Discover the Secrets to Upskilling Remote Teams with Richard Phu

Transcript

Lachy Gray  00:00

Developing your leadership for the future of work. This is the Make It Work podcast. My name is Lachy Gray and along with my co host Karen Kirton, we explore the future of work, and how we as leaders need to adapt. In series four, we're focusing on upskilling. And why it's the key to attracting and retaining great people, and thriving in today's world. We aim to give you thought-provoking ideas and practical takeaways that you can use to future proof your organisation. In today's episode, we're talking about upskilling remote teams, and in particular, team members who work remotely and inside other businesses. And before I introduce today's guest, I do want to remind you that we have a free bonus for our podcast listeners to head over and check it out at our link tree. So link tr.ie/make it work podcast. So today's guest is Richard Phu is the business freedom designer. That's a cool title and managing director at outsourcing Angel, a Sydney based outsourcing agency that recruits and manages reliable and long term virtual assistants. For businesses around the world. Outsourcing Angel helps SME owners scale their business to run without them. Sounds fantastic. Welcome, Richard.

Richard Phu  01:22

Lachy, Karen. Thanks for having me on. I mean, like super pumped, guys. And yeah, it's been so long, right? Lachy since we last seen each other. And I'm sitting down now playing at IANA. So I'm excited to be here, guys, and hopefully can bring some good value.

Lachy Gray  01:35

Yeah, look forward to it. So a bit, a little bit of background there. We were hiring for a customer success manager in 2018. I had to go back and check my emails. And we had some great conversations with Rich at the time. You chose to go in a different direction, which I think was actually outsourcing angels. Is that correct?

Richard Phu  01:56

Yeah, it was actually between you guys and Outsourcing Angel. And then I'm like, at that point, I think, you know, for me, one of the big things was I needed like that flexibility to work from home because it's me. And yeah, like, you know, there was this good growth opportunity with Lennar as well, and then yeah, that's what we ended up going down towards. And that's how can we we're going full circle today, right?

Lachy Gray  02:18

That's right. Exactly. Well, it'd be great if you could start with a quick elevator pitch for outsourcing angels, just to help us understand what you do. Customers that you serve and a little bit about your team?

Richard Phu  02:32

Yeah, you hit the nail pretty much on the head there, we started out as a virtual assistant recruiting company, which has now I guess, I've pretty much led through that change from there. Because at the end of the day, nowadays, you can get a virtual assistant pretty much anywhere you want, right? It's almost become like a commodity. And one of the things when we've gone down into what is this, I guess, systemization consulting, right. So that means using my management consulting skills, about business processes, layering it in, we kind of think about three, three pillars, it's, you have the people, right to scale a business, you need people, it gets overlaid with technology, right? So automations, tools, apps, and then processes on top of that. So these are the three pillars we're working towards, so that then we can systemize a person's business. Because most business owners get to a good scale, they get, you know, small team, but then they realise they make their team kind of like addicted to them, right? They create that bottleneck that keeps them trapped where the team doesn't know how to function. Without, you know, going to the business owner go, Hey, what do I do here? What I do now. And you know, we've just seen that trap where entrepreneurs and business owners are like, they love that limelight. I feel so special. My whole team needs me, hero, right? And then you know, that's what happened to Lynn too. And that's why we try to transform in the business there. So that then Linda actually had to let go hold that belief. And so yeah, that's what we get to do now. So we come in with systems, automation and technology layered on top of the VA stuff, right, so that we can try and streamline our business so that it creates less stress for the business owner, they can step out more, they can elevate the team more. And so the business owner gets to do more what they love. So that's pretty much what we do now.

Karen Kirton  04:17

That just for people that aren't aware of outsourcing angels, Lynn that Richard was just referring to his limp Debbie, who's the owner of outsourcing angels. She's very prolific on social media, and I recommend checking her out on YouTube for her Lynn pod episodes, which are awesome. She interviews a lot of business owners and you can get a lot of value out of that. In return, you know, we're talking today, and this whole series really is about upskilling. And how we do that with our teams and it has extra complexity for you because you have staff that are then working for different clients. So imagine that you're upskilling in your own process, and then you're upskilling in the clients processes. So how do you try and stop that It burnout or overstretching of your team members, when it comes to development, you know, do you need to rein it in? Sometimes? And how do you go about that?

Richard Phu  05:08

That's a really good question, Karen. So, you know, for us, we try and focus predominantly like, particularly my area, we want to focus on the internal team, right. So when I say internal team, that's the team that helps, that is the backbone of supporting the whole client fronting side of things, the client front, VA, you know, often we do additional trainings on the side, and we still trying to get better at it, right. But a lot of that also depends on the client as well, because we don't want to be in there going clog, you're not using this thing probably should be like this, right? Like, you know, as much as you know, I would love to do that and help them out, you know, it's just outside of our scope of work here. You know, at the end of the day, they're hiring someone to work in their business. And, you know, they set up the upskilling procedures over there as well. Right. But with that whole programme that we have called systemize. and scale up, or SNS, as we were short term, that is we build out those procedures, we build up that training. And then we train the VA on those new systems and automations that we do build up here. And one of the things, you know, when I started five years ago with Lynne here, and outsourcing Angel, one of the things that she wanted to do is reaching, we want to like upskill, the team more and all that too, right? There's, so we have that urge from the top to push it down there. But what I said to them was, we can try that. But then like, if the team doesn't want to, or they're not craving it, they're not going to show up. Even if we do all these like sessions and have great content. They're just not ready, right? In that space. Because right now, at that point in time, the team was very much, hey, just give me tasks, right. And then I will go back for you to make decisions. And I had to spend a lot of time to I guess, educate the team educate Linda, as well as like to stop making decisions. Lynn, let me pass these principles down to the team and push them right to understand that they can make decisions. And then you know, from there, then it's about teaching them how to make better decisions going forward. And so literally just yesterday, one of the we finally got to the point where now the team is really hungry, right? And not hungry for learning from me or when it's hungry to to share the learnings that I have is that we started something like, you know, in corporate, there's all these lunch and learns, sessions, right? And I said, let's do that. And then we've renamed it to Angel talks, right, just in time. Really the same thing with Ted Talks. And we just had our first one yesterday, and he was really good, right? And, you know, I remember that person said, Richard, can you be the first one to do it? I'm like, No, if I do it, not that I'm bragging, I think it'd be too good. And everyone would be too scared, right? To follow through. So I said, it's better that you first right, have a go, you can't get it wrong. You know, even if you mess up, and you're not a great presenter, that's okay, right. But at least I just want you to be authentic, and share your real experience. And then that's going to inspire others to come do the same. So we want to do that every month, right with someone else in another team. So we do those types of things. And right now we're looking at building like this whole, what we call Angel Academy, so that then we can actually upskill VAs even more so that you know, in the soft skills that are missing at the moment. Excellent.

Lachy Gray  08:21

That's interesting, that you've really tried to empower your team to make decisions themselves, which that's a, that can be a big step, it can be a big level up for some people who I guess may not have come from an environment like that might be reticent to do it on may not necessarily think that they can do it. So there's a fair bit involved there. How did you? How did you approach that? And how long did it take you to get to this point where you can do the angel talks?

Richard Phu  08:55

Probably it started, we're talking like it's a long process. It's like only now like in my fifth year here at the angel talks finally happened, right? And that's not because I kept saving the idea we should do it. It's someone got so much value out of it. It's like, hey, it'd be really good. We had more group discussions about this type of stuff, you know? And look, it started way back the very first day I came in, and I'm like, How come everyone's going to learn to make these decisions. And I pulled a principle from one of my own business partners. They used to say, look, if you come to us with a challenge, we have a rule. It's called no naked questions, right? Meaning, Hey, you can't come to us without having thought about, you know how you can solve a problem. You haven't searched it up. You haven't tried to think up new opportunities or approaches. Like my first question back is every time every time there's challenges, what do you want to do? Right? And this is what we're working through with our clients as well as like people come in is that I just want to offload these tasks to my VA. But the truth is, you don't get time back by giving off tasks, right because why they come back with decisions for you to make Right. The idea is, you need to hand off these smaller decisions. It's like Lachy, I got this social media post, I got picture a picture B, which one do you want? I mean, like, Why the hell am I thinking about which picture? I don't care, right? But then it's like, you need to train them up on that. And so that's what we kind of started doing here a lot was, you know, I and empowering customer support team, they were like, Okay, so there's this problem, what do you guys want to do? Right? And then here are their solution first. So, you know, it's always trying to understand them, how they think through things. And then if they're not on the right track, I'd be like, Hey, do you want some help? And of course, there was gonna say yes, right? And then I'll be like, Oh, the reason why I, you know, you might like picture B, I get it. But picture a is more aligned to the brand because of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So I then try to slowly seed an inset into them, like, Hey, this is how I think and how I like to make decisions. So that then they walk away going, Okay, so that's how Richard thinks, right? I should start. If they're, you know, want to stay here and they want to commit to the business, then they're like, I want to start learning and make sure I apply these things here, as well. And so we just kept doing that, right, and, you know, creating those opportunities where they can safely fail to so I mean, like, if I don't agree with their method that I'm like, Look, the account might be small, right? And, you know, or the client to close a hole anyway, right? Even if we lose them, it's like, whatever. But have a go, go have a go. Yeah, I'm happy. You guys all think that's the right idea. I don't overall saying I'm the boss, this is how we should do it. I'm like, I suggest we do this. But you guys will feel very strongly about this. Go Go try it. Right. And then they try to say, oh, yeah, you're right. And if I'm right, I never come in and go see. See, Karina told you, I told you no one likes that. Right. So it's like, Well, hey, now you learned right now you learned and so let's go apply that going forward. So yeah, it's a, it's a lot of, you know, my own time coaching in the team here and giving them that space. And I think this is one of the things that business owners forget is how long it actually takes right to, to get someone up to that level. And, you know, I was reading a book called procrastinate on purpose by Rory Vaden, right. And he has this rule of the 30x, it takes 30 times as long for you for person to learn how to do what you just did in five minutes, or whatever that task is. So if it takes me that five minutes to do something, I have to invest 150 minutes to teach this person how to do that five minute task doesn't mean they get it done in five minutes. Right, but just to teach them. And it's not. I spent two and a half hours, right now we're locking in and he's fine. Right? It's two and a half hours, maybe over a year, right? In that set space. And so I think of that, and I think about, you know, do I want to make this this decision? 2345 years, 10 years down the track? If not, then I need to teach this person that.

Karen Kirton  13:01

Yeah, and I think that's reflecting and she was speaking because I was talking to some business owners this week, about, it seems to be like one of the biggest, I guess, potentially surprises from business owners is that, in that role, most of their time is actually spent on people. And, you know, there seems to be this, this mindset of oh, I'm going to run the business, I'll be in charge, I don't have to deal with that anymore. Whereas it's actually the opposite. Like, the higher up in the organisation you get, the more of your time is spent on people. And I love what you were saying, because that kind of helps with that mindset of yeah, this five minute task, why can't they just do it in five minutes? Or have you actually spent that much time with that person to get them up to speed, which is a type of upskilling? Right, it's that on the job? You know, this is? What we've been talking about this whole series is how do you actually get that just ongoing upskilling happening? And it doesn't have to be, you know, in a super structured ways. So yeah, I think that really resonated with me, I imagined it would with you as well, Lachy. It sounds like you're kind of learning philosophy, too.

Lachy Gray  14:11

Absolutely. Yeah, that's one of the assumptions that I had that is proven incorrect. That yeah, you start to run the business, anything else I'll be dealing with with people, and that is the opposite of true. So I think that's I think it's really interesting. And thinking about what decisions you would like to delegate and you would like the rest of the team to be making on your behalf. And then thinking through, well, what did I need to know to be able to make those decisions? It's, it's a lot, because that's one of the things I realised is that there's almost like, information asymmetry isn't there like inherently being the leader, you have access to probably the most information, and then it can go down from there and you inverted pyramid. So it's like, well, I want the team to make decisions. They don't have the same amount of information. So we've got to facilitate that as a leader. And that's a big change for some people, I think.

Karen Kirton  15:11

Yeah. Because people don't know what they don't know.

Richard Phu  15:16

Substance on that too, right. Yeah. And then, like, would sometimes I've looked at it, like, that's a wild assumption for you to make. But it's because they don't see everything. And then it makes sense from that perspective. So yeah,

Karen Kirton  15:30

Richard, like when you're hiring staff, are you looking for skills and experience? Are you hiring people for like, behavioural qualities and then training them up? Because I imagined that can potentially be difficult due to client expectations, if they want people that are experienced, and you have everyone remote? Or am I wrong? How do you go about that recruitment process?

Richard Phu  15:53

And it's a constant, like tweaking battle, to be honest, right, Karen, like, you know, we everyone comes in saying, I want them to be experienced on this, they need to know that use this tool and this tool. And then, you know, I wanted to basically run my social media side, right? By and, you know, these tools that are like, you know, there's a billion types of tools out there. And, you know, like, that's why we start with trying to build up this angel Academy now. Right. So, you know, typically, the way our way works is, you come to us, and then we go out to the market to find like, you know, we like a recruiter, right? So they would find that person for you. Right, and give you some candidates. What was shifting into what we're going to test in the next probably, like six months to 12 months is, what if we went into more of a, I guess you could call it like a management consulting model where we, we hired the VAs, we train up the VAs, right? And then we're like, Hey, Lachy, Karen, you know, here's three candidates, these two, we've trained up for the last three months, right? And like, Angel certified, or whatever it is, right? And we looking at, what do we look at here, right. And for us, we realised a lot of it, you can be a super skilled, but especially in remote work the hardest, and the most annoying thing is, is when they don't communicate very well, right? I'm sure you guys have had this, you know, you've hired video editors, and then like to the most awesome video, but then, you know, they don't get back to you for like, a whole week, right? Like, hey, what's going on? I was and then they say, yeah, yeah, Lachy, I get it, I get it tomorrow. And then you wait another week. And he's like, What the hell's my stuff, right. And then they produce the best stuff, but it's just that painful, like, you know, chasing, you know, there has happens. And so we've now narrowed down more of like, it's a lot of these soft skills that are, I guess, assumed, right, in a professional sense of like, oh, they should know that, to let me know what the project is going on. Right. But that same time, like, you know, they, the business owners don't always set up those expectations, right. They just like, but they should tell me, right? Like, who should do what, right, like, it's not clear, if you haven't mentioned that to them, you know, it's okay, if you mentioned it, and then they still don't do it, then it's clear, right? It's like, well, they're not following through. And so for what we try and hire for, yes, skills matter to a degree and some experience of like, you know, doing the tasks, but we tried to narrow down more like this attitude, especially, you know, when in the VA space, I think you're at this point, any other job, your job description, probably gets thrown out the day you join, because then, you know, especially in a small business, things change on the fly so fast, and it's like you, well, now I need you to go on the phone. Right? And take it, you know, and so, you know, it's we're trying to hire for that resourcefulness. We're trying to hire for, you know, the open communication is probably the hardest thing that we're trying to look for. And that's why in this Academy, we make it as a big component of, hey, you need to communicate, if anything over communicate in a remote world, right, and then let your boss go, I don't care that you're going to the toilet, you know, whatever. Now, just just go right, you don't need to tell me it's fine. You know. And so a lot of that we are trying to go more into the behavioural side of things. Right? And to really then, you know, the skills because I've been in they it's not like, you know, most of what, who we work with most business owners vapourised self taught how to do social media, how to do video at any how to do whatever, right? And I'm like, the, we have a VA who's very capable and willing to learn, right? And if you are okay to show them and document how you do it, then it shouldn't be hard for this person to learn how to do it as well. Right? Of course, there are some technical roles, and that's very slightly different than on that side. But yeah, we were noticing more data about this kind of like, attitude and behavioural side. That is a big key to in people enjoying working with remote teams. Yes.

Lachy Gray  19:52

How do you how do you think about so when you're hiring and you're speaking to a candidate and they don't have as much experience? And you're considering, well, if we invest, say three months in them in the academy, then then they'll be ready. How do you? How do you think about that? Because that can be challenging, right? Because the end state isn't there yet. So you're, you're taking a gamble. And a risk. Yeah, but what needs to be there for you in that person to say, Yeah, we're going to take a bet on this person, and we're going to invest time in them and, and try and get them to the point they need to be.

Richard Phu  20:32

Yeah, and we're probably having an early conversation on that, because we haven't fully defined that. Yeah. Then I guess, you know, when I think about in our team, right, like, you know, I hired a systemization, consultant to come join our team, right? Best part is you guys love this is like, he got no idea about automations. Right? He's, he's just run his own businesses before, right. And he's closing those ones up. And then the question is, like, how come we're hiring this person who doesn't? Who's probably never built an automation in his life? Right. And then, you know, I went to talk to Lynn about it. And we met him. And Lindsey, why are you putting this guy in front of me? Right? And, you know, turns out like, Is my fiance's best friend's husband, right? I don't know him that well, right. But I said this to me, and I said, you know, then the reason why I'm putting him in front of us here is because he's, he's got business experience. That's one thing that's really important for this role. Second thing is, I can see his attitude, he really is just super hungry, to learn, and he can learn fast, right? And so I said, we just need to train him, right, and give him you know, these technical side and getting involved in it. And, you know, he's been with us, what, since March, almost six months now, and he's, he's just a phenomenal like, person in our team now. And, you know, linking it back to you like, he's like, how you take that gamble? And you know, when you know, right, and so for our angel Academy programme, and one of the things we do a lot in our, in our internal side, I focus on progress over the result. Yeah, result is important, right. But I know that, you know, what's even more important for me is, is this person progressing in the right direction, you know, they might not get the result right now, because, you know, they're still in early stages, they're still trying to pick it up and adapt it. It's, for me, this what I tell my team is, even when it comes to communication, right, there's the thing with virtual assistants, I find a lot of the times, especially like the Filipinos is, they don't want to tell you something until it's done. Right. But you know, when when you're a business owner, you can't wait till it's done. Because when it's done incorrectly, you know, it's i That's why I'm always like, Guys progress over results, right? So update me on progress, right, that's how we kind of measure people to is like, we want to see how they're progressing at a great rate and in the right direction that we wanted to go. And that's how we want to do it in this angel Academy here is, when they're coming in, we're gonna get let's say this 10. Vas, right? It doesn't mean all 10 actually complete the programme, right? We want it to be like a boot camp, like a Marine boot camp, where it's like, you come in and like you're going up to scratch, you're out after one month, you're out after two months, right? And so it's for us, we're going to be measuring their progress. And you know, the result might not be there yet. But if you're trending in that direction, chances are I think you know, that you're probably going to get to the right result, eventually, pretty pretty soon as well, you know, and so that's kind of like a barometer of how we can see if that person is worth that, I guess bet on that state, we could be wrong, right? We could be wrong, too. But, you know, after three months of working with us, and then train us training them up, you know, I think we get a at the end of that it gives us a bit of barometer, then hey, let's go on to interview and I think that guy's good. Right? That way.

Karen Kirton  23:54

Yeah, the interview is possibly one hour, one slice of time that people are very trained up forwards. You know, I will say people like within within a probation period, that is when that person is their best self. So if they don't seem to be able to learn and get into the processors understand how the business works. Like if they're just not really getting on board with the programme within that three months, they're probably not going to because that that's that's really the opportunity for both parties to go is this right? Or not? So I think you're absolutely right. Because we're on the topic of learning what has been your biggest learning and taking on the role of an MD for a company that has your onshore and offshore staff and having, you know, an owner of the business who has, you know, lots of lots of ideas and you know, she's absolutely fantastic, but you know, you're you're the operations guy, right? You got to keep the things running. So So what's been your biggest learning taking on this position?

Richard Phu  24:57

I think the biggest learning for me was Yeah, stepping into like a, like a almost business partner role without, you know, going through but like, then I'm acting like a business partner now I should get this this is this is just, I don't know what happened, right? But I came I said, and then I just don't I just want to be behind the scenes you can be the start, I'm gonna make you shine brighter, right? And that's what I want to do. And you know, when I stepped in, and it's probably because I was running all my businesses beforehand and I said, Look, I don't want to run my own business anymore. I just want to do this and do a really good job of it. And the hardest part was learning to manage upwards, right to learn and not feel like, she's my boss means I can't say this, or I have to go with it. Right? Like, you should see, you should have seen it so many times, I butted heads with Lynn because you're like, Well, I want to do this and like learn this doesn't like logically make sense for us to go through this and make this mad gamble on this. Without the data she's like, then you guys probably hear this a lot as you know, from entrepreneurs, but I feel it in my gut. Oh, my God. I get it. I get it. I love it. That's why we got here. But But how are you got to do this run like no issue. Now say wild things. And I love it right? Which is like, but I would buy that thing, Richard, I'm like, Flynn, you ain't the marker. And, you know, it's just yeah, so a lot of like learning how to manage up but not in a way that makes her feel like, you know, I'm belittling her. It's and I think a lot of that came from her seeing that I'm not contesting just for the sake of causing a fight. It's because I love this company that much I want to see it through to the, you know, many, many years, right? I don't want to think about going to go work somewhere else, I just want to, you know, we can get this company just keep alive and keep going. And you know, if we grow, that'd be fantastic. But, you know, I just want it to keep alive, right in like 20 years time and have a great workplace. And so, you know, once we, you know, we did have some others fight. And it wasn't until I explained to him that I'm not fighting because I think your ideas don't it's just, it doesn't make sense for us to grow in that direction or shift in that way. And once he understood that, then any other fight we have going forward now, right? Like, it's just like, we still have fights, right? And be like, why are we doing that? Right? And she was like, You're not listening to me and you all about dada. Right? And you don't feel anything? And I'm like, but the thought is not there. And then we all understand it's not because, you know, I'm trying to sabotage her or she's trying to like cut my knees from me. It's just because we all have the same intent. Now, I think that's I love that you

Karen Kirton  27:50

respectfully argue, though, because that shows a healthy company. You know, like if you're both agreeing with each other all the time. That's that's a difficult position for a company to pay. Later. Yeah, exactly. Groupthink going down the wrong rabbit hole type of arena. So yeah, I think that's a funny thing.

Richard Phu  28:12

Yes. Like some business owners, like, you know, there were cheerleaders in Hawaii, too. I'm like, Why don't you ask him about that person who's got no idea about operations? And then their opinion probably matters more than my opinion, right, that I'm running it? And I'm like, that doesn't make sense. Right, then. And it's, you know, and so I think a lot of the arguing is also to never make it personal. Yeah. Right. And, you know, if I said lend your ideas, stupid, right, then draw, you're in trouble, right? Anytime there. But look at this, this this. And I'm just like, that doesn't make sense. And you know, she might not like it there. Because, you know, we're shutting it down, sometimes in front of the team as well. Right. And then she later on, she'll look back at it. And like, actually, you're right. And I'm like, at that same point. I feel like See, I told you, but I don't want to do I don't do that either. So it's a lot of removing my own ego of being right. Yeah, it's like, I think about like Dr. Phil, right. He said this one line. And I always think about it. I tell everyone, it's like Dr. Phil was like, in any relationship, right? If you're arguing, there's only two options, right? In life, you can either be right, or you can be happy. You can't have both. That's very good, right? Like, there's no point striving to be right, because you're crushing someone else's belief systems usually. Right? And that's the whole world. And so why do I need to do that? Right? Doesn't mean I give up on every fight, you know, in that in that sense. It's just do I need to go die on that hill today? Right. If it's such a small thing, don't worry about it. Right? So sometimes I do let crazy ideas come through as well, right? Where I'm like, that sounds so stupid. But Lynn's the type of person that wants to see it happen and it explodes and then she's like, Yeah, you're you're right now Okay, but if it's more, it's not the whole company gonna go bankrupt, if that goes goes goes wrong, then I'll let it happen, you know that way, and then, you know, sometimes they just need that reminder back against

Lachy Gray  30:12

all of that. And we've spoken before on the podcast about diversity of perspective, and how important that is. And I was reading an article this morning actually talking about how to develop your critical thinking skills. And one of the points was to get different perspectives. And what I liked about that example, Richard, is that, hopefully your team gets to see you, and lead leading by example, as well, like, it's okay to disagree, and still be friends and still be able to colleagues and work together. It has to be that way. Because yeah, otherwise, I say this to my team a lot, that we all agreeing with each other. Like you just said, Karen, you create this echo chamber, you get groupthink. And we're oblivious to something that someone outside is so obvious that because no one wants to say anything against, especially as a leader, and as a business, I'm not really aware of this. I think it's really dangerous, if people aren't comfortable disagreeing. So I love that you do that. It's fantastic. I just wanted to touch on something you mentioned before about failing safely. Yep, I guess this taps into culture as well, as we've talked about culture a lot. Because ultimately, think learning is a really key part of culture. Failing safely, I think in theory, together, it makes sense. It's advice that's often shared in practice, can be difficult. How do you create that environment? So I'm curious. So how do you? How do you think you've created this environment at work where failing safely is encouraged?

Richard Phu  32:00

Ah, so really good question. Right? So do we do it? And I think of this, like 7020 10 rule, right, which is how we try and develop people 70% of his on the job, right? Where you learn the most 20% through coaching, mentoring, and then 10% is through structured training, right? And so when I think about how to like, to help people fail safely, it is literally the 70% of how can I put you in a situation, right at work with a client with a team or whatever that will make you push you into having to, to go learn that new skill that they usually desire? Right? So like, for example, one of the people that are developing at the moment and right, so I'm trying to build like this executive, operational executive team, right, so that they can look at each of the divisions in operations. And then you know, I have that team that I can just go to, and just have a high level understanding. And, you know, one of them is like, hey, Richard, I kinda want to learn how to like, speak up more, right? Because I'm, I don't always speak up. And, and sometimes I'm really afraid of what I say might not be important, because I'm not an expert in that field. Right. And I say this. And I said, I want you to go into more meetings with clients. And the only way I can do it is I tell the client, I might not be an expert in this, but I can learn it really quickly, right? Because it's very similar to this other tools, for example. So so many times clients come in with billion on a tour. They're like, do you know this tool? I'm like, Well, look, I haven't personally used at Lockheed. But in saying that, I had a quick Google, it looks like, you know, this other tool, right? And I'm sure it's not that hard to learn. And then you're like, Yeah, it's cool, right? And so I put my team in those situations, they get to see me do it. And then I get them to also do it for the clients. Right? And I sit there and support them in that. So it's failing safely is not like going to the bush in the jungle. Here's your backpack. And I'm beggars I like by car. Yeah, I'll see you at the end. It's, I, I walk in with them sometimes, right? And then I slowly pull myself out from them, and then give them more chances to develop further and further. It's the longer way to do it. But I feel that it's the right way. Why because at the end of the day, you chuck them into the deep end, a lot of people will actually drown or take in a lot of water, they might not die, right, but they take in a lot of water, and then that could cause trauma. And so the idea for me is like, I want to be as less traumatic as possible, because you're asking someone to step into the black darkness and they don't know what the what's going to happen. And I always say, just go try. If you hear this is the core sign, right? If you're on a client call and you'd like you don't know what to say next. You just use the call sign. Hey, Richard, do you have anything else to add? Right? Then I'll be like, Cool. I'll jump in there and then always having a debrief afterwards, right of how they went. in that court or how they went in that moment, and then giving more feedback that way. So it's, it's a whole, like, you know, crane that experience where you can and involve them and then debriefing afterwards of what they did well, what they didn't do well, and then giving them more opportunities and eventually stepping in further and further away so that they have the opportunity to run with their themselves. So that's kind of like how I do it.

Lachy Gray  35:25

Fantastic. Well, what a wonderful discussion, let's talk about some takeaways. For me, I think, Richard, you've spoken a lot about the value of investing in upskilling, your team, and it sounds like it's a continuous programme, like it's a day to day thing, unstructured in terms of those more informal conversations. They're more structured with the angel talks and Angel Academy. I love what you mentioned, just then about debriefing. I think that's such a valuable tool, after every meeting, have a debrief, what went well, what could have gone better. It's such a fantastic learning experience. And then thinking about what decisions do I want to make versus my team? And then how what's my team need to know, to be able to make their own decisions? I can't expect them to be able to do it. Because I want them to. Karen, how about you?

Karen Kirton  36:23

Yeah, some similar ones. Couple things I wrote down was one of them was people take processes. So I think that a business can feel very messy. And there's lots going on, and very complicated. And I think if you look at everything through those lenses, then I think it's a great way to actually get focused on the business. Like what you said, Richard, about giving people principles rather than tasks. That is something that I find quite often, business owners will tell me when they've got offshore teams that they just struggle, because they'll do the task, and they do them really well. But it's that trying to get them to actually bring up issues. And a lot of it might be cultural. But it's just it seems difficult to move beyond that task approach. So I think that was a really good tip. And your angel talks, taking that bottom up approach like No, I'm not going to start this management is not going to be the people want to start these talks. It has to come from you. I think that's a really good way to do it. And then debriefing, I agree and having that call sign. And Richard, do you have anything else to add? That's kind of like the Hey, I don't know what else to say. I think that's a great one. So say thank you. And thank you so much for for joining us, Richard.

Richard Phu  37:30

Thanks, guys. It was a pleasure being on here. And thank you for the amazing questions.

Lachy Gray  37:37

Yeah, and, and I have to ask, do you have anything you'd like to add as a takeaway, Rich from today's conversation?

Richard Phu  37:45

Um, yeah, like, as a takeaway, I think I'll tap onto the debriefing side, right, if that's okay. Right. Is debriefing is great. And sometimes, you know, I find some leaders are just saying things just so they feel like that they're saying something, right. And so when it comes to, especially with my debriefs, when I try to go through, I don't want to go through 100 points. It's always look just this one thing here, if you change this, right, and the reason why this is important is dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, it's the why right? It's explained, you know, for me, often it's explained the why. So, if the biggest takeaway for you guys who are listening here is if you want to apply more debriefs, then focus on just one thing and focus on the why of why that matters, and how that will change. You know, the client interaction how that will change the task and, and how the team will interact afterwards. Like, that's the biggest thing you don't feel like you have to have a huge checklist and laundry list to go through is just just one thing at a time, right is all I think about here, and if they can just be 1% better, that's great for us. Awesome.

Lachy Gray  38:50

Fantastic. So links to articles and anything else we've discussed will be over on our websites ya know.com. Today you and amplify hr.com Today, you just follow the links to the podcast section. If you'd like to get in touch with Richard, just hit him up on LinkedIn. It is linkedin.com/i n slash Richard dash P. H You. And if you've received value from this podcast, we would really appreciate if you leave a rating or review over at Apple podcasts. And a reminder that we do have a free bonus for our podcast listeners head over and check it out at our link tree Li and K tra.ie/make it work a podcast.

Karen Kirton  39:32

Coming up in the next episode. Lachy and I are going to go back and revisit an old episode, which we tested out early this season. So we're going to give it another go and give our thoughts on what's changed or not since we recorded it over a year ago.

Lachy Gray  39:48

That podcast episodes coming up two weeks from now. If you click the subscribe button, you'll be notified when it's available. Any final thoughts Karen?

Karen Kirton  39:57

No, I think I've just got to do lists. Now, one of them is we've recently started with HubSpot, actually. And I was just thinking I could put that in as a playbook into HubSpot for the debrief after the first client kickoff calls to actually do that. That one thing. So Thanks, Richard. You've given me a great ideas.

Lachy Gray  40:20

Well, thanks so much for joining us. And we'll see you next time on the MakerBot podcast.