The Failure Gap

Speaker 1 (00:00.556)
Hello and welcome to the Failure Gap, where we talk with leaders about closing the space between agreement and alignment. We love talking with interesting people and today we're joined by Richard Giles. Richard has spent most of his career with purpose-led brands across the hospitality and retail sectors. He's energized by enabling colleagues and therefore teams to realize their full potential. He pursues and pursuing effective collaboration, communication and working practices between finance and the wider business, which I happen to know is a big challenge.

He's a proud husband and father of two teenagers and has worked with global businesses in a number of different roles across finance. For more than three years, he served as the group finance director for Park Dean Resorts, a large scale hospitality business with locations in the UK. Before joining Park Dean, he spent eight years with the De Beers Company, the world's largest diamond company. He's a fellow chartered accountant in the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

and a fellow of the Associated Corporate Treasurers. holds an MA from the University of Oxford where he studied English literature. Richard, welcome to the Failure Gap.

Thanks, Julie. Lovely to see you again.

You know, I am so interested in this journey from English literature to group finance directors. I would love it if you would share just a little bit about your journey to leadership and your role today with our audience, because that is something that not a lot of people do.

Speaker 2 (01:27.138)
Yeah, it's a strange journey. And I think, if I'm honest, it's an accidental, unintentional journey. I think the common theme throughout my career has been to make sure that I'm enjoying what I'm doing and who I'm doing it with. And when I went to university, I was determined to study English literature. I spent three wonderful years reading novels and poetry, which was fantastic. But then at the end of that time, I thought, well, what am I going to do with this?

degree. And what ultimately led me into finance was meeting various people in different firms and thinking, well, getting a professional qualification would be a good place to start. And I found this group of people that I really connected with. So I went into practice and let my career take me from there. I think by nature, I'm a stayer. I'm a bit of a lifer. I'm someone who, once I find my tribe, it takes something fairly

significant to make me want to move on. And I've been fortunate through my career that there have been three or four events that have opened the door for new things. But the consistent theme throughout has been that desire to want to connect ideas and people. And I think that goes back to my English literature degree days. And I think being a successful accountant isn't just about the numbers, it's about how you bring the numbers to life and how you communicate clearly with your colleagues and stakeholders.

That's really been a great opportunity for me and I've loved being in the retail and hospitality spheres in particular because that's where I found the most enthusiasm and energy.

Yeah, and it seems like it is actually a pull through of that desire to create community that by nature in the retail and hospitality industries, that is what you're doing is creating those experiences that bond people together.

Speaker 2 (03:18.134)
It's been really important to me. I've had a couple of jobs along the way where I joined businesses that I thought I would be able to be enthusiastic about. But actually, you know, six, nine, 12 months in, the spark just wasn't there. But consistently for me, being in those businesses with a large number of employees, a large number of locations, often around the world, I found that really inspiring. And as you say, it's about that connection.

Yeah, and it just opens up your world in really interesting ways. And I think in finance in particular, you get to see so much of the business. And people think sometimes that finance might be a little boring or all about the numbers, no offense to all the finance people out there, but that is what people think. And one of the things I've always appreciated about your perspective is that it is about the people and it is about the whole organization and seeing that big picture.

Absolutely. I think the privilege of being in a finance function is that you're probably involved in all significant decisions. So you're really at the hub of the business and often you'll be brought into conversations because actually you might have the broadest understanding of a particular issue. And it can also help you, think, sometimes to see both sides of an argument. know, very often you'll see stakeholders in conflict with one another.

But because you've separately spoken with each of them about their approach to a particular problem, sometimes it can put you in a good position to be that peacemaker, the person who tries to bridge the gap and build that understanding and alignment.

and that you bring that representation of the corporate view, the enterprise level view. And I know finding an enterprise level view across the leadership team is actually a big challenge for a number of our clients. It's something that they're really leaning into and working on is how do we get everybody to the place where they have that enterprise view that I think comes a little more naturally in the finance function.

Speaker 2 (05:15.224)
That's absolutely right because often there are different income streams or revenue streams or customers within a large organization. And probably in finance, you spend more time than anyone else getting that helicopter view of the entire business and understanding how the whole thing fits together.

Yeah, yeah. Well, what a great journey to go from studying English literature, which by the way, I have an English degree as well. And bringing that discipline of how do we tell the story and how do we share the experience into the world of finance. I think that's a really interesting path to follow. And like you said, almost accidental, but I really appreciate your idea that when doors open, you just have to walk through them and try different things.

Absolutely, and you know, obviously it's important to have a perspective of where you want your career to take you, but I never get too slavishly attached to that. Again, I want to make sure that I'm enjoying it. You my career is more than halfway through already, and I want to make sure that I look back at the end of my career and I say, yeah, I really made the most of those years. I really enjoyed the people that I worked with and I did some exciting things.

Yeah, absolutely. You want to be able to look back on a career and know that it was rewarding for you and you were also able to make a contribution. And I think that's the path that you've been on. Well, let's talk a little bit about the failure gap. So when you think about this idea of thinking that something would be a really good idea to do and getting aligned to doing it and actually bringing it into life and into action, what comes to mind for you? Can you give our audience an example of something that you've grappled with?

Yeah, the thing that I keep coming back to is music. I know when you spoke to our friend David Prager a few months back, he started off here. So I'm sorry if this is going to sound like a broken record, but music has always been a huge part of my life and it's a huge part of our family today. And it's interesting now reflecting on my own journey with music and then seeing my children as they've gone on a similar journey.

Speaker 2 (07:24.0)
I remember from a very young age starting to learn to play the guitar and my parents spending, I dread to think how much money, sending me to these lessons every single week. And if I did half an hour's practice from one lesson to the next, I'd be surprised. And I suspect it was infuriating for my poor guitar teacher, but my mum diligently took me to these lessons every single week. And I built some good skills, but

fundamentally the passion just wasn't there. You know, I wanted to play the guitar, but fundamentally my whole being wasn't aligned to really making that happen. And then in the early 90s, Eric Clapton performed on MTV Unplugged. And I got hold of that CD and it just blew me away.

And I listened to that CD again and again and again. And in a matter of weeks, I could play the entire album. I hastened to add not quite as well as Eric Clapton, but I could play that 60, 70 minutes. And I loved every song and I knew it by heart. And it's a live album, right? So in reality, he's kind of talking to Nathan East on the bass and he's communicating with the instrumentalists. And I'm not only singing the songs, I'm also kind of joining in with those ad lib bits. But fundamentally, my guitar playing progressed more

in that space of a few months than it had in years before. Because I suddenly felt passionate and enthused. And I think the lesson really for me is when I think about everything that I try and do in my career now, and that gap between agreement and alignment, sometimes it's quite challenging to do. But if you can find a way to ignite that passion in the people who have got to make it happen.

then you've got a chance because then it doesn't feel like work anymore. It feels like you're all collaborating and pulling in the right direction. And so I think for me, I can see in my own life that finding the passion is so fundamental. And once I've got that, I know I'll be able to contribute more positively to the overall delivery. And I think that that works in a team context as well.

Speaker 1 (09:34.798)
Yeah, you know, it reminds me of another person I spoke with Dallas Olson, who talked about the difference between loving where you're going and loving going there. And like the plot, have to love the process as much as you love the idea of the destination. Otherwise, it's just too hard. It's just too hard to do it. And I think that's very true. I think it's very true with a lot of people around playing the guitar, by the way. They didn't get the jolts of lightning from Eric Clapton.

I owe him a big debt of gratitude. He will never know, but that's fine.

Well, maybe we can make this get to him. don't know. We'll figure it out. Yeah, I love that idea though that you have to find that that light inside of yourself somehow. That if you want to move from agreeing that something would be great to do to getting the line and getting it done, you've got to find that impetus that like that something that lights that fire inside of you to do the hard work, because very few things that are worth doing are easy. Right? So how do you find the tenacity to do the hard work?

Let's see.

Speaker 2 (10:36.462)
I think when it becomes easier, especially with something very complex where you can't do it on your own, very often we'll just run into creating a project charter and putting all the kind of artifacts in place around project management and rightly defining the objectives and the priorities to avoid scope creep, know, all these kinds of challenges that you have that get in the way of a major change. But sometimes the most valuable thing you can do is

is that softer stuff of coming together as a team and setting the vision. And it might sound really vague and wooly. But what I found in the past when we tried to kind of create a culture within a finance team, it's one thing as a leader to come in and say, here's what I want our finance team to feel like. And you can talk about values and the way that you want people to treat one another. But actually,

that stuff takes time to percolate down. And I found the most successful approach there is if you can set that vision, but in quite a loose way, but then allow your team to actually define what it means. And the most powerful thing there is when you see your leadership team start to bring their own creativity to that perspective. And then that percolates down to the people you report into them and percolates down.

All of that takes time. And we started out in this journey in my current role, you know, two and a half, three years ago, trying to, trying to define what we wanted being in this team to feel like. And it's only now that you can see people at the most junior rungs of the team really representing that. And that's because every rung of management has decided for themselves, this is what it's going to mean to me. I'm going to embrace this and, therefore communicate it. So

It's a really long journey. think you said in a previous podcast about transformation taking time. It really does take time because to be truly effective, to truly unleash the full potential of the team, it requires that spark, that passion to filter down. And in the end, the thing that you've created probably doesn't look exactly like the vision that you as a leader defined at the outset, but it's all that more rewarding as a result, because you can see how every team member has contributed to making it what it is.

Speaker 1 (13:01.388)
Yeah, you I like to say people are messy. And it takes us time to wrap our heads around things and to shift behaviors. And I do feel like sometimes in hyper efficient organizations where we prize efficiency, we lose sight of the reality that people don't change in a catalytic moment. They have to take the time to really understand, especially if there's a group dynamic that you have to work with.

How does that, I like your word, percolate through the organization? And just like a good cup of coffee takes a few minutes, a good percolation through the organization can take months or even years sometimes, and consistency will get you so far.

I completely agree, absolutely.

Yeah, I wonder, Richard, as you think about your experiences over the years, as you reflect on times when there might have been that push to like, let's just get this done fast. Like, let's just get everybody together and tell them this is what it's going to be versus, you know, taking that time to really let things develop and to guide them and to...

them rather than to shove them down somebody's throats. Are there any experiences you've seen where that's either been a stumbling block or it's worked really well for a company as they've tried to get a group of people to lean in and work differently together?

Speaker 2 (14:27.776)
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's so many different angles to that. I think sometimes in an understandable desire to build momentum, organizations can just set an unrealistic timetable. Now, you could argue that that's just necessary. It's just necessary to mobilize. I think the challenge then comes if there's a

If there's a post-mortem later, you probably just need to be honest enough and say, well, that six months timetable was never realistic, but we needed to set it in order to build that momentum. But I think sometimes that urgency can lead to quite a lot of wasted effort because typically in my experience, not enough time goes into really defining the solution, trying to understand

the issue that it's trying to solve. And again, it starts with people. There tends not to be enough engagement at the outset about what it is exactly that the end user needs to be delivered. And so often those issues are only then discovered at the end. You get all the way through to the user acceptance testing phase, and then people say, well, that's not suitable for our business because, can you just do this? Can you just do that?

And lo and behold, some of those things you can do and they just delay things by a couple of months, but some of them were so fundamental that actually it points to a lack of design at the outset. So I think that time pressure is a real challenge. And I think it's very difficult if you've got a very strong sponsor who's determined to get something done in a particular timetable. I think it's hard for everyone involved in a project to try and ensure there is sufficient diligence done at the outset. I think that's one big area.

The second area that I think really plays a huge role is ego and status. And I've been involved in a number of projects recently. I think if you're going to sponsor a project like that, it's really important that you get involved to be able to understand the perspectives of all the different.

Speaker 2 (16:51.416)
parties who are affected by it and not just respond to the voices of those who are loudest or most definitive in their view. I think that's really important is that you should always seek that broad perspective and be aware if there are particularly loud voices in the room who may be drowning out the perspectives of others who are going to be very important in delivering the solution.

I think there's almost two paths where you have to be attentive to that idea of ego. One being those loud voices in the room and two being your own as a leader and wanting to be successful, right? That success equals this project ends or this project is over or this project is successful. And sometimes you can get a little lost in that as well.

It's really crucial. And if you're in a hurry, you often don't make time to reflect on the way in which you've shown up in a particular meeting. Any of my colleagues will tell you that I talk too much. You probably see that from this podcast. And so for me, I've got to have that constant awareness. Am I listening more than I'm speaking?

and in what way is my behaviour actually stopping the engagement and the communication which is going to be critical to the success of this project.

You know, at Kerrigan's group, always say leaders need to start with self. And I think that that's what you're speaking to, right? Is how do you as a leader become aware of and be attentive to how you're contributing to the group dynamics that will help make this a success or not as you try to move through the failure gap on some of the bigger programs and transformations that you're attempting.

Speaker 2 (18:40.974)
I was really fortunate last year, did some work with a great coach who helped me through a tool, LSI leadership style inventory, where you really understand, firstly, you seek that 360 opinion, 360 perspective from key stakeholders. That can be a painful process, understanding exactly what people think about you. And then secondly, understanding how you act in particular.

context and that particular toolkit was very valuable because it explained some of my preferences in terms of passive behavior, aggressive behavior, or effective assertive behavior between the two. And I found that very helpful to find myself in a particular context. Am I being too passive here? I'm actually becoming too aggressive here. How can I communicate the difficult message in such a way that it is received? And it probably won't always be welcomed.

but that I can help this person understanding I'm communicating this because I believe they need to hear it and I believe there's something they can do about it. I think that's very important. As you say, start with your own blind spots and understand where your communication style may actually hinder the message and be brave enough to practice those skills that will allow you to communicate most effectively.

Yeah, we always say leaders shouldn't try to change what other people do until they're willing to change how they lead. And sometimes we expect other people to do things differently, but we keep leading in exactly the same way. And it just creates a lot of challenges, especially if you're trying to transform an organization, to effect an organization-wide transformation.

recognize that you're a work in progress that however hard you work on this there's going to be a meeting next week where you're going to get it wrong and you might need to go and apologize to someone and that's okay.

Speaker 1 (20:36.002)
Yeah, the goal is not perfection, it's progress, right? That's it. Yeah. You brought up a couple of really interesting things. I just want to do a quick recap, which is we talked about finding that passion. Like what's the, know, Clapton bolt of lightning that will help you motivate yourself to take on some of these, hard work of getting to where you want to be. We've talked about giving things time to percolate, making sure that they can kind of get into the organization and, and be

appreciated and developed by the group and not just by one person saying do this or don't do this. We've talked about ego and making sure that it's not just the loudest people in the room and it's not just your own as a leader ego around wanting to be successful, but how do we make sure that everybody is a part of that success and kind of pull it forward? And then I think, you know, where we just touched on was the importance sometimes of having a coach having somebody who can help you to develop those skills. I'm sure your guitar teacher

was really glad that you got hit by lightning. And your LSI coach probably was really grateful that you were willing to take on the, I know that process, it's a tough one. And really, a coach can only take you so far as far as you're willing to go yourself. And so those are a few things that come to mind for me as I listen to you think about navigating the failure gap and how do we get into alignment and delivering on things that we wanna do.

What a brilliant summary, thank you very much for summarizing it for me, that's great.

Well, they're your ideas. But when you think about maybe a transformation that you've seen in organization attempts, and maybe a favorite story or reflection of success where you've seen this really come together well, can you walk us through an example of where you've seen a company really take this on and be able to get from this is a really good idea, I wish we would do that to actually being able to get it done.

Speaker 2 (22:30.838)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you touched on this previously with Rob Ripp, which is that transformation is all about people. It's people first. Then it's about process. And only third is it about technology. And I think too often people invert that order of events. They think that if we install this wonderful new ERP system, that will solve everything.

And often those projects are just so massive and so daunting. And I think we've all seen them become career killers, right? And that actually makes people even more anxious about them because you've seen how in previous organizations, they become massively over scheduled and massively over budget. So I don't know what the solution is. I've not been part of one of those huge technology programs where it's just worked perfectly smoothly straight out of the box. And I'm not sure I've met anyone who has.

where I've seen it work really well is where you do start with people and you make sure that you people process technology. So start with the people then think about do we actually have an optimal process because too often what happens is you design the new technology to fit around a process that is legacy. Actually being courageous enough to say, maybe we need to reconsider how this process is going to work.

And finally, when you do get to the technological solution, in my experience, it's wonderful if you can break it down into small successes along the way. That's how you can build momentum. I think it's very challenging when you are trying to replace a major ERP system because it's quite hard to show any piecemeal progress, but we're just completing a major program of work that's been going on for the last couple of years.

The reason why that's been relatively successful, I won't say it's been perfect, but it's been relatively successful because we've had a large number of small to medium deliverables. And so we've been able to communicate actual improvement to people along the way. So people have had reason to believe in the next step and the next step. And I think that's increasingly possible. Again, without making it all about the technology, it's increasingly possible in a kind of cloud based

Speaker 2 (24:57.838)
context where APIs allow you to build connection between disparate platforms. I think it's more possible to do now than it might have been 10 or 20 years ago because you can find a standalone technology solution that can transform a particular area of pain that can connect in with your wider ERP context. And that's where we found success. But ultimately, landing that program

isn't anything to do with the technology, it's to do with the adoption and the acceptance by the end user and them communicating to their peers, this is great, my life is better because of this transformation.

Yeah, you know, it's the I think about small milestones and I think about you learning how to play 60 minutes of guitar, right? Not to go back to that too much, but like, how do you get that accomplishment under your belt so that you feel inspired to keep going forward? And I agree with you. I hadn't thought about this from an ERP perspective, but it is, I think, easier today because of how we can interconnect systems through the cloud and people can see a little bit of what's happening.

You the old lift and shift model, right? Where we would just lift all the processes, shift them over to the new system and bump it down on top of people. It didn't really work all that well 10 years ago. It doesn't work well today. Yeah. I don't think, you know, you see it work in bits and pieces maybe, but never as a wholesale success, right? Exactly. And I think what you're touching on is a technology provider can get their technology to work in any environment. But

I've never seen it before.

Speaker 1 (26:36.074)
whether they're getting it to work on an ideal process is up to the people in the environment and back that up to the people who are executing the process. I don't know about you, but I have seen people be very creative about how they make sure that their process doesn't change on the new technology.

It's really true. That's absolutely right. And the more complex the organization and the more complex the end to end process, the more likely you are to end up with a horse designed by committee, you know, that old kind of parable. And I think it becomes really challenging because it could well be that there is nobody within your organization who really understands the full process end to end. It's hard to find those people. But if you do find those people, what I found

critical is not to ask them to support the transformation on the side of their desk. That's a recipe for disaster. I want you to do your day job, but I also want you to give some consulting time to this project team over here to help them build the new solution. You've got to put those subject matter experts into the program and use the benefit of their expertise. Now, to your point, you don't want them to bring, they need to have the right perspective, they need to have the right attitude.

But the risk is if the way the project runs is the project team interview the people who are doing the current process, they will simply build something which does that current process. Whereas if you take the subject matter expert, the one who understands what we're trying to achieve and put them into the program, they can understand how the new tool might help them achieve that same thing more efficiently. So I think that's a really important thing. Don't trust the development of your new solution to people who don't understand it.

Yeah, yeah, and it's that, you you brought to mind horses. And so it made me think about this. But, you know, Henry Ford said if I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses, right? so how do you help open up people's minds to the potential of something new and different, while also knowing that they still need to get from point A to point B?

Speaker 2 (28:44.984)
Perfect.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Richard, this has been such an interesting conversation. And I love that we're rounding out on ERP implementations because I'm sure that so many of our listeners have either been through it or about to go through it. It is something that we continue to evolve in business to try and figure out how do we create processes and leverage technology in a way that helps people to do the work that people are best suited to do. And I think that's actually the, that is the promise of

things like ERP when you think about technology. And we go all the way back to where you started, which is it is about finding your tribe. It's about the people that energize you. Like how do you fuel yourself as you think about how do we run this business better and help it to have a bigger impact on our customers and our communities. Yeah. When you think about some of the things that have worked well for you, I'm just curious if we want to do a roundup.

Absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (29:43.904)
of some of the ideas or advice that you would give to somebody who's trying to move through the failure gap, who's trying to get from agreeing that something's a good idea to aligning and getting it done. What are the two, three, four things that you would tell them to focus on?

So we often talk about psychological safety as being a key foundation for effective collaboration and for effective culture. And fundamentally, it starts with how do you overcome the sense of fear and threat that people feel? And a number of years ago, I took part in a training program where

we looked at this concept of the scarf response, which I think it was a psychologist called David Rock who first defined it. And he talked about how you have a human response when you feel that your status or certainty, your autonomy, your relatedness or fairness are threatened. And that's what tends to bring out the worst in people is that immediate kind of animal reaction. I'm being threatened here.

And that's when the barriers come up and it creates siloed thinking, defensiveness, a lack of communication and collaboration. I'm going to stand my ground and I'm not going to engage with this because I feel threatened. And I think one of the things that I found very powerful about that is firstly, touching on the earlier point, how does it therefore inform the way that I bring new ideas to people? I need to be mindful that

what I might think is a great idea, because I'm very passionate about it. I've made that step. They haven't heard about it yet. And I'm going to stroll into a meeting and tell them about this great new piece of software that's going to transform their lives. And there could be all sorts of response to that. What does this mean for my job security? What does it mean for my status within the organization, my autonomy? So firstly, just being aware of that as a framework is really important. How does that then inform the communication style?

Speaker 2 (31:54.434)
And then beyond that, so much of the friction that I see within teams and between teams, it just starts from a lack of awareness of where the other person may be coming from. You've touched on it with a number of your interviewees about, Stephen Covey talks about wanting to...

to understand rather than to be understood, which actually goes back to St. Francis from the 13th century. It's a very powerful concept. I have found, and there'll be lot of people listening who think, that's pseudo science nonsense. I have always found that leading a team through a Myers-Briggs type process or insights or something else kind of Carl Jung influenced disc or Hogan or whatever it might be, I've always found that to be a massively powerful tool.

because the first thing that it does is it creates a taxonomy of understanding about different perspectives. So many times in my career, I've had two team members who just can't get on. They just constantly butt heads. And then you go through that kind of MBTI analysis and they suddenly realize, we're on the same side here. It's just, I see things through this lens and they see things through.

and other lens and so often I found that as being a powerful way to break down barriers and to turning two people who were sworn enemies into really effective colleagues because suddenly they see the other perspective as a real strength. Can you help me with this? Because I know if you bring your perspective to this, we'll be able to unlock it. So my tip would be, don't dismiss that. It does take time to do, but I've never found that it's failed to pay off and nine times out of 10, my colleagues have come to me and said, that's brilliant. I suddenly,

I've made understanding, I've broken through with somebody that I just could not get on with last week.

Speaker 1 (33:54.114)
Yeah, and I would say it actually doesn't matter what tool you use. There's a lot of great ones out there. What matters, and you've mentioned this, is the shared language that it gets developed across the team. also the shared experience of it, which often these people have never had a shared experience like that. And so that's where the real value comes. So if people are listening and thinking, maybe I'll check that out, don't get too caught up in what's the perfect tool to use. Just do something and you'll go far with that.

Yeah, I think that's a really great call out, Richard. Thank you. Anything else you would add to that list?

I you have to recognize that the more senior you become in an organization, the greater the role you have to play in creating that safe culture. And it does start with the CEO, the tone from the top is important. I've been really blessed to work with some amazing CEOs who have had real emotional intelligence, have had that awareness and that ability to draw the best out of the different

personalities and also to make sure that where there is that friction that, you know, they can sit down with each of those individuals and break through. But if you are sat in that board with that CEO, however great an example they may be setting, you can undermine that through your own behavior. And similarly, maybe your CEO doesn't have that focus. Maybe that's not their top priority.

but you still have a hugely important role that you can play in bridging the gap and modeling that psychologically safe behavior to your peers and to your team. So I think just recognizing that you can never be complacent about it and that modeling psychological safety is not something you could just outsource to other people. You've got to believe it yourself.

Speaker 1 (35:51.948)
Yeah, and you can't use the excuse that the people above you don't do that to choose to not do it yourself. think that's another call out there. Yeah. Well, Richard, if you could get a community of people, maybe your family, maybe your town, maybe your company, maybe your team, maybe the world aligned around something to do together, what would it be? What would you love to see happen in the world? This is the dream along with me question.

That's right.

Speaker 2 (36:18.35)
Brilliant, yeah, so Tim Ferriss talks about you've got your billboard outside the town. What do you want it to say? And you often touch on vulnerability. To me, vulnerability is a great concept to represent and to focus on. But to me, it's really about authenticity. So I don't want...

vulnerability for its own sake. want to be able to be authentic. And I find that if you can be authentic in a work context, in a family context, any kind of relational context, that's where you can really get stuff done. I went to a college reunion a few weeks back and it was remarkable. We hadn't seen each other for 30 years and we strolled in and it was like it was yesterday. I mean, we hadn't changed. We were older and slightly larger, many of us, but fundamentally we were the same people.

And I think very often as you go through your career, you can forget the value in being authentic and the way that it helps you break through to trust that much more quickly. if I could encourage people to do anything, it would be just be yourself and encourage and support others to do the same. I think that's a hugely powerful way of breaking through the ego and the status and just getting to that point where you can really make progress quickly.

Yeah, yeah, and it's exhausting to be inauthentic for too long.

It is. I'm not clever enough to remember the lies I've told, so I just choose to tell the truth.

Speaker 1 (37:53.182)
Exactly. Right. It's just too hard. It's too hard. Richard, thank you so much for joining us in this conversation. You've given us some great ideas around how to really find that fire inside of yourself when you have a goal that you want to get to being open to taking progress over perfection, those moments and celebrating those moments of progress, knowing that things take time, being willing to work with a coach, being willing to tap into ways to very intentionally

create shared language across a team by using tools like Myers-Briggs or Hogan or whatever it might be. All of these things help stitch people together so that they can achieve things faster as a team. And at Kerikin's group, we like to say to go fast, go alone, to go far, go together, to go far fast, get aligned. And I think that's what you're tapping into here. So I really appreciate this. It's been great for me to have this conversation with you and I'm sure...

All of our listeners are gonna get a lot of value out of it as well. So thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Judy. It's been wonderful talking to you and great to see you again.

Yeah, it's a pleasure. And just a reminder to everyone who's listening, please go out and like and subscribe and put comments in as well. We really appreciate all of your feedback and we'll see you next time on the failure gap.