E25: Tony Brooks

Richard Hill:
Hi and welcome to another episode of eCom@One, and today's guest is Tony Brooks. Now Tony is a qualified psychologist, leadership coach, and speaker. Works with a lot of brands locally and internationally, empowering leaders to gain confidence, clarity, and control. And more importantly, is a fellow Prince obsessive, like myself.
Tony Brooks:
That's the most important piece Richard, really about all of that, yeah.
Richard Hill:
And also very much a trusted advisor to our group of companies here. I've worked with Tony personally for getting up to 10 years now, so we do a lot of sort of leadership work with our management team and myself with Tony.
Richard Hill:
So how you doing Tony, you okay?
Tony Brooks:
Yeah, I'm very good Richard. As I was saying, back recently from a wet and windy week in Norfolk, but we're all having to adjust our holiday expectations during 2020, aren't we? So I'm all good.
Richard Hill:
Yeah I think it's a bit of a difference from last years. I think you did about five weeks in the states last year was it the year before?
Tony Brooks:
Yeah three weeks in the States, yeah and what have you. And I was also supposed to be out in Switzerland with one of our clients this month and then I got back from holiday to find that Switzerland's now on the no go travel restriction. So I'll try and rework all that or work with him remotely, so yeah. Challenging time for us all.
Richard Hill:
Isn't it just? This is a bit of a different podcast today guys that are listening in. Mostly we do a lot about the different aspects of running an e-commerce store, we look at a lot at the technical side, and sort of the creative, and driving business, and sustaining a business through these tough times.
Richard Hill:
But today we are going to talk a very different slant to a lot of episodes. We're going to talk about a lot of things around leadership, mindset, which I think are just so important at the moment. Obviously we're sort of six months plus into the pandemic, Covid-19, and the impact that's had on business owners and the teams that work with the businesses.
Richard Hill:
So I think let's get straight into it. How did you become a leadership coach Tony?
Tony Brooks:
Yeah well, I'm going to cut a really long story short. My background initially was IT actually, technology, and then eventually got into team leadership positions and what have you. And I was at a company that most people have heard of called Experian, based in Nottingham for 10 years. Went on two senior leadership programs, got to the more senior leadership positions myself. And was studying psychology all through that time, and just became more and more fascinated with how to support, help leaders and help people really develop their, as you say, not only their skills but their mindset.
Tony Brooks:
So I got the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy 13 years ago and decided, as I was on 12 months’ notice, that was a really good opportunity to set up a business. Yeah my coaching business has changed over those 13 years. I've changed the brand, and it's changed paths a bit, but fundamentally I really enjoy working with people and helping them get the best out of themselves as leaders and get the best out of their people.
Richard Hill:
Fantastic. So what would you say makes a good leader then, Tony?
Tony Brooks:
Oh there's so much in that, isn't there? There's so much we could talk about. I actually think there are a few things I would focus on. I think an important part of leadership is getting your own ego out of the way. There's a great book by Jim Collins called Good to Great where they did research on the most successful leaders, and a lot of them were found to be more introverted in nature. I know you're an introvert Richard, although many people that meet you might think not.
Tony Brooks:
I think it's that ability within leaders to sort of help their people and actually empower their people. Make it more about their people because the people are pretty much the ones on the front line dealing with the clients. I think if you're going into running a business or a leadership position based on fuelling your own ego, I don't think you'll be as successful as you might be if you make it all about the people that work around you.
Tony Brooks:
So a good leader for me, a lot of it is about communicating well with your people. Bringing them in to what's happening with the business. I know you and I do work together, but I know you're very good at sharing your strategy with your people and getting ideas from your people as well because again, there's a whole wealth of experience and expertise in your people. And so good leaders will recognize that and not only share a strategy with their people, but allow their people to have input into that, and change the path, and look at things like culture.
Tony Brooks:
We did a piece Richard a few years back where your team are involved in that. Looking at what the SEO. eComOne brand was all about and the culture. I think a big one of that, communication. I think it's keeping people aware of what's going on, particularly through the last six months. I think companies that have done it well, especially with the remote working, have been communicating well with their people and that could be on a one-to-one basis or on a team basis.
Tony Brooks:
And the final thing, sorry Richard, I will let you speak then.
Richard Hill:
No you're fine, go.
Tony Brooks:
I was going to say just one final thing as well because it was interesting actually. I got a call last week, I was on holiday, asking if I'd go on Nottingham radio to talk about leadership and I couldn't do it because we were out and about that day. But it got me thinking because I know what they wanted to talk about was the amount of U-turns that have gone on with the government. Especially the last sort of few weeks.
Tony Brooks:
And it's one of the topics I've talked about a lot over the last six months. I think a good leader must always display agility but particularly over this time as well. So the concept of agile run through software development and it's a really important part of leadership. It's being able to think quickly, the pace of change is getting faster and faster and it's being able to respond to that, and change direction, and make critical decisions. And so that agility I think is important.
Tony Brooks:
There are some things I think the government have done that would be a little dubious as why that U-turn happened. But actually, admitting you're possibly on the wrong path and changing is mature leadership as well. So yeah, I think that's important.
Richard Hill:
Getting used to change, getting used to dealing with change, sort of encouraging that communication with your leadership team. Making sure that everyone's sort of updated as best you can on what's happening.
Richard Hill:
But as you say, there are things that happened over the last six months, there've never been so many changes. Big changes, big destruction, I just say communicating what the plans are, what the intentions are. But obviously that could change literally. You plan one thing and then a week later as we know, as you know in our business, what six, seven months, we were like right, we're all going home for I think maybe it might be a couple of weeks. No I think it might be three or four weeks so let's get everything out and we'll see you in a few weeks sort of thing.
Richard Hill:
And then we were sort of four months before we were back in and obviously that inherently a lot of change we implemented with your help. A lot of strategies around comms and supporting the team and obviously the management, etcetera.
Tony Brooks:
You did really well in that you pre-empted, if I remember correctly, you made arrangements for all the teams to start working remotely even before the lockdown didn't you Richard?
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Tony Brooks:
And I think you were one of those shrewd people who pre-empted what was going to happen and got your team in place and ready before the official lockdown hit.
Richard Hill:
Yeah we were probably about two weeks before the official date.
Richard Hill:
So what would you say to the guys that are listening in that do have a team? They have a team, maybe a smaller business with half a dozen, or 50, 60, 70, so we have a whole mix of e-comm stores and business owners that listen to the podcast, what would you say would be some ideas and takeaways that they can look at implementing? And to think about around motivating their own teams and creating what we talk about as a growth mindset or the growth mindset culture within the business?
Tony Brooks:
Yeah, okay so there's a number of factors around that I think. I'll start with something simple which I think a lot of leaders can neglect to be fair. And not maliciously, I think it's just a lot of leaders are very busy. But I think taking time out to recognize good performance, doing that on the spot. I've been in companies before I was coaching where it was said that the senior leaders were really only seeing you when there was a problem. So I think making sure that you take that time to do that.
Tony Brooks:
There was a piece of research, I know you and I have been talking about this recently actually, done by a psychologist called Marcial Losada, and he looked at the typical balance of positive to negative sort of feedback for people. And it was a roundabout one to one really, so you're going need to pick up on things that people don't do so well. But you need to pick up on things they do well. And he found that to get a more high performing team, you're looking at a ratio of about three to one, to even six to one.
Tony Brooks:
So as a leader I think it's finding much more time to notice when people have done things well, and ensure that other people alert you when other people have done good work on a project. So you can go over and actually congratulate them or thank them, and again make it more specific about what they've done and all those kinds of things. So, that's one part of it I think it's there.
Richard Hill:
It can be a tricky one, can't it, because absolutely it's so important and as a leader, manager, owner, you get busy but then you got to come back to that. Well, you're not going to go anywhere unless your people are happy, they're producing, they're working as a team.
Richard Hill:
So it's just making sure that yeah, the communication that you have it with them isn't there when you've got to talk about a problem or a situation you know a piece of work that maybe just needs a bit more support. Is also recognizing the good work that they're doing throughout which I think even more so, obviously a lot of people are still working from home and have been for a long, long time, it's so important for that positive feedback, I certainly agree.
Tony Brooks:
It is but the balance I would say as well, and this may seem like a strange one when we're talking about motivating, is to actually deal with underperformance as well because I think one of the things that can demotivate a group of people is when they see underperformance by certain individuals. It goes unchecked and not dealt with, and so that could be demotivating because I think people can feel they're putting the effort in but other people aren't and it's not getting handled.
Tony Brooks:
So I think dealing with that quite clearly as well. As you said as well, you touched on the idea of a growth mindset which comes from psychologist Carol Dweck. I think having a business that appreciates that mistakes are made as well, mistakes are part of growth. So I think you don't want people making repeated mistakes. I don't think you want a culture that's based around fear of making mistakes I think you want people to try things, make mistakes, but then also have some time to reflect on and review why it didn't work, why the mistake was made, so people get the learning from that. And that's all part of that growth mindset piece that you pick up on.
Tony Brooks:
But I think also having that shared culture built around what is the purpose of the organization so people really know why you're all getting up out of bed everyday doing what you do. The difference you make to clients, society, whatever your smear of influence is. But really understanding what it is you're about and then also those collective values which everybody knows and looking at the behaviour people so it's in line with that and you get that consistency. I think that could be great for motivating as well because we all like to be part of a really successful team, don't we? And a team that's aligned and moving in the same direction, and all those kind of things, so that's another part of it.
Tony Brooks:
Yeah I think those things. The one final thing I would mention as well, and again this is becoming so much more important now, is encouraging and finding time for innovation and creativity within your team. Funny enough, there was a book I was reading recently called Leadership is Language.
Richard Hill:
So many books Tony, I think we're going to have about five books already in the show notes.
Tony Brooks:
Yeah unfortunately. But I just saw this one really good idea to share actually. So a lot of the time when a leader gets a team together to discuss maybe a new product idea or solving a problem, they may start the meeting by saying this is my idea on what we could do, what do you guys think? Basically the concept in the book was that that encourages what's called more convergent thinking, i.e. the ideas tend to narrow around what the leader has said in the first place.
Tony Brooks:
But if you're having a meeting with your team to discuss, I don't know, creative ideas for a new service or product or what have you, ask them to submit their ideas before, independently, so they don't get that influence from the leader. And then you get more what's called divergent thinking. And that's something, I thought it was a great notion actually, but encouraging people to think more, the old classic phrase about more out of the box, but it is about them thinking more broadly rather than feeling that they need to say something that is in line with what the leader is already thinking about.
Richard Hill:
They're getting sort of, right, well the boss thinks this, what do you guys think? Oh well I better jump on that ship. I've seen a lot over the years, different people in different businesses I've been involved with where you get a very strong character, rightly or wrongly, and then it's quite easy for the associated team and the people that work in that team to sort of jump on that rather than have their own ideas.
Richard Hill:
And when they do have their own ideas it's then just imperative that the way that those ideas are discussed and not sort of pushed to one side because a stronger character that's got this stronger voice is dominating the environment and sort of the team or the project team.
Richard Hill:
The sort of dynamics of a team, and the way that you discuss a new idea, it's such a good one Tony.
Tony Brooks:
I thought it's just a great little snippet, but I think in broader terms, just encouraging innovation, and not stumping down ideas, and that whole thing where having a culture where no idea is a bad idea. Get people feeling much more confident bringing forward ideas and knowing that some won't work.
Richard Hill:
Making a safe space to come up with ideas and discuss. And honestly if there's larger team you might not use everything, but you're going to be heard, it's going to be discussed.
Richard Hill:
What would you say is one thing that stops people from achieving their goals, Tony?
Tony Brooks:
One thing that stops people from achieving their goals... If it's to be one thing I would say-
Richard Hill:
I'll give you one to start, and then maybe a second.
Tony Brooks:
Yeah all right so you got me one to start with. I would say people not fully buying into the importance of a goal and what it's about, and why it matters, because I think that, I know you're very familiar Richard with smart objectives which is... Smart's been used as an expression around goal setting and objectives for a long time. But I think one of the things that Smart misses is does the goal or the objective have something inspiring in it? Do people understand what it's about, and why it's going to make a change for them, make a change for the business.
Tony Brooks:
So I think I'd probably say that if it was to be one thing, I think that people not fully connecting with the goal or objective and seeing what it's all about and seeing it in too much of a mechanical way or a matter of fact rather than really fully connecting with why are they going to do it and what it's about.
Richard Hill:
And then if you could have one more then?
Tony Brooks:
I think as well actually, sometimes it's a probably similar thing I guess, is again, you're really good at this because I sit in on some of your sessions, and I know you do this really well Richard. But I think sometimes leaders can almost just deliver objectives to people without having people's input into what they think they should be doing.
Tony Brooks:
So I use the expression co-creating objectives because I think it's good to say to the person, what do you think in your role is important for you to be working on? I've got some ideas on maybe five or six objectives for you for the next six to 12 months, but what about you? What's good for you in terms of your development on your career path, and what do you think I may be missing in terms of what I'm setting you?
Tony Brooks:
So I think it is that co-creation between the leader and the person there working is helpful.
Richard Hill:
Together, discussing, agreeing, the input from both sides rather than just one. There's a real thread on this podcast where it's very much involving the team rather than barking orders and instructions at them which quite often is where a lot of the challenge I think in the team.
Richard Hill:
And when you're building a team I think a lot of our listeners are scaling businesses predominantly in the e-commerce space. When you start out typically it's one man in a bedroom, as a lot of businesses, we've got many of them that they're doing now multiple, multiple millions a month. But it starts out with that one person, that one person doing everything but then the reality is you then bring on your first maybe picker or packer to pack the orders, and then you bring on your marketing person, your warehouse, and so on.
Richard Hill:
There needs a leader or a business owner to lead and adapt, it can be challenging. A lot of the takeaways already where it's very much working together with people and trying to agree together on things. Obviously you're the owner, so you have probably a certain direction and bigger ideas, they're not bigger ideas, but ideas about future and scaling.
Richard Hill:
So again when you're discussing those I think with the team, they see the bigger picture and where they fit, and where they can go, and where they can grow. That's what I like to try to do is sort of say well, we're working on this particular project and we've always got a lot of projects here. Sort of individual projects that all our team are getting as you know, have personal development projects, physical projects, and then we get our team together and they get to see and we discuss with them our one year, three year, five year plan. And they can see then where these side projects, sub projects fit in to the strand of whether that's developing a department, developing a series of events, whether that's around our recruitment process and the sort of people we're looking for. Why are we looking for them? Well, if X, Y, and Z happen in the next six months, we're going to need a head of X.
Richard Hill:
I think you just get a lot more buy in, more enthusiasm in a business, because they're more likely to stay with that business I feel, because they see more of a future rather than just a, well I'm just doing this and I'm stuck here doing this thing. They can see what the potential progression is in the business as well.
Tony Brooks:
That's a good point today because I think it is about a leader giving a sense of direction. And then I think it's a leader being humble enough to know that there's a lot of good ideas in the teams, and allowing the team to influence that direction as well.
Tony Brooks:
But yeah, I think people in the organization want to see the leader's got an idea of where they're going. But they'd like to be able to influence that path as well, and it's that balance.
Richard Hill:
Yeah I think it's so important. You don't really want people coming into your business, I don't think, you really want people that are going to stay in a business. You want to invest in them, and they invest their time in your business. So I think you just have a better relationship with your people, with your team, if you invest time in them as a management team.
Richard Hill:
But I think that's usually the challenge is the time. It's sort of that excuse of do you know, I was supposed to have a meeting with such and such to go through such and such but we didn't. So I think it's just so important to schedule that time and create that habit of spending that time with the key people in your business.
Richard Hill:
I have sort of three key things in my business that I know I'm responsible for, and that's the number one. It's took some years to be there, I know we're on quite a growth trajectory in our businesses, and it's so key that the key people and the team are on board and are enjoying the journey with us as well.
Richard Hill:
So we touched on habits there. So what do you say how important habits are? What are some of the habits that leaders should be thinking of and be aware of to have a successful business and be successful as a leader?
Tony Brooks:
Yeah well routine's important, isn't it? Yourself and other people listening to this, I'll be honest, I think the last six months at times particularly the first couple months, I think I lost my way with a lot of the good things because I know you and I Richard have talked in the past about having a good way to start your day. Which for me can be a little bit of reading, some Tai Chi, some exercise, all those kind of things. I'm a regular swimmer, so I've not been doing that for six months. I'm planning on trying to get back into the pool this month now.
Tony Brooks:
So I think having a good way to start your day actually is fundamental. It sounds simple, but one of the piece of advice that I'd say to anyone listening to this is, we'll talk about planning in a broad sense in a second, but daily planning. And for me, having a plan done the night before for the following day has been something that's been such a good discipline for me because I start every day with an idea of what I'm looking to do.
Tony Brooks:
I think some leaders can end up just going straight to their email, see what's come in, but I think having a daily plan is a really important habit as well. I would say some of that routine stuff we're talking in the morning should be about physical and psychological because I think we all get the notion of the fact that if we then look after ourselves physically, diet and exercise, that things can go wayward. But same for your mind really. Again, if I'm honest one of the bad habits for me has been spending too much time looking at the news the last six months, and if you're constantly feeding your mind with...
Tony Brooks:
I mean yeah, I think you want to know to a degree what's going on, but I think we've all become a bit obsessive with the news. So be mindful of that daily routine and what you do. The good habits and the bad habits, and it's making sure those bad habits are kept in line and what have you.
Richard Hill:
There's a lot of things there, Tony. I think being mindful, looking back on the days like you say. Do you have a good day, how do you start the day? Generally I start the day cracking, and I think nine times out of 10, not always, but nine times out of 10 you start the day well, you end the day pretty well. And I think that's a great takeaways there, where planning tomorrow today before you go to bed or before you leave the office, depending on... And then starting the day well on the sort of health side which working from home has been a struggle. We're not saying we're up at 5:00 and doing the five things and everything, 20 minutes.
Richard Hill:
It is challenging isn't it? And that's where it's really pushing through, trying to stick to those habits, get back to those habits that maybe you had more so when you had that different routine. Definitely more challenging working from home, obviously a lot of people still are working from home whether that's one or two days a week or full time.
Richard Hill:
So honestly a lot of businesses that are listening in have still got people working from home. What sort of advice would you say to employees who have got team members that are still reluctant to come back to work, or a bit concerned about coming back to work, is there any advice you can give those guys?
Tony Brooks:
Yeah, it's a delicate one isn't it? And I've had this issue coming up with some of the clients I've worked with, both in the UK and Europe over this past, I guess more so obviously the last two or three months.
Tony Brooks:
The advice I've been giving is first of all that we have to accept that everyone's anxiety levels are different. And what we might perceive as not being so much of a problem now, some people may still be highly anxious about that. So I think you have to understand that everybody's anxiety levels are different as a starting point.
Tony Brooks:
I remember you posting on LinkedIn pictures of what you'd done with your offices before you started coming back, doing the health and safety procedures and making sure that you put things in place for people. So again that starts to alleviate some of those anxieties.
Tony Brooks:
One piece of advice I gave a company in the UK recently was if you get people who are resistant, be patient because what you find is that as other people start to going back into the office, and things start to settle, then their anxiety again starts to lessen about joining the rest of the team. I know that is slightly treating people differently but it's that understanding and then allowing people to start to see all their other team members are back in and it's fine.
Richard Hill:
Creating a staggered start for a team, and so many more, and obviously the teams are talking to each other, some are in, some are still working from home, talking about their experience, the sort of precautions and the safety measures that are actually in place not just on a document from HR. They are actually in place and they are being adhered to, and the distancing is manageable.
Tony Brooks:
I remember again, you did that well with a couple of people who are more in a vulnerable category, so you staggered things and all that kind of thing. And I guess to be honest then, ultimately though, if you do everything you can, it's reasonable, that you actually need them to be back in the office. But they're still resisting, then unfortunately it is probably best to start to get some HR advice on how you resolve that situation because there's got to be some understanding both sides here.
Tony Brooks:
If people are needed, maybe not five days a week anymore, but if people are needed to be in the office as part of what they do, and you've done everything that's acceptable and reasonable to make it okay for them, then maybe that's where you get some advice how to resolve that between the two parties, the company and the individual.
Richard Hill:
Totally, and I guess, well obviously, there's a huge wave of companies and different e-commerce stores that a huge proportion of their staff will not be going back, and may not be going back for the foreseeable future. A lot of office space in some instances ending leases, and terminating leases, and letting their team decide, or work from home more. We're definitely seeing more of that.
Richard Hill:
We are back in our offices, we're very fortunate, we've got a lot of space and a lot of space to grow. But obviously not everyone's in that position and don't want to come back and they agree with their teams. I've got a friend of mine who's got 800 staff, five floors in Capitol City in the UK, and he's got five floors, and I think last conversation with him their lease is up. They're growing as a business, doing very well, so they're still recruiting and they're in one of the sort of fortunate industries, but they're reworking things and they're going to renegotiate their lease and not renew. So I think they're going to go to three floors, so two thirds of their team are going to work from home.
Richard Hill:
Obviously working from home, what sort of advice would you give around sort of, I know we touched on it already but, sort of to keep the team productive, to keep the team collaborative, and working together? What sort of advice can you give to those that are still going to be doing the remote thing? Whether that is or a lot of the team.
Tony Brooks:
Yeah, I think again, a lot of the good I guess behaviours and whatever, are parts of being a business when you all sat in the office together. When we've gone to remote work and we start to lose sight of those, but they don't necessarily need to go. Probably more frequent communication, I know again you did that Richard, I think more regular communication with the team collectively. And then also with individuals and actually as well, not just in a formal sense, but probably just checking in with people more.
Tony Brooks:
One of my companies I was on a call with this morning from the UK, one of the directors recently just did a bit of a tour around people's houses, obviously from a distance out of sight, but just a nice check in to see how they're doing and what have you. So all of those kind of things, but not losing sight of things like the agreed culture of the business and how you behave, and making sure that you maybe go back and look at the values for a company because with remote work, if you're going to be doing long term remote work, it might be you need to look at what those values mean in a slightly different way. But not losing sight of it, but thinking about okay, so how does that value now manifest itself when we've got everybody working from home?
Tony Brooks:
We still want to keep that core value, it's an important thing, but maybe we need to think about the way we behave to keep in line with that. So doing all of those things you do normally. We're so fortunate aren't we now, with things like you know I'm working on Zoom today, it's so easy to pull your team together. I remember actually joining one of your Zoom meetings and what have you. But looking at the strategy, keeping people abreast of what is going on, can still carry on, just through a different...
Richard Hill:
Yeah so lots of takeaways there. You can bring a team closer than ever, which we've seen in a lot of clients. And I think as a company I feel that some of the different departments in our business, they're tighter than ever. They are better personal relationships than ever. I saw a certain team went out to lunch yesterday which they don't do that often because they're different groups but the guys that were in went out yesterday and had a nice lunch together.
Richard Hill:
You can just see the personal relationships flourishing more than ever which is so key I think in a business. Ultimately you're coming to work, or even if you're working from home still, those relationships, you're spending the majority of your working day or your life if you're somewhere for five years with other people. Your family friends outside of work absolutely, but you're spending whatever, 35, 45 hours a week depending on where you work with these people.
Richard Hill:
So I think we've definitely as a company become closer as a team, sort of individual relationships, there's a lot of different things you can do there.
Richard Hill:
So be a good leader, obviously, has sort of been the topic very much so of the podcast, but who would you say are some good real world examples of effective leaders that demonstrated strong leadership and growth and shown sort of good sort of role models that you think are good to look at and aspire to be like?
Tony Brooks:
I think some interesting characters over the years, just to draw out some simple pieces really, is Steve Jobs. Not universally liked, and some of the strange, but one of the things I took from him... I read a book called Insanely Simple about the Apple culture a few years ago, and you look at it with the Apple products, the way they're packaged and everything, he had a real focus on keeping things simple.
Tony Brooks:
I think the tendency for us to overcomplicate things, even more now with technology, I think a great leader can bring back simplicity. He's not the only one but just because I remember reading that book about him, and the culture that they developed at Apple which I'm guessing has been sort of prevalent since losing him. So I think simplicity, we can definitely overcomplicate things.
Tony Brooks:
Obviously if you look at say Bezos with Amazon, that's amazing what they've done. I was talking to somebody recently about this. I remember when Amazon started and it was just about buying books, wasn't it?
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Tony Brooks:
And you just think what they've done now, and so that operational side of it with Amazon. I mean they're not perfect, they worked so hard on the way that they operationally deliver a service to customers. Amazing, really, if we were to have been asked 10 years or so ago and say this is what will be happening with drones delivering parcels the same day outside your door or whatever it might be. So him, I think for me, I know these are some famous ones but Richard Branson has always been an influence for me in a couple of areas really.
Tony Brooks:
One is that fun's always been a really core value of his. He likes to do things that are funnily enjoyable, and I think bringing some fun to the working environment, and doing things that are fun is important. And he's always been, again he gets criticism, but I think he's always looked to service people well and do well by his people. Again, nobody's perfect.
Tony Brooks:
And a person that I'm going to throw in as a final one actually, because I was watching a documentary on him yesterday, is our hero Prince because I think it is that bold innovation as well. What was fascinating about this documentary was Prince was making music available on the internet in advance of Napster, Spotify, whatever. He was trying different models where he was giving away albums with tickets to concerts is how he got his album Musicology to number three in America. They had to change it after he did that because he got away with it.
Tony Brooks:
So he was a fascinating character in the music industry and was always a step ahead of what was going on. That takes courage because he's doing things that got an element of risk.
Tony Brooks:
And I'm going to flatter your ego Richard as well, because I think that we always talk about all these famous characters, but I think what you've done over the years, and especially over the last 12 months, you took some really bold decisions to move the team to a new city, a new office. Again recently through all of this that's going on, you're out there looking for three or four new people. You've shown, I think again, that sort of courage to make big decisions and know that, because I think we all know, it may not 100% work out, but it's having that courage and boldness to actually do some big things.
Tony Brooks:
And I know you've got great ambition. But again what you've always tempered it with is, I know you very well, we've become friends as well Richard, haven't we, but the amount you care about your people as well. I think if you can balance that, I think that's perfect, isn't it? I think if you've got a leader that's ambitious, got ideas where to go, but they don't do it without taking consideration and care of their people. That can happen. And on the flip side I think you can get some leaders who are great with their people and don't necessarily have that sort of direction and boldness in moving forward.
Tony Brooks:
So some famous characters, but since you're the person interviewing me today and I know you very well, pick up on that-
Richard Hill:
Well thank you for that Tony. I think it's the first podcast where I think I've nearly had a little tear in my eye.
Tony Brooks:
Sorry about that, I know you get emotional.
Richard Hill:
I see some great different angles there, simplicity, service, innovation, fun. A lot of those sort of go to inspirational leaders that a lot of us are aware of and obviously there's a lot of books and whatnot that those guys have written.
Richard Hill:
Which brings us on nicely I think to my final question Tony.
Tony Brooks:
Before we move on, sorry just before we move quickly though. I think when I started a business you almost think you need to find one person as your model and follow them. And some people do that, don't they? But actually I think what I've tried to touch on there is that you can find things to admire and model in people, unique things from different leaders. And actually, we were having a bit of fun there with the Prince song because you know I'm a big Prince fan, but it was a serious point because you can look outside of business. You can look at sports, you can look at music. There's a brilliant book called Legacy, all about All Blacks, and the culture there, and the way they led and changed the culture of the All Blacks rugby team. Which I'm not a rugby fan, but again it was a fascinating one.
Tony Brooks:
So I think for us all, look outside of what is our normal sort of business zone and find other people that can inspire us in different ways as well.
Richard Hill:
Fantastic piece to end there Tony. I think some amazing nuggets in the whole podcast this will go live on Monday so we will not be messing about with this one, get this straight out there.
Richard Hill:
Final question then, and we always like to end our podcast on a book recommendation. You have recommended about seven maybe eight already.
Tony Brooks:
Sorry.
Richard Hill:
You've got to pull back on one of those, but if you pick one book for the listeners to read and to spend some time helping them maybe with their leadership or obviously depending on where you want to go with it.
Tony Brooks:
Okay, I wasn't going to say this but I'm actually going to say it now. I'm actually going to recommend a book by Eckhart Tolle called New Earth, and he's also done Power of Now as well. But I was actually going to mention another book but I'm going to stay with that one because although it's not a business book, it was transformational for me probably seven years ago because it was a very simple thing, just quickly, that I didn't have to be controlled by my thoughts. That I was something above that was quite a revelation to me. Even though I've studied psychology all over the years, Ii think it was that liberating moment reading his book where you started to appreciate there's a level of consciousness above our own thoughts and we don't have to be gripped by thoughts and follow and all those kind of things.
Tony Brooks:
Gives us all as individuals immense power so I would say Power of Now and New Earth if people haven't come across them.
Richard Hill:
I've read twice, the Power of Now. Amazing pair of books. So the guys that are listening to the podcast, if they want to find out more about yourself, Tony, where's the best place to reach out and connect with you?
Tony Brooks:
Yeah I guess probably I've got the website, thetonybrooks.com, and theleadershiptrainingworkshop.com, but I'm very active on LinkedIn so people can find me on LinkedIn and connect. I did quite a lot of regular posts on there. Obviously if people connect with me on there just say I found you via Richard's podcast, it'd be nice to know. But those three places but probably LinkedIn's the best one really.
Richard Hill:
Thank you Tony, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for being on the podcast.
Tony Brooks:
Yeah, pleasure Richard. Thank you for inviting me along.
Richard Hill:
Nice to have...