Making Business Matter

E25 - Time Management Mastery: Interview With Francis Wade from 2Time Labs Francis Wade is the author of 2 books: Perfect Time-Based Productivity and Bill's Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure. He's the founder of 2Time Labs which he leads from his home in Kingston, Jamaica where he's resided since 2005. A graduate of Cornell University with a graduate degree in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering, he uses the latest research to pioneer the ideas comprising Time Management 2.0. In his consulting work with companies, he helps leaders remove the obstacles to employee productivity and greater profitability. He also works extensively with coaches, professional organisers, trainers, and consultants to apply the best thinking available to their client engagements. Today, we discuss time management mastery in more detail. Time Management Mastery You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmonds: Welcome to Sticky Interviews. I'm Nathan Simmonds, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills training to the grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea of these interviews is to share great ideas, great concepts and great ways these skills are being used to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Welcome to the show. Nathan Simmonds: Welcome to Sticky Interviews. My name is Nathan Simmonds, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. The idea of these interviews is to be sharing great minds, great ideas and great people with you to help you be the best version of you. Today, I've got the pleasure of having a second, third conversation with Francis Wade, time management expert, guru, aficionado, helping to uncover some of those myths and fallacies that we come up with against our own time management. Nathan Simmonds: Short bio from him. He's a columnist. He's the founder and creator of the CaribHRForum, which is a volunteer-based professional network. He's a consultant. He solves tough productivity problems for corporations. He's an author. He's a speaker, and he is helping those people that think they're time starved. He's helping the busiest 1% get even more efficient in their day through his skills. Francis, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for doing this interview. Really appreciate it. Francis Wade: Thanks, Nathan. It's great to be with you and your audience. Nathan Simmonds: I'm looking forward to this because we had a really large conversation previously, and that just went backwards and forwards, and we got all these different ideas and concepts. It was a really fluid, flowing dialogue, and I'm looking forward to getting some of these ideas shared with more people in this moment. Francis Wade: Great. Nathan Simmonds: I'm going to dive straight into this because people... I'm not sure how much of the audience we have know you, so I want them to find out more about you, and then we'll dive into what you're good at, your areas of expertise and your zone of genius. First and foremost, why do you do what you do? Francis Wade: Whoa, that's a big question. I guess I've always been interested in being productive as an individual. Long story short, I lived in the United States up until 2005, when I returned to live here in Jamaica. So I'm based here in Kingston, in the hills over Kingston here in Jamaica. It was really the transition that I made back from the US to living in Jamaica that got me to this heightened level of interest. It had been a passing pastime, I guess. I had led courses. I had done training. And I imagined that moving back, changing countries from a developed country to a developing country, wouldn't be all that hard. And I was wrong. Francis Wade: I discovered that my productivity plummeted,

E24 - How to Define Values: Interview With Author, James Kerr James Kerr is a highly experienced brand and business consultant, and advises clients, including KPMG, Raffles Group, Adidas, Heineken, and The Economist, to establish a compelling vision, values, and purpose to effect transformational organisational change. Combining how he grew up submerged in the traditions of New Zealand Maori culture alongside his studying the All Blacks, working with elite military forces, and prestigious sporting organisations you get a unique perspective of indigenous thinking, leadership philosophy, and practical action. All of this set him apart from your run of the mill Leadership consultant and make him a highly sort after thought-leader and change maker. In this episode, we talked about all things 'Values'; How to define your values? What are great examples of values? How to use values to pull teams together? James gave key questions to help provoke leadership and also to help "get words off walls and on to floors" Get a fresh pad and pen - James does not hold back on this and each little narrative in itself held 4-5 keys takeaways. His international bestseller book, Legacy - What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life identifies 15 fundamental leadership behaviours that create success and explores the culture of the New Zealand rugby team, the most successful sporting side in history. James Kerr- brand and business consultant You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmonds: Welcome to Sticky Interviews. I'm Nathan Simmonds, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills training to the grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea of these interviews is to share great ideas, great concepts and great ways these skills are being used to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Welcome to the show. Nathan Simmonds: Welcome to this Sticky Interview with me, Nathan Simmonds, senior leadership coach and trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. Today's interview, it's difficult for me to explain because there's so many crossovers in ideas, concepts and necessary learnings from what I get from this man from his content, the crossover of indigenous wisdom of timeless leadership skills and the necessity for values in businesses and organizations. Nathan Simmonds: The content that is shared from James is phenomenal and worth the time to invest in the listening to the understanding and the deployment of is phenomenal. He's a highly experienced brand and business consultant. He advises clients including KPMG, Raffles Group, Adidas, Heineken and the Economist which in itself is staggering to establish compelling vision, values, purpose and positioning and to affect transformational of organizational change. Nathan Simmonds: Even with that on its own, when you then go and look at his literature book, Legacy, the case study that was done with the All Blacks and his 15 behaviors of leadership and other books that are coming out and the talks that he does, those two elements separate are phenomenal. You put them together and you get an incredible career to date with some phenomenal changes that have come out of the back of it. Nathan Simmonds: Today, I'm going to dig into some personal interests of mine into this man's mind in order to share with you. There is going to be some deep wisdom shared for sure. I'm looking forward to this conversation massively. James Kerr, welcome to Sticky Interviews. Welcome to this conversation, and thank you for being here. So, very appreciate it. James Kerr: Thank you very much, Nathan. It's great to be here. Great to [inaudible 00:02:27] Nathan Simmonds: I didn't even know of you before and I've had a deep interest in spirituality and indigenous original wisdoms and culture ...

E23 - Interview With Crisis Negotiator, Ross Hardy Ross Hardy spent a decade as a cliff-edge crisis negotiator at one of the world’s most notorious suicide spots. The team he founded and led there became the busiest search and rescue team in the UK and has rescued 1000’s of people to date. The leadership lessons that he learned in those years, he now teaches through Discovery Hope, a UK based leadership consultancy. His latest online course Smart Thinking For Times of Crisis is available on Udemy and teaches tools for self, team, and organisational leadership for times of crisis and high pressure. Ross Hardy - crisis negotiator You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmonds: Welcome to another Sticky Interview with MBM, Making Business Matter. It's the home of, and soft skills provider to the retail and manufacturing industry of the UK. This podcast, the whole idea about this podcast is to be sharing great thinkers, and great concepts, and great ideas with you, to help you be the best version of yourself, especially in this time that we're living in right now with the crisis that are happening. Nathan Simmonds: Today, sharing the interview space with Ross Hardy, someone who's got phenomenal experience in crisis situations, in crisis negotiation, in crisis communication. And I'll introduce him shortly with a little excerpt from his bio, which is astonishing reading, and it comes with astonishing experiences. Ross Hardy spent a decade as a cliff edge crisis negotiator in one of the worlds most notorious suicide spots. The team he founded and led there became the busiest search and rescue team in the UK, and has rescued thousands of people to date. Nathan Simmonds: Just to add a little note in there, I live just down the road from this spot, Ross and I know the areas very well, locality and geographically. And yeah, world famous. The leadership lessons that he learned in those years, he now teaches through Discovery Hope, a UK based leadership consultancy. Nathan Simmonds: His latest online course, Smart Thinking for Times of Crisis, is available on Udemy we'll talk a bit more about that later, and teaches tools for self, team, and organizational leaders for times of crisis and high pressure. It's not just about today, in the day and age of COVID-19, it's about the crisis that was probably on people's tables 12 weeks ago, it's all about the crisis that will be on people's tables 24 weeks from now. This may be unprecedented times, but these are not unprecedented circumstances, or ways of thinking. This is why it's vital. Nathan Simmonds: Ross, massive thanks for being here, really appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation. Going to dive straight into this with some of the things. I want to find out why you do what you do. We've had a little bit of a conversation. I want to find out why you do what you do, and I want you to tell the world why you do what you do. Ross Hardy: Okay. Well firstly, as you mentioned, I spent 10 years as a crisis negotiator. I led a team of crisis negotiators on a cliff edge, dealing with people who were coming out to end their lives. Some actually from all over the world to that single spot. And in that time, I had an awful lot of experiences of people in crisis of course, learning how to manage people in crisis, throughout crisis negotiation techniques that we would use, and also learning how to lead myself, to lead a team, and to lead an organization that's dealing with crisis on a daily basis. The crisis of people who were coming to Beachy Head, that's the place I was based, with the intention of ending their lives. But also, the kind of crisis that normal organizations come across, and crisis that were unique to that organization, the risks of the life of a team, the challenges in fund raising, and lots of different things that were associated around a kind of unusual workspace if you like. Ross Hardy:

E22 - Good Customer Service: Interview With 'Canada’s Marketing Superstar', Marc Gordon Marc Gordon is an internationally recognised thought leader in the field of customer experience. With over 25 years of marketing and sales experience in a number of diverse industries, he has built a reputation for providing insightful concepts that are both innovative and effective. As an award-winning keynote speaker, Marc has spoken for some of the world’s most respected companies, including Bausch & Lomb, Hilton Hotels, and Mondelez International. Marc is the only speaker in his field to have keynoted at the World Management Forum in Tehran, Iran. Regularly featured on television and radio for his opinions, Marc has shared his thoughts on topics that include the boycotting of brands, customer service in the airline industry, and companies such as Facebook and Starbucks. Marc has been referred to as 'Canada’s marketing superstar' by the Oprah Winfrey Network. Today, we discuss good customer service in more detail. Marc Gordon - internationall recognised thought leader You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmonds: Today I have the pleasure of introducing Marc Gordon. His bio here, again, I'm overwhelmed, I'm staggered at the wonderful people that I get to have a conversation with, their resumes, what they've achieved, what they've accomplished and the areas of expertise they have. Marc Gordon is no exception to this. He is an internationally recognized thought leader and the field of customer experience, with over 25 years of marketing and sales experience in a number of diverse industries. He also has a reputation for providing insight or concepts both innovative and effective. He's an award winning as a keynote speaker. He's spoken with some of the world's most respected companies including Hilton Hotels, Bausch + Lomb, Mondelez International. He's also the only person to have spoken in his area of expertise at the World Management Forum in Tehran in Iran, which itself is pretty staggering. His regularly featured on TV and radio for his opinions. He shares his thoughts on topics that include the boycotting of brands, customer service in the airline industry and companies such as Facebook and Starbucks. Marc has been referred to as Canada's marketing superstar by the Oprah Winfrey Network. Mic drop right there. Nathan Simmonds: Marc, thanks very much for being here, they really appreciate it. Marc Gordon: My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Nathan Simmonds: I got introduced to you a few months ago, it feels like forever ago, just to talk to you about the different ways that you look at customer service, what a good customer experience is, customer expectation and how you manage these as a provider of product or service and as that dialogue opened up there was just so much good stuff in here to share from your ways of thinking and your approaches to these things that can help so many people out, and so many businesses, small, medium enterprises and leaders in their space, it would have been remiss of me not to get you on here and have this conversation that's for certain. Marc Gordon: Well thank you. Nathan Simmonds: The first question from me is always why do you do what you do? Marc Gordon: Wow. Boy, you start off with the serious questions right away don't you? All right. Give me a sec. If I can just open up about this I guess a little bit. So why, that's a great question. Marc Gordon: I guess it starts with the fact that going back as a kid in elementary school I was one of these kids that didn't quite fit in. I wasn't one of the cool kids, I wasn't one of the smart kids, I wasn't one of the athletic kids. I didn't seem to fit into any group and back then when you didn't fit in you became a target for bullying, and through much of school I was bullied relentlessly. It was a time when, unlike today, where it's taken seriously, back then parents,

E21 - How Do We Return to Work? Interview With HR Expert and Owner of Stonechat HR Consulting, Becky Neale Becky Neale is a proven, commercially focused HR leader leading large-scale HR teams for the likes of RWE nPower, Labrokes, and Accolade Wines. Operates as part of senior leadership teams, devises and sets HR strategies aligned to the wider organisational goals, designing culture and values-based programs to support the development and evolution of operating models, associated change management and employee engagement. A hands-on operator who empowers teams and communicates in a natural, down to earth style with the ability to remove complexity in fast-paced commercial organisations. Today, we discuss how we return to work. You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmonds: Welcome to Sticky Interviews. I'm Nathan Simmonds, Senior Leadership Coach and Trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of sticky learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills training to the grocery and manufacturer industry. The idea of these interviews is to share great ideas, great concepts and great ways these skills are being used to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Welcome to the show. Nathan Simmonds: Welcome to today's interview. I have the pleaser of interviewing Becky Neale today. HR Director, expert. I've got a phenomenal bio on here which is worth reading just in itself, and then we're going to get into some serious questions about high performance teams. About the return to work which is so very poignant for right now as we're recording this video, stores opening and people going back to business. But also, other businesses returning their people from home as well. And also looking at employee engagement off the back of that which is why I wanted to have this conversation with Becky and the direction that I'll get to know you went previously just expose so many challenges that are going to come up in the future. Nathan Simmonds: So, with a proven commercial focus, HR leader, leading large scale HR teams for the likes of RWE, Empower, Ladbrokes and [inaudible 00:01:28]. Operates as part of a Senior Leadership team, devises and sets HR strategies aligned to wide organizational goals. Big stuff. Designing culture, values based programs. Support the development and evolution of operating models, associated change mangement employee engagement. These are all big things, especially for HR Directors working in a global space. Nathan Simmonds: But even though it's big, global, it's also hands on. She's a hands on [inaudible 00:01:54] who empowers her team, communicate in a natural down to earth style. And the best bit about the conversations that I've had with Becky before now is that she takes that complexity and makes it easy for people to understand, especially in fast paced environments. This is why I wanted to share some of this. As I said, it's high performance team, employee engagement. And the elephant in the room, the return to work, which I think even in normal circumstances was an elephant in the room in itself, let alone now as it's environment that we work in and the ecosystem we're working in changes. Nathan Simmonds: So Becky, welcome to Sticky Interviews. Thanks for being here, thanks for sharing your team. First question from me which is probably the most important question, why do you do what you do? Becky Neale: Hi, thank you for having me. I guess I just really enjoy working with large teams, leadership teams setting strategy and direction. Really then just drilling down from that in terms of making them operational plans, working with employees, wider groups from the management, the leadership team and where appropriate if you have a union, union in that organization. It's the variety, it's the complexity, and it's really driving them through and seeing results and taking employees on the journey that just really floats...

E20 -  Effective Communication Skills: Interview with Suzie Parkus Suzie Parkus is a sought after motivational and educational speaker, trainer and soon to be author. Her expertise lay in all things communication, from interpersonal skills, relationships, emotional intelligence, networking intelligence and most importantly in today's day and age, how our state of mind affects how we act, react and interact. Good emotional hygiene is often overlooked, but once understood, unlocks the key to that all-important human connection. Today, we discuss all things communication. Suzie Parkus - motivational speaker You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmonds: Okay. I'm paper really, got my drink. Welcome to another Sticky Interview. My name's Nathan Simmonds. I'm Senior Leadership Coach and Trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the soft skills' provider to the UK retail and grocery industry. Now, the idea of these podcasts is to be sharing great thinkers, great approaches, concepts and ideas that are going to help you and your teams be the best version of their selves so that they can deliver the best possible results even in a time of crisis like this. Nathan Simmonds: Today I'm going to be speaking to friend, peer, coach, mentor, all of those things. Someone that I speak to regularly about communication and collaboration, Suzie Parkus. And reading her bio... although I've known her for some years, I want to read this bio. She is a sought after motivational and educational speaker, trainer, and soon to be author. Her expertise lay in all things communication, absolutely it does; from interpersonal skills, relationships, emotional intelligence, networking intelligence because we need to be intelligent when we're networking. Nathan Simmonds: And most importantly in today's day and age, how our states of mind affects how we act, react and interact. Good emotional hygiene is often overlooked. But once understood, unlocks the key to that all important human connection. Suzie, thank you very much for being here and part of this interview today. Suzie Parkus: Thanks for having me. Nathan Simmonds: I'm looking forward to asking you some questions about this because we met, three years ago? Two years ago. Three, it must be three years ago now. Suzie Parkus: February, 2018. Nathan Simmonds: There you go. Okay, two, in personal development seminar and we got talking eventually after that event. One of the key things that I've always struggled with is how I communicate intentionally, how I work with people, how I offer my services, and how I make contribution first rather than about what I can take from people. And there's a lot of that going on. So my key first question for you is, why do you do what you're doing? Suzie Parkus: Why do I do what I do? I think this kind of came to me when I was doing a talk last year, if I'm honest. I was given the opportunity to just take the floor and they changed the nature of the interview. In this opportunity to just kind of talk from my heart, I said something that has never left me, which is that I never got seen, heard and noticed when I was younger. It just came out as unconscious stream of thoughts. Then it got me thinking that now I do get seen, heard and noticed and part of what I do is helping other people do the same. But it's not just that PR publicity piece. It's about interacting with sort of class and confidence and consideration. I've never been interacted with like that growing up. Suzie Parkus: And so, I'm very sensitive to what it feels like not being, I didn't know, not having my feelings taken into consideration when being approached, I guess.  I'm very sensitive towards others when I'm communicating with them. And that's actually the biggest piece. That's the IQ, well, the emotional intelligence. I try and ask people to get their head around first before opening their mouth so they can ma...

E19 - Team Building and Teamwork: Interview With Oliver Bailey from Harvest for Heroes The son of publicans from South London, Oliver Bailey attended Dulwich College school, leaving in 1994. Beginning his career in Recruitment, he founded his first businesses in 1998. He has since owned and acquired further businesses in varying fields, including Information Technology, Construction, and Energy. In recent years, Oliver has focussed on Healthcare, where is an owner and Director of Remedy Healthcare Solutions, a leading provider of insourced and outsourced diagnostic services to the NHS. He recently founded Harvest For Heroes, a fundraising initiative to supply free, fresh produce to our NHS front line workers. Today, we discuss teamwork in more detail. Team building and team work with Oliver Bailey You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmonds: Welcome to Sticky Interviews. I'm Nathan Simmonds, Senior Leadership Coach and Trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills training to the grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea of these interviews is to share great ideas, great concepts, and great ways these skills are being used to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Welcome to the show. Nathan Simmonds: Today I am speaking with an interesting, exceptional, and very focused individual. I've seen some of his posts on LinkedIn, I've seen the interviews on the BBC News, and I had to reach out and have a conversation with this gentleman about his work, what he's doing right now in the midst of COVID-19, if we're in the middle of it, the beginning of it, the end of it, I have no idea. Nathan Simmonds: With the stresses that the services, our national services are experiencing, Oliver stepped up in this, pivoted with his business idea, and he's supporting them with fresh fruit and vegetables, and providing this to NHS workers because they're under so much stress they're not able to think and make healthy decisions about what they're doing in their grocery shopping. He's stepping in with a charity organization that makes this happen for them at their doorstep, delivering them fresh fruit and vegetables at the hospitals, at source, at location to help them so they can focus their thinking onto the most important task, which is making sure people live. I don't think I can be any more explicit about that, to be honest, Oliver. Oliver Bailey: No, that's pretty good. Nathan Simmonds: I said this before, and I was going to say it again, from me, and from everyone already you're helping no doubt you're getting loads of thanks for this, I want to say thank you from us, from everyone else that you've touched. You're doing incredible work. Please, explain why you do what you do, what you're doing in probably a clearer way than I could ever imagine to. Oliver Bailey: Well, I appreciate your support on this, Nathan, and anyone's interest in it. That's great and it really helps keep us all going. This all started off at Harvest for Heroes, well, I found myself, like lots of people at the moment, with a fair bit of down time that'd been imposed on me, or I should say working from home, and with working from home, a real slow down in my business. As you know, with all the weight of the world, there's only so much you can do at this time because everyone else is busy. I work with the NHS in my professional life, so they've all been dragged away on things far more important than talking to me. Oliver Bailey: So I found myself with a bit of time on my hands, and I wanted to do something for my local hospital, which is here in London, Kings College Hospital. I've got a lot of love for them. Two of my children were born there. My son, Henry, was born a couple of years ago there with a rare form of spina bifida, and a really stressful time for us all looking back. When he was a year old,

E18 - Effective Presentation Skills: Interview With Paddy Willis from Mission Ventures In this episode, I interview Paddy Willis. Paddy is Founder and CEO of Mission Ventures and has a passion for building better challenger brands. He was co-founder of disruptive baby-food brand Plum, which was sold in year five to Darwin PE in 2010 on retail sales of £15m. Since then he has been mentoring and supporting start-ups across the industry, with the first UK Food accelerator launched in January 2015. Recently, Mission Ventures announced their partnership in The Good Food Fund, a £1.8m fund established by Big Society Capital with Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity to tackle childhood obesity with market-led solutions. Today, we discuss effective presentation skills. Paddy Willis - Founder and CEO of Mission Ventures You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmons: We are in. Phenomenal. Welcome to another Sticky Interview. My name is Nathan Simmons. I'm senior trainer and coach for MBM, Making Business Matter, the training provider, soft skills provider for the U.K. grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea with these interviews is to be sharing the thoughts and concepts of great people in great spaces doing great work to help you be the best possible version of yourself. Today, I'm speaking to a gentleman I got to meet last week by the name of Paddy Willis. Nathan Simmons: Paddy, I'm going to read his bio here. I'm going to tell you why some of this is so engaging for me, though. Paddy is the founder and CEO of Mission Ventures, and has a passion for building better challenger brands. He was co-founder of disruptive baby food brand Plum, which was sold in year five to Darwin PE in 2010 on retail sales of £15 million, which on its own, Paddy, is pretty phenomenal. Since then, he has been mentoring and supporting startups across the industry with the first UK food accelerator launch in January 2015. Recently, Mission Ventures announced their partnership in the Good Food Fund, a 1.8 million fund established by Big Society Capital with Guy's and St. Thomas' Charity to tackle childhood obesity with market led solutions. Nathan Simmons: This is where it got interesting for me, why I wanted to, and when I reached out to Paddy, so there's three elements of this. One is challenger brands. I thought that's really interesting, disrupting markets. Two, childhood obesity, this is a huge thing that's going on with the way that the industry is moving. Then I got thinking, those two facets on their own are difficult enough. What do effective presentation skills... What is a great presenter in that space where you're talking to companies about challenger brands that may put them out of business potentially or disrupt their market, and also getting people to make moves on the amount of sugars, and salts, and fats, et cetera, they're putting into their foods, and what sort of skills have you got to have in order to present to that level, to get people to make those shifts? Nathan Simmons: I thought, "This is a person I need to get to know. This is a person I need to ask some questions to, and this is a person [inaudible 00:02:22] interview." Paddy, thanks for being here. Paddy Willis: Thank you for the invitation, Nathan, delighted to join you. Nathan Simmons: Thank you. So look, one of the first things is, and we talked a little bit about this before, that necessity to create a brand. Why do you do what you do? Originally, it was Plum baby foods, but now you're helping other markets do that disruptive thing that you do. Why do you do what you do? Paddy Willis: Well, they always say that if you do what you love you'll never have a job in your life. I think I've probably got that wrong, but you know what I mean. The principle is that if you do what you love, then every day is a great opportunity and great fun. I do what I do, and that's in terms of working with founders and entrepreneurs of,

E17 - Situational Leadership: Interview With 'The Magician', Jay Raham In this episode, I interview Jay Raham. Jay is an award-winning lecturer, consultant, and public speaker. With a vision to enhance the practice of leadership at a global level, so far he's worked with 7000+ aspiring managers in Mauritius, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Morocco. He refers to himself as 'The Magician', creating magical moments impacting innovation, creativity, and sustainability. Recently, Jay has been pushing what he sees as 'professional excellence' to another level; achieving 5 Fellowships, a unique accomplishment taking his skill set to a new level and helping others to think outside of the box. Here, we discuss situational leadership. Situational Leadership, 'The Magician', Jay Raham You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmonds: Welcome to Sticky Interviews. I'm Nathan Simmonds, Senior Leadership Coach and Trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of Sticky Learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills training to the grocery and manufacturing industry. The idea of these interviews is to share great ideas, great concepts and great ways these skills are being used to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Welcome to the show. Nathan Simmonds: We're digging into some different territory with this next conversation. So I've got the pleasure of speaking to Jay Raham. We've had a bit of a conversation to and fro through LinkedIn. We've had a little bit of a look at each other's leadership aspirations and we are both super-enthusiastic about leadership as a whole and have big visions about what we want to create and what, but I'm not going to spoil that part yet until we get into that. I'll let Jay share that one. Nathan Simmonds: First of all, let me introduce him completely by some of his accolades and his current celebratory points along his journey. So he's an award-winning lecturer, consultant and public speaker. He has the vision to enhance the practice of leadership at a global level and he's already doing this through his training of aspiring managers in Mauritius, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Morocco which, in itself, is pretty astounding for any leadership trainer. In fact, he's already clocking up over 7,000 leaders so far that he has supported, guided and mentored. Amongst all this, he's also achieved five fellowships which, in itself, is a unique accomplishment. And one of the interesting places that he likes to start his conversations is about how he likes to introduce himself as the magician. But we're going to get into that in a minute. We're not going to cover that yet. Nathan Simmonds: But first of all, Jay, I just want to say a massive thank you for being here. Really appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation with us and develop up some of these ideas for the listeners. Thank you very much. Nathan Simmonds: So why do they call you, they don't call you, I don't think they call, I think you started this somewhere. Why do you call yourself the magician? Jay Raham: Before I got into that Nathan, I just want to say thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to come on the show and it's always great to work with like-minded professionals and I appreciate you taking the time out and making this happen, so thank you. Jay Raham: So, going back to your question if you like Nathan and why I like to introduce myself as the magician. Sounds weird, bizarre, strange. People have said things in the past. But there's a reason behind it; there's an explanation behind it. And yes, it is part of my personal branding. And I believe it presents me in the best possible way. So the reason why I consider myself a magician, so with all my clients, it might be individuals I have developed from the leadership program over the years, what I like to do is create moments that allow them to find that...

E16 - Change Management: Interview With Bestselling Author and BBC Television Personality Geoff Burch. Dynamic, exciting and fun, Geoff Burch is a business expert like no other. He is internationally known for taking a walk on the wild side of business and turning it into an engaging, entertaining and humorous presentation that will lift and delight your audience. Geoff is the author of six best-selling business titles, is a regular presenter on BBC television and was voted Business Communicator of the Year by the Speechwriters’ Guild. Whether he is speaking on customers, sales, leadership, or change, once seen Geoff is never forgotten. Today, we discuss change management. You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmonds: Welcome to the MBM interview series. This is the sticky interviews. Today I've got the pleasure of interviewing Geoff Burch. He is a best selling author. He's got six books out already. He is a TV presenter for a business presenter for the BBC. He's got tailored presentations that have helped motivate and inspire change within organization, a blend of motivational message and humor. And I've had the pleasure of talking to him before. Yes, there was a lot of humor. I can't divulge a lot of what we talked about because the phrase effing and Geoffing may have been written about Geoff. So, we're going to try and keep it business correct. Nathan Simmonds: His demand as a speaker has been voted Business Communicator of the Year by the Speech Writers Guild. And amongst that, he makes time to make his delivery entertaining, funny, digestible so that the normal man in your business can understand what is happening and effect change for themselves from the inside out. Now, the quote that resonated with me, Geoff, when we spoke last, "A change inflicted is a change resisted." Geoff through his words makes change possible. So, thank you, Geoff, for being here. Welcome. Geoff Burch: Pleasure. Nathan Simmonds: First and foremost, why do you do what you do? Geoff Burch: Accident. No intention at all, absolutely not. Literally hurled into it. I feel like Brian in the Life of Brian, you know? I expect my mom to be at the window going, "He is not a guru. He's a very naughty boy," you know? Absolute total utter accident completely and utterly. And if I could understand how I do it and bottle it, I would be a lot richer than I am. But I have ... I travel. I sort of travel like a comet. I think all the ancients would sort of ... All the ancients would look at a comet and think that it imbued some sort of portent to something or other. But the comet is just a bit of frozen rock and frozen dinosaur poo sort of whistling through the universe. I feel like that, really. People interpret great portent from my things. And I'm just this piece of sort of deep frozen sort of archeology hurtling about the place really. Nathan Simmonds: I thought you were going to say you were a piece of dinosaur poo then. I was going- Geoff Burch: I was going to say that. But I noticed your sort of reservations about bad language, so I'm being extremely careful. Yeah. Nathan Simmonds: It may happen. I think, to be honest, if we're working in business at some point, the swearing is a natural part of what we do. Geoff Burch: Yeah. Nathan Simmonds: Especially in times of crisis now. When you don't see these things happening, the first words that often come out of your mouth is, "Shit." That is just the way it is. You say that you got to where ... And I spoke about your speaking career because I'm avidly interested in a speaking career for myself in the future. And you said, again, it was accident. And I guess it's about being in the right place at the right time, saying the right words and having the right people to listen to you, which makes it happen. What inspired you then to keep going down this road, even by accident? Geoff Burch: Money. Lots and lots of money.

E15 - Interview With Retail Business Consultant and Author, George Troy. In this episode, I interview George Troy. George is a widely read blogger, author, and consultant focused on retail business communities, including online and brick-and-mortar stores. He has enjoyed decades of real-life experience as a senior executive for some of the best-known and most successful retail companies in the US and globally. A specialist in apparel, footwear, sporting goods, cookware, and home furnishings, Troy has led the retail divisions of Deckers Outdoor (UGG Boots) and outlet divisions of Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn. Today, he reflects upon his years of experience and discusses his new book, The Five Laws of Retail. George Troy - blower and author You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmonds: Record, so I'm recording. We're live, this is grand. Welcome to Sticky Interviews. My name is Nathan Simmonds. I am working with MBM. We are the soft skills provider for the UK grocery and manufacturing industry. These interviews are about sharing the philosophies and the thinking of great people to help you be the best version of yourself. Today, I'm interviewing George Troy. Now, I've had some wonderful conversations with him from everything from chickens to squashes to the five laws of retail which is exponent, expert ... This is his field of genius. I've been speaking to him about these, and I want to share some of these ideas with you, or get him to share them with you. Nathan Simmonds: I want to introduce him first. I've got his bio here and it's pretty decent reading for someone in the consultancy industry. This is good stuff. 35 years of real life experiences, a senior executive for some of the best known and most successful retail companies across the globe. A specialist in both men's and women's apparel, sporting goods, cookware, home furnishings, and he's even led a retail division of Deckers Outdoor, which we all know as Ugg Boots, Williams Sonoma, and The Pottery Barn. Key successes, taken Ugg Australia retail sales from 0 to 400 million in the US, Europe, and Asia in just 8 years. That on its own George is a pretty decent celebration right there of a career. George is currently a consultant with the Grayson Company, based in New York. He's also serving on the board of directors for two non-profit organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Also, he's got a BA with honours from Berkeley in anthropology, which makes his storytelling unique to say the least, and he uses that as the backbone of his approach to his book, ‘The Five Laws of Retail’. Please, welcome George Troy to the camera and the interview. George, thanks for being here. Really appreciate this. George Troy: Well Nathan, thank you very much for that introduction. I'm glad to be with you. It almost sounds like he could never hold down a job. Nathan Simmonds: Well I think you've got the experience from the apprenticeships of some of your earlier roles, which then got you into Ugg because of that real life experience and the stuff that you cut your teeth with. You know what? Now you're a consultant doing that for other people. It just increases the impact you get to have on those businesses. You know what? I'd rather you didn't hold down a job because it means you get to go and see more people and do more good in the world. George Troy: That's true. That's true. Thank you very much. Nathan Simmonds: So look, for me, the big question first of all when I'm talking to people is why do you do what you do? What was it that inspired you to be where you are and do the things that you're doing right now? George Troy: Well there are a lot of things. Primarily, the book that just came out, The Five Laws of Retail, can I show that for a moment? The Five Laws of Retail, and it's just released last spring. It's doing fairly well, and there's several reasons I did that.

E14 - Digital Wellbeing: Interview With Mich Bondesio from Growth Sessions. In this episode, I interview Mich Bondesio. Mich is a business-performance mentor, with a 20-year background in communications and project management. Her Growth Sessions mentoring programmes, workshops and talks support business people to build healthier cultures and develop more mindful approaches to work. Mich's clients include consultants, entrepreneurs and teams working in creative and digital-focused sectors. Today, we discuss digital wellbeing in more detail. Mich Bondesio: performance mentor You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmonds: Welcome to Sticky Interviews, this is Making Business Matter, MBM, the home of Sticky Learning and the trainer of Soft Skills to the UK retail and manufacturing industry, helping them to increase profits and sales. This interview series is all about speaking to great thinkers and sharing ideas to make that happen. Nathan Simmonds: Today, we've got Mich Bondesio with us. I hope I pronounced that right, I've never checked the pronunciation of your last name, Mich. I do apologize if that's horrifically wrong. Talking to us today. Thanks very much for being here, Mich. I'm just going to give the guys a quick rundown of who you are, where you come from, and I'm going to get into these questions, okay? Mich Bondesio: Okay. Nathan Simmonds: So the first thing, Mich is a business performance mentor with a background in communications and project management. Her grow sessions, mentoring programs, workshops and talks support businesses, people to build healthier cultures and develop more mindful approaches to work, which we all need in this day and age, before this and after this. Originally from South Africa, Mich is currently based in the northwest UK, her clients are consultants, solopreneurs, and small teams working in creative and digitally focused sectors around the world. Mostly in the creative space, as far as I'm aware at this point in time. Nathan Simmonds: Mich, thanks very much for being here. Mich Bondesio: Thanks for inviting me. Nathan Simmonds: It was huge, we started to have a bit of a get to know you, which had nothing to do with this interview series, and as that conversation developed and sprouts came out of it, I was just like, some of the stuff you're talking about is absolutely vital for people to be hearing, from a mental health point of view, from an isolation point of view, which we're all in right now. I think the majority of people are just starting week three. I know I, we're a week before that because our work's starting to slow down, the face-to-face work started to slow down a little bit. So we've been isolating for, this would be the beginning of week four. Nathan Simmonds: And as we were talking about that you were just saying there's going to be some critical crunch points that come up through this that you're kind of aware of. I just thought, you know what? We've got share this. We've got to give this to people in the work space and they need to hear what you've got to say about this, to support those consultants and the culture that's coming up out of this. Nathan Simmonds: So first of all, thank you as I just said. Please tell everyone what you do and why you do it. Mich Bondesio: So, as you mentioned I'm a communications consultant and business performance mentor, and I want to help people to develop more mindful approaches to work because for the past 20 years I've worked in high pressure deadline driven environments and industries and sectors, which have very unsupportive work cultures, and I've also experienced burnout first hand and my burnout was so epic that I wasn't able to work for more than a year. So I have first hand experience of being socially isolated and very unwell and not having a work environment that was supportive of my recovery during that point. Mich Bondesio:

E13 - Conscious Culture: Interview With Natasha Wallace from Conscious Works. In this episode, I interview Natasha Wallace, the author of The Conscious Effect: 50 lessons for better organizational wellbeing. Natasha is also the founder of Conscious Works, a coaching company that helps leaders to lead consciously. Today we discuss conscious culture in more detail. ConsciousWorks - coaching company You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below: Nathan Simmonds: Welcome to the Making Business Matter Podcast. Currently, we're meeting niche leaders and change-makers. Those exciting people that are helping to make business future proof. Today we're going to be speaking to Natasha Wallace from Conscious Works. So a little bit about Natasha, we've got her blurb here, her bio. Nathan Simmonds: A lady with a particular interest in what causes leadership discomfort. She recognizes that ladies are time poor and under pressure. Natasha is helping them to focus on who they are and where they need to be. Allowing them to achieve the best results for themselves and their teams. Nathan Simmonds: With a career in high HR leadership and organizational development, roles across a range of sectors, and her most recent role was as a people and development director, which is blessed her with a depth of practical experience for building cohesive and impactful teams. And now her work is all about sharing this with other people. Nathan Simmonds: Welcome Natasha. Really great to be interviewing you. First and foremost, I want to find out a bit more about you. We've had a bit of a conversation already. I want the people listening to this to find out a bit more about you. So, who are you and why do you do what you do? Natasha Wallace: Okay. I've spent my career working in HR. Predominantly in organizational development roles. I've always led HR teams. But I've always had a particular passion for how you create great cultures. And how do you optimize the performance of business whilst keeping people happy? Because I've always believed that those two things should sort of work in synergy with each other. Natasha Wallace: My career has seen me manage culture change projects. I've lead the development of leadership development programs and co-design, co-facilitate those. I do a lot of work around talent management and career management. I spent 10 years in professional services up until starting my own business. Natasha Wallace: That was quite interesting actually. Being with an organization for so long because it's about how do you sustain the performance? How do you put things in place that are actually going to work for the long term? And I worked as part of a partnership. Our whole modus operandi I guess was, well we called ourselves a ‘Succession partnerships’. We were developing people for the future. Natasha Wallace: So we wanted to put as much into people and get them as I guess, developed as we could because we would hope that some of those people would take over the running of the business in the future. I was immersed in a world where sustainable performance was really, really important. Natasha Wallace: And that's part of what I do now is; how do you help leaders to work in a way and operate in a way, run their businesses in a way that they can achieve performance? Because that's ultimately what we are trying to do in organizations, but without sacrificing wellbeing. Natasha Wallace: Then I burnt out myself. I didn't achieve high performance without sacrificing wellbeing, so that was my own personal experience. That was a real wake up call to me. So about three years ago I hit the wall, so to speak. It was a real surprise for me because given that in my mind I was somebody who understood how to achieve sustainable performance and also had to take care of people. Natasha Wallace: I guess part of the role of the HR professional is making sure that you are taking care of ...

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