Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - Welcome to I Love It Here, a place where we discuss and share our thoughts on various topics, all focused on making life and work a better experience for everyone.

Caleb (00:00:25) - Hello and welcome to another episode of I Love It Here, a place where we aim to inspire people through our shared interests of making work and life better. On this podcast, your host today are Paul Westlake and myself, Caleb Foster, and we're delighted to be joined by Saad Qureshi from Metatron College. Welcome.

Saad (00:00:46) - Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me, guys.

Caleb (00:00:49) - Nearly all of our guests appear started jigging away to that music. So,, this is a constant,, topic of conversation. It just sets the mood of the,, of the episode.

Paul (00:01:01) - Yeah, it sounds very Caribbean still, doesn't it? I mean, we must be coming into spring and coming towards summer, but then, to be fair, we have the same music in the winter, so it definitely sets us up. Set us up with a smile at the start of the show.

Paul (00:01:13) - There you go.

Saad (00:01:14) - Well, it does went on for just long enough to for me to get my groove on, so that's good.

Caleb (00:01:21) - So as I say, we're joined by Saad Saad. Just tell us a little bit about yourself. What you do, why you do it.

Saad (00:01:28) - Yeah. No. Great.. So I run a company called Metron. We've dropped the college., but it's a metron. It's a company. I train people to become managers., so those who are new to management,, or those who have been in my for a couple of years but still haven't figured it out because there's lots of research that suggests that a lot of people get into management accidentally. So the firm just spot talent internally, and they promote from within. But but don't really give them the necessary skill sets., and, you know, I did a research,, with 50 managers and found the same that seven out of ten didn't get any training and felt, you know, significant confidence after that.

Saad (00:02:08) - , and my story to that is why why I do it. To answer your question is I was a manager when I was 17, and I was thrown right in the deep end and I was managing people literally double my age, quite literally. And, you know, they put me in my place a few times. I think they could have caught me then. I probably made a few mistakes. So and I've always been doing that. Then I became a senior executive with a global workforce at the age of 2930. So I've been through this journey and and I wish I had more advice and support at the time. And there's still a big, huge gap in management training in a fun and relatable way., and, and creating new tools for, you know, Gen Z and the new alpha generation because we're still teaching, believe it or not,, tools from the 1970s and 80s,, sometimes we repackaged and purposed them and we tried to put it in a new language, but no one's creating original content for managers.

Saad (00:02:58) - So I do my own podcast, like yourselves, and create fresh content for managers. So that's what I do and why I do it. Wow.

Paul (00:03:04) - Fantastic. So where were you a manager at 17? Just out of interest?

Saad (00:03:08) - Well, it was a charity., so I live in London, south London., and I moved to Brixton, sort of. It was a notoriously tough area., when I was 11 years old. I was born in Bradford, so up north as well. And,, but my accent comes out like. Like like you when when I get angry. So.

Paul (00:03:26) - So you've never heard me angry yet? Are you.

Caleb (00:03:29) - Laughing? I don't get angry anymore.

Saad (00:03:32) - Yeah. You're like a constant, Zen like state. Kind of. I want to kind of graduate to that, to that level. But. So when I moved to Brixton, I joined a charity and it was to,, help, you know, get people into employment and it was to address education gaps, knife crime, gun crime, that kind of stuff.

Saad (00:03:49) - And then I became a manager of a project, and it just sort of took off from there. Really.

Paul (00:03:53) - Cool. No. Well, Brixton is interesting. My,, my dad's from oh was born in the old Kemp Road, so he's a London boy., my grandparents used to live on Stratum Hill, so I know Brixton relatively well. And these days I think I know Brixton from the Academy. I have to go to many, many concert, which I believe it's been closed for a while, hasn't it? But it's reopening. Is that right? I don't know.

Saad (00:04:15) - If it's reopening, but it's closed a couple of times and then reopen. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. This is unfortunate. Always incidents there., you know, I think someone there was a stampede there. And so it's had its fair share troubled. But it's massively been upgraded over the last ten, 15 years. One might say it's been gentrified, but it's really diverse. You know, 100 nationalities are in this borough of Lambeth, where Brixton is based on.

Saad (00:04:36) - Brixton is at the heart of it all. So I love the area, but it hasn't been. It's been tough. It's made me street smart, but,, it's,, you know,, it's been a bit of good experience.

Paul (00:04:46) - Fantastic.

Caleb (00:04:47) - You know, I often reflect on on. So we've moved the other way, actually, we've come from. So I came from Chichester via Wimbledon. I say Wimbledon, but it's Southfields in Wimbledon up to Northampton, then Lincolnshire. And I actually think we've done the opposite for the kids. So we haven't made them street wise because not a lot goes on in North Lincolnshire. But, yeah, it's definitely a lovely place to live. It's quite quiet, but, and, and it's funny reflecting on that, I don't think I'd exchange it now. I don't think I, I couldn't afford to go back down south, but yeah, I, I like it now.

Paul (00:05:23) - It's odd, isn't it, how we when I reflect on I'm not going to go through my whole life history, but I think so when I was 17, 18 I was in management as well, which is why I was asking, asking you.

Paul (00:05:34) - Whilst I was studying for A-levels, I worked at McDonald's and was quite quickly promoted to a floor manager and then then, second system manager and whatever. But my first restaurant I ran was in as in a restaurant manager was in Dover. So it's about as far south in the UK as you can get. Right? So I was I lived in Rochester in Kent, worked in Dover. And then to your point, Caleb then met my wife when I was then working in north London, worked in Finchley. She lived ironically in New Malden, which was near Wimbledon., and then we bought a house in Kent and then thought, why are we here? Went to visit her mum in Northampton. So therefore we were around that way and now we sort of live in Bedford. And I think our long term plan is to to end up sort of even further north. We're looking somewhere in the Highlands. So yeah, we're still moving up the country as well. And as you're moving up the country, you're right.

Paul (00:06:22) - It seems to be getting quieter and quieter and quieter. I think,, you want different things as life goes on. All right. So yeah. So we're quite into sort of the walks and, and the strolling along the beach now rather than being in the city centre.

Caleb (00:06:35) - You know, that that does link nicely into my gratitude this month. Oh okay. Well, I just been reflecting because we're having this extension done at the minute. And how connected we currently feel with local, tradesmen, local businesses and and how long it's sort of taken us to find that connection really like the back story to this is what we moved up to Lincolnshire and we never thought we'd be here that long. And so we sort of thought, oh, this is just like a little holiday, an extended holiday, and we'll be back down south again. Well, 25, 26 years later, here we are. But like this this week, we've there's a place called the Tile Yard. Ironically, they make tiles. Who would have thunk it? Like they're one of the few places that still hand make tiles on mass scale.

Caleb (00:07:34) - And they had these beautiful ridged tiles with these animals on sides. Like, what the hell is this got to do with management? But this is what welcome.

Paul (00:07:43) - To our podcast.

Caleb (00:07:44) - But, but so we've gone all out and we've got this little mouse at the end on one ridge tile and a cat on the other looking at each other. But it's just like, that is my gratitude. This month is how connected we are to the local area and and the reasons why because, you know, all the stuff that's going on and then discovering more about what's going on. But it's taken me too long really, to discover all that connection. Well, that's my gratitude.

Paul (00:08:10) - Oh, who's going next? No. I thought I'd let our guests go next.

Caleb (00:08:13) - Because you know what?

Saad (00:08:16) - Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's definitely food for thought. And I like the idea of being grateful. I mean, whenever someone asks my dad,, how is he doing his actual responses? I've got more reasons to be grateful.

Saad (00:08:27) - I always get taken aback by that. If they don't know him because he's a very spiritual guy anyway, and he genuinely, you know, done well in his career. There were lots of lots of odd, odd situations in his life. I think I'm really grateful for a couple of things. One was this week and one is just generally where I'm at in my life. I mean, I quit my job in December 2022 as a senior exec, and I just burnt out and I felt like I wasn't doing what I was born to do., I had done my passion kind of thing, and it was a very scary time because I'd been in the, you know, industry that I was in higher education, but this time it was for a global education company that private equity backed. And I'd been working in the industry for 15 years. But I realised that actually this is not what I wanted to do,, at all. I got into it accidentally as well, and, and,, but it was really scary because for the first time in my career, I never knew.

Saad (00:09:19) - I didn't know what I wanted to do. I just knew it wasn't this. And I'd been applying for certain jobs in October, November, December,, or even prior to that, actually in late 2022. And I'd gotten really far in some of these. Some of them were in the industry I was in, some of them were outside the industry, but they were still working for someone else. And I actually realized I got very far in the process, final stages. And I pulled out because I actually I want to do something for myself, but I just didn't know what it was. Yeah., so I took on a consultancy role in the housing industry because they needed someone to help with digital transformation and strategy and stuff like that, and that's a new industry. So let me go out of there. I just didn't want to stay in my current industry. Long story short, I'm so grateful because I now I'm doing something I'm passionate about, which is helping other people, coaching other people and training them, and building a company on my own.

Saad (00:10:10) - , one man business for now, obviously, but I've got lots of consultants that work, work for me and doing something that is in a digital space. So,, building a digital app and a product that's going to come in the market later on in the year. So I'm so grateful that my eyes open. Yeah, that I did it at a time where I'm so relatively young that I'm getting to pursue my passions, that I still have something that's bringing in steady income for me on the side. But I get to explore. It's hard work, though, but it's a lot more enjoyable and fun. So I'm super, like, just grateful for being in this position in my life because people I spoke to kept saying to me, wow. And I didn't know why they were saying wow, but it was the fact that I took that step. They were quite,, you know, they were quite,, positively envious that, you know, I was able to make that leap. And then this week, the thing that happened this week was,, I'm now in the space of LED, right, learning and development.

Saad (00:11:02) - And I've always been in Ireland and as well as operations, but I've been more operations. So I've always dealt with training and development, but it's never been something I thought about as an I've never described myself as an LND professional or facilitator or coach. That's been just one part of my identity. But I've always been operations and growth and scaling. And now but now I'm fully in the land space and I it was a dream of mine to start speaking at specific events and for people to see me like that, because I've always been boxed in and will probably unpack this a little bit later on. And I hate being boxed in. And I finally got my first invite, and it was promoted by this company that oh stars among a lineup of other land professionals, and that I was really grateful. And it was quite an emotional moment. And it's just,, yeah, it was really grateful for that in particular. Wow.

Caleb (00:11:48) - There's so much actually in that that connects what we've been talking about for the last sort of couple of years, actually.

Caleb (00:11:57) - Yeah. You know, not only in a journey, but also discovering yourself and doing things for a purpose. Excuse me? I had a,, I had a conversation with Ross Thornley,, some months ago. Now about. I feel like I've found the purpose of a business, but I'm struggling with finding the purpose for myself. And he said I stopped trying to look for it. Stop trying to. You know, it's it will present itself at some point, and you'll get a feeling all of a sudden that you'll go, oh, maybe that's my purpose. And sometimes you have to go down this route to go, oh, that's not right. That doesn't connect with me to go, oh, Don, this is what I really love doing. This is why I want to do it. I think there's a commonality about all of us going. We just like to help people as well..

Paul (00:12:49) - No, you're absolutely right, Caleb. And the other thing I would, I would say on that is, you know, I'm preaching to the converted here, but.

Paul (00:12:57) - Those things weren't the wrong thing to do. They might have not been the things that worked out particularly well at that point, but all of those things were part of the learn. All those things were part of the journey to get you to. You realize what it really is you do love doing, if that makes sense. You know, as I said, I started very young as a manager with no interest or didn't know I had an interest in Ireland at all until the bit that really. I enjoyed most about my job wasn't training people and teaching people as such. It was when those people came back and went, oh, you made that so much easier. Yeah, I get it now. And it is that. I know it sounds corny, but it is about making a difference. And those people thinking, yeah, you help me. There's nothing I love more than going into a local McDonald's ten, 20 years later and a manager going, oh, you taught my course, didn't you? Do you remember? And you think, honestly, no, because you are one of 30 people on one of those 40 courses.

Paul (00:13:54) - I talked to all of you. Of course, I don't remember. But the key thing is they remember you and they're like, no, no, because you told me about this. And do you remember that story you told me about that, that at that point you think, yeah, this is why I do what I do. So I absolutely love that. I love the fact that you have sort of found what it is you want to do, and how you got there doesn't really matter, right? I mean, it's the the podcast title is I love it here. And clearly you're loving it, doing what you're doing at the moment, which is a lovely position to be in really, really like that. So yeah, good for you. And kind of Scottish style people, which is great., my one's slightly different. My gratitude this month., can I a couple of things. So firstly I'm grateful for. Being in a position where I've got people that are supportive and around me and basically give me the freedom to, to do, be and do what I want to do.

Paul (00:14:46) - So let me explain. What I mean by that is, yes, I'm in a, you'd say, an enviable position of being a director of a company. Therefore I kind of set my own schedule. But we have deadlines, we have things we've got to do and all of the rest of it. And in some ways, you're under more pressure because, you know, you've got to look after everyone else in the business as well. So there's that. But there are certain times where you think in today's one of them. So I'm grateful for a couple of things today. One, I'm grateful for you guys getting up at ridiculously early to join us on a podcast. I've never seen Caleb before midday, if I'm honest. So,, we'll only ever have enough for an event. And trust me, it's not a pretty picture., but,, so, so grateful for joining early today. And the reason I need you to join early today is this afternoon. I am going into London and I'm going to Battersea Arts Centre, and I'm going to watch,, Portrait Artist of the year being filmed.

Paul (00:15:40) - I did this last year, and my wife couldn't come with me because she's coming with me this year. We've actually got tickets for today and we've got tickets for next week, so I've taken two of my daughters. I know it's completely niche, but I absolutely love being on that live TV set, walking around just it's just me, in me and my comfort zone. It's it's heart and and all of the rest of it. But being able to do that and being offered free tickets to go and do that and just taking some time with just me and my wife doing whatever we want for 4 or 5 hours this afternoon, that's what I'm great for this month.

Caleb (00:16:14) - Yeah, I think there's a there's a thing about taking out time and just enjoying it. And I think that's the,, that is the challenge when you've when you have got your own business as well, is almost giving yourself permission to go. It's absolutely fine to take time out. And, you know, you need that additional stimulus to then start giving that creativity back out again, don't you? When you do sort of go on back into work mode now? Oh wow, I have a fab weekend then.

Paul (00:16:49) - And then I'm off for the next two weeks and we've got Easter holidays. What more do you want? Oh my God. Oh no, it's all happening. Wow.

Caleb (00:16:56) - So I want to delve in a little bit deeper. So we,, on this podcast we have a constant conversation about manager versus leader. Yeah, I actually don't connect with the word manager very well., I prefer the term leader. But then in order to,, in order to take that title, you've got to behave like a leader. And I guess I just want to delve into to ask you,, what what are the nuances between the manager and a leader that you think and you know what? What do you think makes a modern, outstanding leader?

Saad (00:17:38) - I think it's a great question. I do think I agree with you. This dichotomy of manager versus leader is unhelpful. So before I get into answering the question directly, let me unpack that a little bit., firstly, I don't see them as, as as roles necessarily.

Saad (00:17:54) - I see them as skill sets. So the way when I train managers, I say, you will never graduate to a leader and forget to be and stop being a manager, what actually you will be doing is in some situations you'll be using managerial skills, and in some situations you'll be losing leadership skills. So as an example, a managerial skill will be,, planning and making sure things are being executed on time. That's not a leadership skill to me. It's a management skill. And that's why you can have some great leaders actually, who are great setting the vision and inspiring and bringing people on a journey, but actually not that great in execution., as a leaders. And that's where I think the differences are. And I've sort of already said to them what a leadership skill is, is being able to be so passionate about what you do and be so focused on the mission that everything else is serving that mission. And because you are so connected with that mission, you're inspiring people in that way because you believe in it so much.

Saad (00:18:55) - , and I think what the mistake a lot of people making when they talk about leadership is they talk about you have to inspire people towards a vision. You have to be charismatic. But why is that the case? And it's because you actually have to believe in you to understand how organizations work, and what role that people have put on this earth to play. When you're working for an organization, and that is to serve a need, all organizations, no matter whether you're a charity or for profit or not, you're servicing something. You're filling a gap. You're providing something that's going to provide a solution. Whether you're working for TikTok, like social media, and you're connecting people from around the world and providing fun and entertainment when quite a dull and sort of dangerous and lots of difficult things happening in this world, or whether you're working for a hospital and you know, you're saving lives and you're a you're you're a data person and you're crunching insights to be able to further that service, that mission. So I would say that there are two different skill sets, and you will always need to have both.

Saad (00:19:51) - What happens is, is that when you move up in your career, at some point management becomes less relevant and important. And it's all about leadership. And if you hit a ceiling, if you if you if you're not a leader, if you're not inspiring people, then you're not going to achieve your outcome. The other way that I look at it is that when you're when you're there's a lot of managers who try to focus just on getting towards the outcome. So let's say you want to launch a new product,, into the market. All they're focused on is timelines getting it out there. And, that's what a manager would do. But what a leader would do is say, have I set my team up in the right way? Do they understand why we're doing this? Are they excited by it? And they focus on the people experience as much as the outcome? I've seen some really, you know,, sort of managers and actually bad leaders and you call them bad leaders. A bit of oxymoron.

Saad (00:20:44) - You're not a leader if you're a bad version of of leader. So if you're focusing on the outcome and trying to get there at all costs and expense, but you're not focusing on how the people feel about it, and they're tired and they're worn out. To me, that's where leadership starts to come in. And the difference between management and leadership, if that makes sense.

Paul (00:21:01) - And so, so, so before we move on, just. From what I'm hearing is that if you described it as you just described it there for months, maybe not all, but I'd say in most cases people would aspire to be a leader. As in it, they've been the manager and they aspire to be the leader. But I'm also picking up from you that there's a danger there, that managers actually have really important role, because I'm sure if we if we have, just imagine if everyone's trying to go towards that leadership. Leadership for me, from what you're describing, sounds quite, long term it seems quite,, sort of aspirational getting people, you know, getting people to buy into a vision, that sort of thing.

Paul (00:21:44) - But ultimately, surely if we just had those people, nothing would ever get done. So surely you do need the managers and the leaders together. And is it fair to say as people move towards leadership, that's why you need that stream of other people being trained into the manager role to almost fit in underneath them or no, sorry if this is misunderstood.

Saad (00:22:03) - I'm more to the point. You need to be a blended individual and by that I mean you need a management skill set and a leadership skill set. If you have one or the other, you're going to lack something. If you've got leadership skills, you might lack execution capability, which is crucially important. And if you're a manager, you might be focusing on getting the thing done, but at some expense. And maybe they're not bought in because you're not exercising your leadership capability. What I'd also say is that you made a good point that managers the manager role. When you start comparing manager to leader, the manager looks like a poor second cousin.

Saad (00:22:36) - You know, it looks like a relegated, relegated role. Actually it isn't. It's so. So such a crucial role was also happening on the managers that I'm training and I'm training them in, you know, very large small companies, whereas medium and large enterprises is the role of a manager is blurring. So a manager is now also a leader., and they've got a team and they are being asked to coach all of a sudden, many years ago, coaching wasn't necessarily a skill of a manager, but now they're coaching. So if you're now focusing on people's behaviours and their feelings and,, a manager being compassionate and empathetic, these are typical soft skills and traits that you would associate with the leader. So I think in the future I would love to see this. No differentiation between a manager leader, because I think that's the way the manager role is going. I'd like to talk about a blended skill set, which combines the managerial skills and leadership skills or whatever new terminology that we end up using, and that's one of my missions to try and get that across.

Paul (00:23:35) - And that's where I need to be directed. When I need to be directive, they need to be, you know, like say coach, need to coach, need support or need support. It's that sort of piece, isn't it? Which is exactly what you're saying is that's not either or. That's a mixture of all of those things. Sorry. Okay. Let's go.

Caleb (00:23:49) - Well, this is actually what I'm reflecting on now is when we say it's not necessarily a title as leader or manager, it's a skill set. So that makes absolute sense. But what we're not doing is setting people up for success by giving them the title manager or leader. And because, you know, if if you've given someone the title of manager, then they will focus in on those skills as a manager that they need to do and then discount the stuff as a leader because they'll go, oh, I want to, I want to promote now, I want to, I want to learn how to do leadership stuff. And and the other thing that's going through my head is it shouldn't then be unique to those people that are in manager and leadership roles.

Caleb (00:24:32) - Surely that's the aspiration for everyone in the organisation to say you just flex between those skills of, you know, transactional stuff that you need to do to get the job done each day, management, you know, and leadership skills all combined. Now, you know, not not everyone is capable of doing that, which is why, you know, organizations like your business exist to go, okay, let's take you on a journey to see how we can enhance them. But, you know, as a as an organization, why would you push back to go, oh, no, I don't want anyone with manager or leadership skills, only the managers and leaders. You what do I want everyone to do that. And then and then it sort of leans into the other topic we often talk about, which is adaptability to go. Yes, you just flex on this scale between all of those things and you become this fluid person that just, you know, like pulls out your, your mind kitbag to go, oh, this, this, this situation.

Caleb (00:25:31) - I need these skills.

Paul (00:25:33) - But Caleb, I think potentially that you're absolutely right. And I think there's an added,, I'll say mistake. And so I feel free to, to, you know, disagree with any of this stuff. But in my experience, the mistake I've seen so often is that we put people we firstly, we label people managers 100% agree with that, but we put people in that management position that aren't actually that don't actually have those skills. Right. Exactly. So it's not uncommon, for example, for someone who's very good at sales to become the sales manager. Now, if you if you take that as an example, what, what why are they good at sales? They're good at sales. Possibly because they've got more sales than, than the next comparable person. So all the metrics say that they sell more than everyone else. Part of that may well be because actually, you know what? They're quite insular and they're quite gogarty and they're quite dog eat dog. And that's why they've got good sales.

Paul (00:26:28) - None of those things are particularly good leadership skills to have., and yet when someone leaves, that person becomes the next in sales manager. So that's a label based on them being an SME at something. But in my world, that that doesn't necessarily equal them being a manager. I've seen that so many times when the next promotable person is based on either, you know, because they've got skills in a particular area or because they've been there the longest, whereas and I know it's difficult, but if we were to widen the net and look wider, you think actually that person over there, they may have only joined us two weeks ago, but they're showing leadership potential. So so you're nodding along. So maybe I'm not making this up as.

Saad (00:27:10) - A go along. This is exactly the stuff that I want. I want to encourage more of this debate. And I'm glad that we're this is this is the first sort of holistic conversation in 2024 that I've had outside of the companies that I speak to, and we need to have more of these conversations because you're right.

Saad (00:27:25) - People are just it's opportunistic. There's internal talent. They get the technical skills, as you were saying, they've got a subject knowledge, but they don't have the other stuff, which is people skills. And the shift from what we call,, what is being effectively using in the US, as they're called, individual contributors., it's now coming into the coming into sort of, you know, Europe and these parts of the world where you shift from individual contributor. I see it as not being a manager. You've got a subject knowledge. That's fine. But they don't then train you into what the other aspects, which is a lot of managers, they, before they become managers, you know, you define your work buy buy buy buy buy quantity and output. Right. So how many sales sales did I. Absolutely. And you probably in the here and now maybe you're looking at the next quarter. But a manager actually needs to think much more down the line. The 12 months probably two years.

Saad (00:28:16) - And you've got you've got a lot of imperfect information. They don't know how to work in that environment. They're now having to sort of engage with more senior colleagues, obviously, and they don't know how to engage in that environment and use that language. And the distinction I say also between so there's a big step up between IC and manager, never mind manager and leader and I. In both of those spaces, and I first get them to focus on Izzy to Manager, and I say to people that the manager role is probably the most complicated and complex role out there, but the least understood. So if I say to you, what does an architect do? Or what does a musician do, or what does an athlete do? You know, even if you've never done those roles before, you probably know what those roles mean. But nobody can tell me anything about a manager role in the in a, in a real sense.

Paul (00:29:02) - And they manage. That's the answer you'll get.

Saad (00:29:06) - Which means nothing. The reason why is so hard is because the manager role has multiple roles wrapped up into one.

Saad (00:29:11) - So the way I do it is I explain it as at least three roles into one. So I say it's a manager, is a psychologist, is a linguist, and is an entrepreneur. Because when you're a manager, you have it and you have a team and the different types of managers, by the way, there's process managers, project managers, company wide, and there's people managers and some of them don't have a team or some of them do. You layer in a team and then you know, you become a psychologist because you have to understand thought patterns and behaviors, and that is what a psychologist does. You have to pick up signals, body language work. That's what a coach does actually. Then you've got to be a linguist because you've got to find the right words to say the hard things or the tough things. And that's what I distinguish between. That's why being a manager is so hard, but nobody talks about it in this fun, relatable way. And what I would say to distinguish between a good manager and a bad manager or a manager and a leader is are they a bad manager or a manager? A good manager will probably just focus on like, you know what to say, but a leader who is a, you know, understands their staff will figure out how to say it as well.

Saad (00:30:15) - And they'll they'll find this is where the inspiration bit comes from. For me, when I was coming up and I had you have to inspire people towards a vision like, what the hell does that mean? I mean, come on. I mean, but if someone explains it like this to me, I'll understand it, okay? Because your outcome is now, can I can I help this person just just fly now? And what words can I use? And that's why storytelling comes in. But rather than teaching me why I need to do storytelling, they just teach me storytelling. But actually it's because my job is to is to convince you I've now become a quasi behavioral analyst. You know, it's like I'm an anthropologist, you know, I've got all of these, you know, kind of roles, which is why people don't talk enough about it. I wanted to shed more light on it.

Caleb (00:30:56) - I do, you know, I the other thing that you think of is so all of that is you go, well, that's obvious in there, but there's not enough organisations that are doing it.

Caleb (00:31:07) - So back to. Back to West. This point is the, you know, the reward and incentives we reward and incentivize the wrong but not the wrong things. But they're not connected with the purpose or the, you know, the mission of that organization. And not enough of them are connected to people. So when, you know, when was the last time you said you'll, you know, at the end of the year your bonuses is based on how many people you've promoted in your team, what you know, what? How does everyone feel in your team? How do they think their opportunities of success? RCA team. And if that was an incentive, I mean, that's less it's harder to measure that stuff, and that's why people shy away from it to go, I know we need something really black and white that, you know, that can,, issue a reward on rather than face into some of these challenges. And, but the other thing is that's the modern workplace. That's a modern workforce.

Caleb (00:32:09) - Like, you know, how many times have we had conversations with people to say, what do you expect now from work? And people say, I want to know what the purpose is. I want to, you know, feel like I'm connected with everyone around me. I've got to feel trust and valued. Yet, you know, that's a modern workplace. But as you say, we're still trying to educate people in and out. You know, an outdated, old fashioned method that says you're measured on output and then they will get rewarded on sales and stuff like that. It's just like somebody has got a drastically changed. We've almost got to have this, you know, the locked down version of a business change, haven't we, to to stimulate them across all businesses. And then and the other thing I've just thought about is that that great manager that you said can recognize situations and flex between manager and leader. Well what do we do with that great manager that we've identified. We then promote them to a leadership position.

Caleb (00:33:05) - And then we wonder why we've left a void behind them. So it's got to be a constant backfill, a constant education process to go. This is what the modern manager stroke leader skill set looks like.

Paul (00:33:19) - But but I'll add to that kind of that also can't start when that person when we when we identify that someone has moved and therefore we need a manager. So that doesn't it as corny as it sounds, you know, again, going back to my my McDonald's days, you'd have like, you know, 16 or 15 to 16 year old staff member, crew member, whatever you want to call them. Then you have like what I call training squad, which was like sort of the next level up. And they were the ones that were training other people. And then you had floor managers, but what it sounded like there was layer upon, layer upon layer, but even the the newest employee on their induction was told why they were doing what they were doing. Here's the vision. Here's what the company stands for.

Paul (00:33:58) - Here's what we're hoping. So that don't those people sort of almost on a daily basis, people were coaching and training and helping develop other people, even if it was, some could because of the turnover, the hospitality industry. Right. The turnover is massive. So you've got staff leaving all the blooming time, if I'm honest. And Caleb, you'd know this from from working in the same industry. But what that does allow you to do is if you're the new person today, I can guarantee you next week you're not going to be the newest person because someone else is coming in. And so at that point you're in quotes experience. So. The advantage that industry had was that people were almost being nurtured and tailored for everyone. Is everyone. Literally everyone who walks into that business has the potential to be a manager., but we don't start training once with a manager. We start training them before they get to management position. And I think that's there's part of it in that you're right. It is about the culture.

Paul (00:34:54) - It's about understanding. Because otherwise you do end up with that horrendous void of like, oh blimey. And then the company becomes stagnant because the people at the top just do what I've always done. There's no new ideas coming.

Saad (00:35:05) - I agree, and I think it's important that we capture them. If you, if you, if you develop the managers journey so they're an individual contributor and then they become a manager. And then there's different levels and types of management roles., and you can become a senior manager as well. And then you can become a sort of a director. And then you sort of enter the senior exec space, and then you're more of a leader at that space that we typically describe leaders who are in more of a senior management or a executive role. And that's starting to change as well. We've got to start describing middle managers as leaders as well. And I think that's already happened. That's not happening. It's going to happen. That's already happened. I'm seeing middle managers who are expected to lead,, but have not been given any leadership training.

Saad (00:35:43) - So you've got to chart the journey. One of the things I'm doing now is building an induction programme because again, only about we did a research. Only 23% of companies actually have an induction for their managers that train them on how to be a manager and what's about to change, not on general company policies and culture and priorities. They get that broadly, but only 23% of managers are explain what management is. I'm just going to change that. So what we're doing is that's for a couple of reasons, right. You got to ask yourself why. A couple of reasons. One is not many people know what how to conduct what a good induction actually needs to look like for management. Secondly, it's time it's money. And then delivering that induction. So all my company is trying to do is build the first external induction programme. You can send your managers off and we prepare them into understanding the basics. So before we can teach you coaching most people's responses companies, they start teaching you coaching you can't teach them that.

Saad (00:36:34) - That's too high level. We expect them to, you know, start skiing and go to the top of the mountain and fall down and starts feeling like a perfect, you know, skier., we've got to train them how to put on the skis and what, how to do certain manoeuvres and what distance to keep that. That's the kind of basic level I'm talking about. So hopefully our induction, we're going to do a pilot in June to try to tackle that solution. If they've got to look at why is it taking so long for management training to catch up? Because we're still teaching, you know, stuff from Maslow and 1970s and 1980s and some of the stuff that's coming out of Harvard Business Review, which is amazing because it sparks really great interest on LinkedIn and thousands of likes and stuff like that. But some of these articles are from 10 or 12 years old. But what Harvard Business Review is doing is, is just, you know, getting a finding a new audience for it now, which is, which is fantastic.

Saad (00:37:20) - And some of that stuff does resonates today, but it's still very old school. If you talk about decade, a lot has changed since then. So what I'm doing also is going back and recruiting and reframing all old management concepts into new. We've got like 100 new management concepts to try and explain to people, culture being one of them. So we define culture as tone, mood and vibe inside an organisation and what your personal code is. We don't talk about culture like as if it's because too abstract for people to understand, you know what I mean?

Caleb (00:37:49) - Well.

Paul (00:37:50) - Go, go go ahead. Caleb. I've got one. I've got a question for Saul as well.

Caleb (00:37:54) - Talked about,, you know, the influence that AI is going to have on the world in the future. And I keep saying we need to get back to our human superpower. And when you said about vibe, I almost think gut reaction. So what I won't I don't think will be very good at is going, I've got a gut feeling here and that we'll make, you know, the a manager leader.

Caleb (00:38:21) - That's one of their skill sets that go. Hold on. I can recognize when a situation is off here and I need to intervene in a certain way. And it's different from what I've been pre-programmed, you know that I know that I've been trained to, you know, that's a real power and and, and that's when you'd say, do you know what? They were the best manager or a leader that I've ever had when they recognize that situation and deal with it in the way that you know, that you're going to get the best. And so and some of that is real messy. And I think that's that's why sort of other businesses go or it could get quite messy here to, you know, so I'm going to sort of step away from it and we'll get back to this traditional model. So a modern model, you know, I'm sure there's stuff that you know is, is could be quite straightforward. But people aren't straightforward and relationships aren't straightforward. And that's really what it's about is building relationships, but also making sure that the day job gets done as well.

Caleb (00:39:19) - And it's combining them in, in a real, you know, sort of an understandable way. That's that's how I see it.

Paul (00:39:26) - Yeah. And it's interesting that you mentioned I don't know, it's just as an example, we mentioned that the Maslow example,, and that and I'm glad you brought that up because it's one of my absolute bugbears is this whole idea. And correct me if I'm wrong, that is based around the idea that everyone wants to be at the very top of the business, and that's what they are ultimately working towards. But in reality, that's that's not that's not the modern workplace. That's not what it is. You know, some people are more than happy where they're at. And what we need to do is to keep them motivated where they're at and keep them going and stretching them at the level they're happy to be at rather than this. Well, everyone needs to be the CEO, right? Because that's just it's such an outdated model. So based on that and the question that I had for you, it was interesting you're saying about having to,, make changes and amend things and, you know, I guess rethink things.

Paul (00:40:22) - How how is management or let's say, leadership, whichever you I mean to changing them now, how how how is that changed for a remote workforce. Because in a lot you must be teaching managers now who potentially never meet their people. So that skill set must be completely different because they've got to be there's got to be a lot of trust. I'd argue more trust and or ever was face to face. When you walk into the office every day.

Saad (00:40:47) - I think the way I describe and frame remote working, I say all the challenges that you get in a face to face environment are just exacerbated. When you're in a remote environment, there are some practical nuances, you know, like timezone differences and how do you connect with people. And, and, and there's a relationship building aspect which is incredibly hard online. People can't see whether you know it. There's a there's always going to be a, a quota of of of trust deficit. If you work remotely, you're never going to maximise your trust with somebody,, when you're working remotely.

Saad (00:41:24) - , unless this person is a super digital native and has only ever known this, and even if they have only ever known digital, they don't know what they're missing out on. They don't know what it's like to be face to face and how much the relationship could build out. I had a global workforce,, 200 people as of Kazakhstan, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Netherlands, UK. And I faced this and there were challenges that I had and communicating with team members and then not, you know, necessarily feeling that I was, you know, explaining well, some of the things that I was wanting to do and it caused some real, real trust challenges within the team. So I had to, you know, sort of go out there, fly out to some of these places and understand. But what I would the recent example I give to someone on remote working is a, one of the things that I really brings out in somebody is, is if you're a, if you're a micro manager, the antidote to your micro manager.

Paul (00:42:16) - That's the word I was looking for.

Saad (00:42:17) - I knew it was coming back. My manager is remote working, but all your team remote and then figure out how to manage them at a distance. You can't be in their face. That's the real antidote, because you have to. Now you have to focus when you're in a when you have to call like this, you have to focus on less is more, right? You can't speak for far too long. So it forced you to think about your words. It forced you to look at the person, and it forces you to not be there and guide. And that's the difference between a good manager or a leader and a bad one, is that they. Is that is that you need to be able to guide and be hands off, but still provide and shape that and outcome. And if you're doing that at distance. So one of the training, one of the things that I do in training managers, I get them to sit back to back in a physical space, and then I get them to direct one person in telling the other person what to draw.

Saad (00:43:07) - Or it might be a physical activity and one or 2 or 3 things happen. Some people get really frustrated, they turn all the way around and they start looking at what's happening because they just can't visualize that mental attitude, right? Yeah.

Paul (00:43:19) - They just do it.

Saad (00:43:20) - In my.

Caleb (00:43:21) - Kitchen.

Paul (00:43:22) - I will be literally be me. Give me a.

Saad (00:43:24) - Pen. A pen. Exactly. And other people who literally and small amount, but the people that go over to the other side and actually start doing it and in some cases as a the key thing is there's no right or wrong answer, except that there may be times where you do need to get stuck in, and that's okay. And I don't tell them what the purpose of the exercise is. So I just want to see what their natural default position is. And that's my that's all I do in management training is that I just want you to understand what your default position is. The problem is, is that as human beings, we don't understand 50% of ourselves.

Saad (00:43:53) - We don't understand ourselves. So how are we then going to understand other people? So the so the trick is to understand what is your default position. So then you can pivot. So for example, if you're too kind I say to people don't operate in any extreme. It don't be. You can't be too kind. You can't be too bold either. But you've got to figure out what your spectrum is. If you're too kind, you've got to then become a bit bold and you've got to figure to adapt and so on. But come back to the remote working. Yes it is. It is everything on steroids. And it really it really causes trust, challenges and relationship building skills because you just simply cannot you cannot do it. And bearing in mind some people are just not cut out for speaking online, you know, they just can't communicate in writing or they overcommunicate, you know, very long email, very long messages, or very short. I've seen people just write one line. And what can you glean from a team's or a slack message from one line? So come back to your question now.

Caleb (00:44:50) - Wow., you know, I'm just. I'm also thinking about work. Work out yourself, because not enough people spend time working out their selves, don't they? And almost go, I don't need to work out myself because that's not my job. I'm a I'm a manager. I mean, this is such a fascinating topic. And we could, you know, talk for a number of episodes on there. I think the thing that I wish that I'd have had, because, again, I was quite a young manager in the NHS and all I had a had as a reference was my manager. And reflecting back on that, the traits that they demonstrated were not very nice actually. And then that's, you know, you sort of emulate some of that. And then later in life when you go, I think I'm working myself out and you reflect on how you've done and the benefit I get out of that is to go. I never want to be like that, and I never want to do some of that stuff.

Caleb (00:45:50) - But if I add, like this wheel, this thing that says, right, in order to be a great manager and leader, these are at least the skills that you need to to,, to, you know, work on to demonstrate. I'd have gone, oh, wow, there's a lot there, isn't there? I'm not. You know, I need some help on this because my first impression was, as a manager, you just did one, two, three. Easy as that. And as long as you get the job done, boom. It's done.

Paul (00:46:21) - Yeah, I think you're right. There's certainly something in it that when you reflect back. I would argue that some of the terrible managers I've worked for have taught me as much as people, because I just look at it and think, yeah, that didn't work out well. I'm glad you've made that mistake because I'm not going to do that, you know? So again, you know, we've all got examples of exactly that, you know, where you learn so much just by watching other people bugger it up if you like.

Paul (00:46:50) - Yeah., no, no.

Saad (00:46:50) - Exactly. And I.

Paul (00:46:51) - Think fascinating.

Saad (00:46:52) - You know, my, one of my former managers used to always change his mind and he wouldn't remember what he's what he's told us as an executive team. And we're like, we'll be busy. Go. We're working on something and,, we'll come back. And he was like, why have we done that? We said, well, because because that's the direction that you gave. And that's what we agreed as a senior team. And he goes and he would agree that,, that's a problem. I'd say the difference is, is that when I changed my mind, I tell you that I've changed it. And I explain why because I pivot a million times in a week. But the difference is I explain why, and it always links back to the outcome. But he just wasn't good at signposting. And that's a that's not bad. That's not good because it makes you feel like you're not doing the right thing and it's really inconsistent.

Saad (00:47:33) - But coming back to something you said earlier rested on Maslow's hierarchy. So for example, that is about how do you motivate people, right. And you understand their needs and how do you even potentially give feedback can actually just link in to what there really is relevant to them at the time. So what I say to people, we've come up with our own six factors that are industry based, based on actual things you'd find, one of which is what have you been doing in the past, and what are your future aspirations, and is your current role connecting the those two things, you know, and so when I found out, for example, I know someone who was underperforming and they did a product that were in a product growth role, but they came from a product design role, but because they knew the product well, the company thought that, oh, we'll put them in product growth, which is growing sales on that product. But there are two very different skill sets. And when I found out that his background was in product design, I said, do you know that? Did someone prepare you for the difference? He goes, no, do you know the difference? Because not until you said it.

Saad (00:48:29) - But now I know. Actually it's very different. My job was just to design and launch the thing. It's very different to then grow numbers on it. So I said, well, I can train you now on those skills going back two years, which someone should have trained you on those. And he came back in a couple of months later and said, actually, I've realised my passion is product design, so I'm going to go back into product design now. There's no there's no feedback tool. SBI grow whatever that teaches you that stuff, which is linked back to people's experience and passion and skill sets. So that's the tools that we are creating based on industry practice, which I hope will help change the world.

Paul (00:49:04) - No, that's that's super. And can I, can I just say what? I was making a note there, as you were saying, that, you know, you change your mind and you'll explain why. And I would really like to think, and I hope I'm not being naive here.

Paul (00:49:17) - I would like to think that there is a change happening, whether it be in the in, in the leadership space, in, in the managerial space. And if we go back probably no more than ten years, you know, that it was it was seen as a weakness. If the, if manager was proven to be in quotes wrong or change their mind now and almost like had to have the monopoly on good ideas and all of the rest of it, and I'd love to from both of you. I'd love to get sort of your your one top tip that you know now that you wish you'd known years ago for for leadership. And I think I'll go first. I think mine is. Be the last to speak. And I know that sounds really bizarre, but as people, as a leader used to come to me and go, Westie, what do you think about it? And I go, yeah, you do that and they go, okay, but obviously give me your ideas. And they're like, no, no, I think your ideas right.

Paul (00:50:03) - The second I've said what I think and they perceive me as the manager, the leader, whatever it may be, the creativity is gone because they're not going to it takes a really strong person to not argue against it, but, you know, to put their point forward. So I think the one that I've learnt now is try and be the last to speak, you know, ask them what they think and I'll give you my ideas at the end. So that's fun for me and I realise I'm putting you on the spot. So apologies.

Saad (00:50:27) - Okay. All right.

Caleb (00:50:29) - Yeah I mean I think I've got. One that I've really learnt from is in my very early days as a manager, it was exactly what you've just described there. Westie is that, you know, if I think somebody is thinking having a different idea to what mine was or what my boss had told me that needed apply in that, you know, that was wrong. And actually what I sort of learnt was embrace those people that challenge and, you know, because they challenge for the they challenge with the best intent because they don't want, you know, they can see different journeys and it's actually to take all that on board.

Caleb (00:51:09) - And then the other thing is about micromanaging is that I just find you get the best out of people when you just give them a sort of a high level thing to like, I want you to create something beautiful for me, and you've got free reign to do that and let them come up with a load of different ideas, and you'll be surprised at it. It looks very different from what you pictured. It's not right or wrong, it's just very different and.

Saad (00:51:34) - Just building on that before I share what my thing, the biggest thing I've learned really is,, I think when people micromanage or they try not to and things go wrong, they put it down to, oh, it was because I wasn't there. It's actually because you've got to think, is it because the people you're managing aren't in the wrong role on in the right role? They've got the right skill set. Have you explained the direction well enough, etc. all of that kind of stuff, rather than putting it down to the easy, easy sort of answer.

Saad (00:52:00) - But I think the biggest thing I've learned is stop expecting people to be like you. You know, that's what I've learned. Like, everyone is truly different and there's people who would be fast paced, some people would be slightly slower. There'll be some people who get things first time, some people get it third time., there's some people who can come under pressure somewhat. And what was interesting about this revelation is I believe that they sometimes there is a very obvious way to do something. And I'm thinking like so for example, we recognize as a company that we we just aren't strategic enough. We don't plan long term enough. Like that's just a given. Right., and we've just, we've, we've actually said that we don't plan to well, down the road. So that's a given. But then there's people who actually,, despite us agreeing that collectively, they still don't talk like that and plan ahead. And it can frustrate me. But but what I've learned is that's still a version of ego.

Saad (00:53:00) - There's still a version of expecting people to be like me because I'm at a developmental attitude, thinking I wasn't 3 or 4 years ago. And I am now that, you know, one of the things I did was to learn to be patient, because my mind is goes just a million miles an hour. And patience is an important part of not rushing to execution, but thinking, are we doing the right thing rather than, let's go ahead and do it? And so when I'm expecting people, even when the answer is right, is what I'm saying, and it's so clear and you've already agreed on it, you can't expect people to just all of a sudden say, okay, now, now I'm going to be that person. And even though you're right, just because you do it, you're still expecting them. So and it comes full circle back to the point, you know, we both made we all made actually was adaptability. The hardest thing about leadership is you've got to have different versions of yourself.

Saad (00:53:49) - , in different situations. And you got to know when to be that person. And if I knew to your point what I know now, then I probably wouldn't have changed anything, but I, I could, you know, not going back in the past, but I would have embraced it a bit differently. Like I would have said, this is an interesting superpower to have, like to be able to turn up one day and be inspiring and in the following conversation to be empathetic and following and all in one day. By the way, and this is what I've learned that a leader does, you know, you will never find any other job where you have to be different things to different people., at scale, at the frequency that a leader or a manager has to be. So that's what I've learned. So.

Paul (00:54:34) - We could have this conversation for hours. I'm, I'm I mean I'm absolutely I'm loving it here. There you go. So thank you so much for joining us. It's been it's brilliant.

Paul (00:54:46) - However, I don't know if Caleb's prepped you for this. We we tend to end our shows with a bit of a,, a playlist. And that playlist can be music. It can be something you're watching. It could be something you're reading. It could be something that's on your,, podcast. You're listening to something along those lines. So I'm going to come to Caleb first because he always steals my good ideas.

Caleb (00:55:06) - Well, I've added I keep adding to my list. So I've.

Speaker 5 (00:55:09) - Had this.

Paul (00:55:10) - Exactly.

Caleb (00:55:10) - I'm watching play and now I've added like an app on there as well.. Oh okay. So my app this that this month I'm trialling is something called humanity., and it sort of hooks into your health app. So it sort of measures it's about longevity of life basically, rather than just, you know, it's trying to preempt how, where we are living and,, yeah. And gives you a sort of an easy to understand number. So that's what I'm trialing at the minute.

Caleb (00:55:42) - And, and the other one, which is a bit of software, which is Microsoft Copilot, I've sort of added that into everything I'm doing. I have to say though, I'm not I don't feel like I'm really utilising it to its full potential. And,, I don't know if I'm just not getting on board with it yet.

Paul (00:56:03) - Okay. And that's based on ChatGPT, isn't it? It's like another AI type thing. But is it entrenched in Word and Excel and all that good stuff?

Caleb (00:56:11) - Is it? Yeah. It is. Yeah., I'm sort of the benefit that I was hoping to get was that it would understand me and my voice, and then I could press a button and it would, it would reply to an email for me. And it's sort of not, not really that that smart yet. I guess what I'm edging on is I want a AI personal assistant that goes, I know what your voice is, I know what your tone is. I'll just reply to this and you can approve it.

Paul (00:56:40) - But before we before we get to that and before we move on to some really nice examples there., I don't know if you and I ever had the Grammarly conversation, so I use Grammarly,, because I know that I talk quicker than I can write and I type quicker and I can talk, if that makes sense. So it's not often it's not uncommon for me to do something, to send it and think, oh, bugger, I wish I'd have reread that. But what Grammarly does is not only correct grammar and spelling, which you think all of that's built in, but it learns. You sort of it learns over time, so you train it, but also you set it for. So in my case, I'll set the,, my tone to be sort of friendly, not not professional, if that makes sense. So and it sort of matches that and it's really good when I'm writing, whether it be a bit of a learning or writing an email. And it'll go, actually, this might be better worded like this.

Paul (00:57:31) - And what I really like about it is, is recommending changes less often now, which may sound bizarre, but in my head that means that I've learned. So I quite like that. So Grammarly is really nice and it's in basically on the Mac. It's just in everything. It's everywhere that I type anything, whether that be an email or whatever. So you and I can have that conversation another time. So over to you. What's on your playlist?

Saad (00:57:56) - Well, I'm a big hip hop fan. I'm gonna grow up in Brixton. You're probably not surprised.

Speaker 5 (00:58:00) - Look at Caleb's face. I didn't see that coming.

Saad (00:58:03) - Well, well, if you're surprised by that, I actually rap as well, so I'm not going to do it for you today.

Caleb (00:58:11) - Oh, now you've just.

Saad (00:58:12) - Seen it over time. I've actually got a back catalogue of 100 songs that I haven't actually released., growing up in Brixton, it's just what you do. It's just like. It's like breathing in the air. You just.

Saad (00:58:20) - You just rap on the on the back, on the street corner. So I've got Kendrick Lamar's diss of Drake,, and,,, Jay Cole on my playlist., so I'm big hip hop fan, big hip hop fan,, all music. And there's so much of it out there. So GRM daily,, there's this,, UK based channel grown to 5 million subscribers set up by, you know, former music artists, you know, black urban sort of music, but people more culture. So they put out lots of UK homegrown talent. And it's just the scene is just different to when it where it was ten, 15, 20 years ago,, before UK was seen again as, you know, really like low compared to us hip hop. But now it's just on par and probably some respects better. And there's lots of collaboration. So, yes, I've got yeah, I've got Kendrick Lamar's song, I'm watching The Gentleman on Netflix. Oh, yeah, that's good guy, Richie.

Saad (00:59:12) - I don't know what he how he does it, but he's got a signature.

Caleb (00:59:15) - It's just man, doesn't it?

Saad (00:59:16) - He's got a he's got a signature., podcast wise, I've got,, the Steven Bartlett obviously, you know, he's he's blowing up now, I mean huge. Yeah., and if in fact, there's a one and he just does such interesting topic. So you think it's just business, but actually he's he got a husband and wife couple of 35 years who are experts in relationships. And they talk about why divorce happens and how to ensure you have a successful relationship. So I send that link to my wife and she says she wants to have a chat, so I'll let you know how.

Speaker 5 (00:59:47) - Yeah, you're a brave man.

Paul (00:59:52) - We should look at this. Mo.

Saad (00:59:53) - I don't know what she's going to say. I'll find out after this podcast. She's looking at him like.

Paul (00:59:58) - Well, I saw a walk past earlier with some suitcases. I mean, that's all you need to know.

Speaker 5 (01:00:02) - I think you give it away.

Saad (01:00:03) - The knife to the heart.

Speaker 5 (01:00:06) - I just think in that little.

Caleb (01:00:07) - Question, there's so much to unpack here. I think there's there's an aftershow party going on. There's I can't I want to be a member on this leadership development because I'm just waiting for Saad to start rapping during the onboarding.

Saad (01:00:21) - I never thought that that could be a good icebreaker. Actually.

Speaker 5 (01:00:24) - I think absolutely it could be.

Paul (01:00:27) - Summary. At the end of the day, just everything you go for God, you're missing a trick if.

Speaker 5 (01:00:31) - You don't do that.

Saad (01:00:31) - I,, that that's that transcribes a meeting but in rhymes.

Speaker 6 (01:00:38) - Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Caleb (01:00:41) - That could be cool.

Saad (01:00:43) - I'm trying to think, I think I was.

Speaker 5 (01:00:44) - I don't have anything best.

Saad (01:00:46) - Do you like best.

Caleb (01:00:47) - Set him off now.

Paul (01:00:48) - Yeah. That that works. That works for me. I don't really have anything to add to my playlist. And there's a reason for this., I had a phone call from,, or an email and then a phone call from Skye about two months ago.

Paul (01:01:00) - About about two weeks ago. Sorry., and they were saying, write your,, your sky Q's up for renewal. We're putting a price up to this, but we want to offer you Sky stream instead. Right. So, long story short. So basically, my dish has gone, my box is gone, and everything comes via a tiny little pack. Looks a bit like an Apple TV. So basically our TV is now via the internet if you want to look at it that way, which sounds really bizarre, but in a lot of cases, if you watch anything on iPlayer or on basically TV is via the internet now, right? So no. So it's done all of that., and it's just really hard to find anything. It's really bizarre., and because of that, I haven't really found anything particularly new., it, it's a bit weird because you. They say you can't record stuff, but you kind of have what they call a playlist instead. So if you see something you think, I want to watch, that you add it to a playlist and then you go to your playlist and then like, let's say it's on a my wife added,, interior design masters, but you could see every series of every one that's ever been on there, and you can watch it whenever you like.

Paul (01:02:04) - So basically, our whole TV has become on demand,, which is the way that my kids have been working for God knows how many years. And the idea of actually sitting down and watching something when it's on is totally alien to them. But for me, it's it's been a real oh, well, can't I just browse through and find something you can, but it's just a bit bit weird and I'm waiting for something. I'm waiting for a new series of slow horses, which I'm going to bring up every single episode. You know that because it is by far the best thing I've ever seen on TV for a long time.

Caleb (01:02:34) - I think looking at the,.

Paul (01:02:36) - Yeah, I know, but and also there was a new series of severance that evidently they're filming. But,, by that point, I'm going to have to have watched the first series of game. So it would be about three years between the two. And I have forgotten everything, so,. Yeah. So so nothing really., I'm getting more into my music.

Paul (01:02:54) - I bought a new,,, record deck, so I'll be getting a lot of my old LPs out and a lot of 12in and stuff like that, and I'm actually really enjoying that because it's making me sit down, take time out, and listen to a record, rather than just having something streaming in the background on an endless loop.

Speaker 5 (01:03:09) - Like, you.

Paul (01:03:10) - Know, hip hop, like, I'm.

Speaker 5 (01:03:11) - Sorry.

Saad (01:03:12) - You might want to do that and music in a second because I thought you,, you were going to say you use Grammarly because you live in Bedford, but.

Paul (01:03:20) - It's so hard.

Speaker 5 (01:03:23) - So unnecessary.

Paul (01:03:26) - She's a south London boy..

Saad (01:03:29) - I really talk to my brothers. I mean, it's become someone else, honestly.

Paul (01:03:35) - Well, it's like my my wife's from Northampton, and I don't think she's got a strong accent, but you put it together with her sister, and they speak so fast, and there's so many words, and I'm thinking, who's this person? All of a sudden? I'm just lost and walk away.

Saad (01:03:49) - My wife. So I've struggled with it because she's from overseas. She's from Malaysia. So when she moved here, she couldn't she was like, just I don't understand it. You know? It's like I would talk in my Bradford accent to my mum then in a very kind of south London accent to my brothers, I don't know you, you know, and I genuinely reflect to who I should be married kind of thing. And,.

Speaker 5 (01:04:11) - Yeah.

Paul (01:04:11) - And now you've sent her a thing to read about divorce. Just just.

Speaker 5 (01:04:14) - To clarify.

Saad (01:04:15) - But to to together, I probably should have done that. But it was really weird because and I struggle because when I used to work in certain industries, I struggle with my identity and my accent, and I tried to be sound a bit more sort of posh, you know what I mean? And I've and what I used to do whenever I used to come out, because whenever I used to figure out how do I, who do I want to be? How do I want to speak? I used to, which is genuinely, I'm saying this and not in a fun way.

Saad (01:04:37) - I'm saying this in a genuine way. I imagine I'm speaking to my wife because I'm with her. I kind of speak in the most sort of middle sort of tone, if you like, and my, my sort of natural self rather than my extreme, then it was always quite nice sort of picture her whilst I was, you know, talking and she helped me find my centre ground. So,, I think I might remind her of that afterwards.

Speaker 6 (01:04:59) - Yeah.

Paul (01:05:01) - Okay. If I think we're going to have to close, mate, aren't we? We're running over, I think.

Caleb (01:05:04) - Yeah, I mean, what what a fantastic conversation. I guess if people want to connect with the Assad and learn more about what you're doing, what's the best way for them to do that?

Saad (01:05:16) - LinkedIn is probably best.. So sad.., dash m dash Qureshi., so M is my middle name. That's how they can get me. If they're typing Metron, then they're probably in the search bar. They'd probably find me anyway.

Saad (01:05:30) - Yeah.

Caleb (01:05:32) - Fab. Well, thank you so much. Thanks everyone for listening. Really hope you enjoyed the conversation. Drop us a line if you want to discuss anything else.

Paul (01:05:41) - Thanks. It's been brilliant. Thank you.