Leading From the Back - Tim Hearn - Amplifier, former sales leader AWS, VMware, F5, Juniper Networks

What a treat it was  for Sam and Vic to record this with Tim. It will be clear listening to this why Tim is such a great addition to the Amplified Group family. Tim is clearly a people and team first sales leader. 

The real magic of this podcast is all the practical and pragmatic best practices that Tim shares about how he has learnt to set his teams up for success, recognising that Sales in the Tech Industry is a Team sport not an individual one! 

We covered everything  from planning your meeting capacity based on one large pizza and how to support your team at end of quarter to maximise their time with their customers, to being able to build a successful sales plan that has anticipated roadblocks  and is prepared and set up for success.

We hope you enjoy listening as much as we did recording it! 

We would love you to follow us on LinkedIn! 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/amplified-group/

Transcript

Sam 0:10

Welcome to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group, the podcast for tech industry leaders and aspiring leaders who want to help their companies execute faster. As always, do you want to think the last time we did this, Vicki was off selling herself somewhere in the States, but she's hopefully back home in Oxford's children? I'm in bucks. So, Vicki, who have we got on the podcast today?

Vic 0:29

Hi, Sam. Well, before we get into who we've got on the podcast today, I just want to start with the background of what we're going to cover. So I'm going to start by giving a shout out to Chris Colette. So Chris Colette was one of our first amplifiers. And when we first started recording the podcast, Chris would say, are we talking about managers or leaders? And do you know the difference? And that our natural vocabulary, I think, from work has been talking about managers. And so since Chris calling me out on it, we've done some work to focus on the importance of leaders and leadership. And actually, although there is seems to be such momentum at the moment around servant leadership, in fact, I'm more comfortable with the term leading like a gardener. And the concept of this is that as a gardener, you set up the environment for everybody to flourish and grow. And I love thinking of leadership in that way. And so the guest we have on our podcast today, I'm absolutely thrilled about, is Tim Hearn. And Tim has is our latest amplifier to join us. And it is such a privilege to have Tim join us as an amplifier because he's just got such a wealth of experience in the tech industry and the feedback we've had from people going, Oh my goodness, you've got Tim joining you. Wow. So Tim is going to talk to us about his experience in the tech industry, but what it means to him to lead from the back. So I'm just thrilled that we have this as a topic and that we have Tim as a guest, and that Tim has joined us as an amplifier.

Sam 2:19

Thanks, Vicky. Well, that's my praise quite an introduction for you, Tim. I hope you can live up to that. Um, that's set a bar, isn't it? Oh god. It has rather. Perhaps you could start by giving us something of a quick career history. Well, it's not going to be a quick career history, is it? But a a speedy run through your your career today, please.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Oh, yeah, we could be we could be here a long time, but we I won't. So great to be seeing you as well, Sam. So um I know we've worked together in the past and various disguises. So yeah, lovely to be talking to you again this morning as well. Um and great to be part of the Amplified family uh as well. So yeah, I've been around a lot too long, really. Um so I started off as an IBM apprentice at 16, um, joining straight from school. So I never went to university. I always came up kind of through work experience um and spent quite a lot of time at IBM and then joined effectively a number of US West Coast tech companies. So uh networking companies like NET, um, where I kind of became a systems engineer and then I sold out to sales, um, and then uh joined Cisco and was a very uh successful and lucky account manager um and rode that wave and got involved in some really great projects at Cisco, met some amazing people. Uh, and then moved on to Juniper, which was my first management position, and got the opportunity to build a team from scratch um as a very naive and inexperienced manager, and got my directorship at Juniper as well. Worked at F5, I think I did three jobs in two years at F5. So it was a it was a it was a diverse experience at F5, and then went on and joined VMware to run their public sector team that was very well established. Um I think we spent most, you know, we saw we met each other a few times during that during that period, and um, and then within VMware, I moved over to start the VMware Cloud on AWS team, uh, which was a really interesting experience um with VMware kind of moving from that perpetual world into cloud world. And then finally, I worked at AWS for a while and now I'm semi-retired, um, focusing on team development work using some disk experience. I'm a disk practitioner, and then um supporting Vicky at Amplified, and I'm doing some mentoring as well. So it's um I'm having a bit of fun now. So the only the only forecasting I'm doing right now is looking at the weather in the morning. Okay, deciding whether to work today or sit in the garden. Yeah, yeah. I I I think one of the nice things about the very lucky things that I've that I've found in my career, been very, very fortunate, is that there's been a number of people in all of those companies, whether it was as a green apprentice at 16 or a grey-haired middle-aged man at AWS, there's been people there that have contributed to my learning and development during all that period. And there's actually the people that have helped me in those journeys that I really remember and and and cherish and value very, very highly and still in contact with most of them as well. So I've been very fortunate.

Sam 5:35

Positive. So you talked about making the jump to management. Um, you've clearly then made a success of it throughout the remainder of your career, moving up and on into different businesses. How have you managed to make that that a success?

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Yeah, I I think there's a bit of personal drive though. Um, because I'd been left being joining at 16, I was always striving to be successful. Never sure I was good enough. So I know Vicky's done podcasts around uh imposter syndrome. Uh definitely recognize some of the commentary in that. So there was always a feel of fear, fear of failure. At Cisco, I was told, you know, always think that you're only one one quarter away from being fired. Uh I never was, but even so, it kept you sharp. Talk about positive motivation. Exactly. But more importantly, want I really wanted to be able to make a lasting difference and have an impact and have an impact. So I'm instinctively a kind of builder fixer, not an operator. So wanting to create something that was that was sustainable. Um, so that was that's that's been that's been really important to me. And and nice now to be able to look back at some of the things done and and you know, feel that you've actually you know achieved achieved something that did have some sustainability around it. But you know, the the the thing that developed over time, which I guess the the theme of our conversation this morning was the feeling that my purpose as a as a leader, and I talk about being a manager quite a lot. So even though I was a director, I actually hate the term director because director kind of is a dominant in disk, that's kind of a D focus, right? And and a director is should be much more than that, clearly. So I actually talk much more about being a leader or a manager. But my purpose as manager was to help to make my team successful. How do I help them to do their best work? Because at the end of the day, if if they if I do my good job in making them be more successful, they actually didn't make me look good at the end of the day anyway, right? But but investing to to help them to do their very best work and to stand out as as as you know best at their job, whether they were salespeople or whether they were systems engineers, you know, was really, really important to me. So that was kind of more about leading from the back than leading from the from the front. So not being not necessarily being all of that chest beating D-type sales leader, um, although there's a time for doing that, but spending a lot more time, you know, coaching and development and and gently pushing your team forwards to be able to achieve great things.

Sam 8:22

I think that makes sense. That certainly chimes with something that I noticed was the more I tried to push my team forward and give them credit for the stuff that we did rather than take it myself, the more the more credit we got as a group, and therefore I got as a leader, strangely. The more I tried to deflect it, the more it came on to me.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Um yeah, and and I think it works works both ways as well, is is is um how as you say, how by by kind of helping them to get to the front, they're learning more, they get more confidence, they're able to achieve more, you know, they're they're they're able to expand things that they they they probably didn't think that they were comfortable doing. Um so there's been certain times when somebody's you know certain people have become well really comfortable doing that or confident doing that, but once you help them to be able to get there, then then you know they've they've been very successful.

Sam 9:16

Um makes sense. So do you want to expand on the leading from the back thing? It's a good part. It's yeah, I don't know whether it's a new term to me, but I like the concept.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Well, uh I think about it from a disk perspective a little bit, really, because my my profile um in disc is uh is a DI or an ID, kind of run that that top piece, which means which means for those people that are not familiar with with DISC, D is that dominant type of individual that gets things done that drive results, that drives action, um, will trample down obstacles to be able to achieve results at the end at the end of the day. And and there's a lot of that in me. And and I think a default salesperson's sales leader's behavior or sales manager's behavior will be to achieve results no matter what, to be able to get that things done.

Vic 10:14

Um I would I've just because I'm in the same space as as you and actually Sam as well, I think is is up there where I describe my early career as I I didn't know I was doing it, but I behaved rather like a bulldozer.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yeah, yeah, and and and I I I think it's quite easy to drop back into that as well, and I've and I've definitely done that. So so it's a so so you if your natural inclination is to be able to forcefully drive things forward in a sales team, you know, that's your leading from the front piece. And there are times when you do need to do that, um, and to be able to show the way. Um, but you that that shouldn't be any more than maybe you know doing that forecasting, driving the deal, when is it going to get done, how are we going to do it? Well, that's that's a relatively small percentage of your leadership time. The rest of it should be there to be able to help the team. So for me, it's if I've got D in my profile, I've also got a lot of I in my profile. And and I is around collaboration and enthusiasm and action. And that's all about how do you create things, how do you how do you try and get things done through collaboration? How do you come up with new ideas? How do you work around problems? Um, how do you work with people to be able to achieve something? And therefore, for me, it's more about channeling more much more of my I and maybe toning down part of my D to be able to try and get a better better balance. So I've thought a lot more about leading from the back in more recent times, where before I didn't really think about it, it was kind of a bit of a natural behavior because I actually like to be able to help people to develop um and to and and to and to have a successful career. And I've done a lot of that with all the teams that I've built. And I think I've been lucky because I've created and built teams, I've invested in vested in their personal success as well. So there's an element of that as well. But actually, we think from leading from about I think there are three purposes. One is I think a leader is there to serve the team, they're not there to serve you, and that's kind of a diff different way of looking sometimes at a team. And it's quite easy to get wrapped up in your own importance sometimes around driving a team, especially if you would do that front and center piece. So, you know, so you should be doing a lot more orchestrating and facilitating behind the scenes to be able to help the team to be successful to be successful, and sometimes that's visible, but a lot of the time it's not. Um, and some of that is with an individual, some of that is with the team, um, some of that is just going ahead and making it easy for them to do their jobs. Um, you're also there, second, you're there to nurture the growth and well-being of the human beings in your team. You've got human beings in your team, they're not kind of automatons, and therefore it's really important to spend a lot of time investing in them at a personal level. Um, and I think on the whole, I've always found that the more you put into that time, you know, that's always welcomed. Um, and and it can and it pays back over time, both in their performance and their happiness and and and and ability within the team, but I think their the relationship you have with them long term. And then you're there to develop the team culture, so you have to create a cohesive cohesive units. They have to be able to trust and support each other within the team and the manager as well. They have to be able to trust the managers, so to encourage success, happiness, and resilience. Um, and one of the things we do in DISC is one of the nice things about DISC is that everybody's different. So that they're not a bunch of grey people, everybody has their different flavours and colours. Um, and so therefore, what you tend, I always think about the diversity of a team, not just in terms of gender or culture, but about the the way that they think and the way that they behave, is really a team superpower. And if you can, you really need to cult to cultivate that diversity because if you can you can effectively use it to drive the team's performance, you know, it really is a great superpower to have.

Vic 14:34

And I love that you've just said cultivate though. So going back to my leading like a gardener and the superpower that you talked about, even if we just go back to our last amplified team, get together, that was cultivating and the the ideas that came out of all of those different views. In fact, I replied to a post on, I think there was an Adam Grant thing on LinkedIn this week. We get so wrapped up in what diversity means, but we're just looking for diversity of thought. We're looking for different perspectives because those different perspectives mean you're gonna come up with the best idea you possibly can.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

No, exactly. Yeah, I remember um in a previous company we we did a disc profile, and everybody in the this was in a senior leadership team, everybody in the senior leadership team was basically the same quartile. Yes, so it was a hiring habit. You'd hire people that were like you, yeah, and I was part of that management team. Um, but everybody was kind of a D, yes, or a flavor of a D.

Sam 15:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

So who's looking at the detail? Who's looking at people aspects of it, who's coming up with creative ideas?

Sam 15:41

Arguably, we have the same problem in politics at the minute where you know they're all whoever you pick, whichever political party, they've all read PPE at Oxford and they're all the bloody same. Yeah, exactly.

Vic 15:54

But it is but that all those Ds as leaders, they're all fighting for the microphone. And that's that that's the challenge we've got. Before we go any further, Tim, I want to just ask you because when we were doing the prep call for this, when you were talking about leading from the back and serving the team, some of the things that you talked about very specifically were things around um being a thought leader and being able to open doors. Are you going to come onto that later, or or is it right to talk about it?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

We can talk about that now, really. So it one of the things a couple of because I've I've led public sector teams quite a lot, yeah, there's a role for the for a leader not just to be doing the internal um activities, forecasting, planning, and the usual operational stuff, but to but to act as the evangelist for the team. So, you know, as a both internally and externally. No, exactly right. So so, particularly in public sector, public sector quite often within a tech organization is not a well-understood vertical. It's quite easy to then build a finance team or a retail team because it's it's well understood, where public sector is much more of a strange animal. So, so as a public sector leader, you have a responsibility internally to simplify the message of what it is to build and operate a public sector team, because internally, if people understand that more, you'll get more buy-in and more resources. So, particularly, you know, I've spent time with marketing teams to be able to, how do you how do you how do you um nuance the corporate marketing that might you know typically I work for California and West Coast, West Coast companies, how do you morph that corporate standard messaging into something that a public sector customer would understand? And in most cases, just simplification. Uh, because us tech companies are just great at complicating a simple message. So it's around putting plain English into and taking acronyms out and just making it easy for somebody to understand. And you and I spoke a while back about um, you know, when you when you're trying to get messaging across to customers and in and internally within an organization, if if you if my mum, who's 88, can't understand it, then something you have to change it to be able to make that work better. So as a public sector leader, um helping my own organization to understand how we can be successful in a public sector industry um and do something different. Um, and then with customers, it's a it's about simplifying the value that we bring to a public sector, public sector customer that would then open the doors for my team to be able to come in and do all the great things that they do. So, you know, being able to engage in um forums that talk about um industry challenges and positioning the organization to be able to address that, then allows my salespeople to come in and do all the great things that are. Yeah, I I think it's a sales leader has to open doors but also break also break down barriers. So one of the things that I've tried hard to do is to be able to anticipate some of the things that my team are going to hit as a roadblock, either in the deal or maybe in trying to get something done internally and maybe and and helping them to be helping those roadblocks to be knocked down before they get there. Um and sometimes that's politics, sometimes that's operational stuff, maybe that's organizational things with with customers. It's maybe in a lot of cases just making sure the right questions are asked to be able to gain the right information about how we engage.

Vic 19:56

I think what you've just covered there, the whole anticipating what's coming. What we're finding with a lot of the tech companies that we're working with at the moment is they're all running so fast, they're not taking the time to anticipate. And so we've got a big mantra with many of the companies that we're working with is you need to go slow to go fast. So if we haven't got time today, maybe we can pick that up as another topic and we can have you on for another podcast.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

No, well, certainly um people that have worked for me before will will recognize that this because I used to talk about it a lot, but it was always around anticipating events, don't be surprised by events, and good salespeople and good and good teams will anticipate events well, in which so which means that they've planned for it, they're ready for it when it appears, and they can they can deal with it effectively. You know, how many times, especially if you're running fast or you're too close to a deal, or you're too close to a customer or a situation, you get surprised by events. And in most cases, then they are things that you could have anticipated if you'd slowed down a little bit more, maybe taken a step back, brought other people in to be able to help to be able to look at a situation as well. Um, I think salespeople really find it difficult sometimes to ask for help because they're responsible for getting this thing done. So, you know, bringing bringing people in to do that, I think is key.

Vic 21:33

I'll stop taking off track now. Sorry.

Sam 21:35

No, no, that's cool.

Vic 21:37

Too many questions.

Sam 21:40

So, how do you put this uh leading from the back thing into practice then, Jim?

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Oh, there's there's there's so many, there's so many things, but I think at a personal level, going back to that disc profile, kind of toning down the D a little bit and and ramping up the I. So toning down the dominant behavior, um and And thinking about the creativity and the collaboration side a lot a lot more. So always think it's always about the team, not about not about I. So it's about it's about us rather than I. The key thing about that then practice is you have to be consistent with it. There's no point in doing that or saying you're going to do that. And then as soon as you get in front of the senior leadership team, it's the big, you know, it's the big I am, we I did this. It has to be we the whole time. And you have to ensure that people get the recognition that they deserve. Um, and and sometimes it's now I've been in positions where as a sales leader I've got the recognition and the award when actually I know that I actually did very little um to to to justify to justify that it was my team that did that, maybe with some support and coaching from the back, you know, a gentle hand in the smaller the back behind to be able to help to get things done and to facilitate things, but it's the team that that got there. Um, I think the other thing is um, and this is where the D comes in because you then use your D, your your driver and your dominant behavior for the team rather than to the team. Um so fighting battles for your team um internally and and and externally as well, um, to be able to make sure you know to get to get the best things for them, but but you know, to be able to sort out things. So lots of things I've done around comp um and pay. Certainly had lots of challenges where females in the team came into the team um being paid significantly less than the equivalent male in the team and fighting to be able to get parity on that. Um, you know, you you have to be you have to take you have to own those battles and take those take those battles on. And a lot of those battles were behind the scenes and the individuals never saw them. Um but you have to you have to take that you have to take them on. Um, and getting recognition for the team when they when they deserve it, and quite often in a set a very sales-dominant organization, it's always the sales salesperson or the sales leader that gets the reward. When you know, you know, Sam, you worked in a technical environment for a long time. It's usually the systems engineer that, well, very often the systems engineer that plays the crucial part in getting achievement done.

Sam 24:25

And yeah, I used to describe it as the you know, the sales guy doing the first 10 or 20 percent and the last 10 or 20 percent, and the tech team doing the bit in the middle. It's not you know, it's not quite that simple, is it?

SPEAKER_00 24:39

But uh it's yeah, it's it's not, but it quite it quite often happens like that. And I actually think there's roles for the salesperson to kind of stay very engaged in that middle piece. Yeah, yeah. But but I think the way that sales, sales structures, and sales methodologies are set up these days actually drives exactly what you've you've you've described. And also I've been in situations where the customer success person is the is the person that's actually kept the train on the tracks and allowed allowed a deal to go through. And I've I've we've definitely been in situations where if it wasn't for customer success, we would have lost the account, which meant there was no deal to be had. Um making sure those people that are.

Sam 25:17

Well, if it wasn't for the salesperson, you wouldn't have been in the deal in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Correct. So so so it's always a team thing. Every every major success you have as a sales as a salesperson is based around the contribution of a team, um, and and finding better ways within an for organizations to recognize teams before them the recognize the individuals. The individual recognition can come through from the recognition of the team.

Vic 25:48

That's a brilliant point, Tim. I think we should have that as an objective to try and influence in the tech industry more recognition for teams than individuals.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Yeah, yeah, and and skilled idea. And I think it I think it does it it it does it does happen, I think it, but it just it doesn't happen automatically. You know, you people have to pull these little quiet stars out for recognition. Um, and then I think the other thing is around reputation. Um, so sometimes in tech you can get into a blame culture when something goes wrong, um, and somebody gets gets kind of pulled out as being the uh the the the full person for that for for that. And and those reputations can stick within IT. And I think it's important that when things are tough, there is either a collective responsibility when things go wrong.

Vic 26:40

I think so, I think so.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Or the sales leader's gonna be willing to be able to take it on take it on the chin on the team on the team's behalf.

Vic 26:47

Um but it's also coming back to that we thing, I think. So we when it's going well and we when it's not.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

No, absolutely. Yeah, when when things go wrong, it's not one person that's done something wrong. It's it's a number of it's typically if if one person's done something wrong, it's actually usually quite easy to rectify it. It's when there's been two or three issues that have come up at the same time that that have contributed to a much bigger issue. Um, and that's a again, that's a team, that's a team thing. So that's to be some team responsibility for that team. Um I think the other thing I've done a lot of, and we we when I was at Juniper, we we put a lot of effort into this as well, was it's most organizations have a top talent uh scheme. So therefore, your superstars we who are obvious um have corporate investment in in coaching and mentoring, etc. etc., and and the career development. But what about the next layer down? So you get a whole bunch of people below that superstar, you might have four or five people below that one superstar who are emerging talent, who have great potential, and actually with a but typically they don't get the level of attention that the top talent will get. There's not the funding there to be able to develop that emerging talent. So this is your next level of people, these are your next top talents that are coming through. And we put a lot of effort when I was a juniper into looking at emerging talent and then putting things in place to be able to help them then to become superstars. Um, and I think quite often the the people that are just doing a good job, hitting their numbers, um trying hard to be developed, don't get necessarily the same level, you know, uh enough attention to be able to drive. So they won't get the funding for coaching and mentoring necessarily. So what we did at Judas in the emerging talents, people that were doing a great job were young people that um were learning their skills and their capabilities. Yeah, all of them had an internal mentor. So even if you didn't have external resources, you had an internal mentor. There was always a personal development plan that had some monthly attention to it. So there were some quite easy things that you can do in that emerging talent to be able to bring them forward, find projects that they can work on together collectively to be able to come up with with it with solutions to problems. So that next level down, I think, was is is is really good. Um and then the sales campaigns, I think it's quite easy as a sales leader just to get a drive for commitments to forecast. You know, when is this deal going to happen? What do you do to make it happen? What happens if it doesn't happen, et cetera, et cetera. Um, which is kind of easy and a bit lazy to do. So getting much more involved in the in the deal quietly supporting that person to be successful, so helping them to anticipate problems in the in the deal. And there's lots of things that will happen for a deal not to happen in a quarter, right? There's never a deal that's going to go smoothly through, bang on dates. Um slam dunks. Oh my god, yes. So we've all been we've all been there, and so and trying to anticipate events, not being surprised by events, um, is a is as I've mentioned before, is something we spend a lot of time on. Making sure that the salesperson has the resources to be successful and they've thought about all the resources they need to get it done to cover off all of the bases. So the amount of times we're working on the customers where the salesperson is working with one individual at the customer, and obviously that one person may have, you know, may not be well quite often is not the decision maker. So trying to be able to make sure you've got some triangulation, you're covering off all the bases, making sure you've got it covered, especially especially with partners, Sam. As we know, the amount of times that a vendor actually won't go and ask the won't go and ask the partner what their view of the deal is, and and quite often the partner is closer to it than the vendor. Um, and I think finally the the other bit around it was be realistic. I think it's quite easy. I've seen lots of examples where you force a salesperson to put a deal in a quarter where it's just not realistic that that deal's gonna happen in a quarter. So fighting their corner for them to one, understand realistically when that deal's gonna happen, and then make sure that you're not being forced to be able to artificially bring that deal forward, which then that has an impact of customers customer sat quite often. Um, so to be able to manage that properly, I think is is good. Yeah, that was a lot of answers.

Sam 31:19

No, no, no. Well, there's a you know, there's a lot to cover. You you mentioned earlier about simplifying the message, the jargon-rich stuff that comes out of the West Coast vendors and bringing it into reality for the uh the UK public sector. And you know, that was something that was important for me to to do, partly for our public sector customers, but also our more traditional SMB base, and really, quite frankly, for the salespeople to be able to understand the message. So, how do you how do you work to stop complexity creeping in and to bring that down and to make it just a bit more straightforward?

SPEAKER_00 31:57

So most of it is quite simple, um, small things actually. And AEWS is is really has been really good at this. They still have lots of acronyms, they have as many acronyms and abbreviations as everybody else, but they've got some processes in place which which I absolutely really love. And I'll come back to those in a minute. But certainly part of complexity is having people time between salespeople and customers, because actually it's emails and sending material and stuff across that exacerbates complexity in terms of the customer's mind, and actually having a cup of coffee with the customer to be able to talk them through stuff as one human being to another will will kind of cut through lots of uh misunderstandings of proposals, emails, voicemails, etc. So um one of the things I think it's been really important to do is to maximize salespeople time with customers, but especially at quarter end. That's the time when you need to spend the most amount of time with customers to be able to help them to be able to come to a decision. And it's the time that most organizations want to bring the salespeople in to do more inspection of when the deals are going to happen. So trying to give the salespeople air cover to be able to go out and talk to customers while you deal internally with the forecasting and the um and deal management, I think is is something that I haven't necessarily got right all of the time, but it's something that's something I've tried to get right. And then there's just some operational things. So PowerPoint discipline is always drives me nuts. Most tech companies, and I'll be very general here, but you very often see a case where it's really important to get every single bit of descriptive script on a on a page on a PowerPoint. And and if you can see any background, it's bad. So go and go back to the simplest things of decluttering PowerPoint presentations with three bullet points, two colours, that sort of stuff. Plain English. You know, put something in plain English. So AWS talk about weasel words, and it's really, really good when you go through reviews and weasel with it. You kind of go through weasel words. Um, and and so much time you've got to go through this, and somebody will come up. The AWS reviews are really, really good in this respect. No, you can't say that that's a weasel word. No, no, no, it's a common word. Nobody's gonna understand what you're weasel word, a weasel word is something where it's an acronym or a bit of slang or of saying that you think is just part of common language, but actually is doesn't really mean anything. Yeah, and there's loads of stuff that's either Americanisms, but also some English slangs as well. Um, so so just keeping it simple.

Vic 34:42

Now, what do you like working with Lindsay? Because everything you've just said there from our marketing perspective is what we do, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 34:49

It's all keeping it explaining it simple. And I I love what you've done actually on your your your your web content. One because the text-based stuff is straightforward, but actually Lindsay and team have done a really, really good job with the iconography. Um, they're just I'm I'm very much a picture person rather than a text person. So actually, it's very easy to understand what you're trying to say. And the other two things that that I think AWS are really, really good at is keeping everything down to one or two pages where you can. So you don't want you don't want to you don't want a count plan that's 26 pages long, one because nobody's gonna read it, and two, it's not gonna mean anything. So having something which is one or two pages long that takes five to ten minutes to read, um, or or just come on, and and is structured very, very well. Um, I think is really, really, really important. So helping people to be able to come up with stuff that's very succinct and easy to read, especially senior management in in in tech companies have an attention span of a NAT, right? So you want to be able to get something across, it's very, very, very fast. And then the other thing which I love is pizza lunch size meetings. So, you know, how many times you go on a conference call, there's 50 people on the conference call, you don't know any, you probably know three of them on there, and everybody's gonna listen, and maybe two or three people can a broadcast meeting. So AWS talk about pizza lunch meetings. If if there are too many, if there are more people on the call, then you need to share one large pizza, then there's too many people on the call, and you need to break it down into smaller.

Sam 36:27

So you have an awful lot, you have an awful lot of one-person meetings.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Sam, you and I are in the same camp. PC is my weakness, I'm afraid. There you go. But it it is it is it is a nice thing to think about because it when you're planning for meetings, if you suddenly have you see your your CC, your CC list for your for your meetings are like 20, 30 people long, it probably needs to be, you're not really going to get unless it's a broadcast. You know, if you're just imparting information, then that's fine. If you're expecting it to be a collaborative session where your the team is going to is is to be able to collaborate, you know, you need to keep it small so that every and this is good back to lead in from the back, you need to allow everybody in your team to be able to contribute. And if you've got 50 people on a call, then you'll find that the dominant people will take up all of the all of the time. And the people that are more introverted and more reflective, um, that get no FaceTime whatsoever, and then they feel isolated and aren't bought into what you're trying to achieve on a call. So it kind of feeds back into this, into this thing, is to kind of keep it so that everybody's able to be able to contribute to the to what's going on.

Sam 37:45

So talk about values. You know, you were you seem like a man with a strong sort of ethical center. What values are important to you and your team?

SPEAKER_00 37:55

I I think it comes back to to trust. Um, there has to be trust within the team. So people have to trust each other. For them to be able to do that, they need to know each other. I think disc is a very powerful tool in being able to do that because I use disk a lot to be able to help with self-awareness at an individual level, but then awareness across the team. So, how does everybody else um react to that? So everybody is made is made differently, and your response to situations will be different. And it's actually quite interesting easy in a tech environment to kind of think that everybody is the same type of be beastie, is the same type of animal, and and they're not. Being able to help people to be able to understand how people are going to react and work will allow them to be able to work with them much better, be much more effective. So there's a whole load of dis but then again, there has to be trust between the team and the sales leader, because if the team don't believe in the sales leader and they don't believe that the sales leader is their champion, then you don't develop the trust. You know, that that's the you as a sales leader, you have to be the champion of your team. The the other thing around trust is, as they all say, hard won, easily lost. So you have to be consistent with it and you have to keep on it. And it's quite easy to do one thing that will um impact the level of trust within the team. So it's something as a leader you need to think about all the time. And then the other bit I think of values is is resilience. So sales team go through life cycles when you know I've been through situations where everything we touched was golden and deals just came flowing through, and everybody was well over target and everybody was happy. But then you go the same bunch of people with the same bunch of products with the same customers will then go through quite tough times. Um, and the teams that have developed high levels of trust become much more independent, uh interdependent on each other within the team. And therefore, you you become much more resilient because you can the team supports each other through those hard times. And I think, particularly when you think about uh the pandemic, you know, those teams that that had that team culture and ethos lived and managed uh through the pandemic, much they were much more resilient. Yeah, through that.

Vic 40:28

Yeah, totally agree. I think it's it's it's one of the fundamental things that we have is you might be in a good place now, but what we're doing is we are preparing you as a team, but when you hit those inevitable bumps in the road, yeah, you know how to navigate them.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

It's very easy to lead a team that's all doing well.

Vic 40:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

Everybody's everybody's happy.

Sam 40:52

Well, you're not so much leading in that scenario, you're just kind of putting the bumpers up to stop the going off track.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And and actually, you know, you could argue that when things are team going well, that's when you actually need to invest as much time as possible because it won't it's actually much more difficult to start that process when things are going badly. You're then in reactive mode, you'll you're you're going back to this anticipate events, not being surprised by events.

unknown 41:18

Yeah.

Vic 41:19

Completely.

Sam 41:23

So, what are the effects you're you're seeing, or you have seen, I suppose now you're retired, you're not seeing them anymore. Um, what are the effects you see for focusing on building such a strong team throughout your career?

SPEAKER_00 41:37

Yeah, well, you're right in that I've kind of stepped out of corporate land now. But the nice thing is actually I still have plenty of regular contact with the people that used to report to me or work work with me. So it's actually quite interesting um as they are um focusing on their career and working. I get asked quite a few times for some input on different things, so it's kind of nice to do that, and also the work we're doing with with Vicky and Disc continues on helping to kind of build that that strong team. Um, so I think the the resiliency thing is an important thing. Um, and the pandemic is an easy example of that because it's it's obvious. But I think the sales teams do go through cycles, um, and you need to be able to prepare for those cycles because the tendency is that everything's gonna continue to be up um and double-digit growth, which allows people to have large quotas and all those sorts of things, but you know that there's gonna be some things it at some point something's gonna fall off the cliff, and then you're gonna have to respond to that. So having the resilience, I think, is is is really important. You don't get that resilience unless the team are coherent and they and they have a close bond. Um, and then retention thing. I know Vicky talks a lot around um attrition um being a massive issue in IT. Um, and that's true. So a strong team doesn't experience attrition, but that doesn't mean to say that the team stays as it is. So, you know, you want to be able to see change in the team, so you want to be able to see career progression. So, one of the nice things that I've kind of seen in my teams is that actually my the teams that I built, um, VMware um in particular, they're not the same team anymore. They've moved people have moved on, but they've not moved on because of necessarily attrition, they've moved on because they've become more successful and they've been able to move into a more senior role or into a different role. And and the work that they did in that team has allowed them to be able to progress. Um, so um yeah, I think retent retention but career progression, I think is is is is good if you've got that that strong that strong team ethos. That makes a lot of sense. People stay within the team because they like the people around them. So the amount of times you kind of talk to people and say, I like working this job because of the people. Yeah, most most of the thing that I miss the most about not working in the corporate land is my team and the people around me. Yeah, that's that's that's the bit that that that's um yeah, is meaningful, I guess.

Vic 44:24

Yeah, we do an expert where we map the um we do our career journey um and we map the highs and lows, and then we ask people to get together and go, what what do you have in common about the highs and lows? And it's always the people, the people make the highs and the people make the lows.

Sam 44:43

I think that's probably accurate. I was still on the WhatsApp group for my old team, they're all coming around for dinner at the beginning of September.

Vic 44:50

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Yeah, I've got I've got three WhatsApp groups from from different companies that I work for, and we still kind of ping messages around. Thankfully, nothing. I love that. There's no involved in any of it.

Sam 45:01

No, no, precisely. This morning it was all happy birthdays to one of the ladies on the team. So funny. So, other than maybe dedicating a bit more time to practising your bass guitar, um, if you were starting over again, is there anything that you would tell your younger self?

SPEAKER_00 45:17

When I was at school, Junius was I was I was bullied because I was a bit different. I was brought up in a fairly rough housing estate in Portsmouth, and I was deemed to be a bit different. Um, so I did get I did get bullied. I think one of the things we tell myself at the time is actually it's okay to be different. So actually, is is a diverse from a diversity thing, you know, it's you know, need to be I need I I built some resilience during that time as well that that kind of stayed stayed with me. But actually to being different is okay. Um, so that's that's that's one thing that I'd say. And then I think the other thing was just trust your gut instincts. I think as a going back to disc, yeah, if you're an I you you trust your gut instincts. So so I've I've got very little C, which it which it which is around okay, so you want proof, you want to analyze everything to before you make a decision. I've actually made a few decisions based on gut being stronger than this the than the data, um, and those have tended to be good decisions for me. The decisions that I've made in my career that have been poor decisions have been where I've overrode my gut instinct by data. Um, and and and I think for me personally, my my gut instinct has served me well.

Sam 46:37

So as we uh draw to a conclusion, would you be so kind as to summarize all of the wisdom that you shared with us today in in three takeaways for our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 46:49

I think the thing that I've thought about since I've retired, but was where aware of it when I was um working, is that the relationships that you will cherish later in your career and are sustained are the ones that you nurtured and supported while you were there. When I had my retirement drinks and get together, you know, there are a number of people that came along to that drink where a long time ago I'd helped them early in their career, and uh one of them's a VP now, one of them's a senior manager, so they've done very well in their career. I I I I I feel I guess proud, I suppose, that I helped them um a little bit. They did it, they did a lot of it themselves, but I kind of helped them along the way. Um and I think, and this goes for me as well, people remember leaders and managers that gave them a leg up on the ladder. So I I know I could give you a list by name of all of the people that have contributed to me and and made differences to me in my career. Um, there's a lot of other people that I couldn't remember and haven't remembered, but those are very clear in my in my mind. Um, and I think the final time, final thing I'd say takeaway is as a leader, don't allow senior leadership to limit your coaching, mentoring, and managing time in favor of more sales inspection. So push back more to be able to give you bandwidth and time to be a good leader with your team. Um, and I think leaders come under a lot of pressure these days because of the forecasting analytics that are available to an organization to spend a lot of time doing the inspection and not enough time supporting the team. Makes sense.

Sam 48:43

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. Um the last thing that we're gonna harass you for today is um a book, a book recommendation. We're asking all our guests on this season of the podcast for a book recommendation. So you would be so kind as to enlighten us in that regard.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

Well, uh, Vicky did warn me of this, and I did tell her I was gonna say it was motorcycle news. She bet she told me I couldn't do that. So should should it not be bassist and bass techniques edited by my good friend Joel MacIver? Uh maybe, maybe. But I do like looking at pictures of motorbikes. So I would I would say the book that I go back to, the business book that I go back to more than anything else, is Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of the Highly Effective Person. Um, and there are a bunch of stuff in there that whether that is prioritization, sharpening the saw from a learning point of view, moving from um um independence to interdependence. So that's the team bit at the top. There's a load of things in there that I've that I keep pulling back to. Um, and I I think the book stands the test of time. Um, I think the Patrick Lencione books um around five dysfunctions that that Vicky has based a lot of uh uh consulting around as well, I think is a is a fantastic book as well. But I I but I quite often go back to Stephen Kirby.

Sam 50:10

Brilliant, great stuff. Vicki, anything to add?

Vic 50:13

No, just thank you. I have, as I expected to, thoroughly enjoyed uh recording this with you, Tim. Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. However, um we're not gonna completely let you off the book because I think we have got two or three other topics that we'd like to talk to you about, haven't we?

Sam 50:29

So, Sam, if you're up for it, we'll so we got have we got another couple of hours?

Vic 50:33

No, not today, but we'll um we would quite like to record a second podcast with Tim, if that's all right.

Sam 50:39

We're gonna have a Tim Hearn mini series. We are, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

We could we could jam. Yeah, funny. It was great, it was great talking to both of you and and Sam. Nice to see you.

Sam 50:55

Yeah, you too, you too. Really good. Thank you. So all that remains for me is to say thanks for listening to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group. Your comments and your subscriptions are as always gratefully received.