Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors Jeff Dewing

In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Simon Alexander Ong. Simon is an international Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author of Energize and Award Winning Life Coach. Through his coaching Simon helps leaders, entrepreneurs, organisations and celebrities to transcend perceived limitations and experience extraordinary transformations through the power of insight, perspective and energy management.

Simon shares his career journey, candidly explaining that he began by running someone else’s race. He started a career in finance as that felt like what society expected him to do. Alongside his job he discovered he had a natural passion for helping people in their day-to-day lives; a passion which ultimately led him to becoming a professional coach. His success led to TV work and the publication of his book. Simon reflects that ‘when you pursue the path that lights you up, that brings you joy you begin to open opportunities that weren't there before.’

Simon argues that energy management, not time management, is the key to productivity, and that there are four dimensions of energy: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Mental energy is about your mindset, emotional energy is about how you relate to yourself and others, and spiritual energy is about meaning and purpose. Simon explains that if you are energy rich, even if you are time poor, you are going to get far more done in those hours and days than others might in months or years. Energy gives you the momentum to be truly productive.

Simon discusses the impact of surrounding yourself with positive energy and inspiration: ‘the fastest way to make meaningful progress in any area of your life is literally to design an environment around you that makes it impossible not to succeed’. He goes on to describe how you can achieve this and enhance your workflow.

Simon shared the story of the Energise cocktail, created at the Connaught Hotel in Mayfair to compliment his book. You can see the cocktail being mixed here. 
 
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In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Human Values Expert David Allison. David is focused on changing how we understand ourselves, the people around us, and those we hope to engage with in our work. As the founder of the Valuegraphics Project – the first global inventory of core human values – he has transformed human values into measurable data and created an entirely new type of human-centric insights.

To what extent does your business or organisation rely on profiling your customer based on demographics?  Are demographics an effective way of grouping people, or are factors such as age, race, gender etc broadly irrelevant when it comes to spending choices?   David Allison discusses the limitations of demographic targeting and the importance of understanding and leveraging values in business and personal life.

David shares his journey from working in an ad agency to founding the Valuegraphics Project, which profiles target audiences based on core human values. David emphasises that values are the driving force behind decision-making and that demographics are an ineffective way to understand people.

Data can be incredibly powerful when it comes to deciding upon values. Values drive our every day decision making – if your business is struggling with staff retention, for example, the data could help you understand why. It’s very likely that your organisation’s values are not closely aligned with those of the staff who are choosing to leave.

David also makes the case that an organisation can’t have values. “The conversation needs to be shifted away from pretending that this inanimate legal entity called a corporation can somehow have values. It can't”, David says. “It can have a set of behaviours that we all adhere to”.
 
David’s book ‘The Death of Demographics’ is available now.
 
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In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Matt Alder. Matt is a podcaster, author, speaker and consultant focusing on innovation and technology in HR and Talent Acquisition. He is the host of Recruiting Future, one of the world's most popular talent acquisition podcasts, and over the last 20 years has built a reputation as a global thought leader, working with employers to optimise their talent technology strategies.

Matt explains how he discovered his passion for recruitment, and how he strives to utilise new technologies to make the recruitment process better for everyone – both businesses and candidates.

Matt shares his wisdom and expertise on the subject of recruitment, talent acquisition and retention. How can businesses find and keep the best people in order to grow? Matt and Jeff discuss the bad practice in the recruitment industry, from scattergun approaches to repeatedly replacing a single candidate. Matt explains how have these practices have become prevalent and how is the industry changing.

Matt offers a new approach when it comes to approaching recruitment. Matt suggests you shouldn’t hire a candidate purely on the basis of their skills or past experience, but also their ability to learn. “The shelf life of some technical skills is very short. So, if you're employing someone for the long term, it's their ability to fit in the context of that business, but also their ability to learn new skills and then grow within that business.” Furthermore, Matt highlights the importance of hiring people whose values align with that of the company.

Matt gives examples of businesses who have taken revolutionary approaches to hiring. Timpsons, for example, hired people straight out of prison to give them an opportunity, whilst also filling positions in frontline retail which are notoriously hard to recruit for. It was a win-win, and studies have shown that people employed through an open-hiring program were at least as good as the people who went through a process filtering by skills or experience. 

Matt and Jeff also discuss retention – how business can better retain talent. One key area here is giving staff autonomy and flexibility when it comes to completing their tasks. Matt explains that many concepts surrounding our perception of work – such as the five day week – are old concepts that no longer apply. “We need a new operating system for work because we're working off something that may not be relevant for the world we now live in.” 
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In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Richard Medcalf, Founder and CEO of Xquadrant, which works to help elite leaders scale and create exponentially greater impact, enabling them to make a positive dent in the world without anxiety and frustration. Richard has advised business owners and C-level execs for over 25 years.

Richard is all about strategy in business; helping leaders to achieve personally, professionally and for a greater good, ultimately leaving a lasting positive legacy. “If we have the opportunities, the resources, the skills, the ambition, the energy, - let's go and make a difference. You only live life once” Richard says. Richard is a firm believer that we should make the most of any opportunities we are given – not everyone will receive equal opportunity so you should make the most of whatever may arise. He tells the story of how he cared for his disabled sister, and how she became an inspiration and the motivation for him to achieve professionally.

Richard discusses the three games of leadership: playing not to lose, playing to win, and playing to play. He highlights the need for leaders to be strategic and magnetic, inspiring their teams and creating a culture of collaboration. Medcalf also emphasises the importance of seeking feedback and continuously improving as a leader. He encourages leaders to do the opposite and challenge the status quo to drive positive change.

Jeff and Richard discuss inspiration; how you can inspire your team and how you can become inspired yourself. You need to understand what moves YOU in order to be able to move others. Without being truly inspired yourself, you won’t be able to inspire your team.

Richard’s book ‘Making TIME for Strategy’ is out now. You can also listen to Richard’s podcast ‘The Impact Multiplier CEO’.
 
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In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Executive Coach Brendan McGurgan. Brendan spent 16 years as Group MD of CDE where he steered the business through the financial crisis of 2008 and scaled the business at the same time. In 2020, co-founded Simple Scaling with the sole purpose of inspiring and enabling millions of ambitious leaders to scale with purpose.

Brendan reflects on the successes he enjoyed at CDE and how they inspired the next chapter in his career – helping SMEs to scale. Brendan admits ‘I had no CEO experience. You don't go to CEO scaling school. Scaling actually wasn't even a thing back then. It wasn't in our business lexicon. But we were just innately wired to grow.’

Brendan talks through the importance of understanding cashflow. ‘Sales is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is reality’. Brendan makes the case that without understanding cash, it’s impossible for a business to effectively scale. He also shares an example of a business he was consulting, that were sceptical of him when he tried to extend the overdraft. He quickly dug the company out of its overdraft and the financial progress meant they then took Brendan seriously when he attempted to address other areas, such as purpose and vision. 

Jeff and Brendan discuss the misconceptions around service cost and remuneration; for example when a business may charge £40/hour for a worker who is paid £15/hour. That worker can become disillusioned but taking them through the cost journey and explaining the overheads can enhance their understanding and reduce anxiety or frustration that may come from that. 
 You can buy Brendan’s book ‘Simple Scaling’ now, and listen to the ScaleX Insider Podcast. 
 
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In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to Morra Aarons-Mele, who is a speaker, entrepreneur, author and podcaster who prides herself on helping people to talk about hard things. Morra knows that taking your mental health seriously is a leadership strength. She hosts ‘The Anxious Achiever Podcast’ and founded the award-winning social impact agency Women Online and created its database of female influencers, the Mission List.

Morra is driven by the idea that people can be happier at work. She reflects on her career, from early dotcom businesses to US Politics, and the mental health struggles she faced along the way – even when mental health was not something that was openly discussed.  She now works to help people better understand themselves so they can work in a way that better suits their temperament, their personality, and their character.

Morra explains than managing expectations is a crucial part of managing your mental health. ‘We're driven by invisible expectations that stress us out and often make us really anxious. We don't understand other people's expectations of us. What is the goal here?!’. Clearly defined, realistic expectations are essential in ensuring positive mental health.  

Morra highlights the factors that motivate employees most; studies show that autonomy and agency are more important to most workers than a pay raise. Also, ensure you utilise your staff effectively by placing them doing what they love. People will naturally be more productive and thrive in an environment where they can excel. Morra is also inspired by the mantra of Cali Yost that work/life balance is a fiction, instead you need to find your work/life fit! Make work work for you, whatever that may look like. 
 
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