The art and science of leadership with big-brand adviser Darren Hill

Ange
Well, yes, and he has also co-written a book title, Dealing with the Tough Stuff – How to Achieve Results from Key Conversations.

Andy 
Great book.

Ange
Yes. And he captivated our members at our recent R&R community live event in Brisbane with his incredible insights on leadership.

Andy 
Yes, we’d like to give a big, warm welcome to Darren Hill from Pragmatic Thinking. Welcome mate, so good to have you with us today. You’re an absolute superstar in front of all our members, not that long ago.

Darren
Thanks Crew. I was actually just looking over my shoulder for someone else. Super second intro, I was gonna go on, who is this person? This will be great. And then realize it was me. So yeah, thanks for raising the bar, but uh, To start with both of you. What a wonderful community you have created and, um, and what value. It was amazing to be part of that live experience and see how much people were getting out of and hear some of those amazing stories that are coming out of, uh, these tradies who are changing their lives. It’s fantastic. Something to be really proud of.

Andy 
Thanks, mate. We do have an incredible community and that is something we are very, very happy, we are happy about and very proud of.

Ange
And it was so lovely to have you with us there.

Andy 
Yeah.

Ange
And they loved your presentation. It was amazing.

Andy 
They did. They did. And you certainly walked the talk. I reckon trade business owners everywhere will gain so much out of what you’ve gotta say on being a leader in 2023 and your practical tips on how to help them be better. We all know all trade business owners, all business owners in general have to be better leaders.

Ange
Correct. So, Darren, I’m gonna start off with some questions. Are you ready?

Darren
Fire away.

Ange
So you’re claimed to be a behavioral scientist, and we’d love you to explain what this actually means and why it’s important in the conversation on leadership.

Darren
Yeah, I am a behavioral scientist. I went to uni and got a bit of paper and all the rest of it. But yeah, in simple terms, I get to do what a lot of people do for, uh, a hobby and I study people for a living. And I guess as part of getting a better understanding around why people do what they do, that allows me a speciality area. Like, I can’t swing a hammer or pick up a wrench to save my life. And so of course when stuff comes around, I can play on things or I can bring in the experts. And it’s a bit the same as in businesses. People have the technical part of their business, but then they’ve got the human part of the business. And that’s where I can help. And I think the leadership, ultimately your technical skills around what you do in the job get you so far. And then the majority of the job sort of comes with interrelating, with people. And that’s often where we can see businesses accelerate or really fall short of what they are, their potential could be based on how well they manage the human interaction in their business.

Andy 
Yeah. So true mate. And I, I say this a lot, like one of the best things you can do in business is being a good communicator and being able to not only be a big leader, but who are you communicating to and what work can you bring in just from you being that person? And, and that’s a big thing cuz you know, not everyone are, uh, outspoken, bubbly people, but you’ve gotta find what it is that makes you special and why your customers wanna work for you. It’s so important, isn’t it?

Darren
Well, extroversion, introversion are often confused and overused terms in and around communication, but it’s got very little to do with those things. Like we know some extroverts who annoy us to no end, and then others who light up a room. And then you’ve got others that are introverts, very quiet, shy, reserved people who are just the best company on the planet, right? The funniest people who ever meet. And then others, it’s almost painful to try and establish a communication. So, some of those rules don’t really apply. It’s actually mixing a whole bunch of tools together that can genuinely be a game changer in business. So,

Andy 
Yeah, and I think you’d agree though, like some of the best business owners I know and, and I know you’d know some incredible business owners, like there’s no two ways about it. But for me personally, in the area that I work and the people I hang around, some of the best people I know are some of the best communicators, but from your thoughts, do you see some of the best business owners that you work with are really good communicators? Or what is it that you see that makes them special?

Darren
Well, I think that there’s a base level you’ve gotta achieve in your communication that will be the great impediment of future growth. I think in some ways you’ve, you’ve gotta establish enough rapport with clients to keep them and, and, and I think the days of being a real expert, but people put up with you , is kind of a bit irrelevant now. Like people have much higher expectations on how you communicate with them. But certainly if you wanna scale and you want to grow, you’ve gotta be able to engage people and teach them and coach them and show them your methods around what makes your tradie practice special. And what separates you from the dozens of other plumbers or sparkies that might be in that area. Right? So, of course, communication’s key to scale. I have no doubt about that.

Andy 
Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. So, mate, I want you to tell us a bit about your favorite social research study, cuz I know you’ve talked about this in the past and how has helped you frame your overarching message on leadership?

Darren
I’ve got a bunch of favorites, but probably one that was a real, real favorite back in the day was this fascinating piece of social research that took place over in, uh, the University of Alchera in the UK was a team of social researchers and they wanted to take a common occurrence. In this case, it was what happens when you lose a wallet or a purse. And see if they could get a better return out of, uh, wallets that were returned. So they sent out a group of control wallets. And they got a baseline back. So, uh, less than two in 10 wallets were returned, only 15%. And so what they thought was, if we can change something and what they focused on were pictures that could go in the wallets, could they change the situation. And so they sent out a new group of wallets with four different pictures in it. They had a picture of Nan and Pop. An elderly couple had a picture of a standard family. They had a picture of a dog, a little puppy, and some of them, and they had a picture of a baby, a cute baby, and some of them. And as it turns out, even just by having a picture in there, you get better results.

Ange
Interesting.

Andy 
Yeah.

Darren
As it went on simply by having a picture of the family and they, uh, doubled your chances of the wallets coming back. The cute puppy outperformed the family.

Andy 
Wow. That’s it.

Ange
Love and behold.

Darren
Um, so the dog lovers, make sure you get that in. But the big winner, of course, was the cute baby with nearly nine and 10 wallets, came back. And I love the premise of the study. The premise of the study is that if you can change the picture, you can change the results. And sometimes the difference between success in your business and failure in your business, or middle roading in your business, or going to a whole other level. It’s just one click of a dial and often that click is upstairs, right? Like it’s a shift in perception, and it’s not about working harder. Like you can just work yourself hard and your business into the ground. But sometimes it’s that tiny little shift around the way you market, the way you lead, the way you, you yourself, interact with the business. That is the game changer. In fact, I reckon if we went and surveyed a hundred of your great success stories amongst thousands within your community and asked them what was the game changer, it wouldn’t be a thing. It’d be a thought.

Andy 
Yeah. So, yeah, I, a hundred percent agree with that, don’t you?

Ange
Change is the only constant, right? So, I think it is important for

Darren
Stepped out of a vending machine.

Andy 
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Ange
Very valid. Yeah, but when you think about trade business owners, they have to constantly almost recreate themselves, right? Like evolution is changing all the time. The technology base that we support our businesses on is constantly making improvements. Humans, our interaction with our customers, our customers have huge expectations on us now, and we have to adapt to that. And so therefore, understanding customer behavior is important. Understanding the personality styles of the people that work inside the team is important. And therefore, as a trade business owner, you have to be aware of this stuff and you have to be better all the time.

Darren
Yeah, you gotta carry a certain mindset for that, right? Like you, you have to continue to cultivate a certain mindset to end up in that result, to keep changing your market, to stay relevant, to meet your customer needs, to lead your people to go. We had three people in our team, now we’ve got eight. Like that means I need to lead differently. So it’s so important that you are shifting your beliefs and cultivating mindset along the way.

Andy 
That is so, so true. And I, I think along the way too, like we know at times being in business doesn’t matter what business, it’s tough, but it’s the ones that can push through and just keep going. But I just love that story where you talked about the wallets and all you need to do is change the picture and then you can get a different result. And I think everyone out there listening now thinks that sometimes it’s a little bit hard and it’s a bit tough. What can you do to change that picture to get a different result? That is huge.

Ange
So Darren, why is leadership about showing up in the big moments?

Darren
Quite simply because our brain has to forget things. Like if you, if you think about a life where you could never forget anything, I mean, it’s celebrated in the movies and people with, you know, photographic memories, but the actual data is really, really poor. So you have an extremely short lifespan. If you have an extraordinary memory, because if you think about it, just the noise in your head, like it’s, it’s hard enough to forget bloody parramatta ales get dusted on the weekend by the Broncos. I don’t, I I try and

Ange
I thought you would have wiped that.

Darren
But I just, it stays with me your eyes. It’s an important mechanism for our health and our relationships is to forget and so what we think is all these really small common rituals that we put in play at work, that they are incredibly important. They’ll be the things that people remember they don’t, like their, their brain is conditioned to forget those moments. They’re still important, like you’ve gotta have standards and you’ve gotta set expectations, but they’re not the things people remember. It’s like our brain and the way it is, is biologically hardwired, is to remember the big moments, excitement, threat, love, like those kind of big moments of a couple of structures within our brain. The hippocampus and the Amy, they work together these things to make sure we don’t forget the big moments. So when it comes to leadership, We’ve gotta make sure we’re on point. And the only way that we can nail the big moments. So when we have to, you know, pull someone up and do it the right way, when we have to let someone go because they’re letting down the rest of the team. When we, you know, one of our team members loses someone close to them and you are at the funeral. Like these moments really matter, but the only way that we achieve in those moments is to have very high personal standards. Because if the gap’s too low, like if you are living life down here. And the moments here to think that you’re gonna rise for that moment is a pipe drain. So we need to hold ourselves to high standards, but we have to turn up for the moments cuz that’s the thing that people truly remember. And we hear that in the stories where they’ll talk about that moment years later. That that leader was there for that moment, the way they behaved. And they’ll talk about it for the positive and for the negative. Cuz if you’ve stuff it up, they, they’re gonna remember that one too.

Ange
Yes, yes. I was about to say, it’s interesting that you say they’re the things that even they will remember and recount themselves about how someone showed up for me. You know, in what you classed as your big moment. Yeah, it’s an interesting concept.

Andy 
Yeah, it’s very true. And I, I think, um, you know, I look back in business and when the chips are down and things are going wrong, it’s how those leaders really step up and take the bull by the horns and run with it. That’s where your staff are looking at you like, what are you gonna do now? And it’s like, well, this is what we’re gonna do. And you, you take it and away you go. So what are your free, non-negotiable leadership focus areas that you, you believe you should work on, and including the science background behind each of them?

Darren
Well, I think it’s interesting cuz what we do is take our step back one level of context, right? So cuz we could look at it and go, a plumbing business is different to an electrical business, is different to a chippy or like any, any area, right? Yeah. Like you could take roofers, you could, you could take anywhere across the industry and then even specialize that. But if we take a step back to what’s common across all of that, and that’s human beings, right? Homo sapien, our species. And if we actually come back another further context and go, how is it that we behave and we behave via neurotransmitter release in, in, in our brain and our bloodstream?

So what we know is that none of us are different from each other in regards to the chemicals that flood our systems and the structures that we have. We all have the same amount of muscles, whether they’re bigger or smaller. We all have the same amount of bones, all this kind of stuff. So there is a consistency that regardless of the business context, that we can base leadership off. And there’s, there’s three non-negotiable areas, and even listeners will hear this and it just makes perfect sense to you. But three non-negotiable areas for leadership are one, leaders manage pressure. So they have to know when you dial it up and when to back it off. And you have to understand the amplitude of it and the way it works because number one, you can’t keep people at red lines sustainably. You’ll break ’em and you’ll be turning over staff and it just won’t work. And, equally, if you’ve got people who are cooked off too much, like they’re down the bottom end of the performance curve, you’ve got a trade shop full of gossiping and people with idle time. So it’s understanding when to raise the pressure and when to back it off. So manage pressure, which is based on two chemicals, which most people have heard of, of cortisol and adrenaline. So you need to know how to manage ’em. They’re really awesome chemicals. They’re not bad chemicals. We just gotta understand how to use ’em. So that’s the first one, manage pressure.

The second one is to make progress. So why progress is so important, we ask the question of how do I keep my people motivated? The number one motivator and consistent motivator that we know isn’t money, it isn’t status, it isn’t these things. They, they’re all important. But the thing that keeps people, uh, motivated is a sense of progress that I’m moving forward. And so what we need to do is understand that there’s, again, a chemical equation of endorphins and, and, and dopamine. These incentive chemicals that keep us moving and know how to navigate those and how to chunk things down and help people see that as I knock that part of the job over, I’m one step closer to the goal on one step closer to the end of the week or one step closer to something. And the last one is an established connection. So how do you build bonds of trust amongst your crew? What, how will they have each other’s back rather than stab each other in the back? Like how do they come together and rely upon each other? And that’s where we look at things like serotonin and oxytocin and build bonds of trust cuz you get a tight crew. And, and man, they can get through anything, right? If there’s cracks in ’em and you throw a bit of load at ’em, they’re in real trouble.

Andy 
Look out. Look out.

Darren
So they’re the three and they’re based off, again, all of us have these same chemical equations, so it doesn’t matter what context you’re in, if you can master those three, you are leading in your business.

Ange
Can relate that to so many things, can’t you?

Andy 
Oh, listen, I look back in the Dr. Drip days and when our teams like, obviously over the 21 years our teams went up and down and you know around. But you know, I can remember the best days when we had the best guys and the camaraderie and anyone would do anything for anyone. If someone was stuck at six o’clock on a Friday night, everyone was like, yep, I’ll go help him. No problems. And everyone would chime in. Even if we didn’t need five guys, we’d, we’d get them there anyway, and then we’d have an indoor party. It was just, we did whatever it took because that’s how our bond was. And everything you said there was just a hundred percent bang on.

Ange
Yes. Leadership at its absolute peak. If you can get all three of those non-negotiables in check all the time, which I’m sure,

Darren
They’re like a giant game of Whack A-mole, but you know, like pressure progressing and connection. So if you’re leading a business one minute, you might really need to dive into pressure where we’re, we’ve got too much on, on, on, not for us. And then other times you go cruise a little bit, sort of fractured, or I’ve got a couple of new ones and I’ve gotta really work on the connection piece or sometimes it is, we feel like we’re just on a treadmill. Like it’s just kinda like every day we’re rolling the rock up the hill and then it rolls back down on us. So it’s up to you to manufacture that sense of progress. Like give him some goals, give him something aim for, and it just shifts, it constantly changes. And at any point in time you look and look at all, all of those three and you’ll find where your leadership a activity needs to go.

Ange
We do talk a lot about setting KPIs inside the business so that you know, everyone on the team understands their responsibility and, and their involvement in the business and how they actually have an impact and by what I love about, um, incorporating this principle, I suppose, or these non-negotiables, is celebrating small wins. Because even though often the progress they’ll think is x revenue for the end of the week or the month or whatever. But they’ve really gotta go back, right back to, what did you do today? What’d you do in this one job? What’d you do together? There are possible ways to actually bring in progress consistently all the time, especially when you say, you know, this pressure of huge amounts of workflow, and they’re all really busy versus the reverse when they’re all really quiet. And so now balancing all of that,

Andy 
But I love what Darren said because it’s huge, there’s a lot of pressure when there’s a lot of work.

Ange
Correct.

Andy 
But there’s actually a lot of pressure when there’s no work. Because everyone’s like, oh my God, what does that mean? What are we gonna do? I’m sick of sweeping the warehouse. Like what’s the next steps? And then it comes down to how is the business owner gonna step up and be that leader and go, don’t worry guys, I’ve got a plan and this is what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna do this and this, and before you know it, we’re gonna be flying again. Everyone goes, yeah. And then away you go, you know?

Ange
Absolutely.

Darren
I tell you what I, I often say to, to rooms that sometimes, cuz we, as human beings, we tend to hallucinate and we also tend to mask things like we think about the pass through, through filters and lenses and I often remind them that the pain of having too much is never as bad as the pain of not having enough. And usually they’ll go, you know, I’ll just cast my mind back to when the bum was outta my business when I was worrying about paying supplies. And I’m deciding whether my kid can go to a school camp or not. That pain is so much more significant than when you’re feeling a bit overworked.

Ange
Absolutely.

Darren
It’s not to downplay burnout and how difficult that can be, like clinical burnouts are a really, really tough thing. However, I promise you that trying to manage when you’ve got too much on is never, never as bad as when you don’t have enough.

Andy 
A hundred percent I say that.

Ange
Sorry to interrupt the episode today, but there’s something really exciting happening. And I know you are chomping in the bit to tell our listeners more about it, aren’t you, Andy?

Andy 
Yes, I am. And after the shit show of the last few years of lockdowns and all that crap, we are touring the country again with a Lifestyle Tradie Live event. Hell yeah!

Ange
Yeah. So other than your bald head, what can our listeners expect to hear and see?

Andy 
Ooh, wow. That is a little bit rough. But yes, you’ll see how to go from chaos to control. I’d like our listeners to think of it like an in-person intimate podcast episode.

Ange
Oh yes, exactly. We are real people, you know, we don’t just live in podcast land.

Andy 
Yeah. Listen, if you’re really sick and tired of working super long hours, Or you wanna get off the tools, scale the business, sell the business, or just wanna work on your business and not in your business, then Lifestyle Tradie Live is definitely for you.

Ange
You know what? If you truly wanna make more profit or gain back your time to spend it with family and friends, or maybe take that six week camping trip you’ve been putting off, then tell your wife or business partner to come along to Lifestyle Tradie Live in a capital city near you because you know what? Nothing changes, if nothing changes, take this first step to really set your business up for success. You’re going to love it.

Andy 
Go to lifestyletradie.com.au and register today. Tickets are limited.

Ange
So just to change tact a little bit, I wanna talk about a possibility mindset. So can you talk about what that even means and do you have an example of what that is?

Darren
So, mindset, which is a setting of the mind, is the easiest way to think of it’s a psychological construct. We all have them. It’s a bit different to a belief. Beliefs are big, anchored thoughts we hold to be true, that have formed very early on in our lives usually. Whereas a mindset, something that, that, that just changes quickly, you know? Like you can, you can set your mind at any time straight away, and it often happens very subconsciously.

But the cool thing is that consciously you can grab the reins of it and reset it, but a possibility mindset, which shouldn’t be confused with a positivity mindset. So that’s Think happy thoughts. Yeah, it doesn’t work so well when you are having a really rough day, by the way. It works really well when you’re having a kind, good day. But a possibility mindset is just this belief that it could change, that there is a way there, if I put more effort in, I might get more out, and that there’s a way out of this. Now all mindsets exist on continuums, and so you’ve got possibility. At one end of the continuum, and now the other end is cynicism. So those two are related. Right? So it’s this belief that it could change, it can be done, versus it’ll never change and it can’t be done. And we drift on that continuum every day, right? Like it’s a natural human occurrence for us to enter into conversations or circumstances and drift. The more we spend our time out of this possibility mindset, uh, scenario, it opens up so many things.

So number one, it actually opens us up physically. So we actually have a chemical change in us where our posture changes. Like you’ve seen the kind of the cynicism mindset around work versus the possibility where the chest is out. Where we’re getting around. Right? And so it helps us actually, even in risk management, it helps us in the areas where we would typically think that it’s quite conservative, but when we apply possibility, it doesn’t mean we ignore the risk. It’s actually, we consider it even deeper. So, uh, possibility mindset. So important for us to have when we’re trying to engage our people, when we’re trying to work our way through problems. And the easiest way to consider it is sometimes to go to the opposite end and go, if I was to be as cynical as possible in this scenario, what would be the outcome? And then flip it and go, well, if I applied possibility to this scenario, what would it sound and look like? And you see this massive divide between the responses. It’s a cool thing to run with your team sometimes. Is it maybe you’re having a, I don’t know, it’s a job that just has gone a bit south. It’s not really working. And so, everyone’s probably drifted to cynicism. And so the language is, this is shared. The person we’re talking to is rubbish. Like, we’re getting, you know, overcharge, all this stuff. Or what you do is go, okay, so let’s apply a possibility mindset to this. Number one, the cost overruns happened in this job. How do we process that? What does that sound and look like or impossibility? Well, we won’t let, we won’t do that again on the next job. Right. We’re gonna learn how to do this at a lower cost base. We all of a sudden, what could be a great challenge in our business, teachers are so much about the future versus if we stay in cynicism, we just probably roll from one problem to the next, to the next.

Ange
Is it true Darren? Like, I would say that some people are naturally born quite negative. You know, they view life. They view life, I suppose with the glass half empty versus glass half full. And so therefore that person would end up on that end of the spectrum all the time. Everything’s gone bad, you know, nothing we can’t fix. Like they just would say all the negative straight away. If someone is like that, can you teach them to have a possibility mindset?

Darren
Well, you certainly can. Uh, so I reckon there’s two things. One, yes you can. Two, it may require a fair bit of effort. But number three is you can certainly put consequences in for cynicism as well. So when people are in a cynical mindset, when that then does have an outwards effect on the people that they work with and the customers that they serve, and the work that they’re producing. Because by the way, if they’re in a cynicism mindset, there is no way that they are producing their best work. Compared to when they’re impossible and all of those things have an ability to have consequence trails applied to that. So if you do this, this will be the consequence. I’m gonna pull you up on that if you do this, that’s kind of a written warning, like whatever your consequence structures are within your business, but you shouldn’t let it run unchecked. Because it can be a, a very much a cancer in your business and it’ll affect, uh, like most cancers, it turns up in areas where you least expected if you didn’t keep your eye on it.

Andy 
Yeah, it’s so true and I’ve talked to many business owners that have had that person that comes into the business and it’s always a challenge, an issue, a drama, and you’re right, you know you can help them, but can you really pull ’em out of that attitude that maybe they’ve had since birth or, you know, so that is certainly a tough one. So what are some practical ways in which we can keep our teams motivated and, given that sense of progress.

Darren
Yeah. So again, if we think about progress as when we perceive we are moving forward, the answer is in the clue. Right? Like it is helping people see a pathway forward. So like all pathways, we kind of need a map from where we are to where we need to be. Now, the first thing I would, uh, would ask the question for trading businesses. By the way, most of them are using progress tools every single day, and they don’t even know about it. So the progress tool is the classic to-do list. So I sit down for a coffee to kick start my morning, and I make a quick to-do list of what I’ve gotta get done. The really important things. And of course what they do is one of the things on their list, they’ve already pretty much done or gotten knocked over in the first five minutes and you got a free tick and you’re off and running.

Ange
You have to do a tick. That’s the best way to start.

Darren
Totally. So you get a free tick, you’re away, right?

Ange
Absolutely.

Darren
Get the momentum up and you’re running. So there, that’s just one example. But some of the things might be giving them their job sheet for the day, right? But then letting them choose the pathway to complete the list. And so then they set up their schedule to then knock it over. And so each one that they’re knocking over and there’s some wonderful tools you guys, uh, provide them as part of Lifestyle Tradie and that to be able to actively see progress happening. So where you are moving through now, of course that could be daily, but it could be weekly, it could be monthly. The wonderful thing about trades is that you get to see progress in the job quite often.

Andy 
Yes, that’s right.

Darren
So you, you’ll see the building rise or you’ll see it coming down and all of those are cues and signals to moving towards the end of it. The main thing I would be really careful of and different trades will have different, uh, areas, but where is progress less visible. So where does it feel like, you know, foundations are in structures, frames up and that, but that next period, it feels like you’re walking through a quicksand. So what you do is manufacture visible progress. So charts love that, you know, on the, in the workshop wall where you rally around, um, maybe it’s on the iPad, they’re, they’re running in their, in their truck, whatever else it is, that helps them see that they’re one step closer to a goal. That’s how we use progress effectively. And the more that you can have that through a business, the more motivated they are because they always feel like you’re moving forward.

Ange
Well, humans are generally quite visual too, right? So I like the concept of actually putting something back in front of their face, whether that’s, you know, us sending voxer messages to the team consistently throughout the day, or whether it’s something that they see when they come back into the office. But I like those visual cues. I think actually they’re really important and you know, to manufacture what they are. It’s quite funny.

Darren
Yeah. Almost run an audit on, on the flat spots in your business. So, so, and if it’s too big, you’re working on a huge project, right? You’ve just nailed this big two year project and all of a sudden the small projects that we used to work on that occasionally we whinge about, but the truth is we’re always making progress. Now we’ve gone into this monster and it feels like it’s never gonna end.

Ange
Yeah, totally.

Darren
So our job is to chunk that down. So if we should be looking at quarter one, what’s gotta get done and we can actually tick ’em off each week. Like, we nailed that. We nailed that, we nailed that. Then all of a sudden this huge project that felt like it had no end, it’s got all these little, you know.

Andy 
Yeah. Well, I was gonna say that. I absolutely agree. I mean, there’s many of those jobs that you come across that just, you have your moments where it, the framework and everything goes up and you’re like, wow, look how far we’ve gone. And then the next minute you look and go, we’ve done it. Looks like we’ve done nothing over the last month. So everything you said there, a hundred percent mate, making sure they got that sense of progress they’re moving forward with. They’re with a good company, they’re with a good boss. And when you’re doing that, you definitely keep people motivated.

Ange
So that leads me to another question, which is, what is one thing all high performing teams can apply, which actually might be surprising for some trade business owners?

Darren
Well, it’s, it’s interesting, but there’s quite a bit being done in behavioral science that shows that the highest performing sustainable teams, so you can actually have really high performing teams, but they don’t last very long. And for many of you, your members and people within the Lifestyle Tradie community, they know this through maybe observing sport or other areas other than their business, but curiously, sustainable high performance teams tend to exhibit a fair bit of touch. So like in physical touch. So they shake hands, they kind of pat each other on the shoulder. They kind of give each other a nudge as they’re walking, like, and it’s kind of like, you know, teenage boys and they’re really close, they’re kind of bumping each other and this kind of stuff. But connected families actually, touch. Right. So they, and it’s not that it’s all kind of like five second uncomfortable hugs or this type of stuff.

Ange
It’s like tackles,

Darren
But what it is,

Andy 
Well, Isaac and I, Isaac and I can’t walk down the hallway without dropping a shoulder. That’s, you know, like every time I go past Isaac, he’s, he’s dropping a shoulder or he is,

Ange
He’s trying to tackle you on the couch.

Andy 
Yeah. Yeah. He’s giving a well,

Darren
And I, and I like that you’re taking advantage of that before he gets too big for you, and then you’ll go away. Leave old dad alone. No, exactly.

Andy 
He’s just starting to fight back. Now in the past I go, mate, you don’t want this. And you go, no, I don’t want this. Now he’s like, I want it. And I’m like, okay. Then it starts to get a bit more serious these days.

Ange
No, it doesn’t hold back. So like you, even gives me what he would give Andy to the same level.

Darren
That’s right.

Ange
It’s full on.

Darren
But, and all of this is a sense of connection, right? And we actually know that oxytocin, which is our most powerful connection chemical, is released at its highest around the birthing cycle and, and, and breastfeeding. But it’s actually released through human touch generally. So when we shake hands, when we make eye contact, when we kind of do the bro shake, whatever it is. It was actually interesting. I did a big consult for a security company a while back, and I remember talking to them about how you get teams to bond and, and, and trust. And we were talking about how touch is an important part of high performance and they were going, that answers it like, and they’re wondering why it worked, but what they’d try and do was sporadically throughout teams. Because they sort of had a big contingent, multi uh, diverse kind of, uh, cultural workforce. But they’d try and sprinkle, uh, people with Polynesian descent in certain teams. Ah, because they were, they were the guys who’d go shakes and kinda bring people in and sort of big cuddly fellow who’d come in and do it. But they found by actually having some of those in, it encouraged this kind of high touch culture within their teams that made them bond. And so it’s actually one of the things it’s so simple to do, it’s just occasionally you can be just walking up to start a day and just a tiny little fist bump or it’s a yes. It’s even just eye contact. Like when you walk on site instead of grunting your way in, kind of going, oh yeah. How are you doing? Another, another day. Another dollar. It’s actually to take the time to go. How are you doing, Trev? Yeah. Sally, how are you doing? Yeah, great. Yeah. Thanks for your efforts. See you.

Andy 
Yeah, so true, so true. And I look back over the years and that definitely the times when we were in our closest, the boys would have a bit of a shoulder drop or they’d have a bit of a wrestle here and there, and there’d be a bit of always that bit of banter, always picking on each other, and just a heap of fun. So, um, I just wanna dive into, you know, when you talk about leaders, there’s different types of leaders. So what’s the most compelling type of leader you think to follow?

Darren
Oh, look, it’s, it’s, it’s pretty broad. But I would say from a non-negotiable point of view, the most compelling leader to follow is someone who is purposely energetic. So, you want an energetic leader to follow. Nobody likes following a leader who’s completely core pouring his bash. They’ve, they’ve had, they’ve had enough. Like they’re just, but again, this has nothing to do with extroversion, introversion. And it’s why, it’s a combination of purposefully energetic. So they have a, they have an energy about them. But they’re connected to a purpose. And for that purpose, whether it’s to make the best trade business that they’ve got in the local area, whether they’re actually going, I want to set this up to provide for fame. People can connect into that energy. But you’ve gotta have a sense of purpose and have an energy around that, and that’s worth following. And funny enough is your purpose doesn’t have to connect to theirs, but the energetic response that it produces in you makes it more compelling. And like all the tracks, like so, it’s so true. I mean,

Ange
and I think it’s very transparent, meaning you can’t fake it, right? You can’t fake energy around something that you are passionate about, I don’t think. Gotta, it’s gotta be very truthful.

Darren
Purpose is to, is to make 50 million bucks and, and just go relentlessly at that. That’ll attract a certain type of person, for sure. If your purpose is to build this amazing cracking team of six people who just got each other’s backs, and you are never gonna sell this business, you’re just gonna turn it into a great business, which is gonna provide for six families. That kind of stuff, if that’s your purpose, align to that. Doesn’t matter what your purpose is. Just get really aligned and get your energy pointing in the same direction and people will follow.

Andy 
Exactly. Exactly. No, that’s a hundred percent true, mate. I’m loving everything you’re saying so far. Hey, we’ve played this little game here as well, which, um, I throw out a few rapid fire questions for you. So I’m gonna start right now. Are you ready? You have about 10 to 20 seconds to respond. Is that okay mate?

Darren
Fire away. Put the pressure on.

Andy 
Yeah, mate, I’ll throw it on there. What is one strategy you use to start your day right?

Darren
Yeah, try and win the morning to win the day. So, uh,

Andy 
win the morning to win the day. How good is that? Yeah, yeah. Start the day off. First part of it. Love it.

Darren
And a shock to the system. So whether it’s a bit of cold water or exercise or something that kind of wakes you outta your slumber.

Andy 
Mate, Love that. That’s great. The second one, what is something that made you smile recently?

Darren
Oh, what made me smile? My daughter Kate is 13 and she’s playing netball. She’s always been that kid that just watches the butterflies, like there be a game going on and, and all of a sudden competitive urge has turned up. So, believe it or not, I was so thrilled that she turned up one day after a game of netball and was in tears because they lost. Who’s this person?

Ange
Yeah, she’s new.

Darren
Yeah, she’s new. And so that made me really smile that she’s kind of got connected into that part of a sport, her own effort.

Andy 
I love, I love that.

Ange
It’s the fact that she’s actually decided she actually loves the sport. Maybe it’s just,

Darren
oh, she loves it, but she cares about it now.

Ange
Totally.

Darren
That, that, yeah. So it’s awesome. That’s,

Andy 
and the third one, what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

Darren
I mean, lucky enough to get a few, but my one, probably my all time favorite is I had a wonderful friend, a woman from New Zealand, an admire lady with, with tremendous wisdom, Sha Henderson, and she said, Darren, it’d be twice the person you can be. You need to leave half of yourself behind. I try and share that with as many people as I can, because for us to evolve into who we need to be. We can’t keep being who we were.

Andy 
A hundred percent.

Ange
Very profound.

Andy 
It’s so true,

Ange
and I totally agree. This has been a series of absolute light bulb moments for me. Thank you so much, Darren, for giving our listeners so much to think about. They need to mold and shape their own leadership styles in line with new expectations in the workplace.

Andy 
Yeah, absolutely incredible mate, we love you. You know that. And if you’d like to know more about our mate Darren, then make sure you go and check out pragmaticthinking.com and there’s also a link in the show notes.

Darren
Hey, very kind crew. Lovely to spending time with you.

Andy 
Oh mate, always a pleasure spending time with you and thanks again mate, for sharing the stage and hanging out with our Lifestyle Tradie members, and then also coming onto The Tradie Show and, and teaching everyone out there so much around leadership and what you need to do to, to have that motivation as well moving forward. I know everyone would’ve got a lot out of this episode.

Darren
Thanks again.

Ange
Thanks Darren. Well, crew, that’s all we’ve got time for this week.

Andy 
Thanks everyone. And also thank you very much for listening to The Tradie Show, an absolute cracking episode today. And I just wanna finish with, uh, hell yeah!

Ange
Hey, why don’t you come and meet Andy and I in person at Lifestyle Tradie Live this May.

Andy 
There is a better way to run a trade business if you know the right structure and systems. Register now by heading to lifestyletradie.com.au and get your ticket today.

Ange
Yes, we are coming to a capital city near you. This is an event for every trade business owner who wants to change chaos to control, get back their time and make more profit.

Andy 
Go on, you know you deserve more freedom. Subscribe to The Tradie Show wherever you get your favorite podcast. Rate and write us a review or for more information about Lifestyle Tradie, head to lifestyletradie.com.au.