, let's work together and get it done.

Rob: 00:24:30

I can see a clear influence from that to what you're doing.

Rob: 00:24:33

And also what you bring out there is I realized and trying to figure

Rob: 00:24:38

out who do I do great work with, who not so much and who doesn't work.

Rob: 00:24:44

And I came up with something that I called, I think there are some

Rob: 00:24:47

people who are power seekers, and someone phrased it better for me.

Rob: 00:24:51

And she said, they're p eople who want to be right.

Rob: 00:24:54

And then there's people who just settle just okay that's how it is.

Rob: 00:24:58

And they're like, peace.

Rob: 00:24:59

And what I realized the people that I really did my best

Rob: 00:25:02

work with was truth seekers.

Rob: 00:25:04

And this person said, people who want to get it right.

Rob: 00:25:08

And I think that's what.

Rob: 00:25:10

You're talking about there's some people that are like.

Rob: 00:25:13

This is it.

Rob: 00:25:13

It should be like this.

Rob: 00:25:14

Everyone's got to change, like Donald Trump is the, poster boy.

Rob: 00:25:17

But then there's other people who are like, okay this is how it is.

Rob: 00:25:20

But how do I do better?

Rob: 00:25:22

If you had all your experience and what you've seen in the corporate

Rob: 00:25:25

world and what you've seen from coaching people as what do you think's

Rob: 00:25:29

wrong in the world of work today?

Rob: 00:25:31

And.

Rob: 00:25:32

If you were president of work organizations or something

Rob: 00:25:36

that they had to change.

Rob: 00:25:39

What would be your mandate?

Rob: 00:25:41

It's a great

Johan: 00:25:41

question.

Johan: 00:25:42

I have thought about something similar in the past and I concluded that making

Johan: 00:25:46

a dramatic change would probably be more problematic than anything else.

Johan: 00:25:50

But people are creatures of habits, and they're creatures that they're

Johan: 00:25:53

used to doing things certain ways.

Johan: 00:25:55

The one thing that I would try install as a fundamental cultural principle

Johan: 00:26:00

is start having conversations again.

Johan: 00:26:03

I have seen but as a consultant working with different companies, as well as

Johan: 00:26:07

in companies of the last 12 years, I would expect, when tools like slack

Johan: 00:26:12

and, G chat and all these things came out this and then email specifically,

Johan: 00:26:16

people have many people have lost the ability to have an effective.

Johan: 00:26:20

Non confrontational discussion with somebody else, they hide away behind

Johan: 00:26:26

the keyboard, and I think that one wastes a lot of time, two, creates a

Johan: 00:26:30

lot of frustration because there's no context, there's no emotion, you can't

Johan: 00:26:33

see somebody's face or hear their voice, and therefore you cannot relate to what

Johan: 00:26:37

they're trying to really express to you.

Johan: 00:26:40

I suppose in the work that you're doing on relationships, this is something

Johan: 00:26:42

that you probably find quite often, is that ability to really convey.

Johan: 00:26:47

The message.

Johan: 00:26:49

Somebody that I reported to a couple of years ago said, you've

Johan: 00:26:51

got to see the white for the black.

Johan: 00:26:53

Don't just see the text on the page, see what's written between

Johan: 00:26:57

it, see the white on the page.

Johan: 00:26:58

So that's one thing, if I think of One thing that I would probably change is

Johan: 00:27:02

stop sending millions of Slack, stop sending millions of Teams messages.

Johan: 00:27:06

Stop trying to have conversations over email.

Johan: 00:27:08

Pick up the phone and phone.

Johan: 00:27:10

Walk to somebody if you're in the office and just go and spend two minutes there.

Johan: 00:27:14

Yes, I know it's frustrating.

Johan: 00:27:15

Yes, I know it's sometimes interruptive.

Johan: 00:27:17

But if you get that Slack message or that Teams, it's disruptive in any case.

Johan: 00:27:21

And you can solve it much faster.

Johan: 00:27:23

That human connection, that ability to connect to somebody else on a human level,

Johan: 00:27:27

I think that might be something that's either been lost or we are losing it.

Rob: 00:27:31

Totally agree with that is a fundamental.

Rob: 00:27:34

One of my four parts of what I do is teach people to disagree without

Rob: 00:27:38

drama because relationships break down at the point of conflict.

Rob: 00:27:42

And people think if you talk to people about their relationships,

Rob: 00:27:45

he'll be, Oh, my ex was an arsehole.

Rob: 00:27:48

But actually that behavior came long like the relationship broke long before

Rob: 00:27:54

and it broke when you had a conflict.

Rob: 00:27:56

Because people to get together and it's honeymoon and everyone's everything's

Rob: 00:27:59

perfect and we love each other.

Rob: 00:28:00

We will always do this, but then they have Children or something

Rob: 00:28:05

serious where they have a big conflict that they can't resolve.

Rob: 00:28:09

That's when they stop communicating and when they stop communicating, then they

Rob: 00:28:13

feel less connection and that's when the they don't like each other as much

Rob: 00:28:17

and that's when the behavior happens.

Rob: 00:28:19

So yeah, that's a fundamental.

Rob: 00:28:20

And I think I could empathize with someone who's your target market because

Rob: 00:28:24

when I worked where I've worked, like I say I felt like I did a good job, but.

Rob: 00:28:29

When there was a problem, if someone, I would classify people as good or bad.

Rob: 00:28:34

And someone did something I'd go that's it.

Rob: 00:28:36

I also when I was a kid in primary school I was one of the best footballers and then

Rob: 00:28:41

I went to high school and I didn't get in a football team because I was smaller

Rob: 00:28:45

While I was skillful, I was lazy and I know because I think because I played

Rob: 00:28:49

football younger, I had better control.

Rob: 00:28:51

I was good at going past people, but I didn't like tackling.

Rob: 00:28:54

I didn't want to run around.

Rob: 00:28:55

It was like, give me the ball and I'll do something with it.

Rob: 00:28:57

And as you got older.

Rob: 00:28:59

It was the workers who were running around everywhere who made all the difference.

Rob: 00:29:05

And they were the ones that got in the team and I got in and I was like, okay,

Rob: 00:29:08

do I really want to be a professional?

Rob: 00:29:09

I'll give it up.

Rob: 00:29:10

And then when things didn't go right and people didn't understand I

Rob: 00:29:14

probably didn't explain myself very well, but I would go, okay that's it.

Rob: 00:29:18

That's it.

Rob: 00:29:18

I'll go somewhere else and I would just leave and I would walk

Rob: 00:29:21

away from relationships rather than have that conversation.

Rob: 00:29:26

But obviously learning about relationships, learning about

Rob: 00:29:28

communication, learning more about people.

Rob: 00:29:31

I now understand that what I really needed was really what you do.

Rob: 00:29:35

And I think my work shows me that.

Rob: 00:29:38

The real problem in relationships is conflict and the problem with conflict is

Rob: 00:29:43

we have a frame that conflict is scary.

Rob: 00:29:46

And we start from a basis of not knowing how to resolve that conflict.

Rob: 00:29:52

And so it activates fear of fight or flight.

Rob: 00:29:54

So we either become aggressive or in which case we turn people off.

Rob: 00:29:59

Or we run away from it.

Rob: 00:30:01

And yeah, so I can totally see that.

Rob: 00:30:03

So I'm, I'd be on board with your change.

Rob: 00:30:04

I vote for you as president of all organizations.

Rob: 00:30:06

It's

Johan: 00:30:07

one of those, as I said, it's hard for people to make that change.

Johan: 00:30:12

It's basically, I think, there's so much written about younger people these

Johan: 00:30:16

days, and I feel like I'm ancient.

Johan: 00:30:19

But guys who have grown up with cellular technology and whatsapp and

Johan: 00:30:23

all the rest of the stuff, for them, it's how they communicate, and it's

Johan: 00:30:26

almost I don't for a moment suggest it's the right way just because

Johan: 00:30:29

that's your generational preference, but I think it's therefore harder.

Johan: 00:30:33

When I grew up in the 80s and the 90s, we didn't have that,

Johan: 00:30:36

you had to have a conversation.

Johan: 00:30:37

And I couldn't, I'll be honest with you if that was a situation, even

Johan: 00:30:40

though my dad would have sent me a text, I wouldn't, he would have

Johan: 00:30:43

written paragraphs, with details and bulleted and numbered and so forth.

Johan: 00:30:47

But it was much easier for him just to look me in the eye and say, listen,

Johan: 00:30:50

I You know, I don't like that, or, this is what you should be doing, and

Johan: 00:30:54

you can say so much less by conveying so much more, and feeling so much

Johan: 00:30:59

closer, so much more, what's that word that's often overused, authentic.

Johan: 00:31:03

It's genuine, it's, it's you can't hide behind it.

Johan: 00:31:05

If part of the conversation is talking about writing, and video and such,

Johan: 00:31:08

setting it, you can't hide behind it.

Johan: 00:31:10

You've got to, you've got to say what you need to say.

Johan: 00:31:12

And then, the stuff that he's talking about, helping people understand how

Johan: 00:31:14

to not do drama, how to not, take it personally, how to and that's difficult.

Johan: 00:31:19

That's really tricky stuff.

Johan: 00:31:20

If you haven't, if somebody hasn't, if you haven't grown up with it and

Johan: 00:31:24

somebody hasn't shown you, then, that's a tough learning curve.

Rob: 00:31:26

And a lot of people have a fear of conflict because they came from

Rob: 00:31:30

a violent home or a row meant people screaming and that door slamming

Rob: 00:31:35

and it's scary as a young child.

Rob: 00:31:37

So yeah, it is a tough skill to learn.

Rob: 00:31:41

But yeah I'm totally getting that message of connection.

Rob: 00:31:44

I think there is a lot in naturally we want to hide.

Rob: 00:31:47

Naturally.

Rob: 00:31:48

We want to shy away from anything that's difficult and it's easy when

Rob: 00:31:51

you've got dating apps or you've got messaging apps, you can avoid

Rob: 00:31:54

having the tough conversations.

Rob: 00:31:56

I think you've nailed

Johan: 00:31:57

it there, Rob.

Johan: 00:31:57

That's the best way I've

Rob: 00:31:59

heard it described so far.

Rob: 00:32:00

We'll always go for instant gratification and, but everything meaningful.

Rob: 00:32:05

Takes, like it's sport takes years of practice, hours of practice.

Rob: 00:32:10

And what we're losing or what I think maybe younger people even more are losing,

Rob: 00:32:14

but all of us to some extent are losing is that we're losing the attention, but we're

Rob: 00:32:20

also losing that connection and people are craving that connection, but they're

Rob: 00:32:25

trying to get it an instant gratification.

Rob: 00:32:27

It's really about connection and communication.

Johan: 00:32:30

There's one final point and I'll finish with this I've got to drop off and

Johan: 00:32:33

that is that you'll see when, I'll share with you next week when we've got the

Johan: 00:32:36

website up and running that one of the key things that repeated there, the term

Johan: 00:32:40

mastery, learning something, acquiring the information is one thing, you're

Johan: 00:32:44

going to be able to apply it confidently.

Johan: 00:32:46

And that, as far as outcome is concerned, that, that is the focus that we are

Johan: 00:32:50

driving for is to make sure that, once you acquired the information in this field,

Johan: 00:32:55

that you become a master at applying it, to your point that sometimes takes

Johan: 00:32:59

a long walk to, to actually get done.

Rob: 00:33:01

Mastery is so important.

Rob: 00:33:02

Are you familiar with George Leonard's work on mastery?

Rob: 00:33:04

He wrote the book Mastery.

Rob: 00:33:06

There's two books, Mastery, but I'll give you the gist of it.

Rob: 00:33:09

And so basically, he related it actually to relationships.

Rob: 00:33:13

And he said that there are Dabblers so these are people who would dabble

Rob: 00:33:17

in relationships and they love the excitement, as soon as it didn't

Rob: 00:33:19

work, they move off to somewhere else.

Rob: 00:33:22

And they're constantly seeking that high.

Rob: 00:33:24

Then there was obsessives.

Rob: 00:33:26

And these are the people that they take their relationships really seriously.

Rob: 00:33:29

They read a book and go, this is the secret.

Rob: 00:33:30

And they'd always try and get.

Rob: 00:33:32

This response from the person and so they're constantly trying

Rob: 00:33:35

to outdo what they did before so that they get more of a response.

Rob: 00:33:39

But obviously there's only so much you, there's only so many surprise

Rob: 00:33:42

weekends and things you can throw.

Rob: 00:33:44

Then there's the hacker and the hacker is Someone who's reached a certain level

Rob: 00:33:48

from taking shortcuts and that's it.

Rob: 00:33:51

I'm quite happy with this and so they'd be so this is the person that would

Rob: 00:33:55

be like sit on the sofa and don't want to do anything and whatever.

Rob: 00:33:59

And then suddenly their wife or partner would say to them, I'm not happy.

Rob: 00:34:03

I'm leaving.

Rob: 00:34:04

They go, why?

Rob: 00:34:05

I'm perfectly, we were fine.

Rob: 00:34:07

And it's because they never took account of the other person.

Rob: 00:34:08

And then it's about being a master.

Rob: 00:34:11

A master is going beyond the shortcuts of those things.

Rob: 00:34:15

But it's a short book, really.

Rob: 00:34:16

I'm not sure if I've got it here.

Johan: 00:34:18

No.

Johan: 00:34:18

I think I found it yet.

Johan: 00:34:19

Mastery, the key to success and long term fulfillment by George Leonard.

Rob: 00:34:23

That's it.

Rob: 00:34:24

I did get his name right.

Rob: 00:34:25

Yeah.

Rob: 00:34:25

Yeah.

Rob: 00:34:26

And that's a really interesting book.

Johan: 00:34:28

I'm going to try and find one locally because it doesn't

Johan: 00:34:30

seem to have a Kindle edition.

Johan: 00:34:32

So I'm going to try and find them, but thanks for that reference.

Johan: 00:34:34

I'd love to read stuff like that.

Rob: 00:34:35

It's quite an old book.

Rob: 00:34:36

But it's quite short.

Rob: 00:34:38

I think you'll like it.

Rob: 00:34:39

It's one I've loved that frame that you have anyway.

Rob: 00:34:42

Thank you for your time.

Rob: 00:34:44

I don't want to keep you too long but it's been fascinating to understand and

Rob: 00:34:47

to know a little bit more and to connect.

Rob: 00:34:49

Thank you very much from my

Johan: 00:34:50

side.

Johan: 00:34:51

Thank you.

Johan: 00:34:52

It's been wonderful for me to try and to share a little bit of what we do, thank

Johan: 00:34:54

you very much for taking interest in that.