Gillian Bowen, Host: Hello, I'm Gillian Bowen, Public Affairs Manager at Chartered Accountants ANZ,
Gillian Bowen, Host: or CA ANZ. This is Small Firm, Big Impact.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I was on the hamster wheel of life and I'd
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: go home at night thinking, well, what have I actually achieved today?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: You know, I was just busy, busy, busy, but I
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: wasn't busy being effective. How often do you create complete stillness,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: isolate yourself from everything that's going on and just think,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: how do I build a better firm? How do I
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: build a better business? How do I serve my customers better?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: How do I get rid of more low value work?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: How do I improve the quality of my team?
Gillian Bowen, Host: It's the podcast giving you and your clients the up
Gillian Bowen, Host: to date information you need to do your jobs. Each
Gillian Bowen, Host: fortnight I share resources, tools and expert advice provided by CA ANZ
Gillian Bowen, Host: and a range of people across our profession. So make
Gillian Bowen, Host: sure you're following the pod in your favourite pod app.
Gillian Bowen, Host: And if you've got an idea for the show email
Gillian Bowen, Host: podcast@charteredaccountantsanz.com Today we have Andy Fell. He's the founder of GiFT 631 -
Gillian Bowen, Host: a leadership and personal growth Business. I'm going to pick his
Gillian Bowen, Host: brain about what small and medium sized practices, sole practitioners
Gillian Bowen, Host: could be doing to help their business or just themselves
Gillian Bowen, Host: reach their full potential. Andy welcome to Small Firm, Big Impact.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Hi, Gillian. I'm absolutely delighted to be with you.
Gillian Bowen, Host: Brilliant. Look, firstly, I'd like to give our listeners a
Gillian Bowen, Host: bit of a taste of your background, the guest's background,
Gillian Bowen, Host: so they can see and feel who it is that
Gillian Bowen, Host: they're listening to today. So what's your background?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Yeah, well, I spent 28 years in financial services, 20
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: of which were in the UK and 20 of which
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: were in senior leadership. And most of my career was
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: spent leading big people centric distribution businesses. So branch networks,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: contact centres, teams of, you know, relationship managers, private bankers
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: and business bankers. So when I moved to Australia that
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: was with the Westpac group. And yeah, I had the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: pleasure and privilege to be a general manager in both
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Westpac and also the Saint George Consumer Bank. And then
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I turned 50 and finally worked out what I wanted
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to do in my life. So yeah, I left. I
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: took the rocking chair test on myself and I left
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: financial services and set up my business GiFT631 which is
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: a business that focuses on four key things: one on
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: one coaching, scaling entrepreneurs, senior business leaders and rising talent,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: conference and keynote speaking leadership, talent development and facilitating off
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: sites for for leadership teams, be it vision and values,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: high performing teams, strategy, culture, execution. So yeah, that's the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: world in which I've I've been living for the last
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: six years.
Gillian Bowen, Host: All right. Well, we've got a lot to try to
Gillian Bowen, Host: cover in 20 odd minutes then with your expertise. So
Gillian Bowen, Host: I'm thinking we begin by looking at where the gaps
Gillian Bowen, Host: are regarding potential and why they exist. And then we
Gillian Bowen, Host: take a look at what we can do about them.
Gillian Bowen, Host: So how about you explain that the gap between our
Gillian Bowen, Host: potential as a human and what we believe we can do?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Yeah, sure. And and I think the gaps I'm going
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to articulate, Gillian, are this could be you as an individual.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: This could be a small firm. This could be a
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: team that you're leading. This could be a function within
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: a within a big business. I believe that the gaps
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: between current performance and potential actually are the same within
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: us as they are within the businesses in which we work.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: And I think there's six that I would really love
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to to share with the audience. And the first one
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: is having you've got to have an absolute clarity of purpose,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: real clarity of vision, real clarity of goal. So that's
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: the number one for me. And when I work with
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: a team, individuals and businesses, whatever size, you know, we
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: need to get that place of clarity. And that really
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: energizes energizes us, but it also energizes those around us,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you know, a compelling vision, a compelling purpose with some
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: really big goals that that we have to commit to.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: We have to be more resourceful, more innovative, more creative
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to take us in the direction of those goals. So
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: so that's the absolute number one. The second one is
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: the individual and collective mindset. You know, we all talk
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to ourselves and we all have an inner critic and
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: an inner champion. And to put it really, really simply,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: the inner critic is the person who's constantly telling you,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you can't, you can't, you can't. And the champion is
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: the person that believes the mindset, that believes that anything
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: is possible. And going back to that really old, you know,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: well known phrase, if you say you can or you can't,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you're probably right. So that's the second one. And I
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: believe a huge percentage of our success is that attitude,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: that belief system and that mindset. The third one is
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: our attitude to change. And if you take something that's
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: really topical at the moment, like ChatGPT, you know, do
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you see that as a threat or actually do you
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: see that as a huge opportunity? And for me, the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: analogy I would I would share is if you've lived
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: your whole life in a cave, in complete darkness, and
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: then one day somebody lets you out and it's a
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: beautiful sunny day. What happens to your eyes? Well, you're
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: temporarily blinded and it feels really uncomfortable. So you want
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to run back into the cave. But if you can
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: only hold your place in the sun, then this beautiful
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: vista opens up in front of you. And you want
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to go forward. You don't want to go back. And
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: if you replace the cave with that comfort zone, to me,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: that's what it's all about. You know, we've got to
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: get ourselves out of our comfort zone and we've got
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to live with that uncomfortableness until we see the new
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: opportunity in front of us. So that'd be my third.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: My fourth would be time, you know, does time manage
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you or do you manage time? And I think if
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you're a sole trader, if you're a really small firm,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: that's a that's a critical part of this that you're
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: able to ruthlessly prioritize and really sort, you know, value.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: You know, a lot of my clients were really working
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: out well. Where does the value sit? And starting by saying,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: have I got a really high performance diary? You know,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: what goes into my diary first should be the most important,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: the real value, the real value centric activities. The fifth
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: is unquestionably what we would call a growth mindset. But
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: really what that is, is the ability to you know,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: one of my favorite sayings is winners debrief more than
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: the average, the ability to do something and then review
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: it to find and drive continuous improvement. And then the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: final one, you know, Disney once said that success is 95% systems, 5% magic.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: But you've got to have the 95% systems to get
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to the 5% magic. And if you really want to
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: unlock your potential as a as a sole trader, you know,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: as an individual, as a team, as a small business,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you've really got to have the right systems in place,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: and that's personal systems, team systems and business unit systems.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: So that I think is is, you know, the basket
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: of things that I think hold people back from reaching
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: their true potential.
Gillian Bowen, Host: And there'd be people listening along who could really then
Gillian Bowen, Host: identify I'm sure they had their mind ticking away of
Gillian Bowen, Host: what the impacts are of not having those things right
Gillian Bowen, Host: on their small business, on themselves, if they're if they're
Gillian Bowen, Host: just working for themselves. So to help us get the
Gillian Bowen, Host: brain thinking about what the next steps are, I think
Gillian Bowen, Host: and you mentioned this when you first introduced yourself, what
Gillian Bowen, Host: is the rocking chair test?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Yeah, sure. So I actually took this on my 50th birthday,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: which seems a strange thing to even thinking about on
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: your 50th birthday. But it was I first heard it
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: from Sir Richard Branson, and Branson says, imagine you're 90,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: 95 years old. You're sitting outside your house in your
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: rocking chair and you're looking back on your life. And
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: he would say, What do you want to be saying
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to yourself? Do you want to be saying to yourself, Well,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I wish I'd done that. I could have done that.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I should have done that. I had the ability to
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: do this, but I didn't. Or do you want to
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: look back on your life and go, Well, maybe I
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: didn't get everything right, but at least I gave life
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: my best shot? And that's actually was my trigger to
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: leave the corporate world and set up my own business because,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you know, I had a great, great life in the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: corporate world. But I knew when it was my time
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to face the rocking chair test that I could only
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: pass it if I went and follow my dreams, follow
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: my passion, live true to my purpose. So that really
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: is is the rocking chair test. And it's a great
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: place to start for anyone who's thinking, well, you know,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I am where I am, but I know there's there's
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: a lot more within me or my firm that ah
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: really I'm keen to unlock. So what is - what I
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: call my your future-use state. And that really is if
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you can identify that future, you state you know how
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you would love to be living your life, the business
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you'd love to be leading or running. That's a great
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: starting place.
Gillian Bowen, Host: How on that starting place, how do you get Because
Gillian Bowen, Host: there's a lot of ideas there and people will be thinking, well,
Gillian Bowen, Host: what's step one, two and three? How do I get
Gillian Bowen, Host: to a point where I can identify a path forward
Gillian Bowen, Host: to help my business, myself reach my full potential?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Yeah, I think that's a brilliant question. And Gillian, I
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: every single day from when I was a bank manager
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to when I was a general manager in my diary,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I had an appointment with Mozart. And the story goes,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I'd actually don't even know if this is a true story.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: By the way, the story goes that Mozart suffered from
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: composer's cramp, and the way he'd overcome that composer's cramp
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: is he'd isolate himself from the world. So he'd go
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: out on his own. And when he was wandering through
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: the forests in the middle of Europe and, you know,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: he was watching the deer and he was smelling the trees,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: listening to the birds, that's when he started to compose
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: his music again in his mind. And the whole idea
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: is that, you know, greatness requires some stillness. And from
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: stillness you'll get clarity. And from clarity you'll get innovation,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: breakthrough and success. And when I first heard that story,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I was a struggling bank manager. I was on the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: hamster wheel of life, and I'd go home at night thinking, Well,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: what have I actually achieved today? You know, I was
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: just busy, busy, busy, but I wasn't busy being effective.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: And again, I talked to so many sole traders and
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: small firms, small practices across sectors who are in this space.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: So once I heard that story, I went back and
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I put an appointment in my diary with Mozart. And
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I still have that appointment every single day. And it's
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: 20 minutes of time. Just me, my thoughts and my journal.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: No technology. So no phone, no laptop, no chance of
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: interruption or disruption. And I just think and I seriously
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: would suggest and recommend to everyone who listens to this
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: that that is the starting point. How often do you
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: create complete stillness, isolate yourself from everything that's going on
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: and just think, how do I build a better firm?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: How do I build a better business? How do I
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: serve my customers better? How do I get rid of
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: more low value work? How do I improve the quality
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: of my team? How do I improve the quality of
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: my services? How do I use ChatGPT to my advantage,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: whatever it might be? You know, it's just that thinking time.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Because if you give yourself that, that stillness and I
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: only ever have two speeds in business, I'm either completely
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: still or I'm completely fast. And I do believe speed
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: is a source of competitive advantage. But if you look
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: from the outside, all you see is the speed. But
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I can only go that fast because I'm going that
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: slow because that's when I make decisions about the things
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: that I'm going to prioritize in my life and my business.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: And if you're going to go fast, it's a good
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: job to go fast in what you think is the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: right direction.
Gillian Bowen, Host: How important is it, do you think, for people to
Gillian Bowen, Host: believe in themselves?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Oh it's the core of absolutely everything, you know. And
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: the greatest day is when your internal validation so what
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you think about you crosses over from your reliance upon
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: external validation, which is what others think of you. And
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: far too many people, in my view, are dependent upon,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you know, what holds a lot of people back. Actually,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Gillian is not it's not the fear of failure. It's
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: the fear of judgment. So when you're totally reliant upon
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: either on praise, but also you're equally wounded by criticism,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you you hold yourself back. You become dependent upon what
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: others are saying about you, rather than just being true
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to yourself and following your own course. So I think
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: it's really important that we all work exceptionally hard to
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: build our confidence, our belief systems and to go a
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: little bit deeper, our level of self esteem.
Gillian Bowen, Host: I think what plays into that is what you say
Gillian Bowen, Host: about making mistakes safe. What does that mean?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Yeah. And it really started because I talked to a
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: lot of leaders and they go, I want to be
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: an empowering leader. You know, however small the firm, I
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: want to I want to grow my firm. And the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: only way I can do that, I can't hold on
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to everything that I've always been doing. So I want
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to empower those around me. And I would say, well,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: what's your system for empowerment? And people like, Well, what
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: do you mean? I said, Well, you've got to have
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: a system. So people have got to know what they're
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: empowered to do. So when I was running the bank,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: for example, people knew the no go areas. You know,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: these are areas you just can't touch. Maybe something around legislation, governance, pricing, risk,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you know, brand, all those different things. These are the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: things you need to refer to me as your one up
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: line manager. So almost you're setting the parameters of where
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: people are not empowered and therefore you're, you're you're enabled
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to empower them about everything else. And that's about quality delegation, delegation.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: That's about reducing and removing red tape. But it's also
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: about making mistakes safe. So very early in my career,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I worked for the managing director of the Royal Bank
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: of Scotland. I was his executive assistant, and one day
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: he called me into his office and I was just
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: this young guy starting out in business. And he said, Andy,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: he said, I want to give you a piece of advice.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: He said, Let me just tell you this. The only
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: people who don't make mistakes are the people who don't
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: do anything. So he said you want to, First of all,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: he said, I want you to live an action orientated life.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: He said, But secondly, when you're in a position of
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: leadership like I am, create an environment, create a tone
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: which is conducive not only to people bringing their full
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: selves to work, but people being willing to have a go.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: And it was him, Tony, who first got me thinking
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: about this, he said. But obviously, you know, put some
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: parameters around this. I mean, we were in financial services.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: He said, I don't want people making mistakes with lots
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: of noughts on the end. He said, But you've got
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to create an environment where people, it's safe to test
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: and learn to fail fast in these areas, he said.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Because that's how you are going to grow as a leader.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Andy But that's also when you're in leadership, how others
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: are going to grow. So I think it's about it's
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: about setting up a whole system of empowerment for the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: people that work within your firm so they know where
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: they can, you know, where they can take decisions and
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: risk making mistakes, where they need to refer to you
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: as either the business owner and where you just don't
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: want them to play.
Gillian Bowen, Host: You mentioned red tape.
Gillian Bowen, Host: In.
Gillian Bowen, Host: In in that answer. And you're not talking about government
Gillian Bowen, Host: red tape or external red tape. What what red tape
Gillian Bowen, Host: are you talking about? And how does that impact a
Gillian Bowen, Host: small business?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Yeah, it's really interesting. Often, you know, I'll work with
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: a business and when you really get into talking about
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: all of the low value work that they're having to do,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: that's in their view, it's constraining them. It's holding them back.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: It's it's it's first of all, it's a source of
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: disengagement because people get really, really frustrated. But often you'll
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: talk to someone and they'll say, well, my boss has
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: asked me to do this, but now I'm spending every
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: five minutes updating the boss about how I'm going. So
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I'm spending more time updating than I am actually doing.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: So it's all of the low value activities that are
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: actually getting in the way of us achieving what we
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: want to achieve as a firm. And it goes back
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to a brilliant story from Gail Kelly, who was the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: the CEO of the Westpac group, just a phenomenal human being.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: And Gail told this story about when the recently deceased
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Queen Elizabeth, when she was still a princess. So this
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: is going back a long, long time when Princess Elizabeth
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: was going on a state tour of South Africa with
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: her husband, she wanted to see whales and they set
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: up a system in South Africa where all of the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Coast Guards, every single day in the three months leading
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: up to Princess Elizabeth's visit, would send in the number
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: of whale sightings in that particular spot around the coast
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: of South Africa. The idea being where there was the
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: most frequent whale spotting cause that's where they'd send Princess Elizabeth. Anyway,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: fast forward 60 years and they're still doing the whale
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: report and this new guy takes over this function and
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: he goes, So why are we actually why are we
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: doing this? And no one really knew. And people going, well,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: obviously we want to monitor whale numbers. And he said, No, no,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: we can do that with technology. We don't need to
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: have all these manual reports flying around the system and
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: then someone's keying them in. So Gail then challenged us
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to say, So in your part of the business, where
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: are your whale reports? What are your whale reports? And
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: it's brilliant that everyone takes away from this podcast. Just
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: go and challenge everything in your firm. Why are you
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: doing it? What's the value in it? Is there a
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: And if you do believe you need to do it,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: is there a more efficient way of doing it? So
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: think about whale reports.
Gillian Bowen, Host: I along that similar vein and I often, you know,
Gillian Bowen, Host: I'm the host. I don't often tell stories, but I
Gillian Bowen, Host: have a friend who had said that for a long
Gillian Bowen, Host: amount of time, a person that they worked with had
Gillian Bowen, Host: been popping into a meeting that had been set up
Gillian Bowen, Host: during Covid and and sitting in it for 15 or
Gillian Bowen, Host: 20 minutes and wondering why no one else was joining
Gillian Bowen, Host: it because Covid had finished and the meeting had not continued.
Gillian Bowen, Host: But this poor person had been rocking up, spending 15,
Gillian Bowen, Host: 20 minutes. Oh, no one's coming and getting off and
Gillian Bowen, Host: not realizing that actually that calendar invite should have been deleted.
Gillian Bowen, Host: Of course that meeting shouldn't have been continuing on, but
Gillian Bowen, Host: what a waste of time. How many things like that
Gillian Bowen, Host: do you think exist? So many?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Honestly, Gillian, that is a huge area of opportunity for
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: everyone listening to this.
Gillian Bowen, Host: Oh, dear.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: How long are your meetings? Have every meeting that either
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: you're attending or your people are attending is a clear purpose,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: clear agenda, clear minutes, clear actions. You know, I say challenge.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I often say to my clients, What's the worst 1
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: or 2 meetings you go to every week and they
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: can tell me like that. And it's like, Well, why
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: do you go, you know, almost as an expectation that
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: I go, Well, let's challenge the expectation. You know, this
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: creates some capacity within the system here. And I think
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: it's a huge opportunity. You're absolutely right.
Gillian Bowen, Host: We are almost out of time. I wanted to finish
Gillian Bowen, Host: on that. Look, people listen to this podcast rather than
Gillian Bowen, Host: watching it, but you and I can see each other
Gillian Bowen, Host: and you've got a hashtag that's under GifFT 631 that
Gillian Bowen, Host: is hashtag, 'What winners do' - I think that's a nice
Gillian Bowen, Host: way to to wrap up. What does that mean?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: Yeah. So really it's it's creating a personal success system.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: So I believe, as I said earlier, success 95% systems, 5% magic.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: So what what are your personal success systems that's going
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: to enable you to move in the direction of future you?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: And that might be everything from your morning routines to
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: how you you debrief your significant activities to how you
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: time block your diary effectively so you can really focus
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: on on the deep work, how you re-energize, how you
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: motivate yourself in a moment of need. So what winners
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: do is is my series of winning habits, winning frameworks,
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: running routines which form my personal success system, which ultimately
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: will enable me to pass my rocking chair test.
Gillian Bowen, Host: Okay, we've covered a lot. That is all we have
Gillian Bowen, Host: time for. If you want to find out more about
Gillian Bowen, Host: Andy Fell and GiFT 631 I'll put a link in the show
Gillian Bowen, Host: notes to his website. Also give the podcast a follow in
Gillian Bowen, Host: your favorite pod app so you're ready for next time.
Gillian Bowen, Host: And you can also find all the other episodes from
Gillian Bowen, Host: season three there. The podcast has an email, so feel
Gillian Bowen, Host: free to get in touch. Podcast@charteredaccountantsanz.com Let's start a conversation
Gillian Bowen, Host: we certainly have today. Thanks Andy Fell for joining me
Gillian Bowen, Host: on Small Firm, Big Impact.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach: My absolute pleasure.
Gillian Bowen, Host: Bye bye.