Why Team Experience is vital for success - Alan Barber Former VP Global Customer Success TAM VMware

In this episode of Get Amplified, we’re joined by Alan Barber, a leader who’s spent decades building and scaling high-performing teams at companies like VMware, Hewlett-Packard, and Mercury Interactive.

And right from the start, he says something that sticks in our mind:

Looking after your people isn’t part of the job… it is the job.

This episode goes deep into what great team experience actually looks like in practice, and why it’s the difference between teams that just “do the job” and teams that go the extra mile for each other (and their customers).

We get into:

• Why customer experience is only ever as strong as team experience 
• What happens when trust, support, and challenge are out of balance 
• How the best teams create a “family” feel, without losing performance edge 
• The link between employee NPS, customer NPS, and real business results 
• And why there’s no magic fix - it’s the combination of culture, operating model, and strategy 

Alan also shares brilliant real-world stories from teams where everything clicked (where people step in to help each other without being asked), to environments where politics and top-down decisions gnawed away at performance.

It’s honest, practical, and a great reminder that high performance isn’t about pushing harder, it’s about creating the environment where people want to give their best.

If you’re trying to build a team that doesn’t just work, but works together, this one’s essential listening.

We would love you to follow us on LinkedIn! 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/amplified-group/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group, the podcast for tech industry leaders and aspiring leaders who want to help their companies execute faster. As always, we're virtual. I'm at home in Buckingshire, nice and sunny today, which makes a pleasant change. Vicki's over in Deepest, Darkest Oxfordshire, hopefully sunny over there as well. So, Vicki, who have we got on the show today?

Vic 0:30

Yeah, thanks, Alan. So today we've got Alan Barber, and it's a real delight to have Alan. So I didn't work that closely with Alan whilst I was at VMware, but the thing that I remember most is whenever I needed his help, he always made the time for me. And he just set such a great example as a leader. And we've been speaking more regularly over the last few months. And I was sharing with him one of the clients that I've been working with and saying that a new manager had realized that looking after his people was part of his job. And Alan, the thing that you said that has just stuck with me and I have repeated many times since you said it was Vicky, that's not just part of the job, that is the job. And so when we were got a lot of time for that. Exactly. Um so when we were talking about actually what this topic would be, for those listeners that are regular listeners to get amplified, you'll note that we've changed hero time to team experience. And when we were talking and prepping for the podcast, Alan started talking about his team. And I just thought, my goodness, what you're sharing there, Alan, absolutely exemplifies what we mean when we talk about team experience. So the topic we're talking about today for the entire podcast is team experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

So Alan, would you mind just starting by giving us a bit of a potted career history, please?

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Absolutely. And so, first of all, thank you for having me on the podcast. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, so potted career history. I'm quite old now, so this is quite a long story. So I'll try and summarise this a little bit. I started out in electronic engineering, right in the aerospace and defence industry. Uh, you know, uh ended up moving from aerospace and defence into uh mobile technology when that was in its early evolution. I remember we I think we made a phone call on a GSM phone, which was a six-foot rack from uh you know Stopfold in Hartford to Hertfordshire to uh Chicago, and then in my this was in Motorola, and uh you know it's bizarre now to think what we do with mobile phones, and this was a six-foot rack, was the first digital mobile phone that we were looking at.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Pretty cool though.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

That must have felt like absolute witchcraft. It it did a bit, well, it did a bit, yes. But yeah, I think the the thing that struck me at the time was how are we going to get this into something usable? This is bigger than me.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

So they they went smaller and smaller and smaller, and now they're getting bigger and bigger again.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Exactly. So uh yeah, this so this was this was really going back a bit. And I moved from you know Motorola to Hewlich Packard in about 1989, and I was electronic engineer for test and measurement. And at that point, I started to get into pre-sales and sales. And during that time, customers kept coming to us and saying, We like your technology, but could you customize it for us? Could you do something different with it? And we used to do it, but we used to do it as a special engineering project. Special engineering projects team became a professional services team and we built this professional services team. I have to say that initially really I really enjoyed professional services. At that point in my career, I ricocheted about a little bit between sales and professional services. You know, one of my mentors at the time thought I'd be better at sales and I enjoyed sales, but it didn't do the same for me as professional services. Professional services seemed just more complete. You know, you saw something through to the end, you saw the result for the customer. When you were managing a services business, you weren't just managing OpEx and orders coming in, you were managing a full PL. So it just felt more fulfilling and more complete. So at that point, I kind of pursued more of a career in professional services. I switched in about 98 from test to measurement because a lot of electronic manufacturing at that point was going offshore and going out to Asia. And I saw the you know, the almost the challenges in the electronic manufacturing and electronics business declining as the challenges there, market challenges there, versus the compute business of the other side of HP was just growing like topsy. So I jumped ship, I'm afraid. In about 98, I moved across to HP Computing and uh the professional services side of HP there. You know, enjoyed a long career at HP, left HP in about 2003 and joined Mercury Interactive, who, you know, if you remember them, they were the testing company and great company, really enjoyed working with them. I was with them for a couple of years running their uh support and professional services organizations. They were acquired by HP, but ended up back in the HP Mercury world. I was there for about a year and then I was approached to work for VMware. Um and that would have been in about 2007 to run their professional services organization. So, you know, I've had this kind of career of building professional services organizations initially in test and measurement, um, then in uh HP compute organization, then for Mercury Interactive, and then for VMware. I've enjoyed another 13 and a half years at VMware.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Sounds like you uh timed your joining of VMware to perfection. 2007 was when it was all kind of kicking off and really getting going, wasn't it? So you want to give us a bit, tell us a bit more about that? That was that must have been fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

It it I mean it was. It was uh it was a great time actually to join VMware. Um an exciting time to join VMware during the days where Diane Green was still in charge, and I remember joining, and I was sat down with my then boss, and he said, right, your growth numbers are 25%. I think that's quite a bit higher than I was thinking. He said, per quarter. Per quarter. Okay, that's even higher than I was expecting. Um, yeah, so uh yeah, so I'd gone from a you know business that was growing five, 10% per annum to a business that was growing 25% per quarter. Um, and so we had a lot of catching up to do in the professional services organization and uh in building that professional services organization. Yeah, and it was a great company to work for. Uh, still is, yeah, it still is a great company to work for. I've thoroughly enjoyed my career there.

Vic 6:41

So, Alan, before we go any further, you're not at VMware anymore. So give a plug for your coaching before you before we go on.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

So, yeah, so um, yeah, so thank you. Yeah, I left VMware uh end of February and uh I've gone back to school and uh I'm doing a course at Hemley Business School in executive coaching. The idea, uh Vicky, is you know, I've discussed this a little bit, is you know, I actually want to try and give back to some of the industry that I've enjoyed for so much of my life. And you know, we've talked a lot about you know building trusted teams, and uh, you know, I really do want to get back to it, want to uh put back into helping other aspiring leaders to see if I can use my experience and the benefits of what I'm learning through Henley Business School to be able to coach people on their journey to building. I think authentic teams is the way I've kind of coached really, um, and building their teams and building an authentic leadership style.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Good opportunity for a shameless plug. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yes, yeah, so do I. Yeah, so well, of course, that's only fair.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

So bearing in mind your focus is on working with teams and our theme is team experience. What does great team experience mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah, so it's a really good question. I it it is, and and Vicky touched on this at the beginning, and it is everything, and especially if you work in a, I think it is anyway, but what if you're working in a customer service focused organization, the customer experience is only as ever good as the team experience. So if your team's experience isn't a fantastic experience, if they're not you know happy in their work, motivated, passionate about what they're doing, working together as a team, supporting each other, collaborating, acting with trust, integrity, all those sorts of things. If they're not working in that way and they don't feel as though their careers are being developed, or they feel that they're working in an environment where you know the systems and processes don't support them in doing the job they need to be able to do. Any of those things not working, the team experience you know declines, it goes down, and the people start to struggle with uh you know what they're trying to do, and then they get frustrated. So if they're not being developed, they're working in a system which doesn't work, they're not being supported and challenged equally, they don't feel as though their managers are really there and supporting them every day, then things start to go wrong for the customer. And you've all been in those customer scenarios, and it sort of recently with uh British Airways, I'm a British Airways customer, I've been a big fan of British Airways for years. Before the pandemic, there were times when I got on beer at British Airways flights, and people that you know I flown with, you know, I showed you how look how regularly I flew, I would come across the same crew that I'd flown with before, and they'd say, I'm really sorry, Mr. Barber, this is not within our control, this is not the experience you're used to, I know. And and that's not what you want your customers, your people saying about your company. So, you know, when you're in a and I think it's the I think it's paramount in any organization, but especially so in a customer-facing organization, you know, the team experience needs to be a really good team experience. And I love what you guys are doing with uh Beacon Force because you know that's really helping to look at what's going on at the ground level, and that's really critical to the team experience. If you don't listen to the people on a regular basis, you know, one of the things that that I found really helpful in my time at VMware was I came across part way through my time there was reverse mentoring and having people from all over the organization mentor you. And it didn't matter what level they are or what grade they are, but have people from all over the organization mentoring you around what you're doing well and what you're and what the leadership team are doing well and what's working and what's not, and what their frustrations are so imperative.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

That's actually a great shout. Uh, you know, I found quite often as a you know, as a leader and as a manager, that people had a tendency to tell you what you want to hear. And you don't always, you know, from your direct reports, at any rate, you don't always get it warts and all. You know, you X percent of your team will be the you know the direct ones who will actually tell you, but you often don't get the reality unless you find other ways of of getting that information, you know, whether it's more of a casual have a lunch, have going out, go out of a walk, or you know, whether it's over a beer at a company due or or something, or it's finding a different route to get that direct feedback. I like the reverse mentoring concept.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Yeah, it takes it takes some time actually, Sam, because um, you know, you can have those, and you should do exactly what you said, which is you know, you should network the around the organization, you should talk to as many people as you possibly can. But you setting up those reverse mentoring relationships in a formal way where you're explaining that this is a safe space, it's a confidential space, you can say anything. And it takes time to develop that relationship because at the beginning of the relationship, people won't say anything, they won't tell you what's and all, um, and they're a bit guarded. And then as the as the relationship develops, they feel more comfortable. You have to work hard at making them feel comfortable. It ends up being a bi-directional relationship because, in actual fact, the more that you help and coach that individual and they can see that you're trying to invest in them, the more they'll invest in you, and the more you know, it sort of goes in both directions. I think there was a yeah, makes sense. I like it. So I think there was uh one of the things that sticks with me is one of the Stephen Covey principles, which was early in my career, which is that uh sense of the emotional bank account. So the more you invest in other people, the more they'll give back to you. And I think that's something that's stuck with me and it works in that environment.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Yeah, we were talking about that in the context of the pandemic, I think, on a previous episode, in that you know, there's a if you invest, if you've invested in your staff and your teams over the long term, you've got a certain amount of emotional capital in the bank that is clearly eroded by the fact that for the last year we've been doing everything over video. But though, you know, those organizations that have invested long and hard and deep in that stuff have probably got emotional capital still in the bank even a year or so in. Whereas those who maybe haven't looked after their teams as well, I suspect that that may have gone by the wayside some time ago.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah, exactly. So I think you know, what does it mean to me? It means everything. I think there are there are elements which you need to manage within that to get good team experience. Um, we touched on some of them, but you know, you've got to have respect and trust um for individuals throughout the organization. You know, I think there's an element of um what I would you know I would describe as equal quotients of challenge and support. Because nobody wants to be part of a team which is not performing well. So you need to perform well. Your results need to be good, you need to be working together to get good results. That means you need to challenge each other, but there needs to be equal managers of challenge and support so that people feel that they're they can perform and they're supported to perform well. And I think the other thing is just you know acting with uncompromising integrity, which is really important for a team experience.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

So, with your wealth of experience over the years through Mercury and HP and VMware, how how have you seen this stuff demonstrated in the teams that you've led?

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah, I think you know, you learn a lot, Sam, as you as you go through life. And I think you know, there's been times in my career, I think, when you you kind of experience a uh you know, a good teaming dynamic, and there are times when you experience a not so good team dynamic. You know, I found myself in scenarios where I've been in a team where, and you know, I think we can all um relate to the scenario where it's you know kind of very alpha male, it's kind of you know very egocentric. You have meetings where people don't speak their mind, it's fairly mute, each presentation rolls through, all the decisions were made outside of the meeting, not in the meeting, and it's not a comfortable place because nothing happens front and center, everything happens in the background. You know, if that's happening within a leadership team, it kind of goes out through the organization, it disseminates down through the organization. And when that's happening at the leadership level, it happens all the way through. And what happens is people get their head down and they do their job. You know, most people want to go to work and do a good job, and they'll do their job, but they keep their head down and they do their job. What they're not doing is they're not going the extra mile, they're not supporting each other in the way in which you want people to support each other. You look at the opposite, and this is where Vicki and I started talking in the team I was privileged to work in previously at VMware, the Customer Success Town organization. I would get emails from customers where, you know, one person was on holiday and somebody had stepped in to support the customer because this person was on holiday, or they'd been working together on a problem and somebody had come in. You know, it wasn't up to somebody's area of expertise, but somebody else had come in to provide support for the individual. It wasn't his customer, it wasn't their job, but they they want each other to be successful in the team and they desire each other to be successful and they're passionate about each other being successful. You know, you'd get these fantastic emails either from managers in the organization, leaders in the organization, or individuals who've just been helped, or customers. Um, and that's what you know, that's the difference. You see people going the extra mile and they're collaborating to achieve the results that the team want to achieve. They're all collaborating to achieve that high performance.

Vic 16:55

And that's why I wanted you to talk about this, Alan, because I think that's so powerful because you've just you've just taken it an extra level because we talk about people going the extra mile. And actually, you you talked about Beacon Force a little bit earlier, and Beacon Force described that as intrinsic motivation. But going the extra mile, not just for yourself, but for your teammates. Some of the things that you were telling me about how your team stepped into help each other without being asked, that's how we describe team experience. That's what team experience really means to us. And then you see the benefits of that, don't you? All the way through to the customer.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

And that's where it really shines is at the customer level. You know, it shines at the individual level because you get these really nice, you know, emails or the and the thing as a leader is when you get these, you really need to try and amplify as much as you can and make other people aware of it and be supportive of it. You know, the last thing you want is somebody saying, Well, why did you do that? That's not your job. You want to expand, you want to amplify that kind of level of collaboration.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

That's really funny. We had something along those lines at at um at SoftCat that we call the love email. And once a week on a Friday afternoon, about I don't know, three o'clock or something like that, um one or other director, whoever was was responsible for it that week, and we take it in turns, would send out a little summary of stuff that had gone in on in the company, and then below it, just a list of all the all the good things that had happened, all the you know, compliments, thank yous for people going above and beyond. And you know, it started off when we were 250 people with 10 or 12, and you know, then it you know, it must it must be 200 examples of love these days, I'm sure. But it's fantastic. You know, people people loved to be loved, they loved to have what they were doing recognized and be so visible to the entire company. I just it's really important.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Yeah, I agree, and I I love the I love the concept of a of a love email. That's uh yeah, that's quite a nice way of putting it. But uh yeah, it is important that these things are amplified and recognized and people are rewarded for for the for these sorts of things because uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

We'd always have a song title with the uh with the word love in it as the title of the email, so like Friday I'm in love kind of thing. I like that for a Friday email screen. Yeah, no, it's really good, it's really good. But you know, obviously we do this stuff because it's the right thing to do, but it clearly it also has a massive positive effect on the business, both in terms of people's happiness, but actually in terms of hard numbers as well. So you know, you can almost track it.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

So we used to look at employee MPS, customer MPS, and the business performance. And you can almost track it. Um, you know, if and you have one of the the first thing you have to pay attention to is the employee MPS and what they need, and what they needed in order to be able to do their job and challenges they're faced with pay attention to that line, customer NPS goes up, and as a result, you get good business performance. Yeah, as a direct you have to, I mean, not clearly you you know, you have to manage the business metrics, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

You have to under and you have to you have an operating system which manages the underlying day-to-day performance of the business. That's really crucial. So uh there is an operating system that you need to manage as well as a cultural piece.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

I I used to say it's as simple as you treat your staff well, they treat your customers well, and your customers buy stuff off you. It's it's not rocket science, is it? It's not rocket science.

Vic 20:47

I think Richard Branson is the famous one for saying that, though, isn't he? Look after your employees, and then your employees will look after your customers.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

You know, we say it's not rocket science, but it's actually really hard to get that right because there's not there's not one thing that you can do that is magic that suddenly means your employees are happy. It's absolutely everything. There's not one magic wand that you can wave or one switch you can flip to suddenly make your employees happy.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

No, that no, there's not. You're right. It's a whole it's a whole bunch of things. And and you know, you I think you know, you you know, we had a thing with where it was all about development. In one case, we looked at our employee MPS, and it was okay, so one of the things the employees were saying, Well, we're not getting enough development. Uh so what we ended up doing was was uh we we went external and got some help external, but we we did a bunch of things. But one thing we did was we trained all the managers on how do you coach somebody to build a development plan. So all the managers knew you know what the best practices were in terms of how do you coach this. But the other thing we did then was because it's so important that every individual is responsible for their development plan, nobody can be given a development plan. What we did was we actually ran training on what a good development plan looks like and how you go about building your own development plan. So every individual was actually got development in because otherwise it ends up being, you know, a tick box in an HR system. Have you got a you know, the usual response to that is have you got a development plan? Has everyone in your team got a development plan? And that becomes a management tick box exercise if you're not careful. So actually, we invested more in okay, how we're going to train everybody in what a good development plan looks like. How do they go about building their development plan? Who should be their mentors? How do they get mentors? Um, and then how do the managers become good coaches for somebody building a development plan so that you know you make it a bit more intrinsic and real as opposed to as opposed to systematic, yeah.

Vic 22:50

Yeah, so you said intrinsic, sorry for jumping in there, but God, what you've just talked about there, I think is is so important because we see so many organizations that do have it as tick boxes, and they literally have here's I think there's um a HR system which basically gives you a menu of of stuff that you can go learn and it's just out there. And because the organization has provided it, that's job done. That's it, it's done. Whereas actually it's so overwhelming. A lot of people that we're working with are like we don't even know where to where to start with it. So to hear the process that you've just gone through there is magic.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Yeah, that's that that's really important because you know, one of the things that we found with development was people would say, Oh, I'm not being developed. Why aren't you developing me? And it's really important that people develop themselves, they've got to be given the tools and the support and the wherewithal to do that. But it's not a passive thing that happens to you, it's a process that you need to engage in.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Exactly, which which means you need to have people in the organization who are coaching and mentoring and helping people, as well as people understanding, okay, what is in a development plan? How what should my development plan look like? And this is where we actually work for outside help to put some training together for this. A bit better. Yeah.

Vic 24:17

I think the the other thing that that strikes me there as well is in certainly in in tech companies, a lot of that development is seen as learning about the tech or sales training versus all the soft skills that we've started to now recognize that are super important.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Yeah, the technical skills and the soft skills are kind of what make up potentially your development plan. It's actually the career aspiration that everybody's really interested in. So, you know, how do you how do you build a career for yourself? I think is the thing that's important. And how do we how do you do that for individuals? I think this is important from a leadership perspective as well. You talk about four things, I think. There's really ability. So, you know, where are you strong in terms of ability? We started off talking about uh me in my sales career, and I didn't want to go into that direction. You know, my the manager I was with at the time and my mentors saw it had a strong ability for it, but actually I didn't have a passion for it. So, you know, there's there's this thing where you need to match ability and passion. I'm actually quite passionate about tennis, but I'm not very good at it. Um, so you know, you've you've got to match these things. And if you don't, you know, there's going to be some stress in your life. But there's two other things that have to come into it. Well, you know, one is culture and values. We talked earlier about, you know, me being in a management team, which didn't fit with my culture and values. It was very egocentric, very political, you know, it was very underhand in the way it operated. I felt really uncomfortable in that position. You know, it didn't fit with my moral standards and values. So I felt quite stressed in that environment. So I absolutely was not performing at my best. Whereas if you're working in a team where you've got, you know, your values, your moral standards are all matched, an environment, then you've got an environment where you can really perform. And then the last thing is actually what I would call the lifestyle, you know, the things that are important to you in life. Those four things need to come together to get strong performance. And I think they're the essence of a development plan. If you're working so hard that you're putting pressure on your family life, then something's out of kilter and you're not working, you know, you're you're feeling stressed. If you're working in an environment which doesn't fit with your values, you're feeling stressed. If you're doing something that you've got an ability to do but you're not passionate about it, it's hard work. And vice versa, if you're doing something which you haven't got the basic ability to do, you might be really passionate about it, but you know, you're gonna you're gonna struggle. If you can get those four things working in harmony, for you as a leader, I think it's important because you need to manage those four things. But actually, as you're developing people, you need to help people those people, you need to help people you're developing think about those four things and plan their career in accordance.

Vic 27:12

Have you got that as a diagram that we could share?

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yeah, sure. In the show notes.

Vic 27:17

Yeah, in the show notes. Thanks, Sam.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

So obviously, I I don't know about the the earlier roles, but the VMware role was global, right? It was, yeah. It was global. So how how was how was that leading a you know a global team, different um times of day, different languages, different cultures?

SPEAKER_01 27:36

How was that? It's a really interesting experience, actually, Sam. I think one of the things I've learned from the experience is you really do need to invest. And I'm sat here wondering how you do this in a Zoom world. So I was lucky to start managing the global team pre-pandemic, which meant you know, I got on a plane and played, you went to China, you went to um Singapore, you, you know, you went to these places, you went to Japan, and you learn so much from being there, from the culture, from the people. And it's not just from talking to them on a Zoom call, it's going out for dinner with them, it's traveling around the country. You learn so much from that experience. You then can link what's going on interculturally to the business and what's happening from a business perspective. Um, and I think you know, running a global team, it's really important to be able to do that, learning about them, learning about their culture. I think that's absolutely key, especially when you with what we're talking about here, because we're talking about team and how do you develop a team and how do you get that team experience? And the team experience in one country and culture might be slightly different to a team experience in another country and culture. Then how do you, you know, how do you bring that team together globally so that they feel part of something that's bigger? Um, but you know, I think what's important there is you know having a um uh what I tend to call it an emotive sense of purpose, or you know, you call it a mission, but I've kind of added the emotive bit because in my career I've put together purpose or mission statements that that you use to bring the teams together. I think one of the things you realize over time is that actually the more that purpose is has a sense of emotion to it, the more it people can visualize it, can picture it. You need to they need to be able to, or not just they, me, I do, need to be able to easily tell stories. And we all do, we all connect with purpose that we can all visualize or tell stories about. If it's if you know if the purpose is, you know, we're gonna grow revenue. It's not something you can tell stories about every day. At the end of the quarter, you can look at it and go, yeah, we did it.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Um that that isn't a purpose, that's the result of having a purpose and having everybody lined up behind it, going in the same direction. Exactly. That was probably not a great uh example. No, it is, it's a really good example because people do say stuff like that, don't they? Yeah, they do, yeah, they do. Yeah, it's it's it's like how are we gonna win? Well, we're gonna score more goals than the other team. Well, the the one I love is we're gonna be the best. That's a target or an aspiration, not a strategy.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah, and people people wonder people walk away from that going, what does that mean? What do I do? What do I do? Yeah, yeah. I think the thing that you need to do is make it personal, you need to make it something that everyone can do, and everyone can do globally. That that becomes really important. Uh the time zone thing you mentioned, Sam's interesting. I, if I'm honest, I struggle with that a little bit. You know, your calls are starting, especially from the UK. It was easier from the US, actually. I found it a lot easier from the US because by the time you get to six o'clock West Coast time, most things have closed apart from you know Asia Packs starting up again. Um, so there's stuff going on in Asia Pac, but a lot of the rest of the world has closed, especially on a Friday. You know, whereas in the UK, you know, the day starts at 7 a.m. and finishes typically 10, 11 o'clock at night. I don't think I really ever found the secret to managing that, if I'm honest. Yeah, it basically just means you're always on. Yeah, basically, yeah. That's exactly what it means. But uh yeah, that's a tough one from the UK. But uh, you know, you need to be there and you need to be present, and you you know, you need to be on clause with Asia Pack early, and you need to be on um the Americans and the US. And it you've you know, you've you've got to do that.

Vic 31:29

I just wanted to come in on uh the emotive purpose bit that we were talking about earlier, because um, Alan, as as you know, we've been on a bit of a journey at the Amplified Group to figure out actually how we define what our purpose is, and and actually we've got almost two elements of it from an organizational perspective, we're about helping tech organizations execute faster, and that's the that's the business output. But actually, that emotive bit is what we're here talking about today is that team experience and what does good team experience really feel like, and how do I how do I get that emotional feeling to it? So a great team experience is when you can see people are looking frazzled and you just step into help like you would like you were talking about earlier, or if you you can't imagine working anywhere else because you feel so fulfilled and you're enjoying what you do, and when team feels like a family, if you've got that, then you will go that extra mile, I think. And that's that's where that customer piece comes back in.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

You said something there which is quite dear to my heart, actually, which is uh which is family. And I I do like that term family because I mean we did you we did use that within the customer success to organization within VMware because it that's the feeling you feel as though you're part of a family, you'll feel as though you're part of something bigger, and you do feel supported, even though you feel challenged, you've got that emotive sense of purpose so that everybody's united in that, and everyone feels that they can make a personal contribution to that sense of purpose, and they feel empowered to do so as well. That's the other important thing in all of this is that as well as being supported and challenged and developed and having a career, there's a there's that essence of family. You've got whilst you're being challenged, you've got that emotive sense of purpose, you've got that level of support that a family would give you. Um, and you just and we we've seen it through actually, yeah, as we've gone through a really tough time with the pandemic, and I've watched people working in some quite difficult scenarios. Yeah, when the family comes together, they help each other, they support each other, they're there for each other, they're asking, are you okay? You could see it, you could see people actually physically helping each other out and being there for each other. And sometimes it was just a phone call. Um sometimes that's all it takes. But it is acting as a family, and I think that's I I like that um that phrase, and I think it's one we used to use uh quite a bit within within our last team.

Vic 34:01

Yeah, brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

So, with all of the experience that you have, and that's not me insulting you for being long in the truth, or at least that wasn't my intention. Um, you must have had some times when the the team that you were in was not optimal. Yeah. You want to tell us about that?

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Yeah, sure. So um, yeah, we've had a we've had a couple of yeah, I've had a couple of those sort of experiences. Actually, typically, when you're in one of those scenarios, one of the things we've talked about is out of balance or is not operating properly. And it could be that uh, you know, what happens is the system that's being put in place, and quite often you see you can see this, it'll it'll come from a I'm not gonna quote company, but the corporation will decide this is how we're now gonna work. Everybody who's doing the job are going, our customers aren't gonna like that. You're you're putting in place a system which isn't working, and I've been in that scenario a couple of times, and there's a and then you're being as a leader, you're being asked to defend this, and the whole team are going, yeah, I don't think it's gonna work. And uh, you know, there's there's nothing worse than being in that situation. I think one of the secrets to good team experience, we talked about at the beginning, is listening to the team. So when you're the the opposite of that is when you know you describe, you know, the leadership describes an outcome that they're looking for as a company and a direction the company wants to go, but they engage the people who have got to do it, the people on the ground, the people in front of the customer every day, they engage them in the in the solution, in the how. How's it going to work? How can we achieve that? The innovation you get when you do that is phenomenal, and the and the sense of ownership and empowerment you get when you do that's phenomenal. But I have experienced it where you know it's it's not been so great and it's been a directive, and uh, you know, that that doesn't work.

Vic 36:07

You know, that's absolutely why we absolutely love the the five behaviors and the whole idea of having that trust in the environment so that when you go into the conflict piece of it, which is making sure that everybody's being heard and that you have robust discussion, and then everyone is committed, and it's such a simple thing to get your head round. But in my 20 years, and until I left VMware, I did not know about this methodology and how this worked, and it's so simple. Just listening to you there, I can relate to so many times in my experience where I've been given a dictate from the top of we're going to do it this way. But the people that they don't know the reality of what the customer needs to have, just as you've described there so eloquently, and I'm not doing a very good job of describing it as well. But you can just see this big clash, and then people feel so compromised you lose their commitment.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah, you do. Um, and then the other, you know, the other thing, Sam, where you know, and Vicky, where it doesn't work is you know, where you know, I think where you've got that political thing, you know, where innovation's constrained, people are constrained, people don't feel empowered, they're just told to do a job, uh, and they got you know, what they do is get their head down and do what's required, they're not going that extra mile. And I think that's the that's the other thing. And so these become flags and alarms that you need to look out for. So, you know, are we engaging people in how in how do we solve the problem that we're trying to trying to solve as a leadership team or the direction we're trying to move in a leadership team? Um, how do we engage people in that and do effective change management? Vicki, you talked about the the trust. Well, that's what comes into you know, if you've got a you know, a non-political environment, you know, those sort of things come together. You know, you you've got there's this trust, there's respect for individuals, people feel empowered to speak up. They don't feel they feel as I think it's that sense of authenticity and that sense of honesty, a mix of humility and vulnerability. I think vulnerability, humility and vulnerability are those are softish words, but they're actually quite hard to get to do, to get right.

Vic 38:27

They're really hard to do.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

They're hard to do and hard to get right because actually there are times when you you need to expose vulnerability. There are actually times when the team really don't want you to be vulnerable or show vulnerability because they're looking for you to be strong, yeah. But it's something you've got to be really careful about how you use uh yeah, it's really powerful and difficult to do. I think uh yeah, they're both hard, you know, soft words, if you like, but hard to do.

Vic 38:56

So we would describe that, I think, as providing the environment where it's safe enough to say what you really think.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Yeah, yeah. I I I'm gonna tell a little story here actually, because I um I remember joining Mercury, and I'm hoping my Mercury colleagues, if any of them listen, won't mind me saying this because it was uh it was quite uh enlightening to me. I I joined Mercury and I'd been uh prior to Mercury, I'd been in a uh more of a political environment, let's call it put it that way. Yeah, it wasn't as open. You had those kind of meetings where you know we'd worked through a set of um a set of presentations, all the agreements were made outside the meeting room, that sort of thing. And I attended my first uh meeting with uh the emir staff of uh Mercury, and uh the first the first it was yeah, the first morning, and there was a lot of people standing up, shouting, and you know, really animated in discussing what was going on and and you know kind of being critical of each other. And and I remember the president of Mercury um at break time saying, pointing at me saying, Alan, come with me. He said, come get a coffee. And I said, Okay, right. So we walked out to get a coffee and he said, Um, he said, you look a bit stunned. And I said, uh, yeah, I am a bit, not 100%, not exactly what I was expecting. Um, and he said, Well, let me tell you, he said, um, he said, uh, here we, you know, we don't stab each other in the back, nothing goes unsaid in the meeting. I don't want anybody coming into this meeting and leaving it without giving their opinion. I want to hear from everybody. So I want everybody to say what's on their mind. I want everybody to say what's, you know, say uh you know, to speak their mind. I want to hear challenge. Oh, if you feel as though something's not quite wrong, you should challenge it. We're gonna challenge you, but know you're in a team here, and afterwards we're all friends and we're all gonna go for a beer together, and we're gonna put our arms around each other and we're gonna be mates because we're all here to make each other successful. And the level of honesty I saw through that process, you know, you'd you'd see people, uh, you know, I remember this guy standing on doing a presentation. He said, I'm gonna start with an apology here because my performance wasn't as good as it should have been this quarter. And he said, I fellas, I've let you all down, but here's here's what I'm gonna do about it. Yeah, I'd like to ask your support. And I thought, well that's that's not what I've been used to, but it opened, it just opened you up to what a true team was about. How refreshing and how refreshing it was. So there were you know, there was people felt safe to be able to speak and be themselves. People were authentic, honest, and showed vulnerability. Yeah. Um, and uh you what you what you didn't get through that process was you didn't get people covering things up, no, you didn't get people hiding things or putting a gold leaf on something that was clearly not working, you got honesty.

Vic 42:00

So there's there's a couple of things I want to to pick up on on that. Firstly, what you've just described there for me is the five behaviors in practice, which is awesome. The second thing is a lot of what we do is we take the subconscious and make it conscious. And what I love about the story that you just told there is that the president actually did that for you. You didn't have to sit there and try and figure it out. He told you this is how it is, and he explained that this is the way that we work. So you didn't have to sit there for a month figuring that out, it was just out in the open, which is brilliant. But the critical question that I need to ask you is with that teamwork, and that was what was the impact on the results? How was Mercury doing?

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Phenomenally well.

Vic 42:52

There we go.

SPEAKER_01 42:53

Yeah, it was it was yeah, that their results were exceptional, and customers loved the products, you know, the team performance was very strong.

Vic 42:59

We've just just you've just described there an absolutely uh amazing culture that is delivering great results, and and we've experienced that too. That's that's so when we were talking about earlier about purpose, why we do what we do. And my story is I've also experienced that amazing culture, but I've seen it lost, I've seen how fragile it is, and you don't notice it happening. And actually, we had Paul Weefels in on from the Chasen group, and he says it's it's you know, if you think of the vast tech organizations he's worked with over his 25 plus years, he said it's just like rust, Vicky, it just creeps in, it's like rust on a gate and it just starts to grow. And this inertia just spreads and the politics spreads as organizations grow and scale. So we know how fragile organizations are. Have you got any anything to to add to that, Alan, of your of your experience?

SPEAKER_01 43:59

It's interesting. You pick up on that actually, bearing in mind we just talked about Mercury because I feel as though Mercury lost some of that towards the end. You know, it was unfortunate, but um, you know, there was a an SEC scandal which engulfed Mercury, which was not one of the, you know, unfortunately, sadly, not one of their finest moments. At that point, quite a lot of the then management team left, and uh we had a management team shift. And actually at that point, when we saw the shift in the leadership team, uh, you know, it did become a bit more political, and some of that culture that I just described, which was the essence of Mercury, disappeared really quickly. I mean, really quickly. You know, I it was that point actually, uh, because I left Mercury ahead of the HP acquisition. Um, and it was that point I decided to leave because I recognized that that piece of uh you know what made me tick, uh the culture that made me tick was was changing. And so I thought, well, actually, that you know I've been here before, but I know I don't operate well in this culture, time for me to make a shift. But yeah, it's it it needs managing constantly, Vicki. Um you know, you I think there are there are elements you know in terms that you need to look at. And you you've talked about the five areas in the model. Those five areas need constant attention. And we we we've talked about employee MPS as well. That needs constant attention. It's uh it's just as important as the revenue number, the profit margin. It they it just needs constant attention. You talk about trust and respect for individuals. Is that happening? Is it constantly happening? Are you constantly reinforcing that, focusing on a high level of achievement? Is that constantly happening? Are people acting with integrity? Is that constantly happening? Are we are we continually to look at people's development? All these things need to be part of your operating model, I think. Yes. I think there's an element which is two parts to an operator. There's a couple of parts to your operating model. I think the top piece is your that emotive sense of purpose. There is an operating plan which takes into consideration two parts in your operating plan. One is the culture that you're trying to, you know, engender in the within the team, and that's really important. That's all the things we've talked about. That's the trust, that's the integrity, that's all those things vulnerability, humility, all the softer pieces, which are quite hard to keep managing, but you've got to pay a lot of attention to that. Or the ill illities. Ilities, yes, the illities. So you need to pay a lot of attention to that, and then there's an operating model, which is you know what people do every day and how the team works and the structure of the team. That's just as important, actually, because I've worked in environments or been in a team where suddenly you look at it and say, well, it's not working still. And suddenly you realize that the system that you've put in place doesn't work for the people in what they're trying to do for their customer, or you realize you've put in the wrong measures for the result you're trying to achieve. Um, or actually there's something missing, and so what you've done, you've got your model, but actually there's a role missing, or there's a something missing which needs to get done. And then what happens is if you've got good, which is great, if you've got good teamwork, what you find is lots of people jump on it, but then there's duplication and no accountability, and people get confused. Yes, yes. These things you need to continually manage. I've made so many state mistakes along the way where you know you've kind of got the measures wrong or you've not put the right operating system in place. Operating piece, which is everything that you're doing. So these are your goals, your balance scorecard, the measures, roles and responsibilities, the team structure, reward and recognition system, all those things all need to come together in an operating model. You need that other part, which is the uh softer part, the all the illities, as Sam called them. People are people want to be part of something that's growing and going somewhere. Somewhere. So you need a strategy too. What are the big breakthrough things? What are the big hairy goals you're gonna go after, the big things you're gonna do? And yeah, those those things all need to work together.

Vic 48:35

And and there's a fine balance to all of that, isn't there? And I think if you've got the right culture, that means that you're constantly reviewing and you're constantly looking at how we can do this better, what's missing, and it's an open environment where people can speak up because they're able to identify where the gaps are because they might be closer to the issue, then you can get that right. But I slightly on a tangent, but McKinsey published a book last year talking about all the transformations that they've worked with on the last 20 years and said 80% of them have failed because they're so focused on what you're transforming and you haven't looked after all the pieces that you've just described there. You've got to have that bit right as well, else it else it doesn't work. And only 20% were successful for that reason because they did get all of those elements that you just talked about in there. So just to summarize what what we're looking at. So, yes, we we use our operating system for teams, which is the legacy only's five behaviours, but we've almost come up a layer on that because we're now saying actually for organizations to execute at speed, what they need to have is they need to have purpose, they need to have trust, people need to have clarity of what's expected of them, because we've seen that absolutely paralyze organizations, and you need to be constantly simplifying what can we simplify? Because if you can get those bits right, then you can go at speed, and and then you feel like you're going somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

I love that, Vicki. I think you've yeah, you've you nailed it there. I think you're you're spot on. I think you can go at speed then. You've got that clarity. But I think those things need not so much the emotive sense of purpose, but the other things underneath it need that constant management management.

Vic 50:22

Yes. Um yeah, it's yeah, which is why we love Beacon Force as being our constant sense of management, because that is, I'm describing it as like the Fitbit for business, because you can really get a sense of what's happening in real time.

SPEAKER_01 50:37

Yeah, I love that. We always talk about changing business, and business is changing at a fast rate. Our customers in our environments are changing at a fast rate. What our people are experiencing is constantly changing. So if you haven't got that Fitbit monitoring what's going on, as a leadership team, you can't respond to it. So I love that speed. Yeah, that's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

So, Alan, I think we've probably been through it, but maybe just for in the interests of brevity and giving something snappy for our listeners. Um, would you be able to give us just your three key takeaways, please?

SPEAKER_01 51:13

Yeah, of course. So I think overarching is that emotive sense of purpose. I think that's really important to get that right. And then I think what you're looking at underpinning that, the culture of the organization. So this the trust, the respect, embracing humility, showing vulnerability, those sorts of things. What makes the culture of the organization? I think that's vitally important. But just as important, we talked about it a little bit, is the operating model. So, what are the aspects of the operating model that you're day-to-day running the uh running the business? So, you know, I've got my emotive, sense, and purpose. What are my goals and objectives? How do they ripple down to individuals in terms of goals and develop goals and objectives? What are the development plans? How do I match? You know, what's my plan for developing the team, developing individuals? You what are the roles and responsibilities? Does everybody know what they're doing within the team, how they're being measured, do the measures match to what we're trying to achieve? Are there gaps in my operating model? Is everybody we have we made sure that we've got all the bases covered in terms of who does what so that we've got some clarity of purpose for individuals? And then I think what you know, there's and there's a lot more to it than that, but I've really summarized your operating model as well, and I've really summarized the cultural piece, but you get your cultural piece and your operating model in place, and then the third piece, which is really important because nobody wants to be part of a team which is not going somewhere, is your strategic plan. So, what are the breakthrough things that you're working together on as a team, which are going to take the team forward? What are the big things that make the team go, yeah, we want to be part of that, we're going there. This we're we're with you. We we want to be part of that.

Vic 52:53

I think that's that's the sense of achievement as well, then, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 52:57

It is, yeah. And it's interesting you say that, Vicky, because I think one of the important things is that you're constantly reinforcing that sense of achievement. So if you set out the beginning of the year to say, we're going to achieve these things, this is the breakthrough plan. You're constantly saying about this is the progress we've made, this is where we've come as a team, this is how well we're doing in transforming that customer experience. These are examples of it. Here are some stories of what happened. I think you know you're constantly reinforcing that. I think that's a really good point, Vicki.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

Brilliant. So, Vicki, it's uh over to you for team time or team time with a subtle difference, perhaps.

Vic 53:34

Yeah, thanks, Sam. So, because we've talked about team experience, and that was the the theme of of today's podcast with Alan.

SPEAKER_00 53:43

The whole episode has been team time.

Vic 53:45

Yeah, exactly. So we thought we would just in your language uh change it up a little and ask Alan, and I heard this on a on another podcast recently, I thought it was a really great question. Ask Alan how he sets his day up in the morning for work. And I'm gonna say, how do you set your day up for work to ensure you have great team experience?

SPEAKER_01 54:07

Yeah, I think it's important that you go to work in a in a great frame of mind. Agreed. Um, and so for me, you know, what works for me is is exercise and mental stimulation. So the first thing I do every morning, and and I have this planned out in terms of what I'm trying to learn. So, what I do is I pick podcasts based on what I'm trying to learn at a point in time, or audio books, it could be an audio book on what I'm trying to learn at a point in time. And the first thing I do, and I'm doing at the moment, I'm I'm coaching at the moment. So I'm listening to podcasts on coaching and coaching techniques and performance coaching. Um, and I go for a run every morning. So um I have an exercise routine which goes throughout the week every morning. The first thing I do is go for a run or do my exercise routine and listen to a podcast. That's my first 45 minutes of the day.

Vic 54:57

Brilliant. And that's and that sets you up to then be the great leader that you are. I'm allowed to say that.

SPEAKER_01 55:04

Yeah, it certainly sets me up for the day.

Vic 55:09

Brilliant, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

Fantastic. Well, that wraps it up quite nicely and wrapped the end of the podcast with how you start your day. Um, yeah, not a bad way to finish it all. So I really enjoyed that. Thank you. That's a pleasure. Thank you for joining us. It's it's been uh it's been most enlightening and uh wealth of experience and some great tips and some really really good anecdotes as well to illustrate. So thank you for that. We really appreciate it. It just remains for me to say thank you for listening to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group. As always, your comments and subscriptions are most gratefully received.

Vic 55:53

You didn't write to that at all then. I was very disappointed.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

He's he's in his happy place, he's got his I'm being calmed because I've got a puppy too. She might not be a real dog, which is bloody cute though, isn't she? You've got to admit it.

Vic 56:07

Oh, yeah, adorably cute, just not a real dog. But Brooke has seen her and now wants her, which is what I think is gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 56:14

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Brooke can come and visit at some point, I'm sure. Or vice versa when she's allowed out. You can stop right, let's give this a go.