The Living Your Learning Podcast
Exploring all things leadership, learning and everything in between; The Living Your Learning Podcast is the place for top chats, awesome insights and a splash of inspiration that will light the way to awesome leaders, amazing teams and even a better you!
The Living Your Learning Podcast
The Special Guest Sessions | Paul Kinkaid | Forensic Leadership: Where Every Interaction Leaves A Trace
Summary:
What if you could understand and change the traces you leave on every person you lead? In this eye-opening conversation with Paul Kinkaid, founder of Forensic Outcomes Limited and author of "Forensic Leadership," we explore how every leadership interaction leaves either "green traces" or "red traces" on our teams and the people around us.
Drawing from his 20 years in the British Army and extensive global leadership development experience, Paul reveals how Dr. Edmond Locard's forensic principle of "every contact leaves a trace", transforms our understanding of leadership impact. This isn't abstract theory but practical wisdom for anyone seeking to lead with greater intention and awareness.
The conversation highlights five game-changing practices for becoming a more effective leader: slowing down to access deeper thinking, maintaining "version control" of yourself, observing your surroundings with heightened awareness, performing pre-mortem analyses to anticipate challenges, and measuring your leadership traces through feedback. It also emphasises that psychological safety isn't corporate fluff but essential for innovation and organizational survival, as teams without it become static and eventually irrelevant.
Perhaps most refreshing is Paul's candour about leadership arrogance. "When status, ego and power step in the room, leadership steps out," he notes, offering instead a vision of leadership built on humility, vulnerability, and genuine service to others. His advice to "speak last" creates space for diverse perspectives and demonstrates the respect that builds truly effective teams.
Whether you're an experienced leader or just beginning your journey, this conversation offers invaluable insights into creating positive leadership traces that endure long after each interaction ends. Tune in to discover how slowing down might be exactly what you need to speed up your leadership effectiveness.
Takeaways:
- Living your learning means being your own client.
- Continuous learning is essential for all leaders.
- Arrogance has no place in effective leadership.
- Psychological safety is critical for team performance.
- Feedback is vital for growth and development.
- Creating a safe environment encourages open communication.
- Emotional intelligence is key to successful leadership.
- Vulnerability can strengthen leader-follower relationships.
- Pre-mortem analysis helps in anticipating challenges.
- After Action Reviews foster a culture of learning.
Sound Bites:
"I try and be my own client."
"Be a nice human."
"Slow down to think better."
Get In Touch:
If you'd like to discuss what was explored in this episode further, please do get in touch.
Craig's Email:
craig@livingyourlearning.com
Paul's Email:
paul@forensicoutcomes.com
Further Information:
Also check LYL's In-Person and Online Leadership Development services at:
Hello and welcome to the Living your Learning podcast, exploring all things leadership, learning and everything in between. The Living your Learning podcast is the place for top chats, awesome insights and a splash of inspiration that will light the way to awesome leaders, amazing teams and even a better you. And on this episode, the second of our special guest sessions, we have Paul Kincaid with us discussing and exploring everything forensic leadership. We really hope you enjoy this one. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Living your Learning podcast and our latest episode and this is our latest episode in our special guest sessions and today we have a very special guest, a really fantastic guest Paul Kincaid.
Craig McHugh:How are you, Paul?
Paul Kinkaid:Craig, I'm very well. Thanks very much. You've put the pressure on now. Now I've got to try and meet that introduction.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, you do. I'm sure you will. Our last conversation is ending to go by. This one is going to be an absolute belter everyone. So, paul, do you want to just tell us a little bit about yourself, introduce yourself, and then we'll get into some no doubt really interesting discussions? Sure.
Paul Kinkaid:So I'm Paul Kinkaid. I am the founder and owner of Forensic Outcomes Limited. Small. What do we do? Leadership Development, consultancy, ceo Advisory Service, that sort of thing. I say small, but we're actually global, we work all over the world, so that's great to do. But in terms of small, only a small number of employees, and I'm a bit of a leadership nerd. What else do I do? I wrote a book called forensic leadership and all of this is based on there. It is it worries me to see post-it notes in my book. It means there's stuff coming that I'm not ready for. So I hope you've read it, paul. I think I've read it. Yeah, I'll just hold on tight and scream if I want to go faster. What's all that? Yeah, so that's all based on lots of observations of leaders all around the world over many years and my own experiences of leadership in the British Army, where I served for 20 years.
Craig McHugh:Wow, and what did you do in the British Army?
Paul Kinkaid:Well, I started off as an engineering officer and then transferred into an educator and became the army's lead for training development capability so that was again travelling all over the world training development capability so that was again traveling all over the world delivering leadership training and developing training for other countries and British forces overseas amazing, absolutely amazing.
Craig McHugh:What, what a role and what's a what's the word I need. What a valuable role for so many.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, I think so I think it was. I enjoyed it and I left at exactly the right time for me actually. So, yeah, no regrets. Had a great time on the whole. Maybe we'll get into that during the podcast.
Craig McHugh:We will get into that. So I'm not sure if I actually asked my first special guest this, but I have asked people this on the podcast before, so it's called the Living your Learning Podcast. My business is not too dissimilar to yours. I'm called Living your Learning and I like to ask people what they just in their head and what they think Living your Learning means to them. So I'd like to ask you the same, paul what does Living your Learning mean to you?
Paul Kinkaid:I think for me it's trying to encapsulate everything that I'll tell a client to be so it weirdly, I use this phrase of trying to be my own client okay, go on so you know, I know I would tell a client to, okay, step away, take it, take a space, don't get emotionally involved in it too much.
Paul Kinkaid:You know, um sort of stimulus gap, respond rather than that immediate react like Viktor Frankl tells us to do. And I try and imagine myself as my own client. So what would I tell someone else to do in this scenario, or what would I recommend them to do? Where would I recommend them to read, or what tools, techniques and procedures would I recommend that someone takes on in the scenario that I'm in? And I try and do that as much as I can. So that's what living, my learning, means to me. I've learned a lot, amazing. I've made a lot of mistakes over the years, and it's about trying not to remake them, I guess. But the odd one's okay, yeah, yeah.
Craig McHugh:As long as you learn from them. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What's the biggest mistake you've ever made?
Paul Kinkaid:Oh, I'm not going to share that one. Yeah, I've made a lot of mistakes. I think early on I kind of believed the smoke that I was given. You know, at Sandhurst you're taught about selfless leadership and servant leadership and they're very good, but I think I started off a little bit arrogant in my career, if I'm honest. Okay, um, and I think I learned very quickly. I've learned very quickly to swallow that and, you know, be the leader that I wanted to be rather than be the leader that I thought I was and what is the leader that you want to be?
Paul Kinkaid:Approachable, vulnerable. I want to be the leader that other people turn to and the people that other people need, not necessarily the one they want Totally totally.
Craig McHugh:That's amazing. So you were responsible for developing leadership within the British Army. Is that right? Have I got that right?
Paul Kinkaid:No, I'll pull away from that one. That's a general's job at Sandhurst. I was responsible for developing training and training development in the Army.
Craig McHugh:Okay, so sorry, my bad. So you're responsible for delivering training and training and development. So how important is it? Because I'm sure you've heard this a lot, and I hear it all of the time where leaders say I don't need to learn anything, I've got a master's, I've got this, I've got that, I've got the x number of years of experience. What do you say to that bullshit?
Paul Kinkaid:that's what I say to that there's. There's no leader in the world who can't learn anything. Yes, and those who say, oh, I've got 30 years of experience in my mind and occasionally it'll squeak out is do you, do you really have 30 years of experience? Or perhaps you've got one year of experience repeated 30 times, because you know it doesn't take a lot of looking under stones to see they're making the same mistakes over and over again in which case? That's not lived experience, that's an experience lived several times.
Craig McHugh:Yeah yeah, wow. So how is? How important is it that leaders continuously learn and they have? They have this, this open mindset where they're they're, they're willing to learn, they're willing to be vulnerable and say, look, I don't know everything, I can't do everything. How important is that? It's?
Paul Kinkaid:critical. It's absolutely critical Because, as a leader, if you don't have any level of humility and therefore you suggest you know it all already, there's nowhere to go. You're not going to be leading people well because you're not encouraging other people to speak up. There's no psychological safety with a leader who thinks they know it all and you've got no feedback loops either. So people don't come to that sort of leader, they just go oh, here it comes again. It's like you remember when you're a child and someone else's parent, or perhaps even yours I'm not, I'm not casting aspersions here um, someone else's parent is always the shouty parent. You've got nowhere to go. You've got nowhere to escalate to. If, if you're always the shouty parent, so if you're always the leader who's got nothing to learn and I've worked for people like that, yeah me. So just stop engaging with them and you go around them. Wow, you only engage with that person when you must engage, otherwise you just ignore them and go around them I've never, I've never do you know what?
Craig McHugh:I've never thought about it like that or giving it that perspective that if you're that leader, that shouty leader, the leader that doesn't accept feedback, that doesn't involve people, that doesn't collaborate, that actually you've got nowhere else to go no well that's a really profound point.
Paul Kinkaid:Well, thank you very much there you go, that's it eight minutes we're done. And then, well, I'd go a stage further and say if you're that person, you're not leading yeah, stop leading, just just stop right now. Yeah, well, you're not because people aren't looking to you for inspiration.
Craig McHugh:They're looking to you to try and avoid you, and that's not leadership so what do you say to those leaders who say, oh, I've got all the qualifications, I've been doing it for x amount of years, I don't need to do this, this development. You know you're in an organization because I'm sure, I'm sure, like me, you've you've been in organizations where you always get somebody in the cohort that I don't need to do this. Yeah, what do you say?
Paul Kinkaid:I just encourage them to you know, stick with it for a little while and see what you can get out of it, because if you truly don't need any development, you'll be the first person in the world I've ever met who doesn't need that and then everyone else in the room is sort of yeah, you arrogant chump. Yeah, everyone knows who that person is, and if they genuinely or I'll just call them out okay, off you go then yeah and I'll let the ceo know that you don't need any leadership development.
Craig McHugh:Yeah same. So you've mentioned arrogance a couple of times. Now I take it that that has no place whatsoever in any way, shape or form.
Paul Kinkaid:No. Confidence yes, arrogance no, and there's a fine line between the two. There is, but, yeah, arrogance there's no need for that, because you're only there as a leader, when people are following you. So you are there by virtue of followers. So there's no place for arrogance at all in leadership and I think that the best leaders who are those who have got the will to lead. They want to lead, and we could talk about definitions of leadership and all that stuff, but we will I.
Paul Kinkaid:I just don't. Well, I know because I've seen people who claim to be in a leadership role, who are arrogant and they're not leading because people aren't following. Like I said earlier on, people avoid those call signs totally, and there's, there's, sadly, people that.
Craig McHugh:So you just said there that you have to want to leave, but for me you also you have to want to leave for the right reasons and for me that is the good of the people you're serving, that for the good of the organization you're serving, for the good of the people that your organization is serving, and if you are doing it for status or title or rank or money, for me you shouldn't be a leader you know we're aligned, why we know we're aligned anyway.
Paul Kinkaid:But the three words that I tend to use that encapsulate that I think quite nicely, and they're not mine per se.
Craig McHugh:Lencioni talks about them in a number of his books yeah a status, ego, and power yes, oh, I'm glad you said you mentioned that.
Paul Kinkaid:People talk about status, ego or power or allude to those things, then they're probably not leading, they're probably managing and they're probably doing that quite well.
Craig McHugh:but they're not leading. Yeah, so you mentioned status, ego and power in your book, don't you? Yeah, I do. It's in the role modeling chapter, I believe what I'm gonna.
Paul Kinkaid:It's in the role modeling chapter. I believe they're words that, in this media, alarm going for me, you know, if I get the impression that someone's doing it for anyone or combination of those things. And I would also suggest when status, ego and or power step in the room, they are the sort of evil stepsisters, if you like, of leadership. Leadership will always leave the room. At that point I don't believe. And again from my lived experience of studying leadership and observing leaders all over the world, I think when status, ego and or power step in the room, leadership steps out wow, I love that.
Craig McHugh:That's awesome. So, mentioned before and this is something that's been on my radar, Well, it's been on my radar for a very long time. It's really come to the fore recently and actually a couple of episodes that myself and my co-host did over the past few weeks. We've talked about this a lot and it's something I've really really noticed a lack of in some organizations is safety, that's psychological safety. Can you just describe just why and how that is so?
Paul Kinkaid:important. People have to know that they are safe to speak out when they see something that doesn't feel right, doesn't look right, isn't right, without fear of retribution, because otherwise you live in this bully state, whether you think you're a bully or not. If people don't feel they can speak out to you, there is a blocker there, and it's so important now. We often hear don't bring me problems, bring me solutions.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, people think that's a great thing.
Paul Kinkaid:But yeah, and I kind of get it. But actually, if I'm a new member of staff and I see a problem or I see a system that feels clunky, but I genuinely don't have a solution, because of my lived experience to date, I should still say you know what this feels really clunky, this doesn't feel safe, whereas if I can't come to you unless I've got a solution, well then you're not going to see the thing that I'm shining my light on and you're going to carry on in blissful ignorance that there's something that's clunky and not working. So you don't get this evolution of systems in organizations. They just carry on as they are. Um professor Amy Edmondson is the lady who came up with um psychological safety as a theory and she does some great talks about it around the four different quadrants, which, again, we can go into if you choose to. But psychological safety is so important because people need to be seen and heard. Yeah, therefore feel valued in order they can give their best self.
Craig McHugh:And what happens? What happens when there is no psychological safety? So you mentioned, or you were kind of alluding to, that people won't talk up, but what's the?
Paul Kinkaid:consequence of that, the organisations don't evolve and develop with the times, so they can become static. If you become static, especially in the way the world is moving such rapid times at the moment, you become irrelevant. You become irrelevant, you go bust. Or, if you're in the public sector, you end up taking a lot of money and a lot of resource and not delivering. Now the second, in parallel to that, if you like, is that those people who do see the challenges do see the problems and shine the light on it, so they're motivated to highlight where change needs to be made, but they're not heard. Sooner, sooner or later and it's sooner rather than later they vote with their feet, they'll back themselves and go to an organization where they they know they're going to be seen and heard, because the best people back themselves to get a job elsewhere. So therefore you're left with the less best people, if I can call it that, and therefore you become static, you become irrelevant. You become irrelevant, you go bust.
Craig McHugh:So this is not something that people like you and me just spout on about and, you know, chirp on about just for the sake of it, because it's got a nice fancy title. This stuff is actually important because when you don't have it, it will stifle performance, it will stifle creativity, it will stifle innovation. But it reminds me of something that I saw or it was a while ago now and it was. It was a documentary on tv and it was about high performance or something, and it was interviewing all of these top athletes or sports people, and one of of them was Sir Dave Brailsford and he talked about that.
Craig McHugh:If you have to create a challenge state because if a team or a person is in fear that they're not going to perform very well, they're going to be really, really restrictive and they're not going to speak up, they're not going to put their hand up, they're not going to go. What about that? So this stuff is actually there for a reason. And it reminds me of something else as well. You know, remember when the england I don't know if you follow cricket at all, but the england cricket team started playing well a little while ago. Then they went off the boil a little bit, they suddenly started playing really, really well, and one of the things they did when is it ben stokes? Um, when he.
Craig McHugh:But basically, what they tried to do is to create this state where people weren't fearful, because when you are playing cricket and you're fearful, you're all tight and your stance is wrong and you're not fluid and you're not flowing. So what he did? They introduced a culture where the fear wasn't there and it suddenly released people. It took the shackles off. People could play better because they didn't have that fear. I mean, have you seen that? You know, in the, in the organizations you work for, or even in the military?
Paul Kinkaid:I definitely in the military. Yeah, because it stops people making a decision.
Paul Kinkaid:It puts that delay in between you know, sometimes decisions need to be made like super quickly in all walks of life, not just the military. But if you've got that doubt around, what if I make the wrong decision I'm going to get taken off at the knees, then you don't make it and then sometimes that opportunity has passed and sometimes the problem has manifested itself. So therefore you haven't made the decision either way and things are worse as a result. So yeah, I've definitely seen that and you're right, these things have commercial value. It's not just you read it in a book and you know wizzo.
Craig McHugh:And it's not about. I'm wondering if some, for some there's maybe a bit of a misconception, because when you have a and that's what I was trying to get out with the with the challenge state thing that Sir Dave Browsford mentioned on this documentary is that when you have psychological safety, it doesn't mean that you don't push people, it doesn't mean you don't challenge people, it doesn't mean you don't make them accountable, you just don't do it through fear.
Paul Kinkaid:Exactly. And it's also not permission to say whatever you want. It's got to be done within certain boundaries of professionalism and just being a decent human being. And it's certainly not permission to slack off either. It's a case of you see a problem, you obviously you try and solve it if you, if it's within your gift to do that, if you got the knowledge, skills, experience to do it. If not, then you point it out yeah, absolutely.
Craig McHugh:So what? What would be? What would be some top tips for you, for any leaders or managers out there, or potential aspiring leaders and managers out there If they want to create a state where people can perform really well, they can be challenged, but yet it's still a really safe environment. What would be some top tips that you'd give them?
Paul Kinkaid:I think the top one would be and it's in the back of the book actually is speak last. I think the top one would be and it's in the back of the book actually is speak last. You know, if you don't need to speak, don't speak. Invite other people's opinions first. There's a bit in the book called the Forensic Manifesto and the last one is leaders speak last.
Paul Kinkaid:Now, it's not always possible to speak last, of course, this is not 100% of the time, but, where possible, invite other people's opinions first in order that they know they can say what they want. The rationale being, if I'm the, if I'm the boss, and I say right, we can go around this roundabout and I think we should take the first exit. A lot of people are going to go, yeah, first exit, whereas if I say we're going to go around this roundabout, what exit do you feel we should take? Craig says first exit, emily says second, george says third, you know, and we go around like that, then at the end I can say look, that was great input, everyone. Second, we could do that. It would still take us where we want to go. It's a great input. I hadn't thought of taking that route so you get the ability to what I say.
Paul Kinkaid:leave a green trace on those people who have offered up an opinion that, even if it matches yours or not but guess what, If it doesn't match yours, shock horror it might be better or more efficient or more effective, In which case you can go. That is brilliant and that's fine.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, I've always been a believer. As a leader, you should surround yourself with people that are far better than you.
Paul Kinkaid:Definitely where that's possible.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, but as a leader you should surround yourself with people that are far better than you. Definitely, where that's possible, yeah, but even if they're not better, better, define better. But you know, even if they're not better than you, what makes you believe that your brain is the only one that can make the decision. You've got a 10 person team and you're the 11th brain. Let's get 11 brains on this and you're more likely to come up with a workable solution. Because people see different things, because of their points, their point of reference, their frame of reference.
Craig McHugh:Because teams exist for a reason it's not for they're not there for the leader. It's the other way around. For me, the leader is there for the team and you have a team full of an amount of people with certain expertise. For a reason don't you expertise for, for a reason don't you? So they can they, they can, they can give you those inputs and they can give you those insights and they can help with the decision making and the direction yeah, I think I might.
Paul Kinkaid:I might be about to butcher this and I'm sorry if I do. I think it was steve jobs who said something along the lines of you know, you don't recruit great people and tell them what to do.
Craig McHugh:Yes, the other way around. You recruit. Yeah, he said. You don't recruit people so you can tell them what to do.
Paul Kinkaid:You recruit them so that they can tell you what to do exactly. Great, great quote. Yeah, and it fits, doesn't it?
Craig McHugh:it does totally a million percent, a million, a million percent. So everyone psychological safety is there for a reason because it really it just really makes a difference, doesn't it? It really really does. So I mean, we've touched on it a little bit, but tell us a little bit about your book. So why forensic leadership?
Paul Kinkaid:early on in my career I was introduced to an element of forensic science, uh, by a guy called dr edmond locard. He's the father of forensic science. He's a French scientist, I think 1877 to 1966, so he had a decent innings. He did a lot of stuff in the first world war around identification of the French dead and that then became part of his, his principle. So the Loc card exchange principle we all know it, whether we know it or not says quite beautifully and quite concisely every contact leaves a trace. So you touch a carpet, you've left fibers from your shoes and a footprint on that carpet and the carpet has left fibers on you. We know this because we watch csi, things like that you know. So we know this. And even if you don't watch those, you watch the news and you know that forensic science exists. Well, if you lift that up and drop it into the lead what I say the leadership domain, but actually what we're talking about here is relationships you drop it in to the human domain. Let's put it that way any interaction leaves traces and they are positive green traces or they are negative red traces, and that is, you come away from that interaction with that individual. Let's call it a leader for sake of this discussion, and that's a positive interaction. You feel good about that interaction, that's a green trace. If you feel negative about it, that's a red trace.
Paul Kinkaid:Now, some listeners might be listening to this, thinking well, that's a little bit binary. Well, I would challenge you go and buy green paint. There's a load of different green paints out there, so you're likely to come back with the wrong green paint. What I'm trying to say is there's a sliding scale of a very light green all the way through to a really rich, beautiful green. Equally, you can have a negative interaction. That was someone who's a bit grumpy and you think obviously they've got out of bed. The wrong side that's a negative minus one, if we're going to put a score to it all the way through to horrific toxicity, bullying, harassment in the workplace. So, just as there are a whole raft of red and green paints in the shop, there are a raft and a sliding scale of red and green traces.
Craig McHugh:I love it, that's so clever, so so clever. So here's something that might be interesting and may. I'm not sure whether you agree with this or disagree with it, but I'd be interested to see what your thoughts are and how it fits and works. So I'm a believer in, regardless of what somebody else does or says and, by the way, I absolutely I'm fully on board with everything in this book. I think it's great, it really is such a great principle. But I'm also and hence why I'm asking this question because I'm a little bit conflicted about how it works. Is I'm also a believer in, regardless of what you say it works? Is I'm also a believer in, regardless of what you say? You're my leader, you do, or say I'm responsible for how I respond to that? How does that fit in?
Paul Kinkaid:you've got to own your own traces. You know whether you're the criminal or whether you're the crime scene. You've got to own the trace, okay? So there are times when a leader has got to give some bad news and that could easily be sent intentionally in a green way. I've tried to soften it as much as I can, but you can't own the way someone's going to receive it. Someone may receive that as a red trace. Now that might be because they're feeling a bit belligerent, they're really tired, they've got some bad news at, or they're just a bit of a chump. And you know there are people out there who have decided before they even get up in the morning they're going to take offence today. They just haven't worked out what about, and some of those people are, you know, professionally offended. Yeah, no, I agree with that.
Craig McHugh:Are going to receive a red.
Paul Kinkaid:It doesn't matter how you send it. You can do all you can to be conscious, deliberate and intentional about the way you transmit the trace. But absolutely, Craig, you're right in terms of you've got to own the way you receive it as well.
Craig McHugh:So what can is there is there anything that you could, you could say to leaders out there that can help with that?
Paul Kinkaid:definitely, yeah, do it from a position of care. Make it known that you're giving this for a position of care, and it might be care for the individual, it might be care for the team, it might be care for the organization, it might be self-care in terms of look, I really need to tell you this information. It's not the best news, I'm afraid, and you know there's not a great deal we I'm afraid, and you know there's not a great deal we can do about it.
Craig McHugh:But wait, let me finish and I'll give you all of the options available.
Paul Kinkaid:It's about, especially when it's giving a bad news or you think something is likely to be received as a red If you slow down and it's those same words again, be more conscious, deliberate and intentional. If we know our team well well, and we should do if we're a leader of that team, you'll you'll know how you need to tell that person that particular piece of information. Yeah, rather than just doing it in your default way, which is coin the word we used at the start quite an arrogant approach to leadership. I'm just going to tell you, and it's up to you, how you deal with it, not so much.
Craig McHugh:I'm not feeling that so it could be that I don't know, somebody has really made a huge, huge error, like big, big, big, big big they're, they're in trouble, and you could, you could absolutely ball them out and be and be a bit of a um, as least right co-host would say a bit of a, as Lisa, our co-host would say a bit of a knob about it as a leader. Or you could go look, I've got to have a word, I've got to talk to you. This is not good, but we're going to fix it and this is what we're going to do to support you, and this is what we're going to do to make it right, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So what I'm getting is that you can still give something that the other person might not like, but do it in a way that's really supportive, so that they feel like they're not being left out there in the cold on their own.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, definitely, but let's not shy away from the spiky bit of this. But sometimes people do drop a massive bollock, yeah, and they are in the shit. But you don't necessarily need to go off the deep end at them. My preferred approach is right in you come sit down. There's no need to have a standy up shouty conversation. In you come sit down. What's happened? Most people know when they've dropped a clagger. They don't need telling, they certainly don't need bawling out and they'll go look, it's my fault. I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have done this. But if they then go down the lying and denial route you know what we call below the line, blame, excuse, deny, justify well then presumably you've got a discipline policy in your workplace and you bring the full force of that discipline policy to bear. That's what it's there for. But you don't have to be a dick about it no, you don't, you really don't.
Craig McHugh:Wow, I really like that's awesome, absolute gold for for anyone out there who's listening. So, as you can see, there's post-it notes in your, rather that terrifies me why, what's coming? I love a post-it note in books. No doubt over the years, Paul, they'll be writing all over it at some point as well.
Paul Kinkaid:Go for it. I like the spelling mistakes for a start. Sorry, I like the spelling mistakes for a start.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, no, I wouldn't do that. So one I can see why chumps is one of your favourite words, because it's in the book. So one chapter that really stood out to me is the power and pitfalls of role modeling yeah so can you tell me a little bit more about this? Why did you feel you needed to write a whole chapter about it?
Paul Kinkaid:well, okay, that's a great challenge and a great chapter it is, by the way there's a danger in leadership, especially when we're new to leadership, that we see someone who we really admire and we think you know, for example, boris Johnson, we might have, we might have really admired that individual and we look at them and go I love the way they do this, I love the way they do that, I love the way they do everything else. And there's a risk that you try and become that person, you try and role model that person, but you're not that person.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, so true I mean it sounds obvious to say out loud, but some people don't do this is. There are elements of Boris that you might quite like. There are elements of Barack Obama that you might quite like. There are elements of Sarah Blakely, who was the founder of Spanx, that you might quite like and admire. Take those elements and try and make them fit in your world. Yeah, try and improve yourself. Going back to that, why should leaders learn? Take slices of what you see and what you like. You know, I've seen things from tribal chiefs in jungles and I think I need to do more of that Really.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, give me an example. Oh, I love this.
Paul Kinkaid:Well, storytelling, wow. I really struggled with storytelling when I was starting out. I couldn't decode storytelling from this, once upon a time, jackanory, patronising approach. Whereas actually you know we are as a being humans have evolved through storytelling we literally open up around a fire and start telling stories. So, and actually, when you look in the military orders process, there's a bit in there where the commander will shut their notepad, look the troops in the eye and say, say right, this is what we're going to do and essentially tell a story wow it's called the commander's intent.
Paul Kinkaid:Wow, in the army orders process, wow I mean let's step away from that. A bit, but so that's the role modeling is. I would encourage people to take elements of what they admire in others and try and fit it into the context within which they're operating and it may or may not, because you can force good things in where they don't fit.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, and then you're not going to be authentic, are you? No, exactly, you're not coming across as yourself.
Paul Kinkaid:You're trying to force something everyone knows when it's incongruent and it's forced, and then you cease being a leader. You just start being a bit of a clown. Yeah, but there's also a bit in there that I talk about, which is role play. Lots of people role play what they think a leader is, which is this strong, omnipotent, all decision-making, I know everything. Leader, which really there's no room for vulnerability, totally not. So if you're role playing and there's a hateful phrase out there, it really grips my doo-doo. Fake it till you make it hate it.
Craig McHugh:Know what I've been guilty using that recently, but I also would agree with you I hate it and I hate myself for using it sometimes you've got, like we said earlier on, there's 11 brains in your organization.
Paul Kinkaid:Just because your one brain doesn't know how to do it, there's a chance one of the other 10 will, yeah so open up and say look, I'm not really sure what to do in it. I've done it all through my career. I'm not really sure what to do here. Anyone got any ideas yeah, this, that and the other. Okay, we'll take that bit. We'll take that bit. That's probably not going to work here, but I'll take it on, I'll put them together and it will then become my plan.
Craig McHugh:And the thing thing is, people will respect you more for that, won't they?
Paul Kinkaid:yeah, there's a humility.
Paul Kinkaid:There's an honesty in that and, as we both know, appropriate level of vulnerability builds trust. I have, unless it's an absolute chump, I. It's a rare thing that someone, a human being, is vulnerable and people don't step closer. Yeah, totally, you know, I've no idea how to do this. I'm a bit scared of this. I'm glad you said that I feel scared as well. I didn't know you felt that way. How can I help? That's how people step closer. It's very rare beast that someone goes. Oh my god, what a weirdo you don't know how to do that.
Craig McHugh:I don't think I've ever come across it. In fact, the probably the closest I've ever got and it's probably slightly different, I guess but is when somebody doesn't know what to do and then they don't make any decision. Yeah, I mean, that's just shocking. If you don't know what to do, ask somebody, say you don't know, but don't make no decision.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, exactly, I mean, this is interesting and I could be opening a can of worms here. No, open it, open it. I think, with the influx of things like chat, gpt, there's a danger that people are going to go to AI Rather than open up to their team. They're going to go to AI and AI will tell them how to do it and therefore they'll think they're leading well. But they haven't made those human mistakes, and AI isn't always the right answer, as we know, it can give you something that just won't fit in that context, doesn't matter how good your prompt engineering is absolutely.
Craig McHugh:It reminds me of. Have you seen the? I'm sure you have. Have you seen the, the drama series band of brothers?
Paul Kinkaid:I've seen elements of it.
Craig McHugh:I haven't seen the whole thing. So there, brothers, I've seen elements of it, I haven't seen the whole thing. So there's an episode, and they're in Bastogne, they're in the woods overlooking Foy, and there's this I was about to say lieutenant, but lieutenant, who he's new in, he's kind of destined for great things and he's getting his combat experience. I can't remember what his name was, but he was one of those leaders that made no decisions at all and you could see the impact it was having on his men. Now, luckily, the men were so good that they were pulling together and they were making up for the lack of that, but when they then went to have to assault the town that was below the forest, they were all in. It was a complete disaster because he wouldn't make a decision and, rather than asking people and involving people, it just turned to absolute chaos. And yeah, and I think that's a huge thing for leaders, people want to be led well.
Paul Kinkaid:Everybody wants to be led well, and when you're not, so I've got this thing called the 3am club, right, and it's where a leader who is challenging themselves. They might not feel they're up to it through imposter syndrome or whatever you want to call that, or you know they're worried about the way they're leading. There's a horrible number of people awake in those leadership appointments at 3am because they haven't had decent leadership development or whatever. They awake worried. The flip side of that is so are their team because they're not being led well. There's a lot of followers awake at 3am because they're worried about their job or their work.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, so you're absolutely right. The inability to make a decision sends this red ripple out across the whole team of doubt. Myself and therefore everyone else then starts to second guess any decision you do make. And because we want to be led well, we want our voice to be represented at the top table, whatever that means, and our leader's job is to represent us at the top table, for want of a better phrase, and there's doubt that that's going to happen. Therefore, are we being heard, or are we going to be passed over as a team and other teams are going to be getting the benefits of working in this organisation.
Craig McHugh:So I've got so many things going off in my head, paul, but I think there's a reverse of that, where the leader doesn't involve the team whatsoever and makes every single decision, so almost that micromanaging approach. And when that happens and I'm sure you've experienced this as well is that the team become reliant on the leader for everything. And as you said with your roundabout example is, they'll just go with what the leader says and it makes them less self reliant. They won't be able to make decisions themselves, and then, whenever they have to make a decision, they'll go to the leader and go I don't know what to do, and the leader does everything, and then the leader becomes a less effective leader because they are literally doing everything absolutely right.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, spot, I got nothing to add to that, yes where I suppose what my question is where, where's the, where's the balance?
Paul Kinkaid:I think there are certain elements that the leader has to make decisions on and they, you know, depending on what organization you're in, will depend on whether there's you know. You might want to quantify it in terms of I will make the decisions where there's a risk to life, where there's a significant health and safety impact, or we call it delegated authority in terms of right, if, if, if the finances required to make this decision are over five5,000, I need to be included in it. So there's a nice little Cartesian coordinate thing whereby it's I decide, you decide, but tell me before you make the decision, you actually enact it. You decide and tell me you've done it and I don't need to know. Oh, wow.
Craig McHugh:I love that and I don't need to know.
Paul Kinkaid:Oh, wow, I love that and that kind of comes from an extrapolation of intent-based leadership, which is David Marquette's approach in Turn the Ship Around good book, almost as good as mine.
Paul Kinkaid:You know yourself, is that you push information to where the no, you push decisions to where the information is held. I knew I was going to butcher a quote at some point. Um, so you, you can nurture people to ask them right, you know, what do you see, what do you notice, what do you think you should do then? Okay, so what are you going to do? Well, I intend to do this brilliant. Make it happen so that coaches and helps people grow?
Craig McHugh:yeah, absolutely, so how important is coaching then?
Paul Kinkaid:again as fundamental as learning. There is always space for tell. Don't get me wrong. You know I'm not a pink and fluffy. Let's coach everything. Let's well, what do you think, craig? What do you think? Because that's bloody infuriating when you've got actually no solution. So there is. I say there's always space for coaching. Sometimes there's space for tell, but I think, yeah, a leader needs to be an accomplished coach.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, a million percent, and even if it's just something as simple as all, right. So what have you done already? Oh, I haven't, I haven't. I've done that. And what happened there? Just so you can get a feel for what's going on, because then you're going to be able to help the person better, the more information you have.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, we can ask, okay, what options do you think we've got? And that can start opening things up all the way through to, okay, what would be the perfect outcome, do you think? Yeah, and everyone can think of what perfection is.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, it's so important, isn't it coaching?
Paul Kinkaid:coaching. But you don't need to get to perfection, right? If perfection's 10, where do you think we are now? Well, I think we're at a three. Okay, ignore 10. How do we get to four and five? I?
Craig McHugh:love that scale approach yeah really love it, because if you let's just say you've got to get to 10 and they say, uh, I need to ask so, where, how far along are you now? Oh, I think I'm at five. Well, you don't actually have to reach the full 10, you've only got to go another five, and that that can really help people in a kind of kind of psychological subconscious way. Yeah, definitely, and where?
Paul Kinkaid:10 is perfection. Actually, good is good enough, so maybe we only need to get to eight absolutely couldn't agree more with that.
Craig McHugh:So you mentioned leading intentionally a minute ago, which is another great part of your book, and you've got how to increase your capacity to lead intentionally and you've got five things. Slow down, which I absolutely love. That's the first thing I want to ask you about Version control observe your surroundings. Perform a pre-mortem analysis, which I loved as well. I'm definitely having that one, I'm taking that, I'm using that myself. That's great and measure your traces. So why is slowing down so important? Because I think this is critical for a leader you've got to give yourself some headspace, you do don't you, um, so, so let me go.
Paul Kinkaid:I don't. I try and avoid going back to pure military things, but let's go back to a pure military thing, yeah, please do. When it all goes noisy and, frankly, the shit hits the fan routinely, the commander will step away and let the second in command deal with that. While the commander is thinking, we used to call it a condor moment there was an advert for pipe tobacco on the tv where someone was stuck in a position and they just kick back, light the pipe, have a smoke, and by the end of the condor moment they'd worked out what they were going to do. It's exactly the same. So you just you know, you get yourself down into cover if it's a noisy, nasty environment, or you just take yourself out of it and go right, that's unpleasant. What am I going to do? How do I get everyone out of this? What do I need to do? And you start to think.
Paul Kinkaid:And then there's there's two books out there. One is called Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. The other one is the Chimp Paradox by Steve, or is it Peters or Powers Peters? I think they both talk about the same thing. We've got multiple different, basically two different brains. I know the Chimp Paradox suggests there's a third, the computer. But System 1 thinking, which is what Daniel Kahneman calls it System 1 and System 2. But system one thinking, which is what daniel kane and thinks that calls it system one and system two. System one is where 95 of our decisions are made and it's that illogical, very rapid bang. Something happens. Let's make a decision. System two is the more logical, deeper, profound thought process. So what you do is you take yourself out, slow down. It encourages system two thinking, in which means you're going to get a better, deeper, richer outcome and solution. Sometimes you have to make a decision in the moment and those are the very, very, very rare situations where command and control works as a leadership function sometimes.
Craig McHugh:Sometimes it's needed I agree with that Sometimes and that's preservation of life or whatever it is.
Paul Kinkaid:We don't parent by shouting and screaming at our children. But if our child is about to run out into a busy road, we scream and shout in order to get an immediate command and control response. The same with if someone's going to do something that's going to endanger their life. We want an immediate, unquestioning response, so we tend to up the urgency and that's done through volume generally one of the best leaders I've ever had, best managers, bosses I've ever had, was he said.
Craig McHugh:In fact, it was Peter Wakefield, the chap that was on our first special guest session. He said, craig, you need to make sure in your calendar every week there is some thinking time. And I went I don't have time for that, peter. He said that's the time that's going to enable you to do the other stuff. Book it in, put it in your calendar.
Craig McHugh:Book it in, put it in your calendar, definitely yeah, couldn't agree more with that. So the other one I really loved in this little list is I really love this one version control. What's that one about?
Paul Kinkaid:Lots of people listening to this will think I'm meaning sort of document version control. Make sure you're all working on version 3.2. I'm not talking about that. That's obvious and it goes without saying. I'm talking about which version of you has just rocked up to work, which version of you is in that moment. So it might be that you've had a really bad night for no other reason.
Paul Kinkaid:Sometimes we get all hot and sticky in the night, don't we? We see every hour of the clock and you get up you've not slept well. It might be the neighbour's dog or neighbor's baby, or your own dog or baby or whatever it is, has kept you awake in the night, and we know how important sleep is. So when you are sleep deprived and there's a great thing out there I can't remember exactly what it, but it equates hours of loss of sleep to units of alcohol taken on to impair your decision like. I think it's something like eight hours lost sleep is equivalent of 12 units of alcohol, and you wouldn't rock up to work after what I do. But you wouldn't rock up to work, you know, after a good old session in the pub and expect to make good decisions. The same is true of sleep.
Paul Kinkaid:So I'm sort of rambling a little bit, but which version? So I try and do this. I'm not, I don't do it every day. You know I'm not the, I'm not the panacea for this, but you know, I'll get up in the morning, I'll brush my teeth and I'll try and think okay, which version of me has got up this morning? And it might be that I then travel to a client or go to work and I get cut up on the way in, or there's traffic, or, as happened the other day, seven minutes before the train is due in they cancel it and I think, yeah, you know, in the moment I could go yeah, actually it's right.
Paul Kinkaid:Okay, slow down. What time have I got to be at the client? How far away away are they? I've driven to the station. It's in central London. Can I get to central London in the car in that time? Probably, let's give it a go.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paul Kinkaid:So again, you know, I might have rocked up to that client in the nick of time, stressed, frustrated, a bit hot and sweaty, because I've had to run from an unfamiliar car park. I don't know if I've got to pay congestion charge for that car park. I've got all these things going on, yeah, yeah been there and I could run in, and I am then prime for chucking out red traces everywhere.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, totally.
Paul Kinkaid:So I'm much better to get into work and go. Do you know what? I've had a really rubbish night last night. I'm really stressed my grandfather's unwell my grandfather's unwell.
Paul Kinkaid:It's unlikely he's going to see the end of the year, my dog's unwell, you know whatever is going on and just own it, own the traces, like we said at the beginning, and say, look, I'm probably not going to be my best self today. So if I'm a bit clumsy or if I chuck out a few red traces, I'm sorry. Please let me know gently that I've done it, because also, if someone else is feeling the same way and they go oh, you've just been a right chump there, you're going to chunk up and you're going to end windmilled in the car park if you're not careful.
Craig McHugh:Absolute gold. Paul, this is absolute gold. Seriously love that one.
Paul Kinkaid:Oh, I love this next one as well.
Craig McHugh:I think it's so important Observe your surroundings.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, so again, what's going on? There's a couple of things and I am going to end up going to I'm going to sound like a broken record. I'm going to end up going back to sort of the military part. There's a couple of phrases here that work really well.
Paul Kinkaid:One is and it comes from jungle tracking. It was then used in Iraq and Afghanistan around ground sign awareness and it is quite simply the absence of the normal and the presence of the abnormal. So ignore jungle, ignore desert. In the workplace, if one of your colleagues normally rocks up to work and they've got an open neck shirt on, they're clean shaven. It's always never the same shirt Two days on the bounce and they're normally quite jovial and they rock up, they've got the same shirt on the second day. It's looking a bit creased or a bit of breakfast down their shirt or they're unshaven. For a few days they look a bit like two pounder spuds tied up in a one pound bag.
Paul Kinkaid:Then, from a position of care, I have noticed Craig, let's go for a cup of tea or something. I've noticed the following Are you okay? Yeah, you're looking at your surroundings. So that's one thing when you notice the abnormal, but there's also a bit around your surroundings. If you notice no change whatsoever for a period of time, just stop and think, slow down and go. Okay, nothing's changed for a while. Is that what I was expecting? Is that okay? Or are we being complacent, heads down and missing problems and missing opportunities? So there's an element around complacency here as well yeah or are we just as comfortable?
Craig McHugh:and you've got, you've got within this at this point. You've got a section here about listening through their ears. Yeah, no, so I noticed that it's not seeing through their eyes. It's listening through their ears. Yeah, so I noticed that it's not seeing through their eyes, it's listening through their ears.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, most negative traces are left through a verbal interaction Wow, you know, rather than talk and present to our team in our default way, which most people do, and I get it. We don't have much time, so slow down and create space. Yeah, all right, paul, how am I going to do that? Well, make it happen. There's lots of ways you can make it happen. Intent-based leadership is just one way. But, yeah, if you can spend a bit of time, maybe on a commute into work, maybe on the train, maybe the evening before, right, I've got to tell people this news, good or bad. I've got to tell them this news, good or bad, I've got to tell them this news. How do I need to present this news in order that I maximize the opportunity for a green trace on all of them? So that is genius, thank you.
Craig McHugh:Well, can I and I know we were because we we spoke before and and we had a right old chat about this as well. But but one thing I really love about your book just before we touch on these couple of other points, is that they're running all the way through this book is emotional intelligence. Why is that so important?
Paul Kinkaid:I mean, I bang on about it all the time, just but yeah, why we're humans and we, whether we know it or not, we have an uncanny knack to pick up on incongruence, and that's when the picture doesn't match the sound. You know, when you're watching a film and the lips don't quite meet the voice and you think I've got to pause this because it's doing my edit and you download it again or you start it again or whatever it is. That's similar to emotion, intelligence, you know. You've got to be able to look around you and notice the abnormal opposed to the normal. You've got to know when someone's got some shizzle going on in their life, because and it's a phrase that my fiance and I use when we're delivering stuff is that 100 of your people have got something going on 100 of the time. Yeah, and that may be a good thing, you may be a bad thing, a million percent. You've got to be able to pick up on these micro behaviors when someone isn't being their natural self.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, totally well, we've also got to understand who we are. So that version control is the first stage of self-awareness, which is the first stage of emotional intelligence, as you know totally and and again.
Craig McHugh:I just want to stress that emotional intelligence is not just a fancy thing that people are suddenly talking about or people like you and me are talking about. We're talking about it for a reason. In fact there was one of my favorite quotes or statistics is that there was some studies done by Harvard and Stanford universities, and they worked out through these studies, that around 87% of our success is attributable to emotional intelligence type skills. Is the kicker, though we only pay attention to those skills that matter the most for 10% of the time.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, that gap is not cool.
Craig McHugh:It's insane isn't it?
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, and you look at most employers and they want an emotionally intelligent person. You look at the skills they want. Yeah, sure, there are some technical skills, that's a given but actually you want someone who can fit in in a behavioral sense and be a good member of the team. You want someone who's got the laughably cool soft skills.
Craig McHugh:I hate that term, paul Right, but can we pick another name for it, because I?
Paul Kinkaid:hate it. I thought that was going to trigger you. I'm quite happy by that.
Craig McHugh:What's soft about it?
Paul Kinkaid:Nothing, nothing. The hardest skills, they're people skills. They're just being a decent human being, totally that. You know. We've met people everyone who's listening to this has met someone who doesn't even register the self-awareness, the very first entry level of emotion intelligence. They're not self-aware enough. I call them chumps, but often I love that word. Those people will will chuck out a raft of red traces totally yeah, in fact, I put a post on linkedin.
Craig McHugh:I saw something in a coffee shop the other day and I had to take take a photo of it. It's just like a thing in a frame and it said be a nice human. And I just suddenly thought that you know whether you're a leader, manager, colleague, customer, supplier, service provider like us. Just remember to be a nice human as well, because I was thinking about your book at the time. Actually, because you don't, you will never quite know the impact or the trace that you leave behind exactly it fits.
Paul Kinkaid:You can leave a good trace or a crap trace, so I choose to put this in the leadership domain but, as I said earlier on, this is just relationships it is. Yeah, you can use this at home. You can fact it's been used on me at home, my son. I was over explaining something to him a couple of years back and he went Dad, you're leaving red traces all over me, man.
Craig McHugh:Brilliant. What's your son's name? George. Well done, George.
Paul Kinkaid:He held that mirror up pretty strong and I thought fair play play.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, that's awesome. That is awesome. Um, I think we've only got time for for one more of these things, but everyone will have to, in fact. In fact, we'll get to the fifth one as well. But people, everyone honestly on just go and get this book. It is absolute gold. It really really is.
Paul Kinkaid:It's brilliant I'm in the process of recording the audio book as well.
Craig McHugh:For that I saw on linked other day. I cannot wait for that. That's going to be really good and your app thing that you mentioned in the back looks really interesting as well. But another genius thing and again it's so simple and it's so obvious that I just never really, I suppose, thought about it in this way perform a pre-mortem analysis. That is genius. What's that about?
Paul Kinkaid:So the pre-mortem analysis is not my work. I need to put that out there up front. It's by a guy called Gary Klein and it's great for overcoming things like groupthink and it's a contrarian way of thinking, a critical way of thinking, if you like. So we know what a post-mortem is what was the cause of failure, what was the cause of death, which is great for the future, but it's not great for the project that's just failed or the person who's just died. So a pre-mortem analysis looks at what will be the cause of failure, what will be the cause of death, but because as human beings we're naturally optimistic when, what will be the cause of death, but because as human beings, we're naturally optimistic when we look at it and go what will be? Oh, it'll be fine. And we might.
Paul Kinkaid:If we spend some time thinking about it, we might come up with a certain level of failure criteria for that project or that service or that activity we're about to do, whereas if we fast forward beyond the projected implementation date let's say it's the 1st of August this year we project forward about 12 months to the 1st of August 2026, look backwards and say why did we fail? That's the bit I love. Our brain changes. The psychology of why did we fail is based on our own lived experience. Therefore, we come up with a ton more failure criteria.
Craig McHugh:So clever, but it's so good when you, when you put, when you, you've written it here and, and yeah, and yeah, you've mentioned um gary klein there. So gary klein, thank you. But I was reading, I'm like it's so glaringly obvious.
Paul Kinkaid:Yes, I use it all the time.
Craig McHugh:So let me ask you about another approach. I love this approach and I think you know some people like it, some people might not, but I love it and I think it's used really well. It's really good, and this did originate in the military. I believe it might've been the Navy SEALs or special forces in the US military came up with it is the after action review. Where do you sit with that? So, what went well? What didn't go well? What can we do differently or better next time?
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, well, I think it came from aviation actually, but after each sortie, but where it came from? Irrelevant. Yeah, after action reviews really important, the amount of places I go to. Oh, we haven't got time to do that.
Craig McHugh:I know it's mental, isn't it? Then you haven't got time to succeed.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, exactly it goes back to that individual we spoke about and you're going to make the same mistakes. You're not going to grow in experience, you're going to make the same mistake, project after project after project. Yeah, so an after action review does so many things. One, it builds organization and individual resilience, yes. Two, it builds psychological safety because people can go. Do you know what? We messed this up. In fact, I worked with a client years ago who had failure of the month, not to sensationalize failure, but to just give it permission that's brilliant.
Craig McHugh:I love that idea and he started it.
Paul Kinkaid:He was like do you know what? I've done this, I've done that? And it took a while for the organisation to get transparent enough and vulnerable enough to know they're not going to be taken off at the knees.
Craig McHugh:Wow.
Paul Kinkaid:But it creates psychological safety as well. Love that. But it also accelerates growth because it creates innovation.
Craig McHugh:It does totally, totally. Oh, that's good. I'm pleased that you like that approach as well. So the last one in this really great section of your book is measure your traces. So how do?
Paul Kinkaid:people measure their green and red traces. This is potentially going to sound like an awful sale now no, don't. But you can measure your traces really quite simply, and that's what the app that you mentioned a moment ago is called Dacto app. People say where does dacto come from? Dactylography is the science of taking fingerprints, so that's where dacto comes from.
Paul Kinkaid:So dacto app is an assessment, a diagnostic, whereby we come into an organization, allow the organization to use dacto app and it asks the lead, the followers, what traces have been left upon them by their leader across 25 traits, five leadership domains, and it provides a data insight into a leadership capability, so that hateful phrase soft skills. We can put quantitative data into what is previously been a really hard to measure thing. It came from a couple of things. One, when I was leading leaders, I would have to write a performance report on them and I only ever got my view of how they were leading and that was my interaction with them, and of course, they're going to be slightly different to me than they are to the followers. And even if I, as like the ceo, go to the followers, I'm only going to get the ceo version of the truth, unless you're a very courageous individual or don't care so rather than a 360, and I feel fundamentally the 360s are flawed but this I think, if they're done well, they can be still useful.
Paul Kinkaid:That might be where we disagree, then okay, um, but this is a 180 bottom up. It asks a set of questions that only if you are being led you would know about. So therefore, they're very tailored, very targeted to that vertical bottom up assessment and we can gather data on that. It's anonymous data, so we can determine in near real time a leader's leadership capability through various different data cycles.
Craig McHugh:I love that.
Paul Kinkaid:And we can draw that. In fact, the app will create schematics. It'll trace it over time. So we see when paul's had something bad happen at home, perhaps because his leadership capability drops off the edge of a cliff in march, and his trace drops wow, that's really down.
Craig McHugh:And the scores that people give him suddenly start becoming red people do it at intervals over time we recommend monthly wow, that's really good.
Paul Kinkaid:I love that in order that you can, from a position of care, step in and say, paul, I notice your March scores have dropped tremendously. What's going on, are you okay? I love that it might be that that person is quite quitting and they've checked out, or it might be they've got something going on at home. It might be that you've just had Craig and Live your Learning come in to do a leadership development program and that individual goes. If that's the standard you want from me, I can't maintain that.
Paul Kinkaid:So they're checked out, right that's so good. It's a light touch, but it gives so much value it highlights superstars. So you don't promote on technical competence, you promote on leadership capability. It allows you to highlight that not everyone needs a communication workshop or an emotional intelligence workshop so important you can. You can use your lnd budget in a smarter way rather than use blanket solutions that are pretty bland I'd agree with that and it enables you to forecast and succession plan much, much better.
Craig McHugh:And, having been in L&D for well pretty much all of my career and been headed up L&D departments, there is nothing worse than doing courses for the sake of it. Nothing worse at all. It just sucks the life out of everybody.
Paul Kinkaid:Yeah, and from a facilitator's perspective, it's soul destroying when you know most people in the room don't want to be there yeah, it is.
Craig McHugh:So until we can get your app, give I'm a leader, give me one tip that I can, that I can go away with.
Paul Kinkaid:That will help me measure my green and red traces yeah, well, this depends on the type of leader you are, of course, but ask crazy, I know, just ask people. If you start that, think of it like an onion with different layers. The closest layer are the ones that your colleagues and direct reports that you trust the most, you've known for the longest, say look, explain, these are red traces, these are green traces. In what environments am I green and what environments am I red? You'll get the feedback from your most trusted colleagues. They'll go straight from the hip, yeah, yeah, for to start off with, and then you can roll that out because you've got to demonstrate. You can take feedback in psychologically, in a psychologically safe manner, before you then start dishing it out.
Craig McHugh:Yeah, a million percent. Couldn't agree more with that. So convince me why 360s are flawed.
Paul Kinkaid:I think the questions in 360s in order to get an answer from everyone are so bland that the answers don't really mean anything.
Craig McHugh:Give me an example.
Paul Kinkaid:So I can't ask in a 360 to what style of coach is Craig? Because you don't coach your peers and you certainly don't coach your boss and everyone else is forced to make an answer of yeah, they're probably okay, they're probably so. The vast majority of 360s in my experience are the question sets are so bland to get an answer from everyone that the answers aren't very meaningful and most 360s are only done annually yeah that second point I definitely agree with.
Paul Kinkaid:By the time you analyze the data you've moved on so much and it's only a single snapshot in time with and I would say this wouldn't I, but with a monthly input like dacto app, does you get near real-time assessments? You could do it fortnight if you want, as long as you demonstrate you're taking the results seriously. But monthly is more or quarterly is more sensible because near real-time response actually.
Craig McHugh:So, yeah, I think I think that there are definitely challenges with 360s. When I've done them and I've done them for for clients in the not too distant past I'm very, very particular with the question set. The questions are super important and they have to be asked in a very particular way and very carefully considered. So I would absolutely 100% agree on that the questions will make it or break it. I think the frequency is really really important as well. I think if you again, if you use them in the right way and you want to get a feel, a feel for how, for where people are, and then use that to help with their development, I think that could be. I think they can be really really useful. But your your other point as well is because they're only done annually. If you have a big survey that gets sent out, people get survey fatigue yeah yeah, you'll find a really clever way of doing it.
Craig McHugh:So, yeah, no, I'd. No, I'd 100 percent agree with that, but I think as a concept when you're going out to get feedback from others about how you are as a leader, if it's done in a really good way, it can only be helpful.
Paul Kinkaid:Agreed. Like we said at the start, learning feedback is a great way to learn, and you might as well ask your boss. You know the best people out out, the best leaders out there, are asking these questions anyway yeah, totally that, totally that.
Craig McHugh:Wow, what a conversation, paul. So we always finish up the episode with what we call the living, your learning podcast upon the point, which is just really a one last takeaway or big takeaway from the conversation that we can give listeners or viewers to take away with them. So what would be, in terms of a ponder point, your biggest piece of advice or tip that you could give any leaders that are listening or watching?
Paul Kinkaid:find the space to slow down, that's your top one yeah, where, where can you slow down? Yeah?
Craig McHugh:oh my, oh my God, that's everyone.
Paul Kinkaid:You cannot underestimate the power of that, yeah, it's massive, because within that space, the system two thinking comes in and you'll just get a whole, even if it's just an hour a week. To start with, no one does their best thinking under pressure. I do my best thinking when I'm walking the dog or in the shower. Now think about the first one. Please don't think about the second one but, that's when most things come to me yeah, totally yeah.
Craig McHugh:I couldn't agree more with that. Sometimes they come to you when you're not even trying yeah yeah, yeah, totally yeah. I couldn't agree more with that, so mine would be. And I know, I know I mean we've only scratched the surface of your book, paul. There's so much good stuff in there, you know. There's the guiding principles, which are care, notice and transparency. That stuff is gold as well. But people go and get this. How much is it on amazon? It's not much, is it I think it's 12.99.
Paul Kinkaid:It's the kindle version's 2.99, I think, and the audible will be out in the spring and I don't know what the price point of that's going to be a shameless plug for you, paul, literally for the sake of a couple of coffees in Starbucks and a sticky bun.
Craig McHugh:You will get so much value from that. Go, go and get it. And we've only scratched the surface. We could talk for hours about this, so there's so much more in there. Everyone but mine would be out. Of the things that we focused on, particularly around this intentional leadership is observe your surroundings. That is super powerful for me and that just that self-awareness bit, not only of yourself but of others as well, on what's going on um, yeah, very, very powerful and, of course, if you slow down, you can observe more exactly exactly that, paul.
Paul Kinkaid:What a pleasure sir thank you, it's been really good. I I've enjoyed it. Thanks for having me on Craig.
Craig McHugh:No, my pleasure, and let's get you back on again in the not too distant future to talk about this other stuff as well, particularly those three core principles, because they're absolutely great. So, yeah, thank you, paul, absolute pleasure. We'll have you on again soon and everyone, thank you so much for listening or watching on whatever channel you are listening or watching on, don't forget to give us a like, a follow up, subscribe, so we can get this amazing conversation out to as many people as possible. Go and buy, but it is brilliant, and we will see you all again very soon on the next episode of the living your learning podcast. See ya, and there we have it the latest episode of the Living your Learning podcast. See ya, and there we have it the latest episode of the Living your Learning podcast and the second of our special guest sessions. We really hope you enjoyed it. Now, please, don't forget. Please give us a like, a follow or a subscribe on whichever channel you are watching or listening on, and we really look forward to you joining us next time.
