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Speaker 1: Do you wake up on Monday morning excitant for the

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Speaker 1: week ahead, or do you have to drag yourself out

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Speaker 1: of bed dreading the fact that you have a whole

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Speaker 1: five days of work until the next weekend. With employee

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Speaker 1: engagement flatlining across the globe, most leaders know or who

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Speaker 1: are now starting to realize just how important an engaged

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Speaker 1: workforce is. Phil Chambers thinks a lot about employee engagement,

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Speaker 1: and not just because he co founded Pecon, an employee

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Speaker 1: engagement software company which has recently been acquired by Workday.

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Speaker 1: Phil wanted to empower leaders with real time, actionable data

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Speaker 1: on how their decisions were impacting their staff.

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Speaker 2: My company, Inventim.

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Speaker 1: Has used Pecon to track our own employee engagement for

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Speaker 1: several years, and when I got connected to Phil, I

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Speaker 1: jumped at the chance to have him on how I

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Speaker 1: work and pick his brains about how he thinks about

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Speaker 1: engagement at work. So outs Phil use his own technology

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Speaker 1: to lead and motivate his team? And how does he

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Speaker 1: deliberately reduce virtual meetings an employee engagement killer, I must

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Speaker 1: say at pecon? And how did Phil use his partner's

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Speaker 1: documentary filmmaking skills to boost employee engagement. My name is

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Speaker 1: doctor amanthe Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder

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Speaker 1: of behavioral science consultancy invent Him, and this is how

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Speaker 1: I work, a show about how to help you.

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Speaker 2: Do your best work.

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Speaker 1: So I'm always interested in why founders pick the ideas

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Speaker 1: that they do when it comes to starting a brand

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Speaker 1: new company that they will probably dedicate the next decade

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Speaker 1: of their life too.

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Speaker 2: And specifically I wanted.

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Speaker 1: To know how did Phil approach goal setting, particularly in

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Speaker 1: those early days at Pecon.

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Speaker 3: I think half of the trick to starting a new

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Speaker 3: business is to really, you know, pick an area that's

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Speaker 3: going to be big in five years, which is harder

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Speaker 3: than it sounds, right, But so the challenge that you

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Speaker 3: have when you start a new business is often that,

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Speaker 3: you know, we sort of approached it with great gusto,

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Speaker 3: and we actually we wrote some goals on the board

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Speaker 3: on the first day, so second to January twenty fifteen,

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Speaker 3: went out to the stationary shop, bought some pens and

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Speaker 3: some of that funny plastic paper that sticks on walls,

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Speaker 3: and then we kind of wrote down a product vision

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Speaker 3: for the next five years, which was surprisingly precedent, and

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Speaker 3: you know, and a lot of it turned out to

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Speaker 3: be true, but I think the difficulty with goal setting

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Speaker 3: then came a little bit later, and that was really

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Speaker 3: once we'd hired the first team. We were around sort

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Speaker 3: of eight to ten people, and it became I think

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Speaker 3: we've probably had more people than we had tasks at

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Speaker 3: the time, and it became quite hard to really focus

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Speaker 3: everyone on one thing that they could do. And I

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Speaker 3: think that, you know, we there was a bit of

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Speaker 3: frustration around around the team, around you know, why weren't

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Speaker 3: we being successful instantly. You know, there's a lot of

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Speaker 3: startup you know stories which just blow up in nine

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Speaker 3: months and then they're you know, they're got a billion

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Speaker 3: dollar evaluation. But it wasn't like that a peak on

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Speaker 3: at all. You know, we had a sort of methodical

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Speaker 3: way of prototyping, and none of us were domain experts

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Speaker 3: in what we were trying to do, which I think

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Speaker 3: gave us a sort of unique set of issues in

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Speaker 3: the fact that we didn't really have any customers, and

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Speaker 3: without any customers, you can't really.

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Speaker 4: Do any learning. And if you're not doing any learning,

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Speaker 4: then you don't really know what to build.

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Speaker 3: So we we sort of sat down and scratched our

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Speaker 3: heads about this, and so rather than it turned into

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Speaker 3: a lot of the fly situation, we said, you know,

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Speaker 3: my co founder Dan came to this idea of putting

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Speaker 3: a big blackboard in the office with the sort of

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Speaker 3: four stages of what we call peak happiness at the time.

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Speaker 3: And this was really, you know, ultimately what you would

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Speaker 3: know as sort of sales stages these days.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: It was effectively a pipeline view of the world, except

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Speaker 3: that the ultimate goal wasn't to sell these initial companies anything.

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Speaker 3: In fact, we explicitly decided, no, we're not interested in

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Speaker 3: making money here. We just want to get twenty companies

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Speaker 3: that would be very disappointed if they couldn't use Peakon

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Speaker 3: by the end of the first year. And then we

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Speaker 3: just simply printed out the logos of these companies. So

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Speaker 3: and then we just said to everybody who worked to

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Speaker 3: peak On at the Simeon said, the only thing that

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Speaker 3: anybody needs to focus on is moving logos along this board.

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Speaker 4: So if you're kind of unsure of what to do

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Speaker 4: when you come.

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Speaker 3: In in the morning, have a look at the board and

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Speaker 3: either get some new logos for the board or move

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Speaker 3: the logos that we have along the board, which basically meant,

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Speaker 3: you know, working with those customers to get them to

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Speaker 3: a state where they deployed use Pekan were happy with it.

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Speaker 3: And that was incredibly powerful, right because every single morning

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Speaker 3: we came in and we all stood around this blackboard

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Speaker 3: and then we just talked around what was going on

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Speaker 3: with these logos, and suddenly, you know, we went from

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Speaker 3: sort of pointing things each other about why things weren't

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Speaker 3: working to getting this incredible momentum. And you know, some

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Speaker 3: of those customers, when I look back at photographs of

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Speaker 3: those board, were some you know, ultimately inflection points in

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Speaker 3: the growth of the business. And you know, one of

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Speaker 3: the logos on that board was Delivery Hero, which at

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Speaker 3: the time I think was a three hundred person startup

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Speaker 3: in Berlin. But you know, ultimately, as you may know, became,

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Speaker 3: you know, one of the world's most successful stories in

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Speaker 3: food delivery and had a five billion IPO and is

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Speaker 3: now a top top thirty tax company in Germany. So

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Speaker 3: little did we know at the time, but that the

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Speaker 3: work that we were doing there was was pivotal to

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Speaker 3: the future of the company.

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Speaker 2: That's so cool.

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Speaker 1: Now I know that creating an MVP or minimum viable

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Speaker 1: product was really important in the early days, and that Peacon,

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Speaker 1: which is a tech product, started as a piece of paper.

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Speaker 2: Can you talk to me about that? Yeah, I think

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Speaker 2: it was.

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Speaker 3: It was really a function of the fact we didn't

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Speaker 3: have a technical team initially, so we were four co founders,

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Speaker 3: but only two of us had managed to extract ourselves

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Speaker 3: from our current job at the time, and you know,

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Speaker 3: with the best word in the world. Although we had

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Speaker 3: computer sides, backgrounds weren't that coding skills were a bit rusty.

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Speaker 3: So we sort of set out to read a lot

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Speaker 3: of the research you know in history. Peak on is

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Speaker 3: based on organizational psychology, as you know, but it's implemented

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Speaker 3: in a way that hadn't really been.

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Speaker 4: Done in companies before. So we used some off the

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Speaker 4: shelf tools.

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Speaker 3: We said, okay, how could we sort of build a

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Speaker 3: model of what we're trying to do here without actually

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Speaker 3: productizing it in software. So we collected some survey data

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Speaker 3: using type form, which you know, a freely available tool

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Speaker 3: equivalent to sort of survey Monkey, and then we use

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Speaker 3: this open source package called r which I'm sure a

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Speaker 3: lot of psychologists in the audience may be familiar with.

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Speaker 3: It's a statistical analysis package. So we produced various different

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Speaker 3: analyzes of the data we've collected, and then we packaged

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Speaker 3: them up into a PDF file, which ultimately was paper

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Speaker 3: right print out, and then we'd go to these companies

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Speaker 3: and we literally go with the printer out and say,

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Speaker 3: you know, is this useful? Do you find this few

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Speaker 3: of the data interesting? You know what's good, what's bad?

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Speaker 3: What would you like to see? And that led to

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Speaker 3: a sort of very rapid iteration of prototyping, whereby we

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Speaker 3: could go through effectively like seventy versions of the initial

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Speaker 3: peak on product, but without actually having to code any

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Speaker 3: of it. And then we when we settled on something

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Speaker 3: that was working and customers were like, oh, there's genuinely

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Speaker 3: quite good insights here. At some point we took the

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Speaker 3: sort of difficult decisions, right, it's now time to build

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Speaker 3: this into software, and that's kind of when the first

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Speaker 3: version of the dashboard came out.

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Speaker 1: Now, a benefit that you offer staff is unlimited paid leave.

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Speaker 1: That is something that you're still doing.

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Speaker 3: Correct, So we've been acquired by Workday, so I think

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Speaker 3: it's available in some markets now and not in others.

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Speaker 4: So there is a you know, various you know, international

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Speaker 4: rules around this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it certainly something that we tried it Inventium a

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Speaker 1: few years ago.

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Speaker 2: We ran it for about three.

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Speaker 1: And a half years old up and I think, and

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Speaker 1: you'll leave or you know, in terms of how much

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Speaker 1: leave people were taking in Australia, the mandated required and

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Speaker 1: your leave is four weeks, we averaged about five and

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Speaker 1: a half after we did unlimited leave. But then we

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Speaker 1: sort of we ran into a few issues about three

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Speaker 1: and a half years in where you know, we got

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Speaker 1: so much media coverage in Australia for the policy that

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Speaker 1: people started to listen to the messages around the policy

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Speaker 1: that the media was saying, rather than the original intent

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Speaker 1: was just take enough leave so that you feel balanced,

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Speaker 1: like you're leading a balanced life.

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Speaker 2: As opposed to just take lots of leave.

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Speaker 1: So we ended up replacing that with a four day week,

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Speaker 1: which we've been doing now for a year.

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Speaker 2: But I'm personally interested, how did.

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Speaker 1: You use unlimited leave, Like what's your approach to taking holidays?

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Speaker 3: So me personally, I mean it was it's an interesting

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Speaker 3: challenge actually, you know, particularly as the CEO of a company.

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Speaker 3: I initially, you know, used it judiciously and then it

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Speaker 3: became harder and harder to take enough holiday as the

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Speaker 3: company got bigger, and I think but ultimately, like, I

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Speaker 3: don't think anybody works effectively if they're burnt out or

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Speaker 3: haven't taken enough leave. So it's really really something I

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Speaker 3: try and do. And for me, it was more around,

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Speaker 3: you know, making sure you had a holiday at a

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Speaker 3: frequent enough interval to sort of recharge, even if it's

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Speaker 3: not such a long time. And I think there's sort

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Speaker 3: of the comfort of unlimitedly is you don't have that

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Speaker 3: thought in the back of your mind of like, oh, well,

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Speaker 3: if I do this, then I won't be able to

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Speaker 3: you know what, if I feel in three months.

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Speaker 4: Time, I won't have an option.

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Speaker 3: I don't think we want any employees to feel like that, right,

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Speaker 3: So that's completely counterproductive. You don't want people to be

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Speaker 3: thinking about leave like that. So for me, it's a

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Speaker 3: great policy. And yeah, I think you have to ignore

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Speaker 3: the sort of media hyperpoil around unlimited leave and do

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Speaker 3: your own kind of education internally around how.

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Speaker 4: You expect, why, why you're doing something right.

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Speaker 3: I think I think that's the important right employees, it's

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Speaker 3: it's kind of useless to build. You can build the

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Speaker 3: best benefits package in the world, but if you don't

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Speaker 3: sort of also do the education piece around why in

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Speaker 3: your company you've put this in not generally then then

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Speaker 3: I don't often things, I don't these think these things

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Speaker 3: land in the right way. So I think that's it's

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Speaker 3: something definitely we learn over time. You know that people

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Speaker 3: you know, didn't necessarily understand all of the benefits package,

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Speaker 3: and people don't necessarily understand stock options or you know,

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Speaker 3: all of these other these great things, So you have

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Speaker 3: to also do a lot of work in applying them

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Speaker 3: and educating them as to how they apply in the

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Speaker 3: in the different regional markets. Yes, how are you fanning

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Speaker 3: the four day work work week working out?

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Speaker 1: Then we have loved the four day week, so we

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Speaker 1: all take Fridays off and we've been running it for

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Speaker 1: a year now.

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Speaker 2: So we ran a six.

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Speaker 1: Month experiment early on, and certainly we used pecon actually

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Speaker 1: to track some of the metrics that we were hypothesizing around,

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Speaker 1: you know, such as engagement. So with engagement, for example,

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Speaker 1: we're already pretty high. We were in the top ten

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Speaker 1: percent or ninetieth percentile for our industry of management consulting.

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Speaker 1: By the end of the six months, we were in

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Speaker 1: the top one percent. So we were wrapped about that. Yes,

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Speaker 1: productivity increased by twenty six percent over that period, which

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Speaker 1: which we were actually really impressed with because a lot

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Speaker 1: of the work that we do with inventing is training

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Speaker 1: people and how to work more productively, so we were

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Speaker 1: already applying a lot of those strategies. And then we

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Speaker 1: also tracked things like collaboration because we were worried that,

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Speaker 1: you know, if people are working less like four normal days,

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Speaker 1: would they be less open to collaboration because there may

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Speaker 1: be more self focus trying to get all their work done.

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Speaker 2: But that wasn't the case.

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Speaker 1: Operation was maintained and stress levels, given that for the

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Speaker 1: last half of last year a lot of the team

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Speaker 1: were locked down in Melbourne, stress levels reduced by about

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Speaker 1: eighteen percent, which was also pretty good in amongst you know,

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Speaker 1: the landscape of what was happening outside of Inventium.

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Speaker 3: That sounds resoundingly successful and you know great that you

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Speaker 3: could measure all that with.

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Speaker 2: Pecon, I know exactly.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk a bit about pecon and for listeners

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Speaker 1: are not familiar with pekon, which I assume is quite

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Speaker 1: a lot of people, can you just describe what pecon is?

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Speaker 2: Can you paint a bit of a picture.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So Peakon is effectively a continuous listening platform allows you

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Speaker 3: to really get the pulse of what's happening with your employees.

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Speaker 3: And then we use machine learning, so we apply that

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Speaker 3: to generate insights and we can deliver those insights to

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Speaker 3: anyone who manages people in your organization, you know, on

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Speaker 3: a continuous basis and really really boil it down to

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Speaker 3: what are the top three things that I should be

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Speaker 3: working on to approve engagement on my team. But you

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Speaker 3: can also we'll show you like kind of what contributes

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Speaker 3: to that as well, so we'll look at all of

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Speaker 3: the different factors around what motivates people to come to work,

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Speaker 3: and then you can use this also to make predictive insights.

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Speaker 3: So on a macro level, you can look at what's

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Speaker 3: the attrition risk in my organization and if it's high

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Speaker 3: in specific teams or segments, then you can say, well,

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Speaker 3: what can I do to reduce this.

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Speaker 4: We also look at.

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Speaker 3: Diversity and inclusion so how you can build a more

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Speaker 3: diverse and inclusive workforce. And we've also got a continuous

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Speaker 3: performance management product called grow, which is really around getting

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Speaker 3: you know, continue to employee development more than anything really

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Speaker 3: about getting a sort of picture of different areas where

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Speaker 3: you want to develop and kind of what the perception

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Speaker 3: of your peers, managers, subordinates is of you in those areas,

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Speaker 3: and that's not anonymous. So yeah, three different products and

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Speaker 3: in use fire about twelve hundred companies worldwide.

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Speaker 2: Including Inventium.

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Speaker 1: Sorry, yes, so we've been using peicon for I'd say

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Speaker 1: at least a couple of you is and we just

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Speaker 1: love it. So you know, every month we're in there

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Speaker 1: looking at the dashboard and certainly alloys OKRs in terms

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Speaker 1: of our goal setting process. And quite a few people

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Speaker 1: in the business have okayrs linked to data that comes

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Speaker 1: out of pecon.

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Speaker 2: So it's high stakes.

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Speaker 1: Now I want to know how how does pecon use

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Speaker 1: pecon Like, what is your process for using all this

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Speaker 1: data and getting the most out of it.

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Speaker 3: We've used peak on data, I would say, to inform

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Speaker 3: most major company decisions ever since we formed the company.

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Speaker 3: And I think it's really a this is a different

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Speaker 3: and almost almost like a management superpower.

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Speaker 4: I would say, you know, you know, if you get

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Speaker 4: we run weekly.

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Speaker 3: I don't know about you and Mantha, but it really

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Speaker 3: provides a way that you can get real time feedback

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Speaker 3: on the way that you manage the company and particularly

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Speaker 3: around you know, major events or comms or you know,

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Speaker 3: when you launch initiatives or going through sort of big

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Speaker 3: transformations and you can get pulse of like how is

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Speaker 3: this actually landing with people? So there have been you know,

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Speaker 3: it's been a learning journey for me as a first

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Speaker 3: time CEO. You know where I've I've stood up at

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Speaker 3: a company all hands meeting and said, you know, expressed

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Speaker 3: a point in a certain way, and then I've got,

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Speaker 3: you know, some pretty pointed feedback and peak on there

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Speaker 3: a couple of days later, and I think it really

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Speaker 3: opens up your eyes to well ultimately would have been

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Speaker 3: a blind spot for you, and enables you to do

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Speaker 3: things differently, to acknowledge, you know, where things haven't gone

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Speaker 3: so well and and course correct as you.

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Speaker 4: Go, which you know you don't you don't normally get

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Speaker 4: to do.

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Speaker 3: And I you know, I give the example of the

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Speaker 3: salary model before, but there have been countless incidences I

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Speaker 3: think where you know, we've really been able to pinpoint problems,

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Speaker 3: and particularly as your company gets to multi office or

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Speaker 3: multi country, you know, how do you really know what's

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Speaker 3: going on in any of those offices. With peakon, you

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Speaker 3: do know what's going on and you have a real

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Speaker 3: time view of it.

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Speaker 1: We will be back shortly with Phil hearing about how

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Speaker 1: he used his partner's documentary filmmaking skills to boost employee

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Speaker 1: engagement and also how Phil has reduced virtual meetings at Pecon. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you would like to hear more productivity content, you

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Speaker 1: might want to follow me on some of the social

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Speaker 1: media channels that I'm active on. You can find me

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Speaker 1: on LinkedIn just search for my name Amantha Imba, and

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Speaker 1: also at Twitter at Amantha.

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Speaker 2: And also I am now.

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Speaker 1: A little bit more active on Instagram and you can

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Speaker 1: find me there at Amantha. I Are there any other

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Speaker 1: examples you can share where say you've launched an initiative

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Speaker 1: or put out some comms and you've used that data

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Speaker 1: to cause correct or you know, the data showed you

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Speaker 1: something that was really surprising and then you had to

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Speaker 1: act on that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we've got loads of great examples, particularly

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Speaker 3: in the customer base. You know, we we peakle. Customers

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Speaker 3: are using it for a lot of different use cases.

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Speaker 3: I think one that really springs to mind in my

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Speaker 3: mind is kind of in a retail setting. One of

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Speaker 3: our one of our clients wanted to study what would

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Speaker 3: be the effect of giving of paying people the living wage.

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Speaker 4: Rather than the minimum wage.

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Speaker 3: Uh. And you know, they actually set up a control

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Speaker 3: group of stores and then kind of you know, did

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Speaker 3: you know, did a pay differential between those two control groups,

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Speaker 3: and they saw that not only did engagement increase in

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Speaker 3: in the sort of group that got the pay rise,

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Speaker 3: but it also led to better customer satisfaction and ultimately

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Speaker 3: to better store profitability. And therefore, you know, you could

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Speaker 3: make the business case for doing that on our on

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Speaker 3: a on a bigger scale. So I think, you know,

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Speaker 3: we've we've also seen examples of increased engagement link to

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Speaker 3: reduction in safety incidences in the kind of a you know,

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Speaker 3: industrial setting. So there's all sorts of of great outcomes

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Speaker 3: that I think you and measure and I think I

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Speaker 3: think obviously in Mentor you kind of proved it with

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Speaker 3: your you know, your four day work week leading to

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Speaker 3: twenty six percent better productivity, which is an astounding result.

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Speaker 1: Now I'd love to know what sort of things you

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Speaker 1: do at pecon to maximize employee engagement.

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Speaker 3: I think that it really starts with the kind of

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Speaker 3: values in the mission of the organization, right, I think ultimately,

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Speaker 3: you know, employee engagement isn't around sort of fads or

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Speaker 3: or you know, sort of perks, even it's really around you,

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Speaker 3: do you find true meaning in your job? And you

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Speaker 3: know that has to be true of sustained long period

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Speaker 3: of time. And I think you know that the sort

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Speaker 3: of you know, really embedding kind of how how you

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Speaker 3: work and why you come to work into the overall

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Speaker 3: sort of company rhythm and sort of calling that out

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Speaker 3: and you know, in terms of what are great examples

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Speaker 3: of how we've improved the working life of employees. So

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Speaker 3: you know, in our monthly all hands, you know, we

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Speaker 3: always start start with the mission and we talk about,

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Speaker 3: you know, examples, particularly in our Customer Success team of

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Speaker 3: great initiatives where we've seen customers change things for the

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Speaker 3: better in their organizations because of Peak on data. And

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Speaker 3: I think that's really why people come to work at PEACON.

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Speaker 1: Now, I know you've done some fun stuff with your

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Speaker 1: partner who's a documentary filmmaker, to do some interesting things

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Speaker 1: around engagement. Can you share some of the things you've

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Speaker 1: done there?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, we were scratching our heads a little bit

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Speaker 3: when as I guess most companies where when we got

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Speaker 3: through thrown into the first lockdown. So one of the

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Speaker 3: I think genius ideas we came up was twenty six

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Speaker 3: hours Zoomathon, which was kind of modeled on the old

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Speaker 3: charity telethons that don't really had them in Australia, but yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: that was a big thing in the UK right where

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Speaker 3: you would have these huge television programs around comic relief

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Speaker 3: and stuff like that. So we said to all employees

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Speaker 3: is right, everyone can who wants to you can sign up.

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Speaker 3: You get thirty minutes live on Zoom broadcasting to the

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Speaker 3: whole company. We're going to run it for twenty six

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Speaker 3: hours and you can do whatever you want. So I

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Speaker 3: was sort of scratching my head and I was like, okay,

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Speaker 3: So one of my passions is is wildlife photography, and

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Speaker 3: as you mentioned, my partners a sort of documentary filmmaker

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Speaker 3: in the environmental sphere. So I managed to rig up

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Speaker 3: this live broadcast down the camera thing where I went

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Speaker 3: out into the field at dusk and it all sort

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Speaker 3: of came together at the last minute and I sort

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Speaker 3: of connected this like HDMI capture thing to my phone

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Speaker 3: and then broadcast back to the company and I filmed

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Speaker 3: some munt jack deer and some hairs.

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Speaker 4: In a field in Norfolk down down the camera.

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Speaker 3: So it's kind of it was quite stressful because I

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Speaker 3: sort of had to do the commentary and the filming

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Speaker 3: all at the same time, which is now I realized

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Speaker 3: how David Atenborough feels.

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Speaker 1: That's awesome if we have virtual meetings in general, because

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Speaker 1: I imagine you must have done so much of your

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Speaker 1: work via virtual meetings, zoom, whatever you're using, Like, what

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Speaker 1: have been some of the strategies that you have used

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Speaker 1: to make virtual meetings like suck a little bit less?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, try try and reduce them, I would say.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I think the first principle is like can

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Speaker 3: this thing be done asynchronously? I think a lot of

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Speaker 3: people sort of, you know, the meeting is their first tool,

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Speaker 3: and I you know, I think we have to get

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Speaker 3: out of that. And it's fine if you're in the

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Speaker 3: same time zone or a fine ish, but ultimately if

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Speaker 3: you're not, and you know, we work across the globe,

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Speaker 3: it's you know, there are only small hours of overlap.

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Speaker 4: You know, this is one of.

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Speaker 3: The ones with the ash Pacific region, but you know,

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Speaker 3: in the evening in Europe, like we're talking to California,

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Speaker 3: and I think, you know, the more of that people do,

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Speaker 3: like the lesson goes to get.

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Speaker 4: We've you know, lent on a collaboration tools a lot.

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Speaker 3: I think one of the big standouts for me is

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Speaker 3: a is a tool called Mirro, which is effectively a

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Speaker 3: collaborative whiteboarding tool. I don't know if you've ever used it, Yes,

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Speaker 3: absolutely brilliant.

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Speaker 2: How do you use miro?

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Speaker 4: So we use it a lot.

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Speaker 3: For doing you know, like the kind of meeting that

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Speaker 3: would be like a strategy off site or you know,

442
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:24,159
Speaker 3: you know those kind of things where everybody's contributing a

443
00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:25,399
Speaker 3: lot of ideas and putting them on a page and

444
00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:29,159
Speaker 3: we're trying to organize them and that that really allows

445
00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:31,320
Speaker 3: that process to run over multiple days, I think, and

446
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 3: people to sort of do that work asynchronously and then

447
00:22:34,320 --> 00:22:37,880
Speaker 3: come back together. And I've I've found it to be

448
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 3: a really good, I don't know, a really good implementation

449
00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:43,840
Speaker 3: of that, So would would recommend it.

450
00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:48,359
Speaker 1: When you're setting meetings, Phil, how do you decide whether

451
00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:50,800
Speaker 1: something is worthy of a meeting or whether it can

452
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:53,960
Speaker 1: just be an email or you know, done in some

453
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:55,679
Speaker 1: other asynchronous fashion.

454
00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:59,119
Speaker 3: I think it's relative to the level of discussion that

455
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:00,639
Speaker 3: you really want to have around it. I mean, you

456
00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:03,040
Speaker 3: think you need people to feel included, right or to

457
00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:06,840
Speaker 3: be included not feel included. So I think it's getting

458
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:10,640
Speaker 3: the right standing meetings in place, you know, and making

459
00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:13,680
Speaker 3: sure that you have a good structure and the agenda

460
00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:15,840
Speaker 3: has contributed before and you have a plan for what's

461
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:18,680
Speaker 3: coming up so that everyone can get their stuff on there,

462
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:21,399
Speaker 3: but not creating you know, a ton of ad hoc

463
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:24,440
Speaker 3: you know, in addition to that, unless it's strictly necessary,

464
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:27,359
Speaker 3: and I think that that can be tricky. But I

465
00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:29,280
Speaker 3: think if you start to talk about this at a

466
00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:32,000
Speaker 3: senior level in the company, you sort of have to

467
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:34,720
Speaker 3: practice what you preach, right and you know, really let

468
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,920
Speaker 3: everybody know that that's something that you know, as a leader,

469
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:40,159
Speaker 3: you're trying to actively reduce and try and trying to

470
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:42,800
Speaker 3: make more time. I think you know when you may

471
00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:44,879
Speaker 3: have you've obviously kind of taken this to the extreme

472
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:48,000
Speaker 3: with a day a week off, but we're also you know,

473
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:52,480
Speaker 3: having no meeting Wednesdays, for instance, So just giving people

474
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:54,600
Speaker 3: a day where everybody's not going to have meetings so

475
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,120
Speaker 3: that you can you can clete your calendar and get

476
00:23:57,160 --> 00:23:58,680
Speaker 3: some more desk work or bookbook done.

477
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:01,440
Speaker 4: Is that's that's quite effective too.

478
00:24:02,320 --> 00:24:05,720
Speaker 1: What's been the impact of no meeting Wednesdays?

479
00:24:06,119 --> 00:24:08,080
Speaker 3: Well, I think one of one of the nice things around.

480
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:12,919
Speaker 3: So there's advantage and disadvantages to working with California, but

481
00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:15,200
Speaker 3: one of the nice things is the mornings are free.

482
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:22,160
Speaker 3: So I think it it just gives you know, people,

483
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 3: I think context switching is extremely expensive, right, and I

484
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:29,199
Speaker 3: think it really matters like where you put the meetings

485
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:29,680
Speaker 3: in the week.

486
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:33,679
Speaker 4: So you know, whether if people.

487
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:36,399
Speaker 3: Have twenty hours of meetings but they're they're dotted around

488
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 3: like every other hour, then they're probably going to be

489
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:42,040
Speaker 3: half as productive as if you actually organize that. So

490
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:47,879
Speaker 3: I think it's you know, particularly true in jobs where

491
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 3: you have some you know, complex development work to do

492
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:53,920
Speaker 3: or product ideation or those things. It's it's quite hard

493
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 3: to switch into a mode where you're kind of in

494
00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 3: a flow and then then switch out of it to

495
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:02,160
Speaker 3: a completely different topic. So I think the impact really

496
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:06,040
Speaker 3: is is a better quality of work when you're you

497
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 3: know you're in that zone.

498
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 1: Do you have like a rhythm in terms of how

499
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:12,480
Speaker 1: you organize your.

500
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 3: Wakes, so I tend to do my one on one

501
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:18,480
Speaker 3: in the mornings with Europe.

502
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:21,040
Speaker 4: Then I have I have a.

503
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:22,359
Speaker 3: You know, two teams really, which is the peak On

504
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 3: management team, so we meet once a week. I also

505
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 3: have the office the CERCHA team in workday. You know,

506
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 3: it's a peak on is like one of the four

507
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:35,120
Speaker 3: pillars in that. So we meet on Mondays and then

508
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 3: try and you know, keep keep the middle of the

509
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 3: day free for customer stuff that comes up, so you know,

510
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 3: kind of have a fairly regular schedule and enough. I

511
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:51,760
Speaker 3: think I try and keep like enough free time, like

512
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:54,360
Speaker 3: thirty percent every week that you can keep on top

513
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:57,720
Speaker 3: of everything else. And I think that's obviously sometimes easier

514
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:00,080
Speaker 3: said than done, but that's that works.

515
00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 4: For me and it's pretty pretty simple to do.

516
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:05,959
Speaker 3: But then you know, I also do have an EA Laura,

517
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 3: who makes my life a lot easier.

518
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:09,120
Speaker 2: That's interesting.

519
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 1: So you keep thirty percent free, how do you do that?

520
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 4: How do that just just really by blocking time?

521
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 3: I think, you know, again, the principle of transparency worked

522
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 3: really well as Peacon, so we we always had open

523
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:26,199
Speaker 3: calendars as well, which I found from a lot of

524
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:28,919
Speaker 3: customers they find that quite shocking. Too, but we were

525
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 3: always like you know it really, I think it helps

526
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,719
Speaker 3: people reason around you know, is this thing that I'm

527
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:36,640
Speaker 3: trying to put in your calendar more important than you know,

528
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 3: this other stuff? Or can I be more thoughtful around

529
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 3: where I'm going to put this meeting given the other

530
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 3: stuff that I can see that you're doing, as in

531
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 3: you might need some prep time before, you know, an

532
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:47,680
Speaker 3: important podcast interview with.

533
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 4: Amantha or what have you.

534
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 3: And I think when you move into a world where

535
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 3: you have private calendars, all of that thoughtfulness around around

536
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:00,199
Speaker 3: you know what you know people people could could have have,

537
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 3: it just goes away, right because I've got no idea

538
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 3: what you're doing. So I think as much as possible,

539
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 3: I tried to give people access to my schedule at

540
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:11,119
Speaker 3: least so they can they can.

541
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 4: Do that now.

542
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: I imagine that over the course of your career you

543
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:16,159
Speaker 1: would have received a lot of.

544
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 2: Advice, some good, so bad.

545
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: I'd love to know, like, what are some pieces of advice,

546
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 1: maybe one or two things that have served you really well.

547
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 2: Yeah.

548
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:32,439
Speaker 3: I think that, you know, when you look back at

549
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 3: why pecon has been successful, I think it's really around

550
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:43,119
Speaker 3: trying to think about, you know, what are the mega

551
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:47,119
Speaker 3: trends here that are going to be different in you know,

552
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 3: three to five years time. And I think to do that,

553
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 3: you sort of it's good to be interested in quite

554
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:56,400
Speaker 3: a lot of different domains. And I think we certainly

555
00:27:57,119 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 3: applied what was happening in the you know, domain of

556
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,160
Speaker 3: the customer, you know, around customer experience, customer analytics real

557
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:09,679
Speaker 3: time to then what might happen to the management of

558
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 3: employees with the you know, I guess you look back

559
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 3: at it ur fairly obvious extrapolation that you know, to

560
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 3: have a great customer experience, you need to have a

561
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,400
Speaker 3: great employee experience. But then we were like, well, surely,

562
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 3: if people are the most important thing in your business,

563
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:24,920
Speaker 3: and you know, the old Jerry Sanders adage profits and

564
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 3: profits will follow, then why isn't there the same sort

565
00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 3: of real time data driven approach to managing and retaining

566
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,359
Speaker 3: your best people. And I think that, you know, the

567
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 3: more generalized insight there is that you know, by having

568
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 3: a having a doing quite a bit of reading around

569
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,360
Speaker 3: lots of different domains and you know, not necessarily having

570
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 3: any sacred cows around the ways things should be done,

571
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 3: then you can you can create yourself an advantage. And

572
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 3: I think the fact that we didn't really have any

573
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 3: domain expertise meant that many of the things we did

574
00:28:57,480 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 3: at the start, which were sort of heretical, you know,

575
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 3: like you were you can only run weekly and it's

576
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:04,360
Speaker 3: only our ten questions and that's.

577
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:06,720
Speaker 4: It, and that's the only choice. You know, many many

578
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 4: people said, well, okay, well we won't use peak on.

579
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 3: But but then the companies that did saw some great

580
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 3: advantages and you know, we managed to build on that.

581
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 3: So I think you can carve yourself a niche in

582
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 3: that way, and that's been that served as well.

583
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 2: What about bad advice?

584
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 1: Can you think of any advice you've been given that

585
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: it was just terrible and they did not save you.

586
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 3: Well, I think there's a you know, coming from the startup, Well,

587
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 3: there's a lot of celebration around fundraising and you know,

588
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 3: raising money and huge rounds and you know, that's just

589
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 3: kind of accelerated. And I think we always saw it

590
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 3: as well. It wasn't really something to celebrate. You're just

591
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,080
Speaker 3: giving away more shares in your company. So we never

592
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 3: did a party around that or you know, really really

593
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:59,520
Speaker 3: made a big thing about it. I think we, you know,

594
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 3: really tried to focus on creating a sustainable business, and

595
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 3: I think maybe another piece of bad advice would really

596
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 3: be carrying too much around what the competitors are doing.

597
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 3: I think that you know, this is quite nuanced, so

598
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:17,040
Speaker 3: I think you probably should care about what they're doing

599
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 3: in a sort of in the go to market area.

600
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:22,280
Speaker 3: But I think in the product area, you know, you

601
00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 3: know hardly at all. In many ways, you know, just

602
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 3: blindly copying kind of other companies. I think it's terrible

603
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 3: advice because you don't really know what's working and what's

604
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 3: not working for them.

605
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 1: Now, my final question for you, Phil, for people that

606
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 1: want to connect with you and try out pecon, what

607
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: is the best way that people can do that.

608
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, if you want to connect with me, then

609
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 3: I'm on LinkedIn or Phil at pecon dot com. I

610
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 3: would be happy to hear from any of your listeners

611
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 3: who want to learn a bit more about pecon, and yeah,

612
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 3: please get in touch.

613
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 1: Amazing, fantastic, Well, Phil, it has been a pleasure talking

614
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: to you and an apsolute pleasure using pecon for the

615
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 1: last few years as well.

616
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 2: So thank you for creating such an awesome product.

617
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 3: Thanks a lot for having me on the podcast a month,

618
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 3: and thanks a lot for using Peacon.

619
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 4: It's been great.

620
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 1: That is it for today. I hope you enjoyed my

621
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: chat with Phil and he's got your thinking about employee engagement,

622
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 1: maybe in some different ways. And if you are not

623
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 1: a follower or subscriber of How I Work, now might

624
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: be the day to hit follow or subscribe wherever you're

625
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast from. I've got some amazing guests

626
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: coming up in the next few weeks, including author Sally Hepworth,

627
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:44,240
Speaker 1: who has a bunch of fascinating productivity tips that she

628
00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: does and uses in her own life, and also Phil Livin,

629
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 1: who is the co founder of ever note software that

630
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 1: I rely on multiple.

631
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 2: Times a day.

632
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: How I Work is produced by Inventing with production support

633
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: from Dead Set Studios. The producer for this episode was

634
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 1: Jenna Koda, and thank you to Mattin Nimber who does

635
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 1: the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound awesome.

636
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 2: See you next time.