Can culture, ever meet expectations?

In this first ever Leadership Bites conversation between Guy Bloom and Jamie MacPherson, two long time colleagues finally press record and get into what sits underneath the glossy talk of culture. 

They explore a blunt question: can the promise of a great culture ever meet expectations, or does it always fall short once real people, real pressure, and real leaders show up. 

They unpack the gap between the marketing story and the lived experience, the hidden corridor culture that never makes the posters, and the reality that most organisations do not have one culture at all but many, shaped by local leaders and daily interactions. 

Jamie frames culture as the aggregation of every interaction and offers three simple tests that cut through the noise: do interactions leave people clearer, more interested, and learning. 

Guy adds a hard edge to that with survival versus contribution, where people are either performing to stay safe or showing up with enough trust to offer half formed ideas, challenge, and honesty. 

They also tackle the uncomfortable truth of culture programmes: if you raise awareness and set a standard, you create a new lens people will judge the organisation by. 

If leadership cannot live it, the disappointment gets louder. 

Great culture is not Nirvana. It is averages, peaks and troughs, small behaviours done consistently, and the craft of leadership at senior level, where the work is granular, deliberate, and owned from the top. 

A candid, funny, reality based conversation about what culture really is, what it is for, and why the promise only becomes real when leaders have the courage to be specific, accountable, and human. 

00:00 Introduction to Leadership Bites
03:22 Exploring Culture and Performance
06:25 The Promise of a Great Culture
09:10 Defining Culture and Its Purpose
12:27 Interactions Shape Culture
15:15 Survival vs. Contribution in Culture
18:26 Navigating Fear and Anxiety in the Workplace
21:05 Setting Realistic Expectations for Culture
24:36 The Pursuit of Realistic Standards
25:54 Understanding Happiness in High-Performance Cultures
29:46 The Difference Between Enjoyment and Satisfaction
31:06 Reevaluating Expectations in Organizational Culture
33:29 The Importance of Listening in Leadership
36:39 Managing Expectations and Reality in Culture Change
40:02 Crafting a Culture of Continuous Improvement
43:03 Defining Specific Behavioral Expectations
48:51 Embedding Change for Sustainable Culture

To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below.

The link to everything CLICK HERE
UK: 07827 953814
Email: guybloom@livingbrave.com
Web: www.livingbrave.com

Transcript

Guy Bloom (00:19)
You see, when you got a countdown timer, that's when you know you're in the big time. we clearly are. So listen, ⁓ Jamie, this is our first podcast after years of knowing each other and giggling like a couple of blinking idiots ⁓ before we came on. Then I pressed the go button because I thought at some point we just got to get going or we'll have the entire podcast done and then have to do it again.

Jamie (00:48)
This is a summit of 15 years of working friendship.

Guy Bloom (00:55)
There we go. So, we haven't even got a title for the overview, but I think we're just gonna have to call it Jamie and Guy Talk About Stuff. That'll be the link of it. But listen, everybody will know at this point who I am, ⁓ but it is our first kind of podcast together, so it'd be great, just this'll be the only time that we'll do it, which is a little introduction from you, but guess what? The overall podcast umbrella here is...

Leadership Bites, it's about leadership, it's about teams, it's about culture. I'm in that space as somebody that delivers one-to-one coaching, team effectiveness and leadership development. Et tu, Bruteye? You know, kind of thing. So over to you with just a kind of, in a nutshell, if somebody was at a barbecue with you and they said, ooh, Jamie, what do you do?

Jamie (01:44)
Well, yeah, if you're Guy, then I must be Jamie. And ⁓ my background, 25 years working in the people, team, culture, development space, came into this world having done a master's in sports psychology, which sounds a bit securitas, but actually it's dealing with the psychology of individuals and teams and how they work together in a sporting context versus a business context. Where they join up is the fact that it's all about performance. It's all about delivering something.

and a mixture of kind of working experiences, 22 years in the UK and Europe alongside yourself at various points and then three years working and delivering this kind of work in the US which was interesting not just because it's a different kind of geographic culture but also the working culture over there is different from over in Europe and yeah I'm fascinated with culture and how it translates into ⁓

behaviors, that translates into interactions, how that translates into good leadership or bad and therefore then performance and bottom line results. I think that's the thing. And I think if you can crack it, i.e. culture, it's like having the keys to the vault.

Guy Bloom (03:01)
I'm not even sure I've ever said what I do either ⁓ on these podcasts other than intimating that I'm in this field. But you know, that's a very similar feeling for me. I think I'll do a slightly more smaller abridged version just because, you know, after 150 episodes, by God, if you've listened to all of those, you don't need a bigger version of it. But I think I am, bingo, I am by definition, I think I'm fascinated.

Jamie (03:22)
That is wrong.

Guy Bloom (03:28)
by and now at 56 I think I've come to the point where I think it's a lot easier than we make it in terms of people and what I mean by that is I think it's like when I talk about martial arts the complexity is in the simplicity. I have come to the point of believing that actually anything you want to do generally speaking when it comes to people as a process it's pretty simple.

But that's the complexity of it. It is per se simple, but then you've got characteristics and feelings and emotions and context and all these things that turn into a layered cake. And I think I am a fascinated by that, but also I think my aim is to bring simplicity to complexity. And I think if we can do that as individuals and teams as an organ.

Organizations and I let's not call a spade a terrain inverter That's my that's my kind of because I often goes like that Well, actually that might be it that'd be a great t-shirt wouldn't that you know, let's not call a spade a terrain inverter but I think a lot of that happens where Organizations or people get overqualified they make it over complex and they're often trying to solve something quite simple with something that

Jamie (04:38)
That's the slogan for the first episode, I think.

yet.

Guy Bloom (04:56)
is quite complex and that makes it then complex. I think that's where I, my frame of reference and my mindset sort of.

Jamie (05:05)
And for me, think when people get better at something and when they get better, better at something, so they start to get to a degree of expertise, to your point, I think they start to realise or know that through a raft of different things that they could pay attention to, they start to realise out of those 20 things, actually, if you get those...

If you focus on those three things, that's the three things which will really make the difference rather than getting overly confused or flustered or concerned by 16 or 17 other things which could feel really important but actually aren't quite as influential as they might initially appear.

Guy Bloom (05:36)
Yeah.

Well, even that can be its own podcast. But we did pick a title, brilliantly or foolishly. I don't know, right? Which is, the promise of a great culture ever meet expectations? So, ⁓ and I wouldn't necessarily know how good we're going to be at staying on track because I think all of these conversations have got rabbit holes that we can go down. And do know what? If we end up going down one and that's its own good conversation.

Jamie (05:59)
Yeah. Stay on target, Red Leader.

Guy Bloom (06:25)
podcast may shift into those conversations, but maybe if we do more of these, we'll just talk more, cover more without the constraint of, you know, we're not on an assessment center. But if I look at that and say the promise of a great culture, can it ever meet expectations? There's a couple of things going on for me there that kind of set a tone. And that's if I think about the journey that somebody has with an organization, which is the

from the marketing, from the way that you are recruited in, through to the different iterations that organizations go through as different senior people come in, different managers come in, different acquisitions and all these kind of things. There's a life cycle. And you could be 18 going into your first kind of job, or you could be in your 50s and you've ridden this horse before. And this time what we're gonna do is...

So I think there is something that as you go through your career, there's a sense of just, is what I'm being told is the new paradigm? Is what I'm being asked to manage to behave to reward, performance manage? How real is this? Is it an, how real is it an aspiration? Is it a charade? Is it really real and it's tangible and...

I guess that's the point of the conversation.

Jamie (07:59)
Yeah, and I mean, I think to the idea of promising of a, you know, the promise of a great culture, one of the things I kind of thought about when you posed it was in our world, we often end up interacting with the people functions and the leaders of those people functions. And it's when we have those interactions and when we're in, when we're having those conversations, ultimately they are at least

in having those conversations with people like us, learning and development professionals, investing materially and I guess with intent around the idea that they believe in that promise, whether they achieve it or not is the quest, is the curiosity, but the sense of the promise of a great culture is what they're working towards and by engaging with external experts, the whole idea is that's what we're trying to do.

whether we nail it or not, that's another story. in that sense of, yeah, but just by doing that, you're believing in the possibility of that promise.

Guy Bloom (09:10)
Well, that's an interesting couple of things, you know, the possibility of the thing. And I guess, what is its purpose? If I was just going to get that back to basics and go, when you say culture, and if we were just going to say the way things are around here, let's just, you know, you could say that at one end, you could say, well, there's the marketing version of the culture, and there's the lived experience of the culture. And then there's the what we actually talk about. ⁓

Jamie (09:31)
Yeah, yeah.

Guy Bloom (09:39)
element of it, which is the covert element. And that's even in great cultures, you know, that's what's publicised, that's what it feels like and that's what we talk about. Now that could match in a very positive way or there could be a dissonance in that depending on the reality of. And then depending on organisations there's a distribution curve of, well if you're in Sandra's team, it's bloody fantastic, if you're in Bob's team, because he's a flipping lunatic,

Jamie (09:39)
well in the corridors, in the dark, in ballrooms. Yeah!

Guy Bloom (10:07)
It's a different experience. again, there's the, what's the reality of a culture that is unified across an entire entity? Well, of course, and then there's, you know, subcultures and all that. But if I was going to say, what's the purpose of a culture for you, which is the thing I would often ask of a client, I guess I'm interested as to what it is they want it for.

Jamie (10:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

Guy Bloom (10:36)
what it is they want it to do.

Jamie (10:39)
And I'm a bit, I would strip bare in some respects my response to that, which I'm hoping would go to the heart of things, but also might miss quite a lot of the modern day, you know, what's the marketing of it? What's the look and feel of it kind of thing? But I would define culture as...

The aggregation, because that's used a lot as a word, the aggregation of each interaction that you have with anybody in your team or in the organisation. By that, what that could mean is in a team of 10, you could have 10 times 10 possible interactions, so 100 interactions in year before somebody goes, you don't have an interaction with yourself where you do, because that's how your interaction with yourself will inform how well you turn up to be.

having a conversation with somebody else. The purpose of those interactions, I mean, I'm quite clear. I mean, I have a clear-ish view of what that should do, whether it does or not is a different thing. But through that interaction, am I clearer about what I'm trying to do, what the team's trying to do, what the organisation might be trying to do? Am I, through that interaction, more in, the word that people use is engaged, but I quite like interest. It's just a straightforward.

Am I more interested in what we're trying to do here? Am I interested in what I'm expected to do? If I'm more interested, then I'm going to be like, right, I'm going to stay for longer. I'm going to be, you your historic nails in a piece of wood kind of thing. I'm going to be more like up for it. And then the third piece for me is, have I learnt something? So if I'm clearer, if I'm more interested, or if I'm learning something.

then I would say that those are the three things which if you're getting them better rather than worse, then, and again, this speaks to my sports psychology of it, then the purpose becomes performance is better. And generally, if I'm more interested and I'm learning and I'm clearer, I'll enjoy my job more. Now, that's the magic golden jabar, you know, da-da-da sort of stuff, but...

I suppose distilling it down, I would say culture is continually being morphed by each interaction you might have. So, you know, is it going in a good way? Because I keep having good interaction during the day, or is it actually it's diminished because, you know, I have a series of bad ones and everything then is it's alive and amorphous because you can have a good week and then you could have a bad week and

I remember when we first worked together three months in the whole announcement around being taken over. And it was all good until that and then suddenly like, oh, that's kind of not quite what I'd anticipated. And then therefore, because the interaction was like, well, I hadn't expected that all this sort of stuff. And so therefore, you're feeling for it. And the feeling from other people can ebb and flow.

Guy Bloom (13:45)
Yeah.

I love that. And you know, our vocabulary is slightly different because we're different people, I think there's, you know, we definitely are. But I think that's, when I think about culture, I have a couple of things. For me, it's a cumulative story. And it could be, know, and listen, if I step into your culture as a guest or as a customer, it may only be

Jamie (13:58)
You

Yeah, definitely.

Guy Bloom (14:22)
the cumulative experience might be about five minutes that I actually got to meet one of your team. But also, of course, if I'm in it, there is something about, it's like being in a relationship, isn't it? It's, you know, actually, this may have been a tough week between the two of us, but ultimately, I still love you. ⁓ And I think that's almost...

Jamie (14:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not gonna have my

notice in, but it's not been quite as good a week as I was.

Guy Bloom (14:45)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And if it's like this for the next two years, Houston, we may have a problem. Exactly. So I think it's a cumulative thing in essence. I think it's also about, I have this idea around survival versus contribution. You know, do I feel as if I'm surviving and it's defensive and it's always, you know, fight or flight, or do I actually feel as if there's an element of me feeling contributed?

Jamie (14:49)
We could be on fragile ground.

Yeah.

Guy Bloom (15:15)
to and I feel I want to contribute to. Now there's of course always the aspirational, you know, you know, sort of Xanadu space of in a perfect world, but that's like being married for 20 years and going, well, yeah, yeah, we, know, guess what? You've had ebbs and flows. Well, and that's okay because actually you will see relationships where you look at it and you go, yeah, one of them's in survival.

Or they actually, they are contributing to each other. There are moments where you blow up and you have a, you know, but in truth, is it more taking from you or is it more adding to you? And I think for me, that's a sense of when I look at a culture, we can do all the competencies, all the frameworks, but when I walk in, I am just looking for, these people, are they trying to survive or actually?

Jamie (15:43)
Yeah.

Guy Bloom (16:11)
Does it feel as if they want to contribute and they feel as if they're being contributed to cumulatively? Not every second, not every moment, but in the round.

Jamie (16:22)
And so survival for you is like, at best, with the best intent that I might have as an individual because of how it feels around here or because of the general culture and the interactions is I'm not clear enough or I'm not learning enough. So at best I can just do the minimum necessary rather than being exceptional.

Guy Bloom (16:45)
Yeah. Well, yeah, it's, well, yes and no. think there's an element of that, but I think it's just a matter of do, if I think about reacting to fear and anxiety and stress and, you know, this word resilience, which everybody uses all the time, which is...

Jamie (17:03)
So I can

perform but I can't do it for too long.

Guy Bloom (17:06)
Yeah, but also if I do it from a survival perspective, I think it's performative, which is this idea of when I'm in those meetings, when I'm with this person, it's not that I can be, and one may say, well, you never want to be your true self, you know, if you be anybody, know, be yourself, unless you can be Batman, you know, which is a kind of funny t-shirt that I saw the other day. But in truth, what it means is there for me.

It's not about being your true self as in you can just sit there in your pants and say whatever you're flipping well like. But in truth, do I feel as if I can offer, be curious, offer challenge, be wrong? I mean, I still need to be competent, but say half an idea and not be shamed or embarrassed. And so it feels as if I'm not in a position where I'm constantly, there are moments where I better be on my uppers in that meeting, but I'm...

Jamie (18:00)
Yeah.

Guy Bloom (18:01)
But I think this fight, flight, there's this fight, flight, fright and feign, right? These four things, is, you know, I'm pulling away from having conversations with people because I'm in flight. I've gone aggressive because I'm fighting. I'm feigning ⁓ interest, you know, because actually, you know, that's the way to survive. Or what I'm really doing is I'm rolling over and playing possum and I'm just going wherever the wind goes. And if you're doing any of those four things,

Jamie (18:26)
Yay.

Guy Bloom (18:29)
You know, they may happen every now and then. You know, now's not the time, Kato, because Bob's lost his shizzle. Just shut up for a minute. I'm not talking about that. That's like me going home and my other half having a bit of a funny day. And I just maybe just make her a cup of tea and shut up or vice versa to me. So I think what it means is that you're not fearing. You're not in a sense of anxiety. And that means that you can perform because you can bring the...

I don't want to say the best version of yourself, but you can just in essence offer and think and act and contribute and talk and we don't need to turn it into some Formula One racing team of constant high performance. But actually I can just do a darn good job by turning up and being myself.

Jamie (19:18)
Yeah, at one level, particularly with the fear, flight, know, flight or fight kind of piece, where it goes in my head is, you know, various meetings. If in essence, in the best situations, a meeting is an opportunity for many minds to work on a problem and provide data and options so that somebody can make a more informed and better decision, is in that situation.

people won't speak up. So therefore, actually at a very unemotional level, there's a narrower data pool to make a decision. So people won't say about, actually, but we've had a bit of a problem on this, or we've had a bit of a problem on that. And so therefore people would make a decision which could be quite important and have quite a big impact on things without all the data, without the appropriate data. And so therefore that's where you decide to go left when actually what you need to do is go right.

So yeah, yeah. Which then means it's like, again, back to the promise of a great culture. I mean, I suppose the leadership piece is how you're able to set the tone to allow people to not just survive, but be better.

Guy Bloom (20:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

And one

of the things for me is not setting, before we get into a few other things, one of the key things for me is not setting a standard that means everybody's constantly on edge because good apparently isn't good enough ever. And I think that would be like saying, I'm in the, know, if you wanted to be in the perfect relationship, we'll never argue. Well, there might be some sublime moment where two people never do, but when you're put a bunch, right.

Jamie (21:01)
The nod without words of understanding

kind of moment. Yeah.

Guy Bloom (21:05)
Yeah, but if you're to put a bunch of human beings together,

there's tensions and people rub each other up and all that kind of stuff. So actually, if you were going to say to me, okay, Guy, if you think if a culture is the way we experience each other and it's about getting, it's not about, it's about the ability to feel contributed to and wanting to contribute, if we just kept it that simple, does that mean that you got to like everybody? Does that mean it's always got to be, there's no tensions, there's no anxieties, there's no, well, actually,

First of all, before you say what you want it in essence to do, which is usually, you know, I want a performance output where we do good work and people enjoy the process more than not. You know, at its probably its most simplest. I'm not trying to create some novanic state. I just want most of my people to want to be here. They want to contribute and cumulatively at the end of the year they go, that was a good year. There's a few mad moments, but I like working here. Just that simple.

Jamie (21:47)
Yeah. Yeah.

Well,

mean, yeah, because then what we are and what somebody has to play with, which they do, think implicitly is what's the average score? How big are the peaks and troughs? Are the troughs so low that it's like, I don't care that the average score is actually pretty good, but actually because the peak is, the trough is so bad that I can't do another three troughs in a 12 month period sort of thing.

even though the peaks are amazing because we were, you know, dancing on terraces, having done an amazing, you know, third quarter or whatever it might be. And also that it's, again, with culture and it's not very sexy, it's like a, it's a game of inches, not a game of perfect or, you know, it's, it's a, I'm trying to get better at chess right now.

And it's an interesting journey. But the thing that I realise is it's subtle things which might make a small difference, which if you add them together will make a bigger difference, but you need to do the small things. And I think that's the same with culture. It's like, yeah, not get overly hung up on a bad day, but keep thinking what else can people do? How else can we kind of improve things? But yeah, it's not gonna be, it isn't gonna be Nirvana.

Guy Bloom (23:30)
No, I think when we say, you know, that title, we said, kind of promise of a great culture ever meet expectations. Well, it can do if it's set at a level that is in itself human and accessible to people. somebody wants a read it or saw it in a film or something like that where this individual went, you know, I want to be happy. And somebody went, well, how do know you're not already happy? You know, maybe actually you're maybe happy is a big one.

would content be okay? You know, as in a constant state of happiness?

Jamie (24:03)
Yeah, well

we're wired to keep going better, aren't we?

Guy Bloom (24:07)
Yeah,

but a constant state of happiness, you what does that mean? You're constantly laughing and constantly, you know, with the endorphins flowing and it all feels great all the time. Well, flippin' eckers. You know, even films that I love watching, there are moments where I go, come on, move it, move it. You know, I haven't enjoyed every second of the thing or a book I've loved. I haven't enjoyed every word. So if you set a standard that's unachievable, good, or even great can be marred.

by a kind of frame of reference that is constantly unachievable. You see it sometimes in kids where the parents, you've got an awesome kid there, but they're almost pushing them so hard for some kind of version that they've got where the child's not enjoying themselves, you're not enjoying having them as a child, but look, they're wonderful. But actually you set a standard that is beyond the pale. So I think the first thing about...

promise of a great culture ever meet expectations. It's not set low standards so it's easily achievable, but actually it's set a standard that is so kind of just honest and real that the challenge isn't in what I would say the performative behavior of it being perfect because that in itself is a charade, but actually in the level of truth and honesty and difficulty that we're going to

be able to work with that would actually tell us that we can have the easy conversations, the complex conversations, the earnest conversations, we can have all of the truth in there and actually we all recognize that this is a great place because it's real and it's honest and it's true and you know we can we can do that kind of stuff.

Jamie (25:54)
And I agree. And also I think happiness as a word is maybe misleading. Because to your point, it becomes binary and it actually becomes, I was gonna say inhuman, unrealistic. And so therefore, it's not really helpful. Because I think when I've been in higher performing cultures, I've tended to think back and go,

actually my level of satisfaction was higher at the end, but again, it's still a bit of an ebb and flow. I will feel good about what we achieved, but recognized too at various points. was like, was really, that was pretty edgy, but there was something in the relationships and the support and the collective kind of endeavour that actually it becomes a career thing where you'll go, you know.

brothers and sisters in arms. We'll always have that, remember that workshop where, and da-da-da-da-da-da, which, I as facilitators, the whole, it's two o'clock in the afternoon. it was a bit edgy at 11, but we've got them back and now we're in a good place, but now we need to get it across the line. It's that sense of actually, always up and down. And I think it's one of those ones where we made, the average was that we made broadly,

slightly better decisions than worse decisions. We got through clutch moments. We got a result. The result was better. We were able to hold on to some sort of enjoyment or, woo, here we are, we're in it. And so therefore there's a combination of feelings that you go through, but it's okay in the end. I mean, which is why you're likely to go, and actually as a result, I feel quite satisfied by it, rather than...

It was a happy, happy experience. Which funny, mean, as you all know, when I did my masters in sports psychology, I studied something called being in flow, which the PR world jumped on, which is this whole idea about being in the zone. And I mean, there's a kind of a marketing spiel around it. But the thing that the psychologist who kind of coined the framework talked about was,

It was a different kind of happiness. It was a different kind of engagement where actually it was really challenging. You know what? You're in the challenge, but you were engaged by the challenge and you met the challenge at the end. to get there and to be there, you had to be in the moment. You had to be at your best. You had to be fully focused on the now. And it wasn't always, what are we going to do now? And so, and the weird thing would be that people would go, I was at my best, but I was really in the moment.

but I tended to be at my best, but it was, and I want to do it again. You know, it's like, I'd love to be back in that again. And I kind of go down the route of going, I mean, I would say that that's where the greatest cultures get you to more often, which is, this is fascinating, but it's a tough nut to crack, but I'm being stretched. And yes, it's a bit up and down, but actually people around me have got my back.

and we are going in the right direction, i.e. we're making progress and I want to keep doing it. Yeah, I get paid for it that's great and all that kind of good stuff, but it's really interesting and I'm like, you know, I'm sure most people can think of times and periods where, you know, as we both have had where it's like, was an interesting time, but actually I really, looking back now, I really enjoyed it or actually it was...

invigorating in a good way.

Guy Bloom (29:49)
That's the difference between, for me, something being enjoyable versus I'm getting enjoyment from it. You can do something in a sports context where everybody knows about this point if you listen to the podcast they do martial arts. And especially when you're learning, it's not always enjoyable because you're with people who are way more capable than you. But actually, there's a huge amount of enjoyment or maybe satisfaction.

Jamie (29:55)
Yeah, nice.

Guy Bloom (30:16)
because I'm learning, I'm being invested in. My God, that was a hell of a session. But that's like coming out of a meeting, God, that was brutal. But actually, wow, I'm at the big table. I've really seen how that operates. So again, it doesn't matter. But I think if you're looking for enjoyable, good luck. If you're looking for satisfaction or enjoyment, that's a whole different kettle of fish. And I think cultures that are trying to make everything enjoyable,

Jamie (30:21)
Yeah.

Guy Bloom (30:45)
let me know how that works out for you versus cultures that are going, okay, for an adult conversation, where could we find the enjoyment even if that was a hell of a week, the camaraderie, the learning that we took from it, the processes we're now gonna put into place to make that marginally better next time, et cetera.

Jamie (31:06)
Well, yeah, and I think, you know, can the promise of a great culture ever meet expectations? I suppose what we're saying is for people to recheck what their expectation could be, should be. Because I was also thinking that, you know, to your point, I was in the meeting and it was a bit edgy and things, but actually I came out and I felt like it was good. I was also thinking...

know, expectations will subtly change depending on where you're at. And I was thinking about the post office situation that's been going on for the last two or three years. And I can't imagine what it would be like for a lot of people to have been in that at that time. But that sense of actually what's a better culture or a great culture right now is more honesty, more listening and more understanding, which isn't solving the problem, but it's somebody would come out of a meeting going, well, that was different.

from it being really, really bad to being a situation where, well, I feel like we made a bit of progress there because I felt like I was listened to. I always remember that work we did, where you and I did with, there was a building society, I think it was, and they'd had quite challenging employment engagement feedback. And what I remember of it was the general ethos was something along the lines of the leadership is just not.

listening to their people and that, you know, they just felt like, and therefore there was disengagement and things like that. And I, I, what I remember in the workshop is us with a group of people going, what do you, what do you tend to notice when you, when you're listened to and people were coming out with, well, you tend to have people say more things, people tend to disclose more. They tend to, you know, all those things. And ultimately people go, well, they

tend to be more engaged. And it stuck with me because it was one of those ones where you sort of know the, I've read the book, I know the theory, but that was like a really artful succinct thing around, well, if you just listen really well, people are more engaged. And so to this bigger picture thing, which was all around leadership, I've got some challenging feedback around the engagement being low is actually it is most simple for you to...

improve the culture is for you to listen better. Sort of thing.

Guy Bloom (33:33)
Yeah, and I think

I totally agree with that. And I think there's a couple of things there for me. Number one is, and the key one is, people don't need that much.

Jamie (33:41)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guy Bloom (33:42)
It's relatively simple to create a good environment and culture. The complexity comes often when it is made over complex and a level of almost unattainable behavior becomes a charade and performative. Or what you have is, for the want of a better phrase, have conflict in behavior.

Jamie (33:56)
Yeah, yeah.

Guy Bloom (34:13)
i.e. there's a conflict between the behaviors I'm observing and the behaviors I'm experiencing and the behaviors that I'm being asked to perform. So you've sent me on that course, you have put those behaviors up there, we've all spoken about what good looks like, have you met my manager? They're a goddamn lunatic and they've clearly not been on this course, they went on this course two months ago, ⁓ well I'm not observing any of that. So in truth it almost would then go you may set a standard for what

a good culture is, and let's just say it's very reasonably set as just being very human, very real, actually it's not about perfection, it's just about all the things we've spoken about. The next thing comes, I think when it comes to the promise of a great culture meeting expectations, is what's the reality, the actual reality of holding people to account, not for the performative behaviour of excellence, which is just so aspirational nobody can achieve it, but for actually just...

decent behaviour, i.e. making people feel heard, etc. It's very simple things that actually if you put some ticks in those boxes, doing some work with a team the other day, private equity, they're on an absolute mission, guess what? People don't feel heard. And one person said, I this guy, I don't really care about some of them that...

Jamie (35:18)
Yeah.

Guy Bloom (35:40)
that much they are just a resource to me. I go, well, that's okay. Because when you go to a doctor, do think they care about you? You know, at a personal level, they can't meet everybody every day and like every single one of them. No, but they can have a duty of care. They want you to feel as if you've been heard. They want you to feel as if you've had a good experience. They want you to feel. So actually, it's the experience you're creating, which is sometimes irrelevant from the experience you're having.

Jamie (35:53)
they do, they do care for you.

Guy Bloom (36:11)
And for me, a culture that sets its level, whatever that might be, its then mission is to manage the experience that people are having in relation to the standard that we've been set. And that's where I think the first part is an intellectual exercise, what does good look like? And then the second part is almost, I often say, be careful what you ask for.

Jamie (36:32)
Yeah.

Guy Bloom (36:39)
because the moment you open the trapdoor and you let the kind of the grey hound out, you can't put it back in because you've kind of said, "this is what good is". And now everybody has a standard to judge everybody else by. And the moment I now have a frame of reference and I don't see it, almost, I almost think, do you know what? You might want to consider not doing it because the moment you do do it, disappointment and dissatisfaction will be magnified.

by the promise not being fulfilled. That's where I think it gets very interesting.

Jamie (37:11)
Right.

And this is, yeah, I this is This is controversial with the whole, we've been on programs where you develop a tier of leadership and that they become even more aware of gaping capability in more senior leaders. And then Because of the awareness raising capacity, changing nature of leadership programs! which can be, I've now really realized.

where the standard actually is now, having done this, and it's not as good as I even thought it was sort of thing, and might I vote with my feet sort of thing and go somewhere else versus what you would also hope is the individual responsibility to go, I have to navigate that. That's part of my leadership challenge going forward, which is assume that everybody stays the same.

But at another level, this is my individual career and it's my leadership of my individual career. And what can I do to navigate whatever not behaved behaviors I don't see or do see? And I'm reminded of some sports psych work where I worked with an athlete who basically didn't like the coach. Without going into too much detail, the whole sense was...

just don't like spending time with them. At the same, know, it just gives me bad vibes. I just don't really like the person, da-da-da-da-da-da. And for a long period of time, at the same time, the paradox was, but I recognise that they have technical input, which will really help my performance. And so I'm in this kind of, I have to try and learn how to segment.

the emotional impact stuff, which I find quite tough from actually extracting what value I can. And in this situation, it was from a technical standpoint, so I can be better, so I can kind of move past things. therefore, yeah, I good leaders become better, I think, being able to make better decisions, more informed decisions and more skillful decisions about how to operate in those sort of grey areas.

Guy Bloom (39:35)
So I think when you think about culture and changing a culture, I used to drink any old wine and then sat down with somebody. Well, I'm not, I don't drink that much hardly at all, but I sat with somebody who did understand wine and he brought some wines in and he showed me the differences and then he said, roll that back over your tongue rather than just drink it. And well, I can taste it now. And then all of a sudden, hmm.

Jamie (39:44)
But now you're a connoisseur with lots in you.

Yeah.

Guy Bloom (40:02)
Now I'm disappointed with rubbish wine. I used to be fine with rubbish wine but then somebody showed me the difference.

Jamie (40:10)
At a certain point of the evening I can get past the fact that it's not good wine and I can keep drinking it.

Guy Bloom (40:13)
Exactly. And I

think it's the same when, if you're going to change culture and you want to create an environment that the moment you show, back to your point, the moment we show somebody the difference, they now have a frame of reference. So actually be careful what you start, because unless you're going to see it through, I think you're going to have a problem. So again, what I see is, we want a culture and we name these beautiful things. We go out and find somebody external. We run a program and then we, and it, and the program.

Your biggest problem might be when it's delivered incredibly well, right? If it's just a training intervention, they'll have all been on a course. But when they have an experience that we're used to creating, where actually we will shift the mindset, we will empower people, that kind of stuff, in truth, what you've now got, if you're not careful, is this disparity. So I think it comes to agree what good is, don't set a standard that's unachievable.

then be absolutely clear before we do this work, actually, are we all in? And if we are all in, how are we gonna manage that? Actually, what's gonna be on the program? Secondary, don't worry about that, right? Because if you just work with a good provider or your internal teams up to the job, doesn't matter. The content is, that'll take care of itself, that's a different conversation. But actually, what's the reality of...

the way in which we're going to reward, manage, et cetera, the expectation that we'll be setting. And that's, think, you we all talk, it's got to come from the top. it's a pretty easy thing to say, but it's very easily glossed over. And this is the challenge, I think, when it comes to internal stakeholders like HR and the reality of their ability to hold senior stakeholders to account for the behaviors.

that they know may exist. And that's why it takes a very self-aware CEO or senior team to truly not engage in a culture change program to sign the check, but to actually have one that meets expectations. That's where it becomes a whole different kettle of fish.

Jamie (42:33)
Yeah, and one thing I would add would be something to do with the specificity ⁓ of what we expect, the detail of the behaviours we expect to see. Because the clearer you can make them, the clearer people can witness whether they're being lived or not. ⁓ The classic in my head was people

Guy Bloom (42:43)
Aye, aye.

Jamie (43:03)
saying we want to listen better would be one of those things you might see in a standard, know, ways of working in a workshop room, but also in terms of, you know, what you might have as codes of behaviour for a culture. And where I always think is, can you go a bit more granular in terms of what you would be seeing, hearing or noticing? So listen better. Actually, I was with a group and they came up with

We won't talk over one another, which I thought was a really, which was a bit more detail around actually how do you know that this thing's happening? Well, generally we're not interrupting one another. We wait till people are finished. I mean, that's your thing about, you know, whether they're just reloading, ready to refire. But that whole sense of it being a bit more specific means actually, yes, we weren't talking over one another. There's a better chance.

a phrase I use quite a lot these days, of stacking the deck in our favour that we are listening better and therefore considering what's being said and using those ideas to kind of grow the pool of ideas to make a better decision for example.

Guy Bloom (44:15)
Yeah, and I do believe that when it comes particularly with, regardless of what happens on a program and how you create a program, that's a whole different set of things. But for me, it's about senior teams at this level, if we're going to shift and change and create an environment that matches expectations, then we as a team, I think need to have a relationship. And the word I use is craft, a relationship with craft and craft then means

Jamie (44:38)
Yeah, yeah,

Guy Bloom (44:43)
It is a conscious, some of it is flow, because guess what? We're good at it. But guess what keeps you good and makes you good? And if I think about the best sports people in the world, what are they doing? Well, they're working on things that are so granular.

Jamie (44:49)
Yeah.

Guy Bloom (44:58)
that I might look at it and go, flipping heckers. If I was that good. Now I've been doing martial arts since I was 12. I will work on literally where my heel is. Well, because if you're new into the game, you go, I'd just be happy if I could stand up straight and walk in a straight line. But I think that's what the element of craft at the senior levels is in the, it is in the detail.

it is in the microscopically looking at, not beating yourself up, but it is in the shift, because you're supposed to be quite good at most things by then. So you're working on granular things. And what I'm very interested in is in the willingness of a team, A, to see a blind spot where it's not even granular, you just have not got your act together on that, that can be true. But also then to...

to operate at a high level on a relative, what is a flow state? It's not actually to me unconscious competence, it's actually conscious competence, which is we're working on it on purpose. And there might be the moments we go into this unconscious flow state and we're just, boom, boom, boom. But actually that comes from conscious competence, working on it, the craft, the reflection. And I think that's when a senior team is going.

We do want to meet the expectations of the culture, therefore we have to do the work. That for me is that kind of that circle.

Jamie (46:25)
I put it on a LinkedIn post a while ago. was reading, so there was a Formula One driver in the seventies, Jackie Stewart. won three world championships. And interestingly, he was, he was one of those interesting examples of people who I think he was a very, very good clay pigeon shooter, you know, when he was like late teens.

Guy Bloom (46:48)
for the sound effects because without that I wouldn't have known what it was.

Jamie (46:52)
And then he got into formula, he got into car racing later. Anyway, he talked about when he first became a Formula One driver, he'd moved up the ranks. He saw a corner having three parts to it. So entry, apex and exit. And he said by the end of his career, there were eight parts to a corner, which I just think is brilliant. You know, that sense of awareness. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, and I just think that that's, I think that's that's

Guy Bloom (47:12)
Yeah, but I just see a corner, right?

Jamie (47:22)
just a really nice kind of story around the building of craft, the building of deliberate practice, the ability to flirt with unconscious versus conscious competence. And then the other thing I was thinking about, if a great culture is, it feels a bit better, performance is a bit better, engagement, it keeps getting better rather than this Nirvana state. There needs to be something around.

helping people to realise, well actually when we stopped interrupting one another, i.e. better listening, Jim said more, Jemima said something about this and the other, therefore we see the connection between behaviours that we've said are really important and an outcome or a performance or therefore then a result. Yeah, I mean think that's when the promise is actually

that are coming through.

Guy Bloom (48:21)
And I think it's from that that you then decide what you're gonna put in your program. Right, so we wanna talk about accountability, we wanna talk about putting things into the known space, we wanna talk, et cetera. So I think it's that not starting with what are we gonna put in it, which always makes my eyes twitch, because then I know I'm talking to somebody that doesn't really know where they are with this. It's quite a basic level. In truth, ⁓ if you want to do training, okay, what are you gonna put in it? But if you're going to do something,

Jamie (48:37)
You

Guy Bloom (48:51)
that actually has a shift and brings challenge and it helps people really kind of shift the needle and it's embedded and sustained and not just the event because actually shifted their mindset and they've taken accountability and all the things that we've spoken about come into a process that then means, okay, then we look at what it is that you're going to put in the program that they might then need to take on board.

So listen, I'm super alert to time because, know, with the, I often say, especially with us, with a bottle of wine and a pizza, we'd like two, we'd be like, needs to be a certain level of wine now, clearly. So listen, you know, these, this is our first one. I've loved this conversation actually. It's just great just to talk to somebody, you know, that I've known for ages and then we can talk freely and, know. ⁓

Jamie (49:25)
As we've learned, it needs to be a certain level of wine.

Guy Bloom (49:44)
if hopefully other people find it and get value from it. we'll, I think we start to do more of these if when we finish with it, it's a good idea. So, and listen, our intention isn't to teach or preach, it's just to talk openly, you know, and there might be things that we've missed or we could have spoken about, but then that returning to a training session or a lecture or a Ted talk or something, and that's a completely different thing. So my, intention here is just to talk for 45 minutes or an hour and just, you know.

Jamie, thank you for being the other end of the stick.

Jamie (50:21)
⁓ And it's thank you from him and it's thank you from me. Thanks for inviting me along.

Guy Bloom (50:25)
Bingo. Okay.