The power of none

Transcript

Thanks, Holly.

Thanks for the introduction.

Good to see you all here and good to be able to talk about the power of none.

So I believe us adults give babies a bad reputation.

Now if you think about it, most of our conversation about babies revolves around sleepless nights or teething or crying or changing nappies, etcetera.

When in actual fact those babies are an amazing bundle of discovery.

Relentless in their curiosity, relentless in their learning.

And did you know that we learn more in the first twelve months of our lives than at any other stage of our life and that’s why I’d like to celebrate the power of none.

The first year of our lives is a jamboree of rolling, crawling, sitting, standing, maybe even walking, starting to interact with our environment and maybe saying a few words and, you know, at that age, anyone that’s had a baby in their house will know that all your possessions move up a couple of feet, don’t they? Because we have to move them out the way of their constant curiosity and they just devour anything in their path and we’re moving them away from that relentless curiosity, that relentless learning and that relentless progress.

The baby’s brain creates more than a million fresh neural connections every second. That’s more than at any other stage in our lives and our brain doubles in size in the first year fueling a lot of that curiosity and a lot of that learning.

But of course that’s then a necessity isn’t it? If we’re gonna develop and we’re gonna grow and really become the the people that we want to be and connect with the world around us.

But what’s the catalyst and what’s the stimulus and what’s the spark to a lot of that growth? Well of course it’s engagement and we’ve already established we have incredible potential at those early years but of course it needs that nurturing and that support if we’re going to really thrive.

And, of course, that need for engagement never leaves us. It’s a constant, isn’t it, through our lives and creating that right atmosphere and nurturing that talent is absolutely key.

And much of this learning is done through the power of play and the power of play feeds that curiosity test to test things out in that safe learning and that safe failing environment.

And by that I mean something that a baby may not quite manage to crack today, they’ll persevere and learn and succeed tomorrow.

And I wonder how many of our workplaces create not only that safe learning but that safe failing environment.

And I worked at Pernod Ricard for a while, the global wine and spirits company and we had we used to talk and have a phrase around flerning. Is anyone familiar with flerning?

No flerners in the house. Okay. So flerning kind of almost as it sounds is is a combination of learning and failing but but through failing then learning.

And you know that that just having flerning in our vocabulary gave us the license to push the boundaries further, to make mistakes but in doing so I’m sure also to become that bit more innovative.

And I wonder when did we stop being so very curious?

Did we wake up one day in our adulthood and think, well, I I know a fair bit now and maybe I can take the back seat and maybe I can relax a bit a little more for a while. And do we sometimes go into our workplace and leave our curiosity at home for fear of either making mistakes or maybe making a fool of ourselves, but in doing so lose that potential innovation that’s gonna come from that curious edge?

The question I’d like to pose is, are you and your colleagues heavy learners?

Is your workplace full of constant innovation, and is that learning part of your DNA?

And do you create the right environment?

And do your teams really have the opportunity, really have the opportunity to learn and grow?

And I remember when I worked at Coca-Cola, I, headed up a new business development division for a while. And quite early on in that cycle, we decided that we’d have a a mantra around acting like explorers.

And when I say acting like explorers, I mean being constantly restless, constantly surveying the horizon to see where the opportunities might lie, Trying to work beyond the map and compass of what was already established and what we already knew and to create new connections and find new opportunities.

And whilst I think the first year in that role was probably as big a roller coaster as I’ve had in my career, I’m sure that mindset around acting like explorers was something that served as well and it was actually a really successful and innovative team.

And this little survey here, this pie chart here comes from a survey in 2018 by a guy called Josh Bersin who’s quite well known in the learning and development field. It’s six years ago now in 2018 and it says, in your current job, what’s the number one thing that inspires you, makes you happy, and makes you want to work harder? And perhaps not surprisingly, a quarter of the people said the nature of the work itself. And when I say not surprisingly, you know, many of us move into our roles or our vocation because of the nature of the work itself.

But perhaps more surprisingly was that one in five people chose the opportunity to learn and grow.

So twenty percent of people said the number one thing that inspires them, makes them happy, and makes them want to work harder in the workplace is the opportunity to learn and grow. And that finished ahead of company culture, ahead of people that you work with, and ahead of achieving your company goals.

That’s quite interesting, isn’t it? There was a preference of the opportunity to learn and grow was two times more preferable even than achieving your company goals. And the others in here included things like my boss, my workspace, my terms and conditions, all really really important things.

But I wonder, my reflection on this might be, are we really creating the environment in which our teams have the opportunity to learn and grow?

This is a quote by a guy called Frank Herbert who was a journalist back in the nineteen sixties.

So caution is the path to mediocrity.

And I think this may have been a quote from sixty years ago but it’s never truer than today in the current dynamic and challenging environment in which we all operate.

But I guess the danger of this caution this cautionary path is that if we go too far down this cautionary path taking less risks then we’re likely to constrain the learning and the curiosity of our teams and likely to establish more of a fixed mindset.

And one model that you probably are familiar with is that growth versus fixed mindset.

So if I start on the right hand side, that fixed mindset, rather like that cautionary path, wants to avoid making mistakes.

And perhaps within that culture, people won’t have as much confidence and might feel I’ll never be that smart or maybe the arrogance to feel that actually I know best or what we’re doing is good enough. And it’s certainly an environment where people are more more likely to give up.

And then on the left hand side, the growth mindset, and again you may well be familiar with this, and rather like our power of non baby, they feel that mistakes help them learn and that feedback from that engagement is really valuable.

And they’ll constantly be questioning, is this my best work and can I improve more with practice? And certainly, like the power of none, will never ever be giving up. And I’ve talked already quite a lot about curiosity and I could have added a couple more words here on the left hand side. I could have added the word curiosity because that feeds a lot of those maybe mistakes but improvement through practice. And you know on the right hand side if I could have included that saying curiosity killed the cat.

Because those people on the right hand side may well use that as a reason why they wouldn’t want to do things and that fixed mindset might suggest that curiosity kill killed the cat and we might not want to go down that path.

So maybe now is an opportunity to reset our mindset and whilst the growth mindset can be a roller coaster ride at times, I know throughout my career so far I would definitely choose the years where we’re in a growth mindset state.

And you might want to ask, where are you currently?

Are you in that growth mindset place?

Are you there every day or just in some departments or in some projects? And is there an opportunity to return to that growth mindset?

An example here is I’ve reminded just last year, I was doing some work with a ready to drink cocktails company. They sold canned cocktails.

They were three years into their journey selling canned cocktails to grocery stores and convenience stores and the brand had grown from zero to twenty million in that time. But they got into the fourth year and they’d started to plateau.

Now the USP, the unique selling proposition of this company was around high juice content, real fruit cocktails.

And they appealed perhaps not not surprisingly, primarily to over thirty females and they wanted to to appeal to more males and, more Gen Z.

And so we did the research and the research came back that in twenty twenty four in bars and restaurants that blue cocktails would be the thing. So if you’ve been out this summer drinking blue cocktails, you bang on trend.

And the team came up with this blue raspberry martini. Now the first thing to say is there is no such thing as a blue raspberry.

You perhaps knew that. But then remember our USP of being Hi Jukes content, real fruit cocktails?

So this went against our USP a little bit and there were definitely some people in that mindset that said, by doing so, we’re undermining the equity of our brand. By doing so, we might alienate some of our customers.

But, you know, we launched this product successfully this time last year and it was our best launch in the previous two and a half years. And of the ten canned cocktails that we were selling, this is now the second fastest selling.

But what was most interesting about this journey actually was that certainly for the people that felt they didn’t want to take that risk, it certainly has reset their mindset. And the work I’ve done with that business since I can see that now they are definitely more expansive in their thinking because kind of necessities the mother mother of invention. Right? So if they’re gonna grow and they’ve got an aspiration to double their business in the next three years then they’re really now having to reset their mindset, be more innovative and adopt that growth mindset.

And one of the words that that organization uses is kuoni. Now I know as soon as I say kuoni your minds are going to overseas travel and perhaps this image isn’t helping me any, but but kuoni is actually a Germanic word that means daring or brave or bold or persistent and unrelenting.

And just to be clear, if you’re holding on to your curiosity and you’re going down that cruelly path that’s daring and bay brave and bold, that’s diametrically opposed to that cautionary path to mediocrity that I described earlier.

And before I finish, I just wanted a quick show of hands if I could. How many people here are new in their roles in the last twelve months or new to their company in the last twelve months? Can I just have a quick show of hands? Wow. Yeah. That’s, that’s I’m gonna say that’s almost half the people in the room. Well, I and you as new people have permission to embrace that power of new.

And rather like that small child, be more curious and view things through a fresh perspective and certainly be in that place where you say rather than is this the way we do things around here? More how can I make this better?

So do embrace your power of new because you’ve got that opportunity once again to embrace that power of none.

So in summary, I’ll leave you with the thought that being as curious and relentless as the power of none is a great place to be. Embracing a growth mindset of learning through mistakes, constantly pushing the boundaries in what is a challenging marketplace for most people currently is a good thing. And my final question is, what are your opportunities currently to rediscover your power of non?

I’ll leave you with that thought. Thanks for listening.