Liam Walsh is a Consultant, an Equities Investor, Executive Coach, Digital Media Guru, an aspiring ally for gender equality, a tad Dyslexic (but not heaps), and now an author, with the release of his book The Corporate Charade; why not just be yourself at work?
Since the COVID pandemic, there have been significant changes in how we work and continued discussion and conjecture on how we should work in the future. But no matter if you are Work From Home or Returning to the Office or somewhere in-between, one thing we have all experience is the corporate charade many adopt to survive.
Liam returns to the Managing Marketing podcast to share his insights into the inauthenticity of workplace behaviour from his more than twenty years of experience as a Managing Director of some of the world’s biggest corporations.
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They literally said, we’ll create these interim steps in there. So, we ended up with this organizational chart that basically had a level, I think it was three. So, CEO was one; we’re at three and four. And then we had 3.1, 3.2.
That sounds really motivating.
Transcription:
Darren:
Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, founder and CEO of TrinityP3 Marketing Management consultancy. And welcome to Managing Marketing, a weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.
This week we turn our attention to the workplace. Since the COVID pandemic, there’s been many major changes in the way we work and continued discussion and conjecture on the way we should work in the future.
But no matter if you’re a work from home or returning to the office or somewhere in between, you’ll enjoy my conversation today with Liam Walsh, who returns to the Managing Marketing Podcast.
Now, Liam’s a consultant, an equities investor, an executive coach, a digital media guru, an aspiring ally or ally? Ally or ally?
Liam:
I don’t know.
Darren:
Okay, ally to gender equality, he is a tad dyslexic and so am I, but not heaps. And now he’s an author with the release of his book, The Corporate Charade: Why Not Just Be Yourself At Work? Which he’s here to discuss. Please welcome to Managing Marketing, Liam Walsh. Welcome, Liam.
Liam:
Thanks, Darren. I’m stoked to be here only 47 years after the last one.
Darren:
So, Liam, it’s great to catch up because, well, first of all, the book, which is amazing.
Liam:
Thank you.
Darren:
I mean, I read it over the weekend, and it made me laugh out loud, which is a real credit to you.
And secondly, I wouldn’t mind talking about the fact that your experience is virtually ideal for writing this book because you’ve had some really senior management roles in some very large companies, haven’t you?
Liam:
I have. But before I talk about that, you have to tell me, Darren, how long it takes you to read it.
Darren:
Well, probably about six hours, I’d say.
Liam:
Okay, okay.
Darren:
Why?
Liam:
I thought it would’ve been — because I think it’s got like a writing age of four, so I think you can get through it pretty quick.
Darren:
Oh, yeah. I’m a very slow reader. I’m actually one of those people that moves my lips as I read still. So, that’s-
Liam:
The Homer Simpson model is a great model. So yeah, I have worked for a bunch of pretty successful companies. I normally end up working for American companies because I’m like an interpreter for Americans on how to enter and work with Australians.
Because Australians tell the truth, Americans are more excited in general with the narrative. And that’s kind of how we got to this book, which was to compare real life to maybe what work-life looks like.
Darren:
Well, and you say almost as a throwaway line, some American companies, but we’re talking about Microsoft advertising, Facebook, who you were with for quite a while and Mobi, which is more a global company. But these are really big businesses, aren’t they?
Liam:
They’re huge. They’re absolutely vast. And I normally have got in, in the early growth phase because that’s such an attractive phase, quite honestly, to work in.
Darren:
Yeah.
Liam:
Because politics is quite low, they’re well-funded, like very well-funded. And so, you get to ride this wave of kind of innovation excitement and challenge your brand and challenge your things.
And then I would typically kind of move on to the next kind of challenge, which was something like if you look at Mobi that was very big in mobile when mobile was really taking off.
Facebook was 11 years ago when it was high growth phase and not as successful as now.
Darren:
Yeah. So, not just big companies, you also had very senior roles. I mean, I know titles can be misleading because there’s this thing called title promotion, but you were a managing director in most of those companies, which meant you had some sort of defined scope of responsibility.
Liam:
Yeah, I think I’ve been like the MD or GM, what do you want to call that? The top since the year 2001. So, it’s been, yeah, 22 years.
Darren:
More than 20 years of being in charge of a large group of people.
Liam:
Yeah. Which is great. And as a premier might say, a little bit exhausting.
Darren:
Well, and everyone in business always says the biggest challenge is people. And that is one of the roles is to manage people to meet the expectation of the business, isn’t it?
Liam:
Yeah, it is actually. And even though anyone who would talk to me would say that I don’t like managing people and even myself, I would say that. I actually really do. I get a big kick out of developing people and seeing them grow in terms of IQ and EQ. It’s really exciting.
I do winge a lot about it, don’t get me wrong, but I also get a big kick out of it.
Darren:
Yeah. Now, and look, the reason I raised that is because what I found reading the book (and that’s The Corporate Charade: Why Not Just Be Yourself At Work?), was that a lot of it is about the way in businesses we treat people and we treat them in a way that just would never cut it in sort of our real lives outside of work.
Liam:
No way would it ever cut it. And it’s a funny thing because we the corporate entities, say people are our greatest asset. And we obviously don’t mean that because the greatest asset will be the coal that we’re digging out of the ground or the social network that we’ve built. That’s the biggest asset.
But we do tend to say, but I think to some extent what we really mean is people are our asset.
Darren:
Well, I think yeah, the interpretation-
Liam:
Or an asset.
Darren:
Yeah. It’s an asset that you hopefully realize value, shareholder value. But it’s not an asset that you can sell. It’s certainly not CapEx.
Liam:
No, it’s not CapEx.
Darren:
It’s OpEx.
Liam:
It’s OpEx.
Darren:
Because you can’t actually realize the value of them by selling them. Because I think that’s called slavery.
Liam:
Yes.
Darren:
Isn’t it?
Liam:
I think it is. Yes. And I think it’s not really plausible. It’s a bit like when the humans, us humans, here we are the company’s greatest asset, we think that would be nice. But we know it’s not true.
Darren:
Yeah.
Liam:
We’re not the greatest asset.
Darren:
But there are a lot of terms in business. Like our biggest asset walks out the door every night and to your point. But there are a lot of terms in business, aren’t they? I think it was called weasel words, they’re almost phrases that get thrown around to avoid saying what you really mean.
Liam:
Yeah. I think, yeah, we don’t say what we mean in business. We do just use jargon. I lost it.
Darren:
No, that’s alright. Weasel words
Liam:
I wanted …
Darren:
No, it’s alright. Yeah. The issue is that we don’t really say what we mean. We’re inclined in business to use weasel words like our best asset instead of really using plain language.
Liam:
Yeah. And I think in plain language we should adopt plain language for company values. Because the company values are normally determined (which I think is also in the book), at an offsite.
Darren:
Yeah.
Liam:
We sit around and I’ve done this many times in comfort, determining values for the company, which we would like to be true.
Darren:
I have that personal experience. When I started TrinityP3, we had an executive coach come in and we spent a day about three-quarters of the way through, we suddenly looked at the wall and it said honest-
Liam:
Inspiring.
Darren:
Yeah. It was all these terms. And I said, but what if we were none of those, what if we were the opposite? These are table stakes, and if you weren’t those, what are you?
Liam:
Well, and that’s the weird thing because I think when you do the values, you ship them out to the company, all hands, jazz hands. And then later on we ask the staff … we put them on signs on the wall, everywhere. These are the company values.
But when we ask the staff if they’re not near the sign, we’re like, what are the three company values? They’re always scratching their head going, “I don’t know.” But it’s not hard to remember three words.
Darren:
No.
Liam:
That’s really easy to do. And then you go, “Why don’t I remember?” And I was like, “Because the values are really reflective of mine.” Because I walk into that company, I have my values, the company says you should have our values. And you’re like, “Well I can’t really,” if yours is conservative and mine is innovative, these are my values, I can’t change them nine to five.
Darren:
Yeah. I get that. But I also think it’s because they’re not really inspirational. People are attracted to other people that are inspirational.
Liam:
Yeah.
Darren:
But I think many of these things to the point I made before, they’re table stacks. We’re honest, we’ve got integrity and we’re innovative. And it’s like, okay, fine. But that’s not inspiring me.
Liam:
It’s setting the bar pretty low when you say, we’ll be honest.
Darren:
Yeah. And have integrity and be inspirational. And it’s like, we are creative. That’s one of the things that drives me crazy about the advertising industry. We’re creative and it’s like, okay, I’d expect that.
Liam:
Yes.
Darren:
What else could you be? Are you going to have any agency that goes, “We’re anti-creative.” It’s almost, you expect it so it’s not going to inspire me because if you’re not that, you’re not going to cut it in this business, in that category.
Liam:
I think probably specifically in the advertising industry, you would expect it to be creative. You would probably also expect it to do a lot of advertising for its own business.
Darren:
Which they don’t.
Liam:
We think of it as a funny little nuance because we’re in advertising, but in any other industry, I think they look at that and go, “That’s not okay.”
Darren:
Yeah. Now Liam, the thing I about the book is that we’re talking about marketing media and advertising, but this has application way beyond that category. And I love that you’ve dealt with all of the many aspects of business generally, recruitment, value statements, and what else?
Liam:
Business cases.
Darren:
Developing business cases, which I thought was brilliant. And what was the inspiration? At what point did you sit down and go, there needs to be a document that captures all of the sort of anomalies between the way we behave, and the way people behave.
Liam:
So, probably two things. One was not very personal, but it was one-on-one. And I hired a friend to come in and solve a problem with Ad Ops or something. He’s a brainiac, and Ad Ops wasn’t working.
And so anyway, two weeks later, I saw him and said, “How’s it going?” He said, “It’s great.” He goes, “It’s weird working with you, though because you’re my friends.” And I went, “Oh, what’s weird about that?” He goes, “You’re the same at the pub as you are at work.” And I went, ‘Well, who else would I be?”
And he goes, “Anyone else. This is not what I’m used to.” I said, “Is it a problem?” He goes, “No, I love it. It’s great. I like working with someone who’s real.” I went, “Oh, okay. No big deal.” Walk away.
That was kind of the starting point to go, actually, why am I anomalous? If that’s a word to others. And I am. And then that started getting me thinking about when I do work and interact with people, particularly with clients, the rules of engagement are so strange and honesty is just kind of like this, maybe we’ll have some in this conversation.
Darren:
Yeah.
Liam:
Whereas when we do, do the honesty in that conversation — when I did it or I watch other people do it, the conversation was so much better. Like this conversation, it’s just very honest. It’s nothing sinister or political in it; it’s just a conversation.
Darren:
No, it’s really interesting you say that because there’s a famous saying, which is once you master sincerity, anything’s possible.
Liam:
Yeah.
Darren:
Right?
Liam:
Yes.
Darren:
And there are so many people that through my career in advertising and now consulting where you run into people that you almost detect the lack of sincerity because they’re someone that doesn’t feel genuine. It doesn’t feel like they’re being a real person because they’ve put this costume on and are playing the role of a managing director or a creative director.
Liam:
I can’t pretend that having a more successful business is my motivation for this. My motivation is not to put the costume on because the other side of their conversation goes, I see the costume, I don’t know what to believe. And that’s just a terrible way to spend hours and hours and hours every day.
Darren:
Well, I think that’s part of what leads to burnout and mental health issues and physical health issues is keeping up the pretence.
Liam:
The act.
Darren:
The act. That you’re constantly performing almost like a trained dog, or the monkey on the grinder.
Liam:
I think a real-life example of that is when there’s a presentation, whether that’s what you do or people are doing, big pitches or just any other presentation, when people do a presentation, when someone asks, “How was that?” The question is how was the presentation? The answer is it was pretty good or not very good.
But it’s not the point. The presentation was meant to communicate some information.
Darren:
That’s right.
Liam:
But we’re so used to being presented to, that we just switch off and go, yeah, it’s pretty good. She spoke well, but what was it about?
Darren:
Yeah. Look, I love the fact that you’ve pulled that out because we see this all the time and I find generally men are more focused on their performance, than women who are inclined to be taking in how it lands on the other side of the table.
And I actually had a pitch where I was walking the agency out afterwards and the men were all slapping each other. “Oh, that was great. You did really well.”
Liam:
Oh, My God. It’s close to the bone.
Darren:
And one of the women said … in fact, I think the only woman in the panel turned around and said, “No, I’m not sure the client really bought it.” And they’re like, “Oh, don’t be stupid.” It was almost, “Didn’t you see how good we are?”
And I think that’s really important. Great communication comes from not by how well you say something, but by how well the person listening to it embraces the information and processes it. Yeah.
Liam:
Well, a lot of it’s just listening. It’s just presenting. But you’re right, it is about how they feel and normally they feel like an audience.
Darren:
It is also a lack of honesty. There is a thing in society where we don’t give honest feedback on how we are feeling.
And I had a conversation with a marketer just recently and they were telling me, “Yeah, we ran our own pitch, and they were almost apologetic.” I said, “That’s fine. You can run your own pitch.” “We selected an agency because they were really good at this and this and this.”
And I said, “Well, it’s interesting you should say that because they’re all rational reasons, but I’m pretty sure you probably chose them because they just felt right.
Liam:
Oh, yeah.
Darren:
And she went, “Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, you’re probably right.” And I said, it’s like all of us, we buy things because it makes us feel good or feel right. And then we build all these rational reasons afterwards.
And I see that when people are giving feedback. And one of the things you write in the book is about that whole performance review. How it’s become almost ludicrous that in a world where there’s so much interaction, you’re still required to give feedback.
Liam:
Well, yeah. There’s bits in the book around feedback is a gift.
Darren:
Yeah. I love that bit. Yeah.
Liam:
And then there’s bit around performance reviews. The performance reviews are particularly strange, but they seem sensible because we deal with that manager (everyone has a manager somehow), every day.
Darren:
Yeah.
Liam:
And as we go through the performance review, it’s like, I’m going to judge you then I’m going to tell you what you’re doing wrong and you’re going to pretend to agree with my assessments. It’s going to be a little bit of fight. And then you’re not going to talk about how I could be better.
Or if I do invite you, it’s like one minute and make it nice. Maybe you should email me more. But it’s not actually like a critical review to go, well actually bit of a micromanager, I’ve seen you bully people. That’s just not going to happen.
So, that feels like a ludicrous construct, particularly when we see each other every single day. That once a year we’ll talk formally is strange and it’s just awkward.
And then the feedback notion-
Darren:
Well, because that’s a better technique to build in feedback-
Liam:
Yes. Build in feedback.
Darren:
Is part of your day-to-day.
Liam:
Correct. Build it in.
Darren:
In fact, encourage it. Here’s what I want to do or here’s what I’m planning to do. What do you think? How well would this work?
Liam:
And I think having worked in some really massive enterprises that have a hundred billion dollars in cash in the bank right now, in those companies that notion of feedback is a gift in large enterprise is a really strange concept because it’s sort of without being dramatic, a bit weaponized.
So, you say, I’ve got some feedback for you, Darren. I think you make people intimidated and scared and you just have to take that feedback as gospel. If you say, I don’t, I’m actually highly empathetic and I listen, then I’ll say, you’re not taking the feedback, Darren.
So, you have to take the bloody feedback. And so, in a smaller company you might get feedback and what you are talking about, just ongoing feedback. And I don’t want to reference the book too much because it’s boring, but-
Darren:
No, it’s not, the book is not boring. Seriously. I mean, I get sent a lot of books. First of all, I bought it.
Liam:
Thank you for that. That’s a result.
Darren:
And secondly, as soon as I started reading, I read half of the book on a flight.
Liam:
Oh yeah.
Darren:
And then the other half on the return flight. So, that’s how I know it was about six hours. And it was one of those books that you just kept reading. I mean, first of all the format.
But the other thing I like is the way you approach it. A lot of it is putting a particular business behavior in real life situations to show really how unacceptable or ludicrous it is. And I think that’s a really powerful thing because I think for most people, when you go into work mode, your brain almost switches to that’s the way it should be.
But I’m operating in that world and until you get that juxtaposition that you provide, it makes you suddenly go, oh holy crap, I’ve been operating like this. And it’s not very real.
Liam:
It’s not very real. And I think it feels a bit like, and I’m exaggerating, but it feels a bit — obviously exaggerating. A bit like Jumanji.
Darren:
Yes.
Liam:
Right. So, if we go for the interview process and say we’re going to do the second interview maybe and we want to test for core competencies. So, we’re testing the core competencies for the second interview.
Now you would think if you have these three things, you want to know what this human can do, that you would want to know what they can do.
Darren:
Yeah.
Liam:
What do we do? We say come in for the second interview, we’ll have a list here of our secret questions and then we’ll ask you the question and you’ll have to answer really well. Give me the best example in your life.
Darren:
Yeah. On the spot.
Liam:
Yeah. I’ve worked 23 years. I’ve got a reference 11 years ago, remember their names and what happened. Or we could tell you what we’re going to ask you. And then you would come with your best answer.
Darren:
And be prepared.
Liam:
But if we do that, the organization will say no, we need to test them.
Darren:
That they carry me all that knowledge of 23 years, and can instantly recall it.
Liam:
That would be cheating if we told them. It would be cheating to tell them what we wanted to know in advance. Yes, yeah. That’s a problem.
Darren:
Yeah. Look and the other one about recruiting people that I liked is the excuse of, we can’t employ them because they’re overqualified for the role. And I love the example you use, which is the neurosurgeon or-
Liam:
Brain surgeon.
Darren:
Brain surgeon. Yeah. Why would you not go with the best-qualified brain surgeon? And yet someone overqualified. Now explain it because I love the way that you put it.
Liam:
I’ve had it many times where I have interviewed amazing candidates and the rest of the panel have said they’re a bit overqualified and they’ll get bored. And you’re like, “Okay, is our main concern here that someone we hire will do an excellent job and then eventually get bored and leave.”
And the normal response is yes. And I’m like, “I’m happy with excellent work done by an excellent person who may get bored and leave versus hiring someone who will also leave and won’t do an excellent job.”
Darren:
But the fact that they’ve applied for the job and turned up for an interview and gone through this process shows that they’re interested. They at least have some tacit interest in the role. So, whether they get bored down the track because ultimately no one stays in a job forever unless they’re what?
Liam:
I know. Well, it’s a bit like, I think if you’re coaching like the Lakers or at the moment the Celtics. If you’re coaching the Celtics and Minnesota, go, “We want that guy to come work for us.” You would try to get that guy. You wouldn’t say, “Oh no, that guy will get bored.” You go, “No, I want the best coach in the world, let’s go get that guy.” Then the company will go, “No, no, we’ll just take someone average.”
Darren:
Yeah. But there is this obsession with retention isn’t there? And even the advertising industry, which has a high churn rate, it can be between 30 and 40% of their staff a year can turn over in agencies. But there’s this obsession about locking people in.
Liam:
Yeah. There’s two streams I think to retention. It is sometimes indicator that you’ve got a problem in your company. You don’t treat people well and so they leave.
There’s another piece of it where we think all retention is bad. I mean all-
Darren:
All churn.
Liam:
All churn is bad. Sorry. But often it’s really just graduating. If we reframed it and said, Darren’s been with the company, or Liam’s been with the company for three or four years, he’s done a great job and he wants to move on.
Darren:
Sorry.
Liam:
Yeah. If you reframe retention, you could reframe it literally using the word of graduating and put that in the spreadsheet, in the company, in HR, Darren graduated; Liam graduated. Because that person learnt a lot and then they went and did something else that excited them.
Or if they got more money, that’s okay too. They went for more money, they went for a new job, they went to manage people, they went nowhere. None of that really matters. If we take the view that they learnt a lot and did a lot for the company and they graduated just like they did at university.
It would be weird to do year 12 for 10 years. I’m exaggerating, but it’s sort of what a company looks like. Just do the same thing for 10 years. It’s like, I don’t want to. It’s not sensible. No one wins in this world. Let people graduate.
Darren:
I think it’s a hangover because I know my father’s generation, he worked for one company for 40 years.
Liam:
Honestly?
Darren:
Yeah. For 40 years.
Liam:
Wow.
Darren:
And it changed three times. It started off as the PMG and then it became Telecom and then Telstra. So, he worked for one company with three different names but for 40 years. And he just had this career path where there was incremental steps every three to five years. And he had this, what he felt was a career plan.
But it’s much harder today for any organization because we’ve flattened that organizational structure. And you highlight in the book, the way we’ve overcome that is created these fake steps within-
Liam:
It’s bizarre.
Darren:
That structure.
Liam:
It is so strange. That is all true. And in some companies they actually have this, so they want it to be flat. The problem is that the employee goes, I want it to be flat too. And after a year they want to get promoted and you can’t get promoted to do anything because it’s flat.
So, they’ve created these levels, which exist. So, you’ll have a job title like project manager level something. And normally it’s a secret and you can’t tell your colleagues what level you are, or you’ll get a warning.
And you’ll get promoted on the same day and then say, “Liam, you are now a project manager, we’ve promoted you to project manager.” So, it’s just this really awkward construct. It’s fake. And when we go home and say, “Honey, I got promoted.” She’s like, “It sounds the same.” Yeah, but I got a new secret level.
Darren:
Liam, we did some work with the bank. There was six levels from the teller in the branch to the CEO, six levels. And we’re organizing in marketing, which only span two levels of that six.
Liam:
Yeah.
Darren:
So, you had six for the whole organization. CEO at the top, someone working in a branch down the bottom. And we had two, can you imagine what it was like trying to do an organizational chart where you can only have well, head of marketing and everyone else?
And so, they literally said, we’ll just create these interim steps in there. So, we ended up with this organizational chart that basically had level, I think it was three. So, CEO was one, we’re at three and four. And then we had 3.1, 3.2.
Liam:
That sounds really motivating.
Darren:
So, you’re a 3 today and we’re promoting you to 3.2.
Liam:
Do you have that system at TrinityP3?
Darren:
No, no. We have me and everyone else.
Liam:
Right.
Darren:
Well, I’m the only-
Liam:
Whatever works, judgment free.
Darren:
But it is part of a hangover of an old mentality that someone joins when they’re at the graduate and stays with the company forever. I don’t think anyone has that expectation anymore.
Liam:
Well, that’s one of the weird dissonances I think in contemporary business is that we acknowledge that you do three years of job, and you go somewhere else. Something like that.
But then we also have this thing that high churn is bad. These two things cannot logically exist. If we understand it’s every three years or four years, then why are you looking at churn? Because they have to churn. That’s the model.
Darren:
And one of the things that I really appreciated in the book was this idea of accepting that people are not in those roles forever. Because even in my own business, I remember in the early days when someone would go to leave, I would have this visceral feeling of it’s a catastrophe.
But then I quickly learned, no, it just was a change. It was like a change of pace, a change of step, bringing someone new in, they’d bring in new ideas and we could explore those and things like that.
As a business owner, my biggest measure of success is when people come back, that they’ll leave to go and do something else. And they might do it for two or three years and then, I’ll get a call and they’ll go, “Is there anything I can do? And welcome them back.
Liam:
You’ve had a few back?
Darren:
Sorry?
Liam:
You’ve had a few people back?
Darren:
In one year, I had three people return that had left between two and five years earlier. And that’s great because what they often come back with is a new perspective. Because they’ve often gone back out into the advertising marketing industry and then they bring that sort of knowledge back into TrinityP3.
Liam:
Because that’s not radically dissimilar. And everything I’m doing in this is comparing it to real life as you know, but that’s not radically dissimilar to not having seen a friend for nine months. And then just say, “Hey Darren, let’s catch up.” That’s not awkward. You may not have seen them for nine months, but it’s not awkward.
But normally what you are doing discussing there where I brought them back in, that’s almost revolutionary. Oh, my God. They came back. But it shouldn’t-
Darren:
No.
Liam:
It should just be like-
Darren:
But I see it as a positive.
Liam:
Of course.
Darren:
And when people leave, I go, just remember the door’s always open. It’s like the prodigal son, from a religious point of view, but that’s the way I see it.
So, I went from the early days of being fearful of churn to now embracing it because people have to make the decisions. The people that work with you have to make the decisions that are right for them and their families. And as an employer you can’t be in a position of trying to stop them doing what’s right for them.
Liam:
You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t.
Darren:
Yeah.
Liam:
We sort of do.
Darren:
Yeah. Well, and you’ve got a good example there of where someone that they want to keep says, “I’m leaving.” And what do they do? “Oh, we’ve got a plan, but we’ll show you tomorrow.” I love that.
Liam:
I actually had one of the guys who I coach had happened to him like six months ago. It was so — I burst out laughing when he came to, he goes, “This has happened. I’ve resigned, like you said. And we discussed and now they’ve come back with, they’ve got a plan for me.”
And I just burst out laughing. He’s like, “It’s not funny.” I went, “It is funny. They don’t have a plan. There is no plan.” He’s like, “Oh no, they really seem …
If they had one, they just would’ve given it to you. They would’ve said, “Here it is. This is the plan we meant to give to you.” But they don’t have one. It’s just something they say. And then they have to scurry around for 24 hours to go, “What else could we give him? We give him a new title. We’ll give him a pay rise. We’ll present it to him.” But it never works because the person wanted to leave. And it’s not true.
Darren:
And if it’s got to the point’s where you’ve made a decision to leave, I think there’s a big case of potential regrets if you get lured to stay on.
Liam:
There is.
Darren:
It’s like psychologically you’ve made that decision, I’m out the door and they … what was that thing for Godfather part two, just when you think you’re out, they claw you back in. It’s like that example.
Liam:
But it is funny, normally if that thing about plans were true, there’d be all these plans everywhere.
Darren:
Yeah. That’s right. Well, and a lot of organizations say we’ve got career path plans for all our staff. And you go, really?
Liam:
No, not really.
Darren:
Well, beyond 12 months? I can imagine they could have it for 12 months, but if you’re making plans for the rest of their lives, seriously that’s a lot of wasted effort.
Liam:
I mean, the problem with all those plans is invariably if you are the manager helping people with their plans, that their plan is to get your job.
Darren:
Yeah.
Liam:
So, it tends to be quiet. Your goals aren’t really aligned to go, “Hey, I’m going to help you get my job.” It’s not motivating.
Darren:
So, that’s one of the thing. You’ve raised that and it’s not in the book.
Liam:
No.
Darren:
Another behavior that I see a lot in corporate is never employing anyone that could replace you. And succession is the one reason why you should be doing that. Isn’t it?
Liam:
Hiring people that-
Darren:
That could replace you and should replace you eventually.
Liam:
Yeah. So, I mean two things. I’ve always hired people that I thought were at least as good, ideally better. Not in any nice way just because they’ll do amazing work. And then if they replace me, whatever, they’ve still got to score to get through me.
But succession planning is a little bit — I feel a bit strongly about this one because it is quite, to some extent … it’s not in the book, but it is a horrible construct to say to someone we, I’m giving you this job, Darren, to find your replacement. That doesn’t feel good because whoever you identify, let’s say it’s Liam, Liam’s going to replace Darren-
Darren:
But I’ve actually done that.
Liam:
Right.
Darren:
So, when I was a creative director at J. Walter Thompson, they said, “You need to appoint someone as your deputy.”
Liam:
I’ve done it too.
Darren:
Deputy. And I put them in place knowing that they could easily replace me because that was me structuring my way out of advertising with a lovely big redundancy.
Liam:
Well, there you go. There you go. I dig in that situation, works a … and that person underneath you’s going, “What’s in it for you?” You go, “A big fat check.”
Darren:
No, I didn’t say that.
Liam:
No, you didn’t.
Darren:
Because you need them to be really hungry. You want them to replace you. Not doing you a favor. Letting them know they’re doing your favor could underfeed ambition.
Liam:
You wanted that giant cardboard check that they hand to you. That’s what I want. That’s my motivation.
Darren:
No, but look, yeah, I think that as a good leader, you should always be employing and everyone points to Richard Branson and they go … because Richard Branson famously said, “Always employ people that are smarter than you.” And everyone points to it and goes, “Yeah, yeah. That’s the way to do it.” And then they go around and find people that are not a threat.
Liam:
Yeah, I know. It’s funny actually having worked in all these companies, where there’s lots of conservative managers, lots, they’re everywhere, you look at a conservative manager. And they’ve all got that bloody book on their bloody bookshelf or on their desk about Richard Branson who breaks all the rules. It’s like, we work at Microsoft guys, there’s no rule breaking here. The only rule breaking is that book.
Darren:
Not if you want a career.
Liam:
Just do what you’re told.
Darren:
And that’s one of the things that you highlight in the book, that a lot of this behavior is actually driven by fear. Isn’t it?
Liam:
I’ve reflected on this, and I’ve interviewed so many executives and it started as the meme of a corporate warrior? Somebody goes into battle and after about a hundred conversations it’s a corporate worrier.
Darren:
Worrier.
Liam:
It’s what they do. They just worry all day. I worried, I’d go home and hang out with my daughter, and she’d be doing something incredibly cute and I’d still be going, “Oh, but shit, I’ve got to get that presentation in by Tuesday and wonder if Steve’s done his bit.” And I’m thinking about that because I’m worrying and to some extent-
Darren:
Which means you’re not present.
Liam:
No. So, my real life is screwed.
Darren:
So Liam, one of the things I notice reading the book is about 80% of it is having a lot of fun, but making really good points about the folly of our behavior at work. The corporate charade that we put on. You do come up with some solutions. It’s only the last 20 pages, about 10% is actually providing solutions. Was there a particular reason for that?
Liam:
Well, in the beginning there were no solutions.
Darren:
Oh, okay.
Liam:
So, it’s an improvement.
Darren:
Well, I’m glad you’re honest about it.
Liam:
The intent was just write different examples, different examples, different examples, so that a corporate worrier would understand that maybe the life they’re living isn’t that good at work. So, it’d be like, okay, there’s 60 examples. Then it was like, okay, what are you going to do to help fix it?
Now the starting point for that was don’t break the actual rules, like the written down, documented rules of your company. Don’t break them. But if it’s not written down, break them. Do whatever you want.
And the central tenet of it is to be honest and empathetic where you can. And so, primarily what we’re trying to say is create little circles of trust. Probably your direct reports or if you’re a direct report to someone else.
If you all have an agreement that you will be honest with each other, that means, for example, rejecting meetings without getting worried about getting fired or giving negative feedback without worrying about someone getting defensive. Because a person’s just like, “Oh, we’ve got a circle of trust, we can work like this.”
And then the second part of it is to try to conceptualize practically what’s the worst that could happen if you were just yourself, the worst that could happen is over time they would get rid of you.
But over time, and if the average tenure is two to three years, why do you care? You’re going to be gone anyway. But you could spend two to three years working in a job, being honest, being yourself, and still leaving on the same timeframe. Wouldn’t that just be joyous?
Which is what I sort of did. I’d confront the fear that I did have. But I’d do it anyway. and I can see people around me going, “You have no fear.” I’m like, “I have tons of fear and I do it anyway because it makes me happy.”
Darren:
So, that’s great because reminds me of a conversation. I was in London, and I was talking to a CMO, but he was no longer a CMO. What he’d done is he got to a point in his career where he got sick of having to play the politics of every big company that he worked in marketing for. And he resigned from the last job, and he set himself up as a marketing consultant.
But what he would do is he’d make a deal with the CEO on what it was that he wanted to achieve from a marketing perspective, immeasurable terms. And he’d say, I don’t want to get paid a salary. I want to get paid commensurate with achieving that.
And the first one he walked into a bank, and I won’t say which one. And there was very specific metrics and they set two years to do it and a fee to pay, when he achieved it. He said eight months later he’d hit the number, said pay the money and I’m out of here.
And he said it fundamentally changed how productive he was at working because he didn’t have to be concerned about the politics and the fear. He had a contract, he either delivered or he didn’t. And he said it fundamentally changed the way he approached his work.
Now obviously that’s not available to everyone, but it was interesting how that unlocked for him a totally different way of working by not being concerned all the time about being fired or making sure everyone’s happy with you or whatever.
Liam:
I mean, it does trick the same for me at the moment, which is that notion of companies hire you sort of for your time. So, they hire us full-time. Permanent basis for whatever that is, but really they’re still hiring us for time that we do versus the outcome.
Darren:
Not what you achieve.
Liam:
So, what we end up doing is we get it done. Get this job done and so we get it done. But one of the tests that … quite useful once that project is done where it’s a pitch or something else you could say before you even see it, it’s like, how good is this? It’s like, what do you mean? It’s like score it out of 10.
And it goes eight and you go, okay, I haven’t read it, but is it really an eight? It’s like, okay, maybe it’s a seven. I still haven’t read it. I don’t know. Just before we … I just want to know like, what do you think? And then they go six. And it’s probably a six. Probably is a six, right?
Darren:
Yeah.
Liam:
Because the job is to get it done. Not to get it done well. How would you get it done well? You’d do your best, but if you do your best, the company says, “I don’t care about the best, I just need it done.”
And so, we set off these systems where no one’s doing their best because you’re not going to be rewarded for your best.
Darren:
But it’s also because the way we pay people is by the hour.
Liam:
Correct. By the hour.
Darren:
And if I pay you for 40 hours, then I want my-
Liam:
40 hours.
Darren:
60 hours.
Liam:
Yes. 40 plus 20.
Darren:
Yeah. I want 50% more.
Liam:
Yes.
Darren:
I don’t want my pound-
Liam:
20%, 50%.
Darren:
I want my pound and another half as well.
Liam:
Yes.
Darren:
Yeah. Which is part of the ridiculousness of it.
Liam:
Ridiculous.
Darren:
Which is we base it on — unless you’re a transactional trades or charged by the hour consultant, you get paid a salary and then there’s this social pressure. And I know this because I’ve had a number of young people say, they’ve come to me and gone, “If I get up to leave the agency before seven o’clock, I get dirty looks.” Right?
Liam:
Yeah.
Darren:
There’s this cultural thing that you don’t leave before seven at night.
Liam:
Particularly in-
Darren:
But no one is focused on what time you actually got in.
Liam:
No.
Darren:
Bizarrely.
Liam:
Even what I’m doing now. It might be off but similar to what you said, a lot of the work that I’m doing now is literally not even an hourly rate, it is compelling. It’s just like a fee. And then how much work will you do, I go, I don’t know.
Darren:
To achieve a result. You get agreement about what is it that you want me to deliver?
Liam:
And this conversation takes like three hours normally to kind of go seriously, you’re not going to commit to a time. I’m like, “I will make no commitment on time. Just on what I’ll do for you,” and it takes a while for them to kind of go, “But can we call on you any, anytime.”
Say “No, not any time. Quite frequently, but no, I’m not available for these things. This is what we are agreeing that I’ll do. And I’ll get it done.”
And they tend to eventually go, “Okay.” But it’s confronting for them because I want time.
Darren:
Because we’re used to this time basis, that it’s not the quality of that time, it’s the amount of that time.
Liam:
And if you can improve margin or profit, literally press profit by 2 to $3 million. I don’t want an hourly rate to make $2 million for you. That doesn’t seem good to me.
Darren:
There’s not that many hours in the year to be able to bill enough to-
Liam:
No.
Darren:
Look again, I’ll come back to this book because I have to say it’s probably one of the best reads I’ve had from a business perspective in quite a while. So-
Liam:
Thank you.
Darren:
Absolute, absolute credit to you. I can’t recommend it more highly to everyone that’s working in an environment that they’re not feeling like they’re being themselves. It’s called The Corporate Charade: Why Not Just Be Yourself At Work? Where’s it available? Can people get at Amazon and?
Liam:
It’s only on Amazon at the moment, but obviously it’s in hard cover. I mean paperback and Kindle. And I’m resisting doing anything with voice because you’ve now hearing my voice. But if I can find someone with a good voice.
Darren:
I think a nice audible book could be quite good.
Liam:
I know. I just need to find someone’s voice to do it.
Darren:
Yeah. Well Liam Walsh, thank you very much. I wish you all the success. The last page says you’re planning to write another one.
Liam:
Yes. Well, I’m going to-
Darren:
Don’t tell us.
Liam:
There’s two. There’s two.
Darren:
Fantastic. Well look, absolutely recommend it. Thanks for joining us today on Managing Marketing. Before you go, I have got a question though. And that is, you have worked for some really big brands. I’m wondering if you’re willing to share with us from your perspective, which one was the most toxic?
