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Get the facts, without the spin. UNBIASED offers a clear, impartial recap of US news, including politics, elections, legal news, and more. Hosted by lawyer Jordan Berman, each episode provides a recap of current political events plus breakdowns of complex concepts—like constitutional rights, recent Supreme Court rulings, and new legislation—in an easy-to-understand way. No personal opinions, just the facts you need to stay informed on the daily news that matters. If you miss how journalism used to be, you're in the right place. In today's episode: USAID: What Is It and Why So Much Controversy? (2:24) DOGE Claims to Have Made Significant Cuts. Can It Actually Make Cuts? (10:22) Trump Proposes US Take Control of Gaza After War and Rebuild (15:39) CBS Releases Transcript from Harris Interview Amid $10B Lawsuit From Trump (26:47) President Trump Signs 'Keeping Men Out Of Women's Sports' Executive Order; Here's What It Says and How It Has To Do With Immigration (29:28) Quick Hitters: Updates to the Federal Buyout Offer, DOJ Sues Chicago Over Sanctuary City Laws, Pam Bondi Confirmed as Attorney General (35:05) Rumor Has It: Politico Received $8.2M From Government Last Year (36:56) (Politico Responded After this Episode Was Recorded. You Can Read that Response Here.) Critical Thinking Segment (38:40) Listen/Watch this episode AD-FREE on Patreon. Watch this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok. All sources for this episode can be found here.  Information for Rett Syndrome Super Bowl 50/50 Raffle: Purchase tickets through donations sent via Venmo to @Brittany-Fane (In case you need it, the last four digits of Brittany's cell number are 7122) 1 ticket = $10 6 tickets = $50 15 tickets = $100 Include your cell number in the Venmo description and you will receive a text with your ticket numbers within 24 hours. Three winning raffle tickets will be pulled at the end of the 1st quarter and announced via Instagram Live on @B.Cioffi517 Winners will also be contacted directly within 24 hours of the drawing. Winner ticket holders will receive a portion of the net proceeds. Total proceeds will break down as follows: 1st ticket pulled: 12.5% 2nd ticket pulled: 12.5% 3rd ticket pulled: 25% IRSF: 50% GOOD LUCK AND THANK YOU!! ISRAEL/GAZA EPISODE (PART I) ISRAEL/GAZA EPISODE (PART II) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A dedicated team of researchers at NCI (National College of Ireland's) SAMI Lab have proudly contributed to the Educational Research Centre's Irish Journal of Education. The Irish Journal of Education (IJE) is a peer-reviewed, open access journal that is published by the Educational Research Centre (ERC). Usually, there are just six articles published per year. First established in 1966 in St. Patrick's College in Drumcondra, the ERC is recognised internationally as a centre of excellence in research, assessment and evaluation in education. In 2025, it was established as a designated statutory body of the Department of Education. The study entitled "Mental Health Among Third-Level Students in Ireland During COVID-19," presented by Dr David Mothersill, Dr Gerard Loughnane, Dr April Hargreaves, and Hau Nguyen aimed to examine levels of mental ill-health and predictive factors of mental ill-health in third-level students in Ireland during COVID-19. Many factors were considered in this study such as relationship status, LGBTI status, pre-existing mental health conditions, and various life factors to assess whether these variables predicted probable diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), depression, or anxiety. "Working in academia I am very aware of the various difficulties that our students face. We have already seen a steady decline in the mental health of young people globally over the past 20 years; from a mental illness prevalence of approximately 15% to a prevalence closer to 50%. The worry was that the COVID pandemic and its resultant loss of the important social networks that students spoke of, would exacerbate this mental health decline." commented Dr April Hargreaves, Associate Professor of Psychology at NCI. The mental health of 268 third-level students during COVID-19 were examined in this study through logistic regression analysis. This study found that, given prior evidence that social isolation predicts negative mental health outcomes, and the association between negative change in social life and probable negative mental health outcomes observed in our study, future research should examine ways of increasing opportunities for social engagement among students attending online and blended third-level courses in Ireland. A key finding to this study is that students who reported a negative change to their social life experienced greater levels of mental ill health than their peers who reported either no social change or a positive social change. This is important as it suggests that it is not the change in social interaction itself that causes difficulty for a person's mental health, it is the perception that the change in social interaction is negative. "Having seen the stress third-level students were under during the pandemic, we are really proud of our new study examining mental health in students during this time. We are delighted to see this work published in the Irish Journal of Education, which is internationally recognised." said Dr David Mothersill, Assistant Professor, Programme Director of Psychology at NCI. There is also the potential for a broader scope of studies to be undertaken as more research is needed to examine mental health in a larger population of third-level students to have results that can be used more broadly. The findings of this study highlight the need to promote community engagement and social opportunities for third-level students, particularly noting a need to develop online student services such as online counselling services for students doing online courses. You Can Read the Full Paper Here in the Irish Journal of Education. Dr April Hargreaves further stated "I am delighted to see this research published in the Irish Journal of Education - a perfect platform for our findings due to the readership it attracts. Deepening our understanding of the nuances of student needs is the first step in creating a learning environmen...

Dive Into Whole Brain Thinking In this episode of "The World's Stickiest Learning," hosts Darren A. Smith and George Araham engage in a deep dive into Whole Brain Thinking with expert psychologist Johan Olwagen. The discussion revolves around the HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) model, exploring its applications and insights. With Johan's extensive experience since the late '90s and the hosts' own encounters with the model, the conversation delves into the value and impact of Whole Brain Thinking. Get a comprehensive understanding of HBDI and its relevance in leadership development and personal growth with this podcast! View this episode on YouTube by clicking the image below.   Watch the video if you're more of a visual person   You Can Read the Full Kantar Market Share Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Welcome to the world. Stickiest learning. I am absolutely pleased that this title will be a deep dive into whole brain thinking with our psychologist, Johan. Johan, how are you? Johan Olwagen: I'm very well and thank you for the opportunity guys. Darren A. Smith: And we're here with George as well. Hi, George. You good? George Araham: Hello. Hi, good and you? Darren A. Smith: All right, so we'll ask these guys to introduce themselves in a moment. What we're looking to do here for the next 30 to 40 minutes is a real deep dive into HBDI whole brain thinking to understand this thinking preference tool. And we've got our expert here. And George and I are going to grill Johan to within an inch of his life about HBDI because he's been using it for about 500 years. Johan Olwagen: Excellent. Looking forward to the challenge. Darren A. Smith: All right. Well, let's start with George. George, would you just tell us 30 seconds about you? So our listeners know who you are before we get stuck in. George Araham: Sure. So I'm actually NSO blog writer and I've been collaborating with Darren on HBDI. Which is a fascinating assessment tool. I also have my masters in marketing, but that's boring stuff so I don't really like to talk much about it. I did write an international best selling book on relationships, so yeah, that would be me in a in a nutshell. Johan Olwagen: Trans. Darren A. Smith: Well done. Well done. Thank you, George. Very welcome. Johan, would you just give us 30 seconds about you? And also I'm going to ask you that tough question, but in the nicest possible way, why should we listen to you when you talk about HBDI, please? Johan Olwagen: Well, first let me introduce myself. I'm a clinical psychologist in South Africa. I have been working in the field of leadership development since 1995, went through a number of iterations in my career. Why should you listen to me? Passion, excitement and impact? I really am passionate about getting people to change and working with people so that they can thrive and grow in whatever they intend in life and purpose in life. Darren A. Smith: Fabulous. Fabulous. Thank you. Thank you. George Araham: Hmm. Darren A. Smith: And how many years have you been, Johan working with HBDI whole brain thinking. Johan Olwagen: Well, in the late 90s, we had discovered it. A colleague of myself and we wanted to get a hold of the HBDI and it was provided to somebody else to run the business in Africa. And so I haunted this person down in 2001, made-up with her. She was the CEO of Herman International Africa and just said, I need to talk to you. We need to get together. We need to. Utilise this tool because I found absolute value in it so since 2001. In a couple of decades now. Darren A. Smith: And I didn't know that before we started this, but I had my first profile done when I worked for Sainsbury's, a supermarket here in 2001. Johan Olwagen: There we go. Fantastic. Johan Olwagen: Again. George Araham: Interesting, that's a similarity. Johan Olwagen: Absolutely. Yeah. Darren A. Smith: So we've got about 50 years between this of Herman th...

It Can Be Loney at the Top - But C-Suite Coaching Cards Can Help Join C-Suite Coach, Kim Randall and our very own Darren Smith, as they talk about support for C-Suite (executive-level managers). Face it, sometimes it gets lonely at the top, especially when everyone is rushing to you for support. Explore Kim's passion for delving into the human side of leaders, helping them to connect with who they are as a person as well as a leader. If you're a leader or want to offer support, make sure to check out this podcast. You Can Read the Full C-Suite Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Hello. You're at a podcast. Welcome to the world's stickiest learning. We're with Kim Randall and also Pudding who you're stroking there. Kim-Adele Randall: I am to try and get him to not join in. I think he might be the more vocal of the two of us this morning. Darren A. Smith: It's probably true. That's probably true. The title of our podcast is where Do C-Suites go to for support now? I'm joined by Kim, who is a C-Suite coach. Is that right? Kim-Adele Randall: It is. Darren A. Smith: OK, now in the nicest possible way. Kim, I'm going to ask you, why should we listen to you about this? Kim-Adele Randall: Great question, Darren. So I guess for me, I started off as in C-Suite and was there for a number of years. And then when I became a mum, I decided that I could have a bigger impact by coaching of the C-Suite leaders. Having been there and realised that it might be lonely at the top, but it's certainly not quiet. Everyone is looking to you for the answer. Everyone expects you to always be on your game. People forget that our cease suite leaders are people 1st and leaders second and we are all perfectly imperfect. We have things that go wrong in our lives. We don't always know the answer. Darren A. Smith: True. Kim-Adele Randall: We're not always feeling like we're firing on all cylinders and so if we can, when we understand the human side of that C-Suite, that was one of my passions as part of my purpose, which is how do we help those C-Suite leaders connect with who they are as a person as well as who they are as a leader and give them that support? Because no human being in the world can survive without support for long. And it's this way you think the phrase comes from lonely at the top. I think so, yeah. Because when you get to the top, you both from. From my own experience and also from, you know, coaching at hundreds of other C-Suite leaders, one of the things that is so common throughout is we all fear becoming irrelevant. Kim-Adele Randall: And when you get to the very top, you know that everybody wants your job. You're doing one of you, so there's nowhere to go. So actually all you are is hanging on for dear life until somebody comes to step into those shoes and that is that plays in, in their head. It's that, you know, am I still adding value? Am I still relevant? Am I still doing stuff? Cause where do you go for your help? You can't. If you have those moments of doubt, we all have them. You know, in Process syndrome hits us all at some point in our life, you kind of go well, where, where, where do I go? Darren A. Smith: True. True again. Kim-Adele Randall: So I'm having this moment of doubt and I can't go to my direct reports because they're one looking to me for support and equally looking for any element of weakness so that they might be able to take and I can't go to the board because they might doubt my confidence or credibility and therefore you know that might have ramifications. So where do I go in those moments? Where I need to get out of my own head and we all know that we all have blind spots for the reason we're blind to them. Kim-Adele Randall: So no amount of looking at ourselves in the mirror is going to highlight those blind spots. What we need is a sometimes a sounding board, sometimes a trusted advisor, sometimes just a safe space where I don't know if you've ever had these moments, Darren,

Cultivating a Culture of Belonging Join us as we explore Chelsea Kirk's profound perspective on EDI (equity, diversity, inclusion) and, above all, the significance of belonging. Discover how these principles can transform workplaces into vibrant ecosystems where every individual feels valued, heard, and empowered to contribute their best. Also, we talk about the EDI Coaching Cards and how valuable they can be. So get ready for a journey that goes beyond the surface, into the heart of creating workplaces that truly reflect the diverse tapestry of the world we live in. You Can Read the Full Kantar Market Share Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Welcome to the world's stickiest learning. I am absolutely over the moon to have Chelsea Kirk with us. Hello. Chelsea Kirk: Hello, thank you for having me. Darren A. Smith: Hello how are you doing? It's Friday weekend soon. Chelsea Kirk: Absolutely super excited. Darren A. Smith: Good, good, good, good. Now we wanted to ask you to come to our podcast because you're an expert on EDI, is that right? Chelsea Kirk: That is. Darren A. Smith: OK. So Chelsea, would you tell us what you do and in the nicest possible way, why should we listen to you when you talk about EDI? Chelsea Kirk: Yeah, of course. So my current position is head of equality, diversity, inclusion at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn been in that post for around 2 1/2 years and done EDI for probably near enough four years. Darren A. Smith: Wow. Chelsea Kirk: And kind of a generalist for about 8 years in HR prior to EDI. I suppose in terms of listening to me, I've got kind of a lot of experience in sort of that HR field in the EDI sort of field and landscape and. Darren A. Smith: OK. Chelsea Kirk: We're quite well connected with different sort of professions and different EDI leaders, and I think as well sort of keeping yourself current. It's really important that you know, as the landscape evolves constantly, it is around, how do you kind of keep yourself current? So you know, well connected, you know, net networking with different individuals. It is really important as well. So I would say in a roundabout way that that to sort of summarise. Yes. Darren A. Smith: Alright, alright, cool. Cool, cool. So EDI is something that's relatively new to most people, although it's becoming, dare I say, on trend, it's becoming more topical, which is a good thing. So if I new to EDI, would you just summarise for us what is this thing and why should we start understanding it better? Darren A. Smith: Run. Chelsea Kirk: Why is really important one? I think creating that sense of belonging in the workplace, having that safe space to be their true authentic selves and bring their whole selves to, you know, the workplace. And I think that for me is really, really important. And I think as you know, EDI has really sort of grown over the last sort of few years. I think there's a few topics that have really elevated that. So I think you know the Me Too movement, the Black Lives Matter. Employees who feel welcomed contribute to a healthy workplace environment   Chelsea Kirk: Have really sort of pushed the dial and organisation. Darren A. Smith: There. Chelsea Kirk: Sort of. You know, waking up to some of that and, you know, EDI is becoming quite a top priority in organisations and now becoming that golden thread through it all really. Darren A. Smith: Yeah, and what about organisations that are still sort of we're too busy, we've got too much on, we're just not going to think about this now, does it matter? Why should they really start thinking about it and caring about this stuff? Chelsea Kirk: Yeah, I think it is really, really important. I think because you know similar to what I've said, it's about how do we ensure that our workplace is safe for people to be there, to authentic selves, but also what is creating organisations, EVP, what is making me want to join your organisation.

I Can't Get to My Prospects Are you fed up with not getting hold of your prospects? Learn to use the HBDI quadrant to your advantage and get prospects to reply. Join us in this fourth instalment of this HBDI series with Darren Smith and George Araham. You Can Read the Full HBDI Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith Hi and welcome to the world's stickiest learning. I'm here with George Araman. George, how are you? George Hi Darren, I'm good. How are you? George I'm sure it won't be. Darren A. Smith Hey, I'm good. I'm good. I'm excited about our next podcast, so I'm gonna read out the title 'cause. It's a bit of a mouthful, but I think it works. I can't get my prospects to reply. Use HBDI to get your prospects to reply. So that's the title of our 4th podcast on HBDI. George is going to be excited for the next 20 minutes. What do you think about that title? Finally, get prospects to reply   Darren A. Smith That's certainly the plan. George Well, show me the money like they say so I'm pretty sure people are gonna like our audience are really gonna love it. George Yes. Darren A. Smith Fantastic. Fantastic. So let's do a few minutes bringing people up to speed on HBDI so we don't want to make an assumption they know now you've kindly lent us your profile for HBDI. So HBDI is the Herman brain dominance instrument. It's a way of understanding how people think. And this is your profile. It's split into four quadrants as everyone's is now. George, what does the left brain normally mean? George So the left brain is more of the rational brain. It's more of the logical brain. Whereas the right side of the brain is more the emotional side of the brain or more, the idea, the onceptualising side of the brain. Darren A. Smith Fantastic. So HBDIL, Hermann, asks us to understand our thinking preferences. Now, Hermann. Ned. Herman back in the 70s, split it also into the top half of the brain in the bottom half of the brain, giving us these four quadrants. Now, Herman, colour them as well. Obviously, they're not coloured in our head, but they are coloured here. So the further your profile goes towards this outer circle, the more you prefer to think in that way. But you can do all four of these. George Yes. Darren A. Smith Alright, now let's see from our other podcasts. George, what does the Blue quadrant mean? Darren A. Smith Yes. George So the blue is analytical side of things. This is the part where I don't really enjoy doing for me. Facts tend to be more boring, very flat, and very not imaginative. I'm more into the imagination side of things. The creativity. I think Leonardo da Vinci would agree with me somehow. Yeah. Darren A. Smith I think he was. I think he worked and you're in good company. Alright. So this is the fax. The fax quadrant will use an F just to make it easy. This is the future quadrant. And you talked about creativity. Entrepreneurs love this quadrant and this is where you are. You're quite creative. Lots of ideas. Then as we come down here, the Red Quadrant. Let me quiz you. What's the red quadrant? George So the Red Quadrant is more about the relational side of the quadrant. It's more like we liked how we relate with others. It's more about the passion we bring into it. It's about like you mentioned in one of our podcasts that for example, the red is very important because they tend to bring the team together and it's so even if sometimes people might think they're not really actually adding value, they are in the back scenes and they're really. Only the team together in a very efficient and effective way and even energising others to have better and more efficient results. George Yeah. Darren A. Smith You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. And it's the Red Quadrant that largely gets to dismissed by people because it's emotional and particularly as a British man, I'm not supposed to show any emotion. I get that. The thing is, it's the red that drives us. You know,

I Really Don't Know How to Manage Conflict at Work Looking to manage conflict at Work? Well, you can use HBDI, the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument. Join us in this third instalment of this HBDI series with Darren Smith and George Araham. You Can Read the Full HBDI Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Hi, you're at the home of the world's stickiest learning. My name's Darren Smith, and this is George Araman. George, how are you? George: I'm great, Darren. Thank you. How are you today? Darren A. Smith: I am good. I'm good. I'm keen to share with our listeners about HBDI. This is the third in our series of podcasts and I'm just going to read the title out to make sure I get it absolutely right. It says I really don't know how to manage conflict at work. Use HBDI to manage conflicts at work, so that's the title of our podcast. And George has kindly allowed us to share his HBDI. Herman brain dominance instrument profile. So this is a profile. It's a bit like Myers Briggs is a bit like disc. It's a bit like insights. The reason we favour Herman is it's lovely and simple, simple to use and it really just has four colours and it's a it shows the thinking preference. Conflicts are a natural part of life   Darren A. Smith: So there are blue, yellow, red, green and this shows almost the thinking preference of George's brain. So what this tells us is he likes to think in the big picture, creative. He likes to think in the people feelings area. But when it comes to facts, struggles a bit and when it comes to form and structure. Plan he struggles with that as well. Now the thing to say is we can do all four colours, we can do all of this. My metaphor is that George does yellow and red in 5th gear and maybe blue and green in second gear. George: Spot on. Darren A. Smith: All right. So that's a really quick summary and an overview of HPDI for anyone who hasn't seen it before. George, what have I missed on there? Your news HBDI, what have I missed that people would want to know? George: So far, like from what you mentioned, it seems great. We already talked a lot in our previous podcast like how we can overcome the differences and how we have like I think what would be really interesting for us to delve into is with regards to conflicts, how what is the best way to like manage conflicts from different perspectives. Darren A. Smith: OK. OK. Well, let's, let's start with conflict hard now. I've been doing soft skills as a training provider for 20 years and I've come to 11 absolute fact on conflict. It's hard. It really is. It's exhausting. It takes energy, it consumes our brain. It's those things that we lay down at night and think, oh, how did that happen? How did I get to that place? So conflict is not easy. And what I read a lot lately about is people. Let's avoid conflict. George: OK. Darren A. Smith: Just can't you imagine there's seven 8 billion people on the planet. With all these microcosms of banging together and they're gonna bang together, they're going to have conflict. They're not going to think all the same way. And do you know that's all right. We don't have to agree. George: Yeah. And it's a good thing, or else with the own robots. If I'm thinking the same way. Darren A. Smith: Well, we would, we would. Well, let me give you an example. So George, what's your favourite food favourite meal? George: Depends on the like. I would say sushi or pizza or. Darren A. Smith: OK, so you love sushi. I mean, I happen to as well, but let's say you love sushi and I didn't. And I liked only fish and chips. That's OK. Now we have a small conflict there. We don't have to disagree, but let's take that into the more passionate disagreements that we might have. It's still OK. It's still OK that you have a different perspective to me. And maybe that's a good thing that you have a different perspective to me. George: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: OK, so conflict is hard. George: I was just like,

My Team is Not Performing Well, What Can I Do? My team is not performing well, so what can I do? Well, you can use HBDI to Build a High Performing Team. Our second video in this HBDI series is all about building high performing teams. Join Darren and George as they explore ways you can super-boost your team for success. You Can Read the Full HBDI Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Hi, my name's Darren Smith and I'm here with George Araman. George, how are you? George: Hi Darren, how are you? Darren A. Smith: Very good, very good. We're at the home of the world's stickiest learning MBM, and we're talking about HBDI now the 2nd in our podcast on HBDI. And I'm going to read out the title because it's taken George and I a while to get an absolutely cracking title. My team is not performing well. What can I do? And this is based on feedback we've had from other people, OK, what can you do? And the second part is use HBDI to build a high performing team. So this podcast is all about HBDI and teamwork. And high performing teams, George, why did we come up with this as our second in our range of HBDI podcasts? George: Today, there's a lot of problems around the world with Teamwork and team working together or not working together. So we found out like around 15 to 16 topics around that and we want to delve into them and discover how can we tackle each one of them using HBDI and how HBDI can take team performance to the next level. Love it. Yeah. Here's how to use HBDI if your team is not performing   Darren A. Smith: Brilliant. Love it. So for a couple of minutes, let's do a recap on HBDI is, we'll share a profile just so the viewers can see what we're talking about in case they're new to HBDI. And then let's get straight into Team conflict, team dynamics and all that good stuff. All right, all right. So let's check in with you HBDI Hermann brain dominance instrument. That's all well and good, but what does it mean? What's your take on? What is HBDI? George: As in the title. Darren A. Smith: What does it mean to you? George: Well, it's a profile. An assessment profile type that helps you navigate into your like understanding or discovering your thinking style. If you're more left-brained right-brain conversion, divergent feeler or thinker, all those types of sorts of things and to help you to help guide you to use your best assets and your best tools as well as improve the areas that you need in certain circumstances to develop better work. And work better in teams as well. Yeah, indeed. Darren A. Smith: Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. I put George on the spot of there a little bit because we did a podcast last time, and I'm just bringing back his memory of what he retained. I've been working with HBDI for about 20 years. George, you're relatively new to it. And we did your profile, didn't we? So you did. You did 80 questions and then this thing pops out. Is that right? Yeah. OK. George: Yeah, yeah. Darren A. Smith: And what George was referring to is the left half of the brain, the right half of the brain, which most people know. This is largely logical. This is largely creative, but what Ned Herman said was there's a top half and a bottom half of the brain as well, given US 4 quadrants. So the four quadrants, if I do it as four FS fax. So this is a thinking preference for retaining lots of facts. If you've got a mate who's good at pub quizzes, brilliant. Darren A. Smith: This is future, so this is me. It's not my profile, but I do have a tendency to think more in the yellow quadrant, which is big picture creativity type, then we've got. Darren A. Smith: It is. George: That's what we that's why we get along very well. I love yellow and red. Darren A. Smith: Yes. And we're gonna come back to that. That's why we make a good team. And the red is F, which is feelings. So these people make good nurses, good teachers, particularly vocational and the greens are our form. They like structure.

Harness HBDI for Negotiation Success Does your negotiation always get to an annoying stalemate? Well, today's podcast will explore using HBDI to avoid a negotiation stalemate. Join Darren Smith and George as they tackle this exciting topic. You Can Read the Full Negotiation and HBDI Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Hi, my name's Darren Smith and you're the home of sticky learning. We are with George Harran. George, hello. George: Hello, how are you, Darren? Darren A. Smith: Hello. Hey, I'm good. I'm good. So I'm Darren, this is George. And we're here today to talk with you about HBDI and negotiation. In fact, the title of this podcast. I'll read out my negotiations. Always get to an annoying stalemate. Use HBDI to understand your opponent to avoid stalemates. So George, we're talking about negotiation and HBDI. The reason you're here is your what we would call naive results. You've just completed your HPDI profile, is that right? George: Yay, correct. Darren A. Smith: OK. Fabulous. Fabulous. So you're gonna ask me lots of probing, challenging questions, particularly around HPDI and how we can use it with negotiation. All right, all right, so let's do a couple of minutes on your understanding of HBDI and what this profile meant to you. The HBDI brain is split into four coloured sections   George: Love it. Darren A. Smith: What did it mean to you doing your profile? George: It's interesting because I found a couple of like things. It was interesting. I discovered things I was aware of, some I wasn't really aware of. Darren A. Smith: Mm hmm mm. George: A couple of the so when I was asked to anticipate the results, I actually nailed it in a way I got all my 4 quadrants more or less precisely the same. I was surprised though, by stressful flow. What's it called? This. Yeah, exactly. The results were a bit different than I was expecting, but like, it is what it is, I guess. Darren A. Smith: That's not. OK, alright. Well, let me give you and the viewers a quick summary of my understanding of your profile here it is. I'm sure you don't mind me showing it. So what Ned Herman said was that we all know that the brain is split left and right. So let me ask you, George, what's the difference between left and right of the brain? George: Yeah. No. The conversion side of the brain and the right side is more like the creative, intuitive side of the brain, or the diversion. Darren A. Smith: Perfect, perfect, perfect. OK. And this was discovered now probably 50 years ago now. Not what Ned Herman said was actually left and right. Absolutely. But he also said there's top and bottom given US 4 quadrants to the brain. Now, Ned, Herman or HBDI, which is the Herman brain dominance instrument, measures how we prefer to think. And there are four quadrants in how we prefer to think we've got the blue Quadrant, which is all about facts. So if you've got a mate who's very good down at the pub quiz. Darren A. Smith: He's probably a blue loads of facts. The yellow. This is the creative, the entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial type. People who have got a million ideas and might be described as having their head in the clouds. We've got the red people. These are the touchy feely people. People what I love about the Reds is if you walk into a room they normally come over and touch your elbow and then we've got our greens, who are our structured plan. Next project managers. All right. So this just describes how you prefer to think. George: Interesting. Darren A. Smith: You can't get it wrong. You can't get it right. This is George. George: Hello. Darren A. Smith: So if having understood that you have a tendency to think more in the right side of the brain, your creativity, your big picture thinking's fairly high. George: Yeah. Darren A. Smith: Your people skills, your feelings fairly high, but your ability to do facts in the blue is quite low and your green is, let's say it's fairly low too. All right,

Mastering the Art of Service Join Darren A. Smith and Andrew Stotts from the Weird Human podcast, as they explore customer service with the useful tools of coaching cards. You Can Read the Full Customer Service Transcript Below: Andrew Stotts: So first of all, welcome back. This is a actually very special edition of the Weird Human podcast. Just to remind you about why we exist. We exist really to kind of shed light on the extraordinary. Once again I am joined by a truly extraordinary chap Mr. Darren Smith from Sticky Learning. Again when Darren reached out to me a few weeks ago and he asked me whether I would kind of partner with him in it on a small project. We kind of thought that we would just talk a little bit about that project today with you guys and get down, kind of ask me a few questions. Primarily it's around exceptional customer service. So Darren tell us about the project. Darren Smith: Well, the project is mainly about four years ago we looked at coaching cards, little playing cards like, you know, with the ACEs spades and that on. We thought there'd be a great learning tool if we could turn into 80 questions per topic. This one's about customer service that would help a manager with a report to coach that person to be fabulous at customer service. We also have coaching cards on negotiation skills and others, and each time we find an expert who rock and rolls on the topic like you do on customer service, we ask you to write the questions, and then we put it online as a cheap resource and tool to use. Read our return policy   >> Customer Service Coaching Cards

Discover the Personal Rule Book Join Clare Walker - a practise leader at Vodafone, an expert in personal values, and Darren Smith - the chief executive officer at MBM, as they explore the exciting topic of personal values. Discover the trick to finding your number one value with Clare using a special tool - personal values coaching cards. Our new addition to our set of cards is Personal values coaching cards. Unlike other cards, these are not questions, but rather one word. There are about 70 cards in this exciting new pack! Check out the podcast to learn more! You Can Read the Full Personal Values Share Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Hi and welcome to another podcast or video depending on whether you're watching on YouTube or on our podcast platforms. We're here with Claire Walker. Claire, how are you? Clare Walker: I'm very well. Thank you, Darren. How are you doing? Darren A. Smith: I'm good. I'm good. We're sitting here on Thursday afternoon. It's hot. Is it hot where you are? Clare Walker: It has clouded over a little bit, but I'm very fortunate. I've got an ever-changing view outside my window because I live in the Lake District. So yes, it may change to hot in a moment's time. It may rain. Darren A. Smith: Lovely. Lovely. I'm jealous. We're here talking with Claire because you are an expert on personal values and we have just collaborated on some coaching cards. So we have a bunch of coaching cards. I'll grab some here like this. But these are premium grow coaching cards and we've collaborated on some personal values and we want to talk to you about personal values and coaching cards. All right, so. More about our expert on values   Clare Walker: Indeed. Darren A. Smith: Claire, what do you do at the moment? What's your day job? Clare Walker: My day job is that I am the coaching community of practise leader at Vodafone and I'm very fortunate with that. I have a wonderful team of internal coaching coaches who are both certified and credentialed. There's about 100 of them. And it's great and a coach will pull within Vodafone of probably in the region of about 80,000 people. So we have a lot of work to do here. Darren A. Smith: Wow. OK, alright. So you working for a very big company. You're doing coaching all day long and you've got a whole bunch of people who coach with you for you around you. Alright. Fabulous. Fabulous. So before we get started on personal values, would you tell us a little bit of something weird and about you? Clare Walker: Ohh gosh. It's gonna start with. I'm very modest, but that's really hard when you ask that question, isn't it? What do I what's where do wonderful about me? I'm a member of the local acting group and I recently played a 75-year-old woman who finds her neighbour's ecstasy tablets and proceeds to take them with some very interesting consequences. So I love doing that. That's really good fun. And I think actually I really enjoyed playing her because I think one of my life's quotes is that you don't stop playing because you get old, you get old because you stop playing and. And so I think I love playing her because of that. And I think that kind of leads to the fact that I love practical jokes. One of the things I really miss about working from home is that you don't get to do them quite similarly anymore. So yeah, probably the weird thing about me is my little practical joking. Darren A. Smith: Lovely. Lovely. Wow, wow, wow. OK. And in the nicest possible way I'm gonna ask this question, but particularly for our viewers. Why should we listen to you about personal values? What do you know about it? Clare Walker: I think because I can speak from experience about how values have changed my life and my relationships, but also about what I've witnessed within my coachees and colleagues and within teams that we run this session with as well. So I can tell lots of really good stories in confidence about those experiences of what I've seen and real...

Expert Tips for the World of Negotiation Join Darren A. Smith, Dr. Anthony, and Andrew Stotts from the Weird Human podcast, as they tackle how to be a better negotiator. You Can Read the Full 'Better Negotiator' Transcript Below Andrew Stotts: So guys, so first of all, welcome to another edition of the Weird Human Podcast. Our 25th actually. So we've got some fantastic guests again today. Huge. As usual. I'm joined by the brilliant Dr Anthony, but also today, which I'm joined by the Fantastic Darren Smith. I've known Darren for many, many, many, many years. And we've worked together in different organizations around the world, which has been fantastic. Today's question, just to remind you guys, is really how can I be a better negotiator? Andrew Stotts: And before we kind of tackle the question I'd like to just remind you upon the mission statement, really for the Weird Human Podcast. That mission statement is really about exploring the extraordinary about the human beings who are around us. And that's a very, very important point. So it's about making you and really kind of bringing out the extraordinary of being a human being. So, Darren, perhaps it'll be helpful for the people who are listening, just to have a brief introduction from yourself. Darren Smith: So we are MBM, we're also known as the Sticky Learning Guys. We are the guys who want to achieve behavioural change with you because we know that most people go on a one-day training course, come back and do nothing different. So we're the guys that ensure by prodding, poking, doing everything we can, you come back and be the very best version of yourselves. That's me, Anthony. Learning that sticks   Andrew Stotts: That's a great introduction. Dr. Anthony. I can't believe, we did a show last week. That show actually had had more than 11,000 views now. So again, massive thanks to Michelle. That was the one around kind of like wealth coaches and kind of like tips around kind of money. So if you want to go back and look at the catalogue that's an incredible episode. We also started to delve into the kind of relationships and kind of what made relationships. Then of course that kind of took us into the path around negotiating, particularly between couples. Dr Anthony's obviously married to Dr Michelle in the previous show. Andrew Stotts: The first time I met his beautiful wife. We obviously then started to explore kind of what made their relationship successful and that kind of brought us to our conversation today. So if I can go back. So Dr Anthony, love you, my friend. Dr Anthony: I hope that Darren can actually then teach me how to negotiate better because there's one thing for certain, every man is know how to negotiate better to be a good man. You start to seek love, that's for sure. Darren, how do you negotiate? Andrew Stotts: How do you? Darren Smith: Well, I'm starting to feel like I should have some awards on the wall like you've got because wow, they're very impressive. The first thing that we need to do in answering that question is understand the difference between haggling and negotiation. Now, there are eight ways to solve a conflict. Haggling is one, negotiation's another. So, Andrew, I know you do this. You've been to the bizarre market stores and you've haggled for the Ray-Bans, and you started at 40 Euros, didn't you? Andrew Stotts: That's just an obscene amount of money for those, the Ray. I'm kind of more in the two-euro range, to be fair. Darren Smith: So we've all been there, haven't we? We're trying to buy these Ray-Bans, we're on holiday and the guy behind the stool starts at 40 euros, we start at two, and you meet somewhere in the middle. A valid form of resolving a conflict. But don't kid yourself that it's negotiating. It is not. It is haggling. Now, if you get a chance, Andrew, look up on Google, a Monty Python sketch about haggling. It's really brilliant about how to do it. So I love that.

Mental Health Expert Interview with Simon Blake CEO of Mental Health England by Darren A. Smith MBM Today's podcast features mental health questions and answers by our expert Simon Blake. Here's a quick overview of the questions: What is the definition of mental health? How has Covid-19 affected mental health? How accurately is mental health reported in the media? How does mental health affect physical health? How does mental health affect your life? Why is mental health important? - Why is mental health training important? Why is mental health on the rise? Please tell us about mental health month/week. When is mental health too much? What does mental health mean to you? Where can someone get a mental health diagnosis? You Can Read the Full Transcript on Mental Health Questions and Answers Below: Darren Smith: Welcome to Sticky Interviews. My name is Darren Smith, and I'm the Chief Executive Officer of MBM Making Business Matter, the Home of Sticky Learning. We are the soft skills training provider to retailers and manufacturers around the globe. The idea of these interviews is to bring to you the expert's inside knowledge of how you can be the very best version of you. Welcome to the show. Welcome Simon Blake. We are here at Sticky Learning, MBM, and we have the great honour of talking to you. Now, I know that you are the CEO of Mental Health England. I know that you ride horses and you've got a competition tomorrow. But what I'd like to do is, for the guys that are watching is say, why should we talk to you about mental health? Simon Blake: Simon Blake, on Mental Health Questions and Answers   So, I mean, the first thing, of course is that everybody should be talking about mental health and talking about mental health properly and seriously. So great to be here talking with you. But I am Chief Executive of Mental Health First Aid England, which is an organisation that wants to train one in 10 of the adult population in mental health first aid England skills and knowledge because we think that will create a cultural tipping point in which enough people have the skills and understanding around mental health to make a real difference. Simon Blake: I also, of course, have lived experience in terms of live with a partner who has their own mental health conditions, friends, family, my own ups and downs in all sorts of things. So, yeah, I have some professional expertise and then some personal expertise. But just go right back to the first bit. We all need to be talking about it, and that's why you should talk to me because hopefully, I encourage some people too [inaudible1:47]. Darren Smith: Fabulous. Alright, we've got about 12 questions. Most of them are those that either come from people on LinkedIn or they are searching for them on Google. So we saw these questions and we thought, who better to ask than you? So we are going to go through these questions, ask you, we might go off a tangent, we might ask you to share a few stories. But for the viewers at home or at work, what we are really trying to do is get all those goodies that are inside your head around mental health out so we can help each other. Simon Blake: Cool. Darren Smith: So our first question is, what is the definition of mental health? Simon Blake: Sure. I mean, the World Health Organisation, I know Donald Trump's not their biggest fan. But the World Health Organisation defines mental health as a state of well-being in which individuals realise their own potential can cope with the normal stresses of everyday life, can work productively and fruitfully, which is obviously a good term for those working in supermarkets and be able to contribute to their own community. So that's the World Health Organisation definition. I guess the key bit in that is this is about well-being. Simon Blake: We often talk about mental health when we mean mental ill health, and it's really important to recognise.

Riding a nervous horse is one thing… Feeling less than confident about your own abilities while on your horse is quite another. Imagine it, up there, on your horse. He is beginning to get a little ‘jumpy'. Let's be honest, so are you… Doubts are beginning to creep in and your thoughts are heading in a direction you would rather that they didn't go… Building confidence in your abilities to both handle yourself and the horse when in this situation is often a long road. However, it can be done – with time and patience. Here are my suggestions for building your confidence in working with and riding a nervous horse.   You Can Read the Full Article for This Episode HERE:- https://stridesforsuccess.com/episode1274-building-confidence-when-riding-a-nervous-horse/   Get Going in Your Riding:- Daily Strides Premium is back! The first and original audio horse riding lessons you can use to improve your riding, train your horse, keep things interesting, have fun... Even if you don't have a trainer or coach Start today:- https://stridesforsuccess.com/dsp Daily Strides Podcast Calendar https://stridesforsuccess.com/month Connect with Lorna online:- Connect in the Mindset & Fitness for Equestrians Private Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/SFS30DayRiderFitnessChallenge Connect in the Virtual Stable Lounge Private Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1499737810323191

Are You an Amateur Negotiator? Join Ben from Innovate Podcast and Darren A. Smith with their talk on how to become an effective negotiator. Learn useful tools like the squaredance for negotiating and disregard bad practices like running to PowerPoint first. Read on to discover the basics of effective negotiation that you can start using today. You Can Read the Full Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: What else could we do? What could I explore? What do you want from me? Could we talk about a contract that's 50 years long? No, we can't, Darren. Alright, what about one's five years long maybe? Okay. Could we talk about improving the quality, and reducing the packaging? Could we work together on blah, blah, blah? There're a million things we could talk about. Now. None of them might bridge the gap between a 10-pound case and an eight-pound case. But let's try. Ben: Welcome to the Innovate Podcast, a show where we discuss, dissect, and attempt to rebuild the world of product and category within consumer goods. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Darren a Smith a veteran of the grocery industry with over 3o years of experience, I think working either for retailers or advising manufacturers and brands. Darren and I briefly crossed paths as buyers and category managers at Sainsbury back in the very early naughts, which we may discuss in a moment. But Darren, welcome to the Innovate Podcast. Delighted you can join us. How are you? How are you today? Negotiating is a key business skill   Darren A. Smith: Hey, Ben. I'm good. We're in process of moving house, not today, but in the next couple of weeks, so I am struggling with that process. There's a reason it's stressful. Ben: So yeah, you just thought you'd add another huge seismic life event onto the already kind of generational economic challenges that we're facing. Darren A. Smith: That's absolutely true. I think we just squeezed in for the interest rates went through the roof. Ben: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a joking matter actually. Yeah. Okay, cool. Good. So, Darren, just for the benefit of the listeners, I guess a natural place to start would just be to introduce yourself, talk through your kind of background from Sainsbury through to now and just talk about what you're focusing on with your current business MBM, if that's okay. Darren A. Smith: Of course. So I started Sainsbury in 1990 and at that point, I was the assistant. Now that's the important part. I was the assistant cottage cheese buyer. I wasn't even the real one. I didn't even know what cottage cheese was at the rightful age of 19. So that's where I started. Then I took on various buying roles for the next 13 years. My last real job was looking after the fruit team for Sainsbury, where I decided that actually I wanted to go and see if I could do something by myself, set up MBM, and ever since we've worked on soft skills training. Ben: Okay, awesome. Darren A. Smith: For the last past 20 years now. Ben: So soft skills training, I guess that could be quite broad. It's clearly focused on people. What are kind of the key areas that you focus on in terms of developing skills? Darren A. Smith: The key ones that people want are how do I get the most out of my time — time management. How do I get the most out of my people — people management, leadership skills, and how do I get the most out of my deals, particularly in the industry that you and I are in? So it's negotiation predominantly. It's time management and it's people management skills. They're the three. There are a number of other soft skills. The bit I really like is Jack Ma, recently the chairman of Alibaba said that with the progress of AI, soft skills is the only way forward. Love it. Ben: Right. Awesome. Darren A. Smith: Which is great. So we can try and process data really quickly and be analysts, but ultimately it's about how you and I interact about the teams we build and about how we lead people is the future.

Is Drinking No Longer an In-crowd Kind of Thing? Join Janet Hadley and Darren A. Smith in an all-new podcast episode on the British drinking culture. Hear why the British drinking culture has changed in the 21st century and its impact on how leaders encourage inclusivity in the workplace.  Learn other cool things like the origin of beer and statistics on the leading cause of absenteeism and fights in the workplace. You Can Read the Full Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Welcome to S***s and Giggles with HR. We are with the lovely Janet Hadley. How are you? Janet Hadley: I'm very well, thank you. Darren A. Smith: We've entitled this podcast or video if you watch it by video — this was Janet's idea — the Elephant in the well-being room. Is that right? Janet Hadley: That's correct. Okay. Darren A. Smith: I'm intrigued and I'm going to ask you more about that. But firstly, before we move on, why should we talk to you about drinking culture? Because that's what I know our topic's about. Janet Hadley: So the reason why you should talk to me about drinking culture is because I am on a mission to create a drink-safe workspace without killing the boss and that is what we do here at Choose Sunrise. I guess what brought me here is my own personal experience. I've worked in large corporations since all my jobs apart from my pay ground have been in large corporations basically. Darren A. Smith: Right. Janet Hadley: I've always been a big drinker. Those two things go very nicely together actually as it turns out. So I was a big drinker at school actually, from the age of 14. A big drinker through sixth form, a big drinker through university. I thought, do you know what? I'm going to have to calm this down a bit when I get my first proper job. I was wrong. I had to dial it up a bit because when I joined the trading floor of a large supermarket whose head office is based in Leeds, I was quite shocked actually. It was such a boozy culture. So it suited me down to the ground at the time. We would be out from 4:00 PM till 4:00 AM on a Friday. Darren A. Smith: Oh. That's heavy. Janet Hadley: It's probably heavy, isn't it? I never saw anything wrong with it. It was almost a culture where you had to be part of that in-crowd in order to be considered for promotion. Darren A. Smith: Right. Okay. Janet Hadley: I do remember there being a couple of pregnant, well, not pregnant women. Well, there were pregnant women or people who were recently back from maternity leave who I feel so guilty for now knowing I was in this. But they weren't part of the in-crowd. They weren't ever out in the pub with us, and they were passed up for promotion. There was a real culture of, well, they're only part-time and they're not really serious about their careers. It's a horrible toxic culture actually for someone to work in who has a young child. I actually do feel incredibly guilty now looking back on it and thinking about how I was part of that. Actually, I mean, fast forward to a couple of years ago when I decided to stop drinking, which I've obviously missed out on. It's a huge amount of story. I really only saw for the first time how much the drinking culture in the workplace had influenced me. I would never say it was my employer's fault that I developed a problem with my drinking. But it certainly didn't hurt. If you wanted to create a culture where someone would develop a drinking problem, that would be it. Many people develop drinking problems due to the drinking culture in the workplace   Darren A. Smith: Okay. So there's a hell of a story there from heavy drinking. Now, you haven't had a drink for two years. Janet Hadley: Two and a half years. Nearly three. Darren A. Smith: Okay. You were by no means an alcoholic. You were just part of the drinking culture. Janet Hadley: Well, this is a very interesting question because there is no formal definition of an alcoholic.

In this Special episode, We have a guest, Parithi who is a senior Mobile developer. We spoke lots of things about how is mobile development career now. What we need to learn to become a mobile( Android/IOS developer). Introduction to mobile development (Android & IOS) in Tamil. What are the interesting problems faced by Mobile Developers? How many people need to create and manage big apps like FB/Insta? How can I switch my career to Mobile Development? Can entrepreneurs use mobile development? and a lot of interesting questions. App Development has changed over the past decade and continues to change in a faster way. Mobile Application Technology is growing fast before we finish reading the latest book on App Development, what we learned is outdated Those days [2011-12], Android phones were not as widespread as nowadays. People used mobile phones- not smartphones, on their engineering projects using blue tooth with the android operating system they developed some applications, using the then existing android version 2.0 which is for mobile Application Development, and Android 3.0which is for Tablet Applications, Now, a decade later, people prefer the term Mobile Developer or Software Engineer rather than Android Developer. Earlier, it was not possible to develop any mobile app without knowing a programming language. These days, working knowledge of spreadsheet programs such as MS Excel or Google Sheets along with ‘Amazon Honeycode is sufficient to develop applications, without having to learn a programming language. This makes development much easier. ---------- You Can Read the full transcribe in the below blog. https://www.tamilboomi.com/mobile-app-development-career-trend-in-2023/ --------- If you are interested to learn about new technologies & careers, you'll like our newsletter. Sign up here: www.tamilboomi.com --------- We offer Online Classes for Cloud DevOps & Data Engineering. --------- You can reach out to us & join the group for discussions: --------- Insta: https://www.instagram.com/tamilboomitechnologies/ WhatsApp Group for Discussions: https://chat.whatsapp.com/LuwXgVza8B3EaFmXwkKSwq Whatsapp number: +91 9619663272 Twitter : https://twitter.com/TamilboomiT --------- We Talk about Life, Motivation, and Technology in Tamil and English. New Episodes Weekly twice (Tuesday & Friday). --------- We have three shows : அடிச்சாண்டா Appoinment Orderu : Talks about Career and Entrupreunership பொதுவாச் சொன்னேன்: Talks about General things which we want to share Tamilboomi online Course: Content related to technology and online live courses ---------- Want to appear in our shows or want to contribute? Feel free to reach us! Share and Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/tamilboomi/message

There are certain times of the year when circumstances mean you can find yourself with either more or less time with your horse. December, August, and April are just a few that pop into my mind.  Some riders find they have more time, and other riders have significantly less! It just depends on your unique circumstances and situation. What is key to remember is that whatever side of the time conundrum you find yourself on, making the time with your horse count is important. Especially if you hope to continue to move forward in your training together.  Can you really afford to lose a month of training - and set your momentum back to zero? So, to help you get this all figured out and continue to grow and develop your skills as a rider, here are a few ideas on how you can make the most of your time with your horse. However much time that happens to be for you. You Can Read the Full Article and Get Free Training HERE More Training & Support Free Planner & Exercises for Riders Join Connection for Step by Step Audio Horse Riding Lessons Mindset & Fitness for Equestrians Virtual Stable Lounge for Riders Working Alone or with OTTBs

Explore the HBDI Assessment Tool Join Andy Palmer and Sarah Garratt in the tenth episode of the Weekly Training Booster. This episode is about ‘What is the H.B.D.I. Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument assessment'. Exploring a number of questions to understand this assessment tool. You Can Read the HBDI Assessment Episode Transcript Below: Andy Palmer: Welcome to MBM's Weekly Training Booster. We are Weekly Training Booster number 10. This week we're going to talking about what is the HBDI, Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument. Today I'm joined by my colleague, Sarah, who's going to ask me some questions to help bring this to life, and I'll do my very best to answer them. Sarah, thanks for joining us this week. Great to have you here. Let's start, what's your questions for me on the HBDI assessment? Sarah Garratt: Okay. Thanks, Andy. First question, what is the HBDI assessment? Andy Palmer: Good stuff. All right. So the HBDI assessment, or the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument, is a psychometric test that allows people to understand their thinking preferences. And once they can understand their different individual thinking preferences, they can then start to understand and value, become more tolerant of others. So what we've really got here is a metaphoric model of how our brain works, taking into account the left and right hemispheres and the upper and lower parts of our brain. And what the HBDI profile [inaudible 00:01:06] and says is that, each of these four quadrants is responsible for different thinking, decision making and communicating preferences. Now the thing with the HBDI profile is there's no better or worse profile, there is no right or wrong. What it does, is allow us to start to understand why we have differences and similarities between different people and using this model can be truly powerful for many, many reasons. Sarah Garratt: Okay, thank you. And would you say that it was a personality test or not? Andy Palmer: No, not at all. So the HBDI profile unlike others, does not measure personality. It also doesn't measure temperament, it doesn't measure intelligence, it just purely looks at our preferences to these four different quadrants. And we can use our whole brain and that's absolutely critical to remember, we just have preferences. Now we can have a preference to what is referred to as the, A quadrant or the blue quadrant and that's about facts, it's about understanding logical, analytical, factual, here and now information. If we then continue round and I'll bring each of these quadrants to life. So that's our blue quadrant. If we move down into the green quadrant or the B quadrant, this is about organization, it's about sequence, it's about steps and stages. So people with a high degree of preference here, super organized and they can see the steps and the stages required in terms of understanding their individual thinking processes. We continue around and we move round into the C quadrant, which is the red quadrant, this is about feelings, it's about people's interpersonal skills, their communication skills, understanding the needs and the wishes of others is super important to those with a high preference here. And then lastly, we've got that D quadrant, the upper right or yellow quadrant. That's about holistic, conceptual thinking. It's not about the here and now, but it's about synthesizing and integrating with other people in the future and understanding the why of what those thinking preferences are like. So not about personality, more about preferences to thinking and decision-making styles. Sarah Garratt: Okay. Thank you. And HBDI profile, in terms of the quadrants, are we able to utilize every quadrant or are we just limited to one specific? Andy Palmer: Yeah, it's a very good question. It's a very good question because more often than not, when we are introducing the whole brain thinking model, people start to do that pigeon holing thing of you're red, I'm a yellow, I'm a green in you're a blue. And the reality is we can use all of our brain. Of course, we can, it's an incredibly powerful piece of kit. So in those initial stages of understanding and the initial stages of understanding and getting our head around the profile, people do do that pigeon holing stuff, you're a blue, you're a red, you're a yellow, you're a green. The reality is we can use all parts of our brain. We just have preferences to maybe 1, 2, 3, sometimes even all four of them. And it's about understanding the degrees of preference, not then using it as a limiting factor. Oh sorry, I can't do that thing, I don't have a strength or a high degree of preference in a certain quadrant. So we use all of our brain and we should never be limited by the preferences that we've got. It's about embracing them. Sarah Garratt: Okay. Thank you. And out of the four quadrants, which quadrants work best together. Andy Palmer: Yeah. That's a good question. I think there's no simple answer. The reality is we naturally gravitate to and get on with certain people. Now, one of the reasons that could be is because maybe they have a very similar preference to our own. So blues will naturally get on with blues, reds will naturally get on with reds, et cetera. And that's okay because it's on the same wavelength. Conversation's free flowing, thinking processes are very similar. To take that one step further, I also believe there's a real strong connection between those that have different thinking preferences. So certainly from a personal relationship point of view, we often find that partners have very different thinking preferences to their counterparts because actually some of those analogies of chalk and cheese and opposites attract kick in, in which case they then compliment each other. And as they start to build a level of tolerance and understanding for individual differences, they then connect, you compliment each other by maybe strengthening up an area that doesn't naturally come as well to them. So yes, certain quadrants get on with certain quadrants, i.e. kind of within the quadrant. But actually also I think people should think broader and wider and allow the different thinking and preferences of others to help compliment their own and to work better alongside each other, by having that level of tolerance and understanding and understanding that people bring different perspectives and opinions and that's all okay. Sarah Garratt: And based around that, in terms of an organization, do you need all quadrants within an organization to make it successful? Andy Palmer: I don't know about making it successful, but I think it would help make it more successful by utilizing a whole brain thinking. And because we have our different preferences, if you've then got a team that has balance across all of the quadrants, you might have two people in the green, two people in the yellow, two in the blue, whatever that may look like, then actually you've got a real balanced set of thinking going on. We sometimes see that companies or teams can be limited because maybe they are heavily prioritized or heavily preferenced towards one particular quadrant. In which case they may not naturally think into the other quadrants as easily. And often people say to me, oh, can we use HBDI as a recruitment tool? Yes you can. And actually, maybe you need to do the opposite of what you would naturally do. When you're interviewing someone you go, oh, I've gotten on really well with them, we seem to think ... they feel very natural, very normal, whatever we define normal as. Actually maybe you should employ the person that you didn't get on well with, maybe that didn't communicate in the way you expected them to, maybe didn't answer the questions in the way you would have liked them to because maybe, just maybe, they're coming at it from a different quadrant to your own, in which case they add further balance to the team. So having a balance across all quadrants for a team can be just super powerful. Yeah. Sarah Garratt: Okay. Thank you. And in terms of when you're under pressure, do you think it installs change? Andy Palmer: They can change. So its part of the questionnaire that you can complete to get your own individual HBDI profile. It also takes into account when you go under pressure, under stress and under duress. Now some people, and we all witness this, some people have those changes in what we would pass as their behaviors, when they're under pressure, they might want to go into themselves or they may do the opposite and want to vocalize more. They may become super organized or super unorganized or whatever that may look like. So yeah, when we're under pressure we can exhibit different behaviors and also some people stay pretty consistent. So when you see someone under pressure, they just seem to have the same sort of behaviors as they do when they're not under pressure. And again, this profile explores that because there is no right or wrong, there is no better or worse, we are who we are. And this profile just helps us to understand that. So yes and no, it is absolutely individually based. Sarah Garratt: Okay. Thank you. And as a final thought, can you name a few famous people who've completed the test and what quadrant they are? Andy Palmer: Yeah. I'm going to answer it a little bit differently. So I'm going to bring to life some of the people throughout history. Now these people haven't filled out the Herrmann profile because it wasn't sometimes possible to do that. But we've used something called or HBDI, the Herrmann company have used something called pro-former profiling and looked throughout history at some of the stand out people, to help bring potential profiles to life. So if I was to start with the upper right, the yellow quadrant, that's about future, we would find maybe the likes of Einstein in there, da Vinci, Picasso, those big visionary thinkers. Those big people that saw beyond and challenged the norm. And people like that tend to sit in there. We often see that these people are kind of inventors or entrepreneurs and that's typical yellow behaviors. If we were to come down into the lower right quadrant, the red quadrant. This is about feelings, about people. The likes of mother Teresa or [Gandy 00:09:47] would be in there. Those people who dedicated their lives to caring for others from a very humanitarian point of view. Into our green quadrant, a couple of people come to mind, J. Edgar Hoover. J. Edgar Hoover was instrumental in founding the FBI. How we look at his profile, I understand his set of thinking preferences, much like Margaret Thatcher, who was coming from a very organizational, sequential step, form points of view. And then coming up to our last quadrant, the blue quadrant. Bertrand Russell, Isaac Newton, big logical, mathematical, philosophical thinkers. Those people that are the absolute cutting edge of kind of science and understanding logic, rational thinking from a mathematical problem solving point of view. So Bertrand Russell, Issac Newton, would be in the seat in that blue quadrant for me. I think for me, it's truly fascinating to look at people throughout history and start to understand where they sat. All with a view to helping people to better understand where they sit in the world and to accept who they are. Because and as I mentioned before, maybe a couple of times, there is no better or worse, there is not a right or wrong. The HBDI, Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument assessment really just starts to help you understand your own thinking, communicating and decision-making preferences. So thanks for those questions. I hope that I've answered them in a way that you wanted to hear the answers, but I think more over it then brings that to life. So thanks, Sarah. Sarah Garratt: Thanks, Andy. Andy Palmer: All right. And that's going to conclude our weekly training booster. We are at week 10, we will continue to do that. We're going to put in the links today. If you are interested and would like to know more about the HBDI profile, where you can find that and similar information, and if you wish to take your profile work, put that link in there so you can explore that as an option as well. Likewise, any questions or thoughts, please put them in the comments. We'd love to have and continue the conversation around the HBDI profile. So thanks again, Sarah. We'll maybe see you again in a future video and thanks for watching this week's MBM Weekly Training Booster. Sarah Garratt: Thank you. Take a look at the HBDI Assessment video on our YouTube Channel. Also, check out our award-winning blog.

Russian Supermarket Discounters Join Andrew Grant and Darren A. Smith in the thirty-ninth episode of the Grocery Guru. They discuss the Russian Supermarket Discounters Opening Stores in the UK. How it will affect the UK's supermarkets. Particularly Aldi and Lidl. Plus, supermarkets like the 'X5 Retail Group' and their innovative approach and different model. You Can Read the Full Russian Supermarket Discounters Transcript Below: Darren A. Smith: Hello, and welcome to Grocery Guru. This is episode 39 and we are here with that grocery guru. Andrew, how are you? Andrew Grant: Morning Darren. Yes, very good. Thank you. Darren A. Smith: So, this week we're going to talk about the introduction into the UK of the Russian supermarket discounters, and I've got some information here, but I probably haven't got the experience you've got. What's your recollection of Russian supermarket discounters coming to Britain? Andrew Grant: Well, they haven't. So this is... Yeah, this is really interesting actually. They're called Mere and they want to open 30 stores in the next year, sorry 300 stores in the UK in the next year. The first one is opening towards the end of this month. Darren A. Smith: Yes. Now, I do remember when discounters came before, and you probably do, Europe Tesco. What's your recollection of that? Andrew Grant: Yeah, well this is the interesting thing, because I can remember being at Tesco, the first Aldi opened, and we'd already seen, I'd already seen Aldis in Germany and I still got this vivid recollection of going into an Aldi in Germany and in the chiller cabinet, the deli cabinet, there was a rusty knife hanging from a string and people were cutting their own lengths of salami. I'd never seen anything so unhygienic in my life. And so, the minute we found out that the first Aldi was opening, we thought, there's no way British shoppers are going to be picking knives up out of cabinets and cutting their own lengths of salami and sausage. They won't shop in those sorts of conditions. And then of course, well everybody knows the history, Aldi and Lidl landed, just touched something within the British psyche for a quality bargain, and I think quality is the important thing, a quality bargain and together they've now got a share bigger than Asda and Sainsbury's. Darren A. Smith: And I've got something similar on my recollection as a very junior buyer in, I think, it was the early 90s was, there was a guy called Tom Viner, who I think was probably CEO at the time. His initials were RTV, which I never quite understood, and then I realized his first name was Rudolph, but no one was allowed to call him Rudolph because they started doing red nose jokes. Anyway, so Tom was at a conference at the front and he was saying, he read out this clip from newspaper. It said the discounters are coming. And his point was, we all went, "Yeah, that's bad, Tom." He went, "No, this was written in 1902." He was trying to say to us that it comes every few years, it's cyclical that the discounters come and not to worry, but actually I think he was wrong because to your point, they've got a hell of a market share. Andrew Grant: Yeah. But I think my take is that this is actually really good news for the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury's, because it's going to give Aldi and Lidl one major pain in the whatsit to have to sort out. So this Mere group, they're planning to undercut Lidl and Aldi by 20% to 30%. I mean that is cheap, that is cheap as chips. But when you look at the pictures of the stores and anybody that's interested should have a look, there's an article of the Leipzig store that Mere recently opened. I mean, their model is quite interesting. All the stores are leased. On the cheapest possible buildings that they can find as long as it's near a main road. But the most interesting thing about the model is, suppliers own the stock until it's sold to a customer. So suppliers deliver direct to store, the stock remains theirs until it goes through the till. Darren A. Smith: Wow. Andrew Grant: So basically the suppliers are responsible for total inventory. Darren A. Smith: Oh, I didn't know that. That is a very different model. We don't have that in the UK with any of our supermarkets, do we? Andrew Grant: Not that I know of, no. I mean, obviously I suppose you could argue that the retailers are quite good at extending their credit terms and not paying suppliers for 35, 42 days. So, technically the stock is still the suppliers, but no, this goes one whole step forward. And most of the food is... Well, it's all delivered on pallets and it's sold off pallets still in the shrink wrap. To save on refrigeration costs, there's only one refrigerator, and it's a room so that you go into a very cold room to pick up your yogurt and your milk and whatever. Again, I've seen that operating in Europe and in Russia, and I'm not sure. I think it will give Aldi a little something to think about, because anything that cheap is going to corner a part of the market. And you only have to go around the UK post pandemic [inaudible 00:05:22] whatever the government's leveling up agenda is, if anybody actually understands what that means, there's some serious areas of [inaudible 00:05:32] around the country. And I think if this Mere group targets those towns, the really marginalized coastal towns and some of the old industrial towns in the north and the Midlands and maybe the southwest and Wales, they will get a market. But it will be solely, I think solely at the expense of Aldi and Lidl. I can't see shoppers migrating from a Tesco and a Sainsbury's to that sort of super basic environment. Darren A. Smith: Okay. That's interesting. Let me just share, for anyone who hasn't got an understanding of the Russian market, just for a moment. So I've got here that the Russian market is made up of predominately eight supermarkets. Now the biggest one is the X5 Retail Group that has 12.8%, so let's call it 13%, and then Magnit, the next one, 8.8%, then DKRB with 6.6. So we've got about eight players with X5 being the biggest. Now X5, I hadn't realized this, the size of X5, they have a revenue of 28 billion. So, we're talking about a very big player here with an operating income of 1.5 billion and nearly 350,000 employees. Andrew Grant: Yeah, but I think this Mere group is interesting, because obviously they're Siberian, which is Russia in the refrigerator. It's not like it's Moscow or St. Petersburg. Yeah. This is a Siberian retailer. And we should probably steer away from any cultural humor, but when you look at that corporate website, I mean it is very Compare the Meerkat. It's been translated from the Russian and it doesn't quite translate to perfect English. I had a bit of a giggle, but I probably shouldn't be allowed to say that. But look, they clearly operate on zero cost. I mean, each of the stores is only going to have eight members of staff. Three filling the store, three filling the store and four on checkouts. Completely stripped down. But they're operating all across Eastern Europe and they're now in Germany and they obviously see the UK as opportunity. I think the first store is Preston. That's right. Darren A. Smith: And do you think that this is the start of other supermarket brands coming over?Trying their hand in the UK market? Andrew Grant: We'll wait and see. I do think back to, as we said right at the start of this, Aldi coming in. Everybody fobbed them off. "Oh, it's not going to work. Hard discount isn't right for the UK." And we now eat our words odd 15, 20 years later. So never say never. If they're determined enough, and the model is sufficiently different. It's not like they use in a standard retail model and just hacking prices because anybody can do that and become massively unprofitable in the process. But if they've got a model where they're effectively holding no stock and there's no customer service. They make a point, almost Ryanair-ish, there is no customer service number, desk, or email. You want to complain, tough. Darren A. Smith: Let me just share a little bit more about these X5 guys, because they're the ones, I think, we really need to be worried about. And I'll tell you why. So I'm looking here and they have now launched pay with a glance bio-metrics at the checkout. Andrew Grant: What? Darren A. Smith: Just unbelievable. And what comes across from X5 is they are hugely innovative. 15,000 stores, okay? A lot of stores, of course. They seem to turn around their business in 2015 and became the market leader and are on a trajectory to absolutely dominate like Tesco. So that's really, really good. And then we talked about the subleasing here. These guys are doing it, I think it's what happened in 2015 that really turned these guys around, but the bit that really impressed me is they held a Russian version of Dragons' Den and they invited a lot of small businesses to come along, 800 startups, and they've started working with a whole bunch on new innovations that no one's ever seen before. So it's a little bit like Tesco's Red Door, yet I think these guys are ahead. They actually started it three years ago. [crosstalk 00:10:24] as a very respected, innovative business. Andrew Grant: Yeah. But having worked, or visited Russia a few times over the last 10 years, it still... Well, I don't know. It looked, well when I visited it, it was at least 20 years behind the UK. So, it's still almost virgin territory for retail. So, anybody that's a good player, such as obviously X5 are, I think they will make hay for quite a long time. It's a very different game trying to get into a market like the UK if you're operating on the same principle model as effectively the world best in class leaders. Darren A. Smith: Yeah. Yeah, I get it. And what you said is they're bringing in a different model, which might take its market share and it might take it from Aldi and Lidl. So if we roll forward five years, do you think Aldi and Lidl, what? They've lost a couple of points between them to Russian supermarkets like Mere? Andrew Grant: No. I think, yeah, they'll probably have 150 stores, 200 stores, but they'll just steal it away from corner shops, market stalls, freezer shops. There's still lots of those, our version of hard discounters. I think they'll probably steal them from them because the business model gives them an advantage over those more traditionally run hard discount stores. Darren A. Smith: Okay. So some of those freezer centers that we've seen, like Iceland have a big freezer center, I've forgotten the format, and Farm Foods, they might be stealing from those? Andrew Grant: Yeah. There's Farm Foods. There's a whole raft of small, semi-independent, quasi-hard discounters. And then you've got market stores, and you've got the vans that drive around offering cheap meat and vegetables and frozen stuff. I can see them stealing that, whether it's enough for them to show on Kantar as a serious player, I'll put my money on the line and say no. But I don't think they'll have more than 1% share. I think they'll have less than 1% share in five years' time. Darren A. Smith: Okay. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. So, we're talking about Russian supermarkets. We've got the big one, X5, followed by Magnit, then DKRB, they're entering the UK market. Our grocery guru thinks they'll have less than 1%, we'll wait and see. Andrew, what's our- Andrew Grant: In five years, yeah. Darren A. Smith: In five years. What's our takeaway before we leave you? Andrew Grant: Well, as I said, whilst I've just made the prediction of this Mere group having less than 1% share in five years' time, it is worth keeping an eye on them, I think. Have a look at their website. If you're anywhere near Preston in the next few weeks, I think it'd be fun to pop in and see what it's like, because if I'm wrong, then you will need to take notice of them. Darren A. Smith: All right. Andrew, we'll let you get back to your Friday. Thank you very much and we'll see you next week. Andrew Grant: Cheers. Darren A. Smith: Take care. Bye. Take a look at the Russian Supermarket Discounters video on our YouTube Channel. Also, check out our award-winning blog.

How to Give Feedback Part #2 Need to have ‘That' conversation but don't know how, worried how it'll be received, or just believe that if you ignore it for long enough it'll go away? This 4-day training will dispel every belief you have about feedback, that you've been previously taught or learned by yourself along your leadership journey. You Can Read the Full Transcript Below: Nathan Simmonds: Good afternoon, sticky lunches. Just making sure my screen is straight. How are we all today? I've actually joined in early just to make sure we're getting people in the room. On a scale of one to 10, one being terrible, 10 being phenomenal, how are we feeling today? 10. Straight in there with the tens. Good. Lots of positivity. Just a few more minutes while people are arriving. Colin, good to see you. Just doing a quick check in center. Check how everyone's feeling. One to 10, one at one at the bottom, 10 at the top. Where are you? Yeah. How are you feeling today? Nathan Simmonds: Good. I think I'm on the downward curve though, of one of the emotional slides of COVID-19 right now. I feel like we're getting to the end of all this. I feel like we're going back to normal. It is challenging. Martin, good to see you. Bonjour, . We are in a little bit early. We've got 30 seconds. We're just waiting for people to arrive. Now he's going with the Portuguese. Now he's coming at me, right? Where are we? One minute past people still arriving. Just waiting for those to get into the room. Darren, good to see you. Nathan Simmonds: Let's just give it a moment while we're getting everyone in the room. Let's make sure we're all set up for success. Mobile phones, hold 'em higher. Let's get the little airplane lit up. My one is good to go already. Just checking that. Making sure that you've got a drink available. You want to keep yourself hydrated. Keep the brain lubricated and keep this learning sticking. Okay, and then finally, as always, fresh sheet, fresh thinking. Nathan Simmonds: Get yourself a nice clean page in that book in your notepad to make sure that you can get those things down that you want to remember and reread so you can reignite that thinking when you go back to it. You wanna keep that learning, expanding and moving and growing. So these, these are the three key elements just to set these sessions up, to keep that, that learning live. Last mouth of tea. Learn to give better feedback   Nathan Simmonds: Gareth, good to see you, Claire. Great to see you again. Thanks for being there. Last handful of people, right? Grab my pens. Let's fly with this. So, one thing we talked about yesterday, and I said I would share the link with you, which I've got down here, gonna get this now, is about the pigmalian effect. I hope I spelled that right. Nathan Simmonds: We talked about this briefly yesterday. I've just dropped a v No, I didn't. I just put it in there to everyone else but you. So you can't see it. Over audience. Let's try that. There we go. So I talked about this briefly yesterday, which was the Pygmalion effect. So it's the, the core idea or the, the science behind the statement of what you think of people is how you treat them. So that video's there, it's about six minutes long, not for watching now. Nathan Simmonds: It's definitely for watching later. Okay. And then I'm gonna copy this in just while I'm thinking about, and it's fresh in my thinking. If you have not registered for tomorrow's session or any of the other future sessions, the link is now in the chat box for you. Make sure that you are signing up for tomorrow's session immediately. 'cause That's gonna be part three of this feedback training. Nathan Simmonds: And these trainings are gonna stack up, yes, they'll help you individually, but they're gonna stack up in over the four parts in their entirety to support you delivering feedback in a much clearer, holistic and thoughtful way to support you getting the best results for your people.

Episode 25 - 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. 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. Time Management Mastery   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, and I didn't know why. So I went looking for answers.

Episode 24 - 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. 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] James Kerr- brand and business consultant   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 for a long...

Episode 23 - 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. 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. Ross Hardy - crisis negotiator   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:

Episode 22 - 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. 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. Marc Gordon   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, teachers, everyone just shrugged and said, "Kids will be kids.

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? Let's here Becky's reason   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...

Episode 20 - 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. 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   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 make sure that they are awar...

Episode 19 - 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. 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. Team building and team work with Oliver Bailey   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,

Episode 18 - 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. 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. Paddy Willis - Founder and CEO of Mission Ventures   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,

Episode 17 - 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. 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. Situational Leadership, 'The Magician', Jay Raham   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 inner voice,

Episode 16 - 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 archaeology hurtling about the place really. Geoff Burch   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. I think, again,

Episode 15 - 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. 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. George Troy - blower and author   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. One is that I honestly believe, I know,

Episode 14 - 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. 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. Mich Bondesio: performance mentor   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:

Episode 13 - 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. 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. ConsciousWorks - coaching company   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 the people.

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