Top tips from Daniel Mc Carthy.

1. Listen to your people.

The three questions everyone needs to commit to memory, whenever they’re feeling that sort of inkling that there’s a change on the horizon. And maybe you want to be more proactive in that change in your life, you know, rather than feeling like you’re reacting to change in your life, I always say it’s like Indiana Jones, right? Remember, Raiders of the Lost Ark, there’s that big boulder chasing them down the pathway? Well, I think that’s a metaphor for change, right? Like, we’re Indiana Jones. Boulder is change. Right? And we’re wondering, but But all joking aside, you know, these three questions I find to be very instrumental and helpful and clarifying, for those that want to navigate change doesn’t matter how small or how significant

2. Communicate.

Communicate, communicate, communicate. It’s never enough. It’s never good enough. I find this is very common to founders, just because you had a thought doesn’t mean other people can hear your brain. And it’s sort of as like, the number of times they will have how many times have you said what you’ve just said to me to everybody or not? Well, you know, but I had this conversation with someone I’m like, well, that’s not communication, right. So communicate, and don’t, don’t ever think you’ve communicated enough, I guess is the truth.

3. Keep challenging your own assumptions.

I guess the last one for me is keep challenging your own assumptions. One of the biggest triggers for me is when people say, Oh, well, it worked in the past. This is what we’ve done for last 20 years. Right? We just don’t live in that world anymore. That’s, you know, the yes, you should listen to your gut. The gut is different, right? You should listen to your gut. Because gut is not just experiences, but a whole bunch of other things that come into it. But actually, the reality is that just because it worked for the last 20 years doesn’t mean it’s going to work for the next two years.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

business, eos, leadership team, founder, integrator, organization, ceo, implementer, visionary, entrepreneurs, businesses, meetings, big, team, rhythm, run, role, tools, focus, operating system

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:00

Welcome to the Better Business better life Show. I’m your podcast host, Debra Chantry-Taylor. In this podcast, I interview business owners, iOS implementers, and business experts who share with you their experiences, tips and tools to help you create not only a better business but also a better life. At the end of each show, you will have three tips or tools that our guest share that you can implement immediately into your life. If you want more information or want to get in contact, you can visit my website, Debra dot coach, that’s D B ra dot Coach, please enjoy the show. Today I am joined by a very good friend and colleague of mine, Daniel McCarty, who is currently the Executive General Manager at alpha search. And we have known each other through various roles that Dan has been involved in as well. So welcome to the show. Daniel. lovely to have you here.

Daniel Mc Carthy  00:48

Hi, Debra.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:50

Hi, morning, sir. Yeah, good to see you, too. So we met so many years ago, and you are an EOS convert, I guess. And we’re working together with EOS in the Alpha cert business. But I want to hit Learn a little bit about you. And then I want to understand why on earth would you want to work with entrepreneurs and visionaries in your day to day job. So let’s start by giving your sharing your story telling me where you came from how you got to where you are now.

Daniel Mc Carthy  01:17

Yeah, it all goes back to the start, doesn’t it? So I grew up in Malta, the island, the Mediterranean, a few 100,000 of us there. And growing up my dad, I’m the son of two teachers and my dad, who was an intrapreneur, from very early age, kind of got into teaching as a bit of a full time role but didn’t quite was always unsettled in teaching and eventually left teaching to set up a travel agency and then spent the next 20 something years building up a travel agency out of out of Malta, which I worked in, and that helped and so on. And it was sort of that started my love for travel. But it also gave me an insight into an entrepreneur’s life, you know, my dad had had mental health issues as we’ve later found out bipolar and the riding the wave of being an entrepreneur, there are the highs. And there are other lows. And, and doing that while battling mental health or an undiagnosed condition was was challenging. But I guess the big moment for me was, by then at con, I’ve gone off to university in the UK and was actually working in the US at the time, he had a big episode and basically could no longer work. And his business was not able to sustain itself without. Right,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  02:53

Typical entrepreneur.

Daniel Mc Carthy  02:55

Correct. In his late 50s, he had to effectively fire sell his business. Because the business was not sustainable without him would have been 1015 people in the business. And so you know, his life’s work. Didn’t you know, up in smoke almost because of an episode in his in his on his health in his late 50s. This is fine. He’s still alive today. And he’s, you know, doing well it just turned 80 last last month. But that kind of taught me a kind of a big lesson around contract, entrepreneurial businesses and sort of their longevity, and the legacy that founders leave behind. And my dad’s story is not a typical, very, very common. And so after about 20 years in corporate myself global corporate roles. But 10 years ago, I kind of came across my first intrapreneur who wanted to hand over the business to a to a to a CEO. And I kind of started down that journey of kind of working alongside a CEO. And I learned a few lessons along the way. And came across CEOs, again a few years ago, after a couple of tough, tough, tough gigs, as I call them. And I guess it gave me a structure that I could talk the same language with an intrapreneur on right I guess I could get alignment with an intrapreneur on something that wasn’t just me saying this is how we should do things. So I love the I love the structure it gave and I love this structure gave us me and the founder to be able to have conversations about the dismiss, right, and what the business needed. And also, I guess it most entrepreneurs, I find, kind of look for someone like me an MD or a general manager or CEO, and then just want to step away from the business. And, and then the business doesn’t succeed. And they’re like, oh, I need a new GE GM or x CEO or whatever, right? If the cycle continues, I think the first business I went into as the CEO, I was the third general manager type person to go in and, and then I went, and then I wasn’t, and then there was a fourth and, and you’re kind of like, well, if you’re, you know, that cycle is not as equally destructive to our business. So, I guess, unknowingly, that the the what happened to my father 20, something, whatever it was 20 plus years ago, kind of drives me a little bit to kind of see a better outcome for founders and entrepreneurs. That’s probably done in the psyche somewhere. But I also enjoy helping entrepreneurs kind of build teams, and building culture inside organizations. So that’s kind of my, so as an integrator, I find you know, my, my big role is to kind of reset the culture and organizations reset the vision and help really kind of set ourselves up for scale. Yeah, that’s

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:33

absolutely cool. I think you’re absolutely right. I mean, I know, our good friends, sue, sue, and Lisa Kagan, you know, they came in and spoke the other day, and they were talking about the fact that the they weren’t there. They’re a husband and wife team who were also working in a business together with about 70 staff. And when I first met them, they were always at each other’s throats. Because Steve was very much the visionary. You know, let’s jump off the cliff and build the plane as we’re, as we’re kind of dropping down. And hopefully, it’ll all work out. And Lisa was like, no, no, the plane has to be ready before we actually take off. And but in the past, it became personal, they would get kind of quite angry with each other because of the way he behaved. And when they learned about the structure of the visionary and the integrator in Eos, it actually gave him like a box to go, Ah, okay, that’s why Steve does what he does. That’s why Lisa does what she does. And suddenly it took the emotion out of it and put that sort of that. Yeah, the non personal Oh, it’s because you’re a visual, because you’re an integrator kind of thing into business. So I understand how that works. And I guess, you know, what you’re talking about is these visionaries who, yes, they want, they do want to kind of hand it over. But it’s not just a case of just going, here you go, it’s all yours, that it’s better if we actually have some structure around what their role is in that what your role is in that and making sure that you have that. And

Daniel Mc Carthy  07:49

I made that same mistake in the first kind of my first engagement with a founder, I pushed him out. Because I felt he wasn’t too fearing. With business. Yeah. And I was wrong, too. So Right. So it’s not, it’s kind of both, I think a lot of GMs kind of CEOs that walk into founder led businesses, kind of want to create their own sort of unknown, their own dynamic, whatever it is, and are almost too eager to push out the founder of Business. So that they can kind of set a new path and all this stuff. But actually, kind of the EOS process taught me that that’s probably the last thing you want to be doing. Actually, there’s the role of visionary is really important for sort of these businesses at this stage in their life until, you know, they get to a point where, where that’s no longer needed. And that’s quite a long way down the track, often with businesses and that sort of 50 100 people kind of scale.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  08:54

Yeah. And it’s not to say that, you know, that visionary role, I think can still exists beyond the founder. So a couple of businesses whether the visionary role, actually the buttons handed over when the original visionary is ready to kind of move on, but somebody’s got to take their place of that. And I suppose for those who are listening, who don’t really understand what a visionary is, we kind of describe it as the person who does have those big ideas. Some of them are super, super crazy, some of them will never work. And some of them actually will change the world. And the challenge is, is trying to actually filter through those ideas to work out what really is the good stuff, and what is the stuff that will just distract everybody. And your role as the integrator is really about why should you describe how you how do you work with a visionary to make sure that they are still delivering value to the business but are not getting the leadership team caught up with all the bright shiny objects stuff?

Daniel Mc Carthy  09:42

Yeah, I kind of saw it. I used to describe myself as kind of the, the interface between the leadership team and the founder. Right. And, and really, these days I kind of talk a lot more about sort of effective Li, run and manage the leadership team and the business. So that the founder can focus their time on the, on those ideas and, and those and those big relationships that we often have in businesses, you’ll have some pretty critical relationships, whether with partners are all with all sorts of anchor clients and so on. Right. And, you know, that, that, that creating that interface also creates certainty for a leadership team, which is often not as visionary. And actually, they’ve got day jobs to do. And you can’t keep kind of throwing a whole bunch of new ideas into into the machine and expect them to sort of still be doing their day job, right, which is kind of the environment you tend to tend to step into. And you step into a founder led business, because founders are just a million ideas, a minute type stuff, right? Which is awesome. That’s a that’s a great superpower, right? But, but that doesn’t translate well, when you’re trying to operate a business. And it almost often, you’ll hear about things like, we’re a bit schizophrenic, one minute, we’re chasing that and Max minute, we’re chasing that. And I’m not sure what my priorities really are, because I was working on this, but the founder is really interested in this. And so, so my role is really just to create that. I guess, for the leadership didn’t create structure and focus and priorities without stifling the entrepreneurial kind of spirit of the organization. And I will often just, and I’ve learned to sort of listen to the founder, because their gut is generally pretty attuned. And, and then, and sort of give it time to just percolate. Give those ideas time to percolate through, right. And at the same time, the leadership team find it more comforting that they’re not being asked to reprioritize things every week,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  12:09

I give the example I was working with quite a large kind of team, whether the CEO the visionary was it was an amazing person, very, very well known the media super good loads of brilliant ideas. But her leadership team, when we first came on board with Eos, we’re literally working 7080 hour plus, you know, 70 plus hours a week. And when I kind of questioned that was because they were always kind of trying to finish off projects that were thrown in with another one was thrown at them. And so they were just always chasing their tail, never really getting anything finished. And just just frenetic and just, you know, almost exhausted from the amount of work that they were doing, but nothing actually ever got finished. And so we put an integrator into that business. And that was an external integrator who came in to, to play that exact role you’ve just described, which is to take the business plan, create the laser, sharp focus, keep the team focused, help them to remove obstacles and barriers, keep the visionary a little bit at bay. So they’re not involved in the day to day stuff. And it just fundamentally changed the way the whole business ran. Because it wasn’t that the founder didn’t still continue to have great big ideas. And but there was just a little bit more, we’re not gonna say rigidity, what’s rigor, rigor around you know, picking what is the most important and making sure we focus on it? Yeah. So you came across the US? What I mean, I know that it appealed to you because it was not about getting rid of the entrepreneurial spirit, but actually some way of harnessing it. What do you think has been the game changer for you in terms of when you’ve put because you put us into a couple of businesses now, what do you think has been the real game changer? Is there a specific tool? Is there a certain thing that you kind of go? Yeah, that was it?

Daniel Mc Carthy  13:44

Well, the concept of a visionary integrator, is, is quite a game changer. I think, for most businesses, in fact, I would argue a lot of recruiters don’t even understand it. Right? Because they expect the CEO to be both. And they when they think about CEO or whatever title, you want to take the thanks for, you know, you look at any job description of a CEO, you’ve got to have the vision, you got to have the relationships you’ve got to have the operating capabilities are on a team, literally, you look at the visionary integrator definition, combine it together and turn it into a recruitment CEO position. Right. That’s, that’s the truth. And so and then, and then in other situations, you get kind of people say, oh, you know, you got the CEO, CEO, and then they’re too icy. Which again, it still implies a CEO is running the business and the two ICS doing other stuff, right. Or the chief of staff or there’s a whole bunch of sort of things. I think for me, getting that it’s that relationship and that definition of and splitting off the the accountabilities is really fundamentally a game changer in founder led businesses because it opens the eyes to a way of operating a business. You know, in many ways, it’s kind of blatantly obvious when you see Microsoft AND gates and Ballmer and, and, and jobs and cook an apple and you’ve seen it and even bigger organizations, right have those kinds of partnerships like that, that work that work really well. And so that’s a big game changer. The other one is, I don’t know that it’s unique to EOS. But it’s the it’s the simplicity of the rhythm of the operating system, write weekly, weekly level 10 meetings, as we call them, you know, that sort of that sort of rhythm that kind of helps you maintain focus and maintain? Messaging, I guess, again, the third thing would be, it just gives a level of consistent communication and kind of understanding beyond just the leadership team. It’s not often that you talk to an organization about the operating system of an organization fact most people don’t even understand what that means. And talk about an operating system of an organization. But it’s those rhythms, those meetings, you know, if you talk to people about agile or Scrum, there’s an operating system or running Scrum or organization run. Don’t call it operating system. There’s a different set of terminology. But but that’s effectively what we’re doing. How do you run a business on Atkins is on a, on an ongoing basis in a way that you’re not spending your time reinventing the wheel. But actually, you’ve just got these rhythms and a new slot in the issues that you have to deal with every week, and every month and so on. Right?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:03

Yeah. And it’s interesting, because the business operating system, yeah, you kind of have what is it? I mean, I think it was a people management system, or people operating system, it’s actually a way to make sure that your people are all on the same page. They know where they’re headed. They know how they fit into the actual business. And as you said that, that regularity of meetings and looking at your scorecard and deciding, you know, looking at your rocks every week, like every single week, you have this rhythm of you know, where are we at? Are we on target, are we going to achieve it. I also think that tying all that daily stuff back into a much bigger picture as well changes the way the organization tends to flick. Because you know, you can get bogged down in the kind of business as usual day to day stuff when you know, you’ve got a 10 year target big, hairy, audacious goal, you know, you’ve got your three year picture, there is an element of Okay. In order to get there, we can’t keep doing just what we’re doing right now. So how do we actually improve? How do we get better? Is that a firm fair thing to say?

Daniel Mc Carthy  17:59

Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. I mean, look, I’ve been to I’ve been in many organizations where there’s big, hairy, audacious goals, right? Because that’s how founders think, right? They aren’t. They may off, sometimes they haven’t often, sometimes they haven’t even articulated it, but they’re certainly they, they talk about it in other ways of kind of talking about where they want to be, and all this sort of stuff. But that’s too big for most employees for business to understand and get their head around. Right? That’s just a vision. Most people don’t really see beyond, frankly, 90 days that the next six months, maybe the next year, right, most people in an organization, they don’t see past that point. Because they’re, they’re in there in the midst of it. That’s the whole point of kind of people in a business. That the whole one year and three year just gives a direction, right? Just gives that that and, and that’s important for everyone to be marching towards the same hill.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  19:15

Okay, so you you’ve worked in sort of several different sized businesses. What do you think the fundamental differences are whether you’ve got a small team versus a slightly bigger team? What what? How do you use the tool in different different sized businesses? I suppose.

Daniel Mc Carthy  19:36

It’s not that different. To be honest, it’s not that different. The only thing you would do in a larger businesses cascaded down more rigorously, right, I guess. So that the whole idea of of and again, it’s I don’t know that this is unique to Eos, but yours just kind of gives you the discipline to do that. If you If you’re running a weekly process, and then monthly process and quarterly process with your leadership team, then if they’ve got big enough teams, they should be doing the same with their team. Right? Technically, if the company gets big enough, then that cascades another level two, probably not. But yeah. It’s it’s that discipline and in a way, your first year or whatever it is, you’re really teaching the leadership team and coach, and yet, that’s what you do as well. Right? You help us coach, you coach us into how do we run a level 10 So that it can be cascaded down to be run with it with their teams, sort of to a high enough quality, that it’s not wasting people’s time, because meetings, meetings, for the sakes of meetings is not, it’s not where we want to be at right. So I think you just have to be a little bit more rigorous about the cascading piece if it’s a bigger thing. But, you know, we ran in my last role, we ran us across multiple countries, virtually, and you know, all that was fine, with the tools are there today, right to do all of that. So it doesn’t need to be doesn’t need to be physical. That’s, that’s for sure. It’s always nice to be together. But it doesn’t need to be.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  21:25

It is interesting. So I’ve got I’ve got a number of companies now that are doing a lot of offshore hiring. And they might be spanning across a couple of different countries in terms of their representation as well. And, you know, yes, it’s definitely nice to be in person. But you can do this stuff now. Because it gives you the structure and the framework to actually do it. You can do it just by using technology. And, and it’s almost as good as being in the room with them. What’s your favorite iOS tool,

Daniel Mc Carthy  21:51

Or the level 10 meeting by a country mile? Because it like I asked my leadership team. Like, I introduced it in week one, I felt I joined no disrespect to anybody in my past, but I just I joined the business, to my first leadership team meeting, and I just sat there went, Oh my gosh, we’re wasting I looked around the room. And I think there were at the time, they were like eight people. And I looked around the room, like we’re wasting eight times, one and a half, two hours, whatever it was, I can’t remember hours of time. And we’re really not focused on the right things at all. kicked off kind of a DIY level 10 until we started the process with you, Debra, we started with kicked off, I kicked off from Daniels version of level 10. Very similar. And I never was like, wow, this is so much this is so much better. We’re actually focused, and we’re talking about things that matter. And, and you know, we’re not people aren’t going down and rabbit holes and rants about things that I’ve been ranting about for a long time. So I think just just the discipline of it is amazing. Amazing.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:10

Yeah. And it’s funny, isn’t it? Because I’m sure if I asked your team, they probably say they really enjoy it too. And I see this so often is that people hate meetings, I dread meetings, because they know they’re gonna sit and just kind of discuss and discuss done, then I’ll go meetings. That’s right. The other thing is, you know, if you think I think you’re absolutely right, you think about the time that way that people have bringing together their leadership team, and they’re sitting down and they’re sitting down for two hours. Sometimes it rambles on and goes for three hours in a week. And you kind of do the maths and you sit and you kind of go through we’ve got eight peoples and random variables, meaning it’s a bloody expensive meeting and we’re talking about you know, something ridiculous like whether or not we should buy sit stand desks for the team and it’s like, actually, half an hour in this meeting would have paid for sit stand desk for the entire organization. And yeah, I’ve seen that happen a lot, which is it’s just human nature, I think so giving that structure brings back the focus and helps them to actually

Daniel Mc Carthy  24:05

The simplest, I mean, I remember I think to and Lisa and I’ve you know when we first started talking I think I introduced them to just I said look, here’s the spreadsheet I use the time I use this but here’s the spreadsheet I used to run this level 10 meeting, this is what we do. That pretty much sold them on even just that alone or I can sell them on us. Yeah, they went down and you know, and the other one the other thing that always you always uses the one of the books that Gina Whitman has written is a winter Amok winter is this rocket fuel. It’s that was my, my aha moment is reading that book on the plane from Auckland to Wellington. And you can finish it

Debra Chantry-Taylor  24:50

And it’s a pretty easy, easy read right?

Daniel Mc Carthy  24:53

And just from reading it and going, aha, this is this is this is it. I get it like Only got it. So yeah,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  25:03

I tried that I think all of the all the spokes, I would say tractions probably a little bit more difficult. And that’s more of a how to manual. But a lot of the years books, they are nice, easy reads. I mean, I don’t know if you know, but when they launched into New Zealand, using my event center, I actually got given a couple of the books. And that’s how I first came across EOS solid written traction kind of, well, it’s a bit this is a bit heavier, can’t get into it a bit heavy. Because it’s a how to manual and I just thought maybe I was in the right headspace, I don’t know. But then I got hold of good grip, and get a grip is that is the business fable that’s told in kind of like Patrick Lencioni kind of stuff that they tell us a fable and interweave CEOs and traction into it. And once I read that book, and that was an easy read, that was just what I couldn’t put down once I read that suddenly traction made more sense. But all the additional books like rocket fuel and process and what had to be a great boss. They’re all actually pretty easy reading, aren’t they? Yeah, yeah. Cool. Okay, I’m gonna ask this is purely, because I think people need to understand this. The difference between working with an implementer and doing it on your own, what would you say? You found the difference to be because you’ve been doing this for a while, and it hasn’t always been with me. But

Daniel Mc Carthy  26:12

I Oh, look, for me. It’s just Yeah, I did it on my own as I executed kind of us on my own before, I just think you get into bad habits quickly. Right. Right. And and what I found when I operate EOS without an implementer is as an as a, as an integrator, get confused with the terminology. But as an integrator, it gets harder and harder to keep the founder in the in the Eos framework, right, right. Yeah. Harder and harder. And, and you’re gonna have good times, you’re gonna have bad times, right? Businesses don’t, you know, I think I was literally at a thing yesterday, someone who’s kind of been in the entrepreneur space for 30 years. And he said, One thing’s for sure. The Good times never lost and the bad times never lost. It’s it’s that kind of roller coaster. Right? And so an implementer helps, kind of, I guess, keep the discipline alive. Between the team into the integrator, the the, the visionary founder, you know, when you attend, when you attend a level 10 meeting with us occasionally, it just lifts us tonight. So it’s no different to training in a gym. You can go on your own three times a week, and that’s fine. But occasionally, you should really have a trainer. Yeah, right. Because your performance will kind of dip. I swim. And I love, you know, I love nothing better than then than a morning swim. But if I just swim on my own in a pool, we can work out my performance steps, right? And not that I’m a very good swimmer, I’m going okay, so, but the fact that, you know, this week, I was told that I’m dragging my feet a bit too much. Right? It’s something that goes, Okay, I need to I need to kick a little bit differently and harder and whatever. So just those things that you don’t, it’s the unknown unknowns, right? The stuff you’re not seeing. That’s that an implementer really helps.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:40

Plus, somebody made a point the other day, they said that, you know, no, no kid gets to do sport without having a coach. No professional team gets to do sport without having a coach. It’s just that you’re still getting coached, right? Yeah, yeah, on the top of the game, but you’re still getting

Daniel Mc Carthy  28:54

Your game and you’re still getting coached. You. So this idea that I think has become more common, but I remember used to have this discussion when I was in an advisory firm. You know, all our training budget was spent on the young Associates, and then the managers but once you got the partner, global, you know, that’s it. No more training required. You made it. Until one day kind of someone went actually that’s when your training should begin. Like you know, if you’re if you’re if you’re an athlete, and you make the national team, if you don’t stop training, once you make the national team you actually double down in your train even harder once you’re in the national team. Yes. I remember that conversation really clearly. Because it was just changed our mind but literally our whole budget was spent on anyone below partner. And actually, myself and the visionary and the founder needs just as much coaching and training Different ways, you know, you don’t need, you don’t need a certain level of coaching that that you would have if you’re 20 years old and starting out. But you still need it, you still need.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:11

I also had, I had somebody give me a really good example about something, I think what happens when you tend to kind of do it on your own is you will start to form a few bad habits, like you said, and so are you might decide that you’re, even if you’re in if you’re a self implementer, you might decide that you’ll do your version of it. So you’ll pick and choose and I’ll have a bit of this a bit of that. And I had this brilliant explanation of why you shouldn’t do that. And this guy said, Well, it’s kind of like, if you want to make a pavlova, you know, there are certain ingredients and certain amount of time yet we have to whisk in everything to make a pavlova. If you kind of decide to pick and choose on those ingredients and not put not put this ingredient in order an extra ingredient, you’ll still end up baking something. But it won’t be a pavlova. And so it’s like Yeah, yeah, stick to the recipe, and you’ll get what you you expect it to look, it’s,

Daniel Mc Carthy  30:54

It’s, it’s, we have, I’m a member of YPO Young Presidents Organization in New Zealand. And we it’s a global organization. And we have these again, rhythms and ways of doing things. And one of them is this monthly forum that we meet and talk through. And it’s it’s a really prescribed process, right that a bunch of CEOs come together, and you go through a certain process. And time and time again, because most CEOs are alpha type people, and they want to reinvent things and they don’t like being told what to do. We try and reinvent the forum process, and doesn’t. And yes, we have a forum, but it’s not quite the same. And every time we do what’s called a recharge of the forum, and we get an external facilitator in and they kind of put you back on the track and go, if you just did it like this, it would be much easier, much better. And everyone goes, Yeah, I know. But by the nature of of senior people, the reason we get to where we are in a way is that you kind of constantly improving on processes. Yes. But you’re right, you can’t improve on the Pavlova, right? Because it is what it is. So you can do other things, but you can’t improve on that. So I find that that’s the thing with an operating system that’s proven across 1000s of organizations, that Europe

Debra Chantry-Taylor  32:28

Hundreds of 1000s Now 200 people yeah,

Daniel Mc Carthy  32:32

My, you know, the the reality is, if you don’t, it’s the same with we have that same conversation internally about Scrum as a software development company. And my team talk about Scrum, but I will do Scrum. But we do these other things that I well that’s not stuck. Yeah, obviously you do Scrum if you do Scrum, but Right. And so you either do all of Scrum, or you don’t do Scrum, you might do Agile, and you might do other things, but you’re not doing Scrum in its in its pure form. So I think that’s quite important. Because then you’re not spending your energy trying to improve the process. You’re spending your energy trying to get the maximum out of the process.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  33:16

Yeah, I think that’s the other thing that some people get a little bit concerned about. So they kind of go oh, well, you know, EOS is just this really simple model. It’s six basic tools, you got to work on six basic areas of focus on with these tools. And, and it’s very cookie cutter. And so you know, it’s it’s really formulaic. But it’s actually not because it’s just like just like agile, just like Scrum. It’s a framework, but what you use or the way you operate within that framework, and how your business runs from that framework is very, very individualistic. It’s just a framework to keep you together on the same page, doing the right things. It’s not telling you how to run the business. It’s not saying this is the strategy you must follow this is the values you must have. It just says, Hey, you need to have a strategy, you need to have some values to have, you know, these bits and pieces to make it work. So is that is that fair? I mean, you’ve obviously isn’t the number of different businesses now that the framework is the same, but the what comes out of it can be quite different,

Daniel Mc Carthy  34:06

Correct? Correct. Look. I don’t I’m not sure I’ve ever counted this. I think I’ve now worked in nine, maybe 10 organizations in my career, right. From hugely large corporates, to small founder led businesses. And every one of them thinks they’re unique. Right? Oh, yeah. No, we’re different. We’re different. And it’s true, right? Procter and Gamble is different to Unilever. That’s true. Avis is different to hertz, right? That’s true. But what isn’t different is how you run a business. Right? You have customers, you have a product or service and they pay you before and you deliver. And with that money hire people when they do things and, you know, that’s so the, you know, it’s not like I don’t know, accounting standards are not the same across the world, right? You have p&l And you have balance sheets, and it’s not like, oh, we’ll do our balance sheet a bit different. I think I think prison starts calling when we’ll do our p&l a bit different. There are certain things you should do consistently. And it doesn’t matter how unique your business is, the way you run a business should be consistent. Right. And, and I think that’s the now some organizations, the way they run the business is their own competitive advantage. And that’s fine. But, but those are kind of those are unique in their own way, right, that the majority of businesses that sit in the curve in the middle, are unique in what they do. But the How can get in the way? Yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:09

Yeah. Completely agree. So this gives you a framework to kind of work through that. I don’t know. We, you and I could always talk for hours, just in terms of top three tips. What are the top three tips you’d give to somebody listening in today?

Daniel Mc Carthy  36:22

First one, I’d say listen to your people. Even when they you don’t like what they’re saying. Yeah. And genuinely trying to understand why they’re telling you what they’re telling you. Not necessarily the what they’re telling you. And why behind it. the why behind it. Most of us respond to the what and hackles rise if it’s not good news, or you know, whatever. But trying to understand the why they’re saying what they’re saying, is it you know, is that out of loyalty, is it out of fear, whatever it is, uncertainty, whatever it is, and then and then nail that bit. In that same vein, I guess the second tip for me is Communicate, communicate, communicate. It’s never enough. It’s never good enough. I find this is very common to founders, just because you had a thought doesn’t mean other people can hear your brain. And it’s sort of as like, the number of times they will have how many times have you said what you’ve just said to me to everybody or not? Well, you know, but I had this conversation with someone I’m like, well, that’s not communication, right. So communicate, and don’t, don’t ever think you’ve communicated enough, I guess is the truth. And then, I guess the last one for me is keep challenging your own assumptions. One of the biggest triggers for me is when people say, Oh, well, it worked in the past. This is what we’ve done for last 20 years. Right? We just don’t live in that world anymore. That’s, you know, the yes, you should listen to your gut. The gut is different, right? You should listen to your gut. Because gut is not just experiences, but a whole bunch of other things that come into it. But actually, the reality is that just because it worked for the last 20 years doesn’t mean it’s going to work for the next two years. Like literally, the world is moving and changing so fast. And technology and people expectations and so on that you need to get different, I guess, different inputs into and take different risks going forward. And if you find yourself relying too much on your historic experience, then you not learn. I guess you’re not learning enough, right?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:55

Yeah, yeah. And as you said, it’s such such such fast, fast changing world. It’s important it is it is looking forward as well as looking backwards. That’s awesome. Hey, look, Daniel, if anybody wants to get in contact with you to chat about EOS or even Alpha Summit? Well, you didn’t tell me about Alpha cert Alpha search, I didn’t know tell us what else was.

Daniel Mc Carthy  39:15

Opposite, which is my most recent Love is a data management platform in investment management world. So we’re effectively a data middleware solution for investment managers that which means we can help investment management firms plug data in and out more consistently. We were really replacing Excel spreadsheets spiderwebs of data that float around organizations and ultimately, it’s really more about better investment returns for our customers, right if you if you can, if you can have real control roll over your data, really understanding of what your single source of truth is. Errors and yeah, you remove room for as you remove room for security issues, you remove room for all sorts of issues. And so it’s, it’s, we’re driven by wanting better investment returns for our customers. We do that by delivering powerful software that simplifies complexity for our customers.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:27

Okay. And so your ideal customer for that is

Daniel Mc Carthy  40:32

Anyone, any organization that manages money assets, investment managers, superannuation fund managers, wealth managers, they have that they have a lot of investment management data. And most of the time, we can simplify and secure and automate a lot of that for them.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:56

Okay, brilliant. So if anyone wants to get in contact with you either for the opposite side of things, or to talk about Eos, what’s the best way they can get in contact with you, Daniel?

Daniel Mc Carthy  41:04

Oh, look, daniel.mccarthy@alpha.com my or Oh, 212412952 here in New Zealand is my mobile or just look me up on LinkedIn. I’m sure. I’m sure we can. We can connect.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  41:19

Yeah, that’s fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. I look forward to seeing it the next day again, right. Yeah. Thanks, Daniel. Speak soon. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to the podcast show better business better life. My name is Debra Chantry-Taylor. I’m an EOS implementer family business advisor, business and leadership coach podcaster and speaker. However, I’m also a business owner with several current business interests. I’m fortunate to have lived the high life with all the lifestyle, the toys, you name it, and then I’ve lost it all. Not only once, but twice in two spectacular train wrecks. I know what it’s like to experience the highs and lows. I came across EOS when they launched into New Zealand using my entrepreneurs playground and Event Center in Parnell Auckland. I love the simplicity of the tools and their philosophies fitted my personal brand statement perfectly. The brilliance is in the simplicity. I’ve always been passionate about seeing entrepreneurs live the life they love. And now I help them live that EOS life doing what they love with people they love making a huge difference in the world being compensated appropriately and with time to pursue other passions. If you want more information or want to get in contact about using ELS and your business, you can visit my website at Deb Deborah dot coach that’s dub dub dub Deborah D B ra dot coach. Thanks for listening

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Debra Chantry-Taylor 

Professional  EOS Implementer | Entrepreneurial Leadership & Business Coach | Business Owner

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