Beyond Busy #73 with Katz Kiely
http://frontline.live/
Graham Allcott 0:04
Hello and welcome to another episode of beyond busy The show where we talk productivity, work life balance and defining happiness and success. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this episode, I'm talking to Katz Kiely. It's a special episode. It's in our usual off week, but it's all about how to get PPE protective equipment to the frontline NHS and other workers. So we just thought we'd put it out as soon as we could. And stay tuned for how you can help. Before we get into that directly, a couple of things for me So firstly, I've just started this new mailing list. So if you go to GrahamAllcott.com then fairly high up on the homepage there and actually at the bottom of all the pages is a little form that you can fill in to be part of my mailing list. It's the first time ever I've had my own mailing list, Think Productive have had one for years, giving out productivity tips and useful stuff from the business but this is the first time that I've done my own. And the idea is that every Sunday night I'll be sending out some kind of upbeat, interesting thought for the week ahead. That's the the general kind of theme of it. really designed to get conversation going and get a bit of debate going and also for me to connect in with kwith you and what you're doing. I'm going to probably try and put questions in most weeks so that it just encourages people to reply and get some dialogue going. That's the general idea. So if you want to be part of that, if you want to be on the inside track and know what I'm doing then just go to Graham Allcott comm and sign up for the mailing list love to have you there. Also think productive is still doing our work from home webinars. So think productive comm forward slash w f h. The first ones all just booked out and they were all full, had some really great feedback on it. And it has led to a few new clients within productive as well. So just goes to show as you'll hear in this episode with cats, you know when you put good stuff out there And just focus on how you could help, then the money usually follows. So that's been good because it's kind of kept us afloat really over the last few weeks. Obviously, a lot of our regular clients have been cancelling the face to face sessions that we were doing, and we've moved some of them to zoom, but not all of them. So that's been a real lifeline for us. But we've we've now got to the point where there's still demand for the web webinars where I'm working from home, but they're not filling up. So chances are, if you've tried to get on one before and you couldn't get on one, you'll be able to get on one now. So think writer.com, forward slash w f. h, if you want to find out more about that. So let's get straight into this episodes. We're recording this on a Saturday morning, middle of the COVID situation, obviously. And yeah, just shows the cats is someone who is certainly busy, but also full of purpose and doing great stuff and just has so many great insights to share as well as some really important information about how you can help with this whole PPE. So, let's get straight into the episode. Here's my conversation with cats. Kelly. We are rolling. We've turned off all of the devices and other distraction points. You're fully present in the room. Well, how you doing?
Katz Kiely 3:16
I am very good. I'm very good. Despite the craziness of today I am very good.
Graham Allcott 3:22
So I'm with Katz Kiely and we're going to talk about PPE and getting the right protective equipment to the front line amongst many other things. But let's start with you. So, where are you on this Saturday morning as we record cuts,
Katz Kiely 3:39
I am in Sheffield. I guess it was nearly eight weeks ago now I was stood on a tube in London, which is where I spend most of my time. And the guy next to me started coughing. And Previous to that I'd been in a whatsapp group, and we'd be looking at the data and watching how the same pattern was replicating Billy and I looked at the man coughing and thought, I'm insane. Why am I waiting for the government to tell us to lock down what I know the only way that we can actually stop this thing? And so I decamped to my house in Sheffield. As I was throwing my things into my bag. I was thinking, am I overreacting here? Eight weeks later, I would say not.
Graham Allcott 4:21
So often people, you know, talk when it comes to data about being ahead of the curve, and I think most people are looking back now on that, that little period where it felt like a lockdown was gonna come. And there's a lot of criticism of the UK government in terms of how slow they were to react and so on. But it felt at the time like, yes, this might come but you know, me personally, I think my because I went to a gig on the Sunday night for the lockdown online, and we sort of knew it was no, right but no one had told us not to and we thought maybe It'll be different. But it felt like at that time, like a lot of people are in denial and you weren't in denial you were you were aware that this was a thing that you probably needed to do. So what? I'm just curious about how, how did you come to those conclusions? When so many of us didn't,
Katz Kiely 5:19
I suppose I've spent the last 16 years at least working on figuring out how you can use digital channels and also open data to help people to understand better versions of the truth and actually be able to come together to collaborate to try and find solutions to the problems that bubble up. Yeah. So I find myself in extremely lucky situation where I'm in a global network of the most extraordinary thought leaders, digital pioneers, communicators, data geeks like me. And so I also managed to find myself in some extraordinary WhatsApp groups, which are pretty organic, but they have some of the smartest people in the world from my perspective in them. And so one of those groups was looking specifically at the Coronavirus challenge. And kind of finding all of the information and the data that we could find and starting to map and collate and aggregate and analyse that data. And so it became and I wasn't you know, I was like you at the beginning of the year or so is just flu Why is everyone freaking out
Graham Allcott 6:37
and also like we've seen SARS before. We've seen other things like that before, right? So it just didn't feel any different to that apart
Katz Kiely 6:43
from they didn't come to you to the UK today. They didn't really
Graham Allcott 6:47
well that's what it means. So we looked at those things as being some kind of far away problem that doesn't affect us.
Katz Kiely 6:54
Exactly because in some way we are infallible and the Western world you know We can control these things right? Clearly not. And you know, on some levels, it's really interesting for me because it feels like even though it's absolutely awful on every level, and personally, socially, I know that it's affecting people's mental health being trapped inside. But on some levels, it feels like it's a much needed reset. From the perspective of the planet and people, it's people seem to have refocused on the stuff that really matters.
Graham Allcott 7:30
Well, let's, let's come back to the reset part of it later. The other questions could ask you about this. So you're in this whatsapp group. And you've got all these data geeks, and they're working out patterns and they're looking at what's likely in the UK. And you can see that and you go up to Sheffield. The thing that strikes me is that the government employee, lots of very clever data people, right? And so why is there a lag between what the The people that you're in a whatsapp group with, why is there a lag between what they're seeing and what the government's doing? Like why why is that? You know, you can look at government as being a huge bureaucratic system. But you know, why is there such a lag there in terms of the data and then acting on the data?
Katz Kiely 8:20
So, I mean, we could use this as an opportunity to politics, bash and NHS bash, but I think that's not relevant, not helpful. I think the truth of the scenario is for years, all I've ever done with my career is help large corporations understand how they need to transform to be more relevant to the 21st century. So large corporations are, you know, bureaucratic, hierarchical, they kind of operate across silos, the right hand doesn't know what the left hands doing. And the private sector have a really good reason to be able to actually fix their operating models so that they can become more efficient, more resilient, more agile and all that Those things. And even then most companies are miles miles behind where they should be now. So then you look at the public sector, and the public sector. I've worked with you. And it has a different set of challenges in some ways. And the procurement methodologies, the political system that we have, was designed for a time, which was kind of slower, where things were more controllable. And obviously, the world has accelerated, and I'm not really sure how much people have noticed how fast the world is changing around them. And then suddenly, something hits like this. And those procurement models, those frameworks, those political systems, they are not built for a time of accelerating change. And it's, I mean, we can't blame anyone person I don't believe for one second, that everybody in the annex Isn't desperately trying to do their best. I won't talk about the political system. But um, but the truth is that the systems are not set up for the 21st century, and they don't have the ability to be able to rise up to a crisis quickly, because they're not made. They're not built for rapid change. And so obviously, the people I know, we're entrepreneurs, our entire way of seeing the world is, you see a problem, you understand the problem, you come up with a solution to that problem. If it doesn't work, you look at the data, you make it better. And that's our operating model. It's not easy to take that way of working into a large organisation. Yeah. And I and I think, you know, people have been talking cluding the NHS and you know, what a great thing that we have them. They've been talking about the need to transform. For years and years, there's been this conversation about digital transformation. We need to To become more efficient, yada yada. The truth is, it's only now. And again, going back to that trigger piece, it's only now where they really understand what transformation means. And it doesn't mean bringing in yet another technology platform to make things more efficient, kind of make people feel more nervous. It means they have to transform the way they operate, they have to transform their culture, so that people feel that they can make mistakes that they can make those little fixes when they see them. And now they realise that because they realise what happens when you can't enter crisis.
Graham Allcott 11:38
So I mean, you've done digital transformation work for people like HP and Intel, and this current project that you're working on which we're going to talk about frontline live, which is all about creating this open source platform so that people can be connected with the right kind of peopIe. A lot of that is you Coming in, as you know, some kind of outside figure and shaking things up inside bigger organisations, and I just wonder what you how do you see your relationship when you go into an organisation like Intel or HP or others and you know, you're, you're kind of you're, you're coming in as the bearer of exciting news and often the bearer of bad news because it's changed and people don't like that. And just, you know, do you see yourself as some kind of outlaw figure?
Katz Kiely 12:30
No, my god, no, I was bad. You know, I definitely see myself as an enabler of change. And to give you a bit of background about who I am to let you know why. So I'm in 2004, we built the very first ever open innovation competition platform. I think that we were the first and every time I do a keynote, I always say at this point in my talk, I guess this is the point where I have to say to everybody in the audience, do you Anyone else build an open innovation competition platform before 2000? And if that's the case, put your hand up. No, they never have. So I'm gonna keep rocking that. The point that I could see there was a massive problem. The problem was this, big companies didn't really understand how fast the world was changing. They needed innovation. And on the other side, I had this huge ecosystem of startups, digital agencies, technical creatives, people might my tribe, people who use digital to make difference quickly. And I could see that they needed to have a relationship. So we built this platform so that we could help the large corporations who need innovation connect to the startups who need money. So it was it was really ahead of its time the platform, but we could vary we thought we found was we could bring the very, very best innovators into large corporations and within six months a year, whatever. They would get chewed up and spat out by the corporate antibodies. So Then we were like, okay, we probably need to reset the way we're working a bit. So then we started going into larger organisations and using digital experimenting with digital to help them figure out how they become more agile, more resilient, how they could break down the boundaries between the silos, all of that stuff that actually, you know, doesn't seem that advanced now, but you know, in 2008 2009, it was definitely advanced digital communication stuff, innovation stuff, all of that. And so we became very good at figuring out what didn't didn't work within large organisations, we've got very good understanding some of the complexity. We started to understand she didn't grow that into understanding has grown somewhat over the years. Then I got a headhunter by the UN now. I had never worked inside a large organisation I'd only worked with as a service provider. So suddenly having a full time job inside the UN which you is the most hierarchical bureaucratic organisation in the world did I let myself did I know what I was getting myself in for? No. Suddenly I've got a job, which is leading a transformation programme in Geneva, given everything else are up, I'm reporting into the guy who's reporting into the sector. Three weeks later, I'm going, Oh, my God, what am I done? This is insane. But, you know, picking myself back off the ground and going, Okay, you've spent the last years doing experiments using digital and approaches. And you know, which bits work so if you take all of those bits together into a straight strategy, it can't get any worse than it is now. Let's just see what happens. So massively successful programme knife, and the reason it was successful was this. I didn't go in there as the big I am consultant expert. I went in there as somebody who was honest An open and empathetic. And I said to found the people who I call change agents, who are the people inside the organisation that can either be the organization's very best friends, by which I mean, they will absolutely advocate for you and do whatever they can to try and make your company better. Or they can be the worst people in the world because they're still that powerful. So I found them. I did lots of design thinking workshops, where together, we came up with a solution. So I wasn't doing change to them. We were doing change together. And all the way through the programme. I was saying, Look, I'm not here to tell you jobs. I have no intention of staying here even. I'm here to help you make the culture better. I'm here to help you figure out how we can make the organisation do what it does better.
And that's the changes like if I went into an organisation, with my team with tech, whatever I'm doing, and let me tell you this, this Beautiful behavioural insight. And human beings have two key states of mind. We have the reward state. Now the reward state, we evolved so that we could keep social communities together. The reason that humans are the homosapiens that survived is because we're super good at keeping social groups together. So in the, in the reward state, we're innovative and communicative and collaborative and all of those things that you want people to be. And then we've got the threat state. Now the threat state is built by your unconscious mind. And it's there so that if we get charged by Sabre tooth tiger back in those days, we could get away really quickly so we could survive. And so actually, when when we're in survival mode, we we definitely don't need to be conversational or communicative or innovative or any of those things. We just want to run away and hide. So If you look at that from an organisational perspective, every time that an employee has changed them to them, where they don't know where the change come from, where it's totally unexpected, where they don't really know how it's going to affect them, the physiological reaction in their bodies, and they don't even know that, you know, this isn't a rational thing. This is a body reaction makes them feel nervous. It stops them feeling safe, it takes away the psychological safety. So change is fine so long as you do it with people not to them. Yeah, yeah, it's common sense right?
Graham Allcott 18:40
To me, it also feels like you know, that's a really good you know, reminder and lesson for what's going on right now. And on a personal level, you have, you know, you have the lizard brain the amygdala kind of fight or flight response versus your more rational You know, sort of frontal cortex response where you can be logical and communicative and innovative and all of that stuff. And it you know, and it feels like that's a really important thing for right now. And maybe quite a nice segue actually into let's talk about frontline, then because that feels to me like you're applying communication and innovation in the middle of when everyone else feels like they're in a threat state. So that's probably quite a good, good link. So let's, let's just come back to that with frontline, then. So it's all about getting up onto the front line. But do you want to just tell the story of what you're doing and how it's come about?
Katz Kiely 19:42
Yeah, so. So a few years ago, I started thinking I need to pull together all of my experience and turn that into a platform, so that I can then help large corporations go through what I call a real transformation organisational cultural transformation. So So we're building a software that helps large organisations harness the experience, the knowledge, the creativity of their employees by giving frontline workers a voice. So obviously, the beginning of all of this business is not easy. And so I find myself in my house in Sheffield thinking, watching two things happening. One of them is there are about 25,000 people in March, who are frontline workers complaining about the fact they don't have the equipment they need to keep them safe. That is appalling. You know, I'm talking to people who are nurses who are going into hospitals and don't have masks. That feeling of fear. I can't imagine how bad that is. On the other side. There's loads of entrepreneurs and innovators and small companies and community groups and people pivoting to make the p2p that could help people feel more safe. So I thought, well, if there's one thing I can can do is design a platform that gives those frontline workers a voice. And at the same time, if we can map where those suppliers are, and we can map where people are in need, that seems like a really sensible way forward. So that was four weeks ago now, four and a half weeks ago, I came up with this crazy idea. The Centre for advanced spatial communications, said they would help with the technology. Then another amazing technologist jumped forward a guy called Ben Smith who said he would actually build it, then we've got a PR agency in an immediate agency and then more and more and more people step forward to say we want to help you don't know what to do. We want to help you make this a thing. So two weeks later, we launch
now, it's ridiculously fast. It's ridiculous.
Even me, imagine the NHS being able to do that, I think not. And so so we launched the platform essentially, the way it works is that anyone who is on the frontline, a frontline health care worker can tweet in a picture of themselves with three hashtags, #frontlinemap, # their work postcode, so that we can make sure they actually work at a care home or a hospice or hospital, and # whatever it is that they're lacking. So we put it out there not quite knowing how that would work, not really understanding the culture of the NHS either actually. And we also then from some of the information, some of the insights we were getting through our insight partner innovation bubble, that some people within the NHS don't feel safe to be able to publicly talk about what's going on. So we gave people the option of reporting then leads anonymously, not thinking that many people would use it. Interestingly, about 70% of people choose to report their needs anonymously. And some of the things that they're telling us anonymously are not great. So I would say that there is a real need for cultural transformation within the healthcare sector. And I didn't know that before. But again, you know, you collect data, you see the truth, and the same time so they can so so every time somebody tweets, volunteers, then check that they're at a hospital or a hospital or a care home. And they actually literally put their need on the map. So we have built two maps, one which shows the real time leads from the front line, and the other one shows the suppliers that are registering at frontline live. So you can literally toggle between. This is where the need is, oh, look 30 miles away. There's somebody who can answer their need. So my job is absolutely not to judge anyone. As I say, I don't judge anyone. I think change is difficult. But it is to inform it is to say, this is the real time data. This is a version of the truth that policymakers procurement people should be aware of, because it will make help you make better decisions.
Graham Allcott 24:23
And in terms of then getting that PPE to that place. So you've got the map of who needs what you've got the map of who's producing what it sort of reminds me of there was remember there's a Jasper carrot driver, Jasper, carrot, there's just the carrot TV, sort of sketch or a bit of stand up from years and years ago, we talked about Woolworths and how the customer service people in Woolworths were, you know, always a bit unhelpful. And he said, I went up to the counter, I said, Excuse me, I've just put seven texts in the picker mix and the person stands up and goes, That's not my departure. You've got to go over there. I just, you know, like, if you're telling people here's the stuff that people need, like, is there then this danger that it that then gets lost in this? Oh no, you'd have to go and speak to procurement and they're over there and then you got to go and, you know, is there is there the danger that stuff gets lost in the middle of that? And like, what can what can what can you do or what can other people do to try and avoid that from happening?
Katz Kiely 25:28
It's been kind of beautiful. So the people who have tweeted and therefore we have their name and their postcode and organisations, literally and this is not true our architecture by the way, this is just by putting the data up. But organisations have started literally delivering those protective glasses to that person at that postcode. Oh, wow. I know. And we didn't I mean, suddenly we're seeing tweets arrive where they were people are saying, We've just delivered these to you It's like, wow, that's beautiful. Wow. So it's bypassing the centralised blockers.
Graham Allcott 26:06
Yeah. And presumably a lot of that that is donations because there's no mechanism for that to then be paid for exactly that.
Katz Kiely 26:13
And so again, you know, what I think is beautiful about this whole situation is people who are usually absolutely commercial in the way they think about the world are suddenly and it's like and I say it's like the Dunkirk of you know, the Dunkirk ships situation. But on steroids, it's like these entrepreneurs who are like to say, usually absolutely commercial are rising up and collaborating in ways I've never seen before, to make the impossible happen. And that's, you know, extraordinary. You get people like, you know, Norman Foster. His architects take the time out to design a new protective visor, which they start 3d printing out and donating to hospitals around them and making that an open source design so that anyone anywhere can print those out. It's, you know, you've got the blue dogs and the barbers and the Burberry's and every day there's a new company that understands that doing good is good business. Because people love your brand. They're more likely to be loyal to you who do
Graham Allcott 27:21
feels like such an obvious thing. But it's also just really lovely to see that reaction happening, isn't it?
Katz Kiely 27:27
It's well, it's, it's something that I've built my entire career on doing good is good business. But again, back to the first comment I made I think that this terrible, terrible human tragedy has refocused people on what matters. And what matters is, you know, looking, making sure that people feel safe. That's kind of fundamental profit can't always be our key focus.
Graham Allcott 27:56
Yeah, so before we get on to the deep stuff, let's just finish with front lines. So what do you what do you need from people? What What can people do to help?
Katz Kiely 28:03
Well, and this is kind of perfect timing because something else happened, something else emerged over this crazy story of weeks. And one of the women who volunteered a project manager Gina is in New York. She works with a guy called Rob Noble. Rob Noble. Noble is also a serial entrepreneur and a very successful one. He found himself in a situation where he was thinking, what can I do to help the situation? He's a Brit living in the US. His best friend from school runs a factory in Norfolk, who make all of the kind of the flags and the sticker badges for cars and stuff that you see in kind of big sports events. So this guy sold like a million flag car flags, or the euros is that kind of person. Obviously people aren't doing football at the moment. Neither are they doing large events, so he hasn't got a beginning to prove So Rob gets in touch with his friend Andy and says What can we do to sort out this problem? So they come up with this ingenious idea where they are printing loads of these care given car flags, car, stickers, window stickers, sending them through their site caregiving.co.uk. All of the money that's spent on this merchandise is converted into PPE. So that means that and the only thing they didn't have when they came up with this whole idea and started making it happen and putting their own money into making sure it happens, which is again, beautiful to see is they couldn't figure out how they could figure out where the need was. So last Saturday, on my daily walk, I'm on the phone with Rob. And within an hour we've got a partnership because funnily enough from line dot live, knows exactly where the needs are. And the more that people tell us where the needs are, the easier it is for them. To deliver the free PPE. So that's ingenious model. It's, it's like it's a ski and I say it's as scalable as the generosity of the British public. And the truth is we know that the British public want is for the frontline, because they're out every Friday night at eight o'clock. clapping and letting go forward. Yeah. So this gives them an opportunity to not only donate to make sure that the frontline workers get, get the get the PPU they need, but to actually show that they're supporting it, which is why it's called caregiving. So what can people do? Well, now we've caregiving code at UK, they can buy this merchandise, they can literally bypass any of the procurement problems and donate as much money or buy as much or as little as they can so that we can then convert that into the most important currency which is the PPE and then as far as we're concerned, anybody who Who knows anybody who's a front line healthcare worker, get them to tweet in their need. If they haven't got a PPE, they need to keep safe.
Graham Allcott 31:10
So just remind the three hashtags. So it's the hashtag of your postcodes.
Katz Kiely 31:15
Okay, so it's hashtag frontline map. Yeah. The website is called frontline dot live, but the hashtag is frontline map. Super simple to remember, work postcode, so that we can check that it is actually a hospital or hospital or whatever, and hashtag whatever PPE is you need. And that means that we'll be able to put your need on the map and at the end of every day, we'll download the data. Look at the organisations you have the biggest need, and transfer that information over to caregiving so that they can ship the PPA to them as soon as they possibly can for free.
Graham Allcott 31:55
Yeah, you talked about this being a reset, and yeah, there's You know, obviously there's there's so much bad stuff going on. And there are so many families right now who are grieving. But once, once you look beyond that to see the bigger picture, so you talked about this idea of reset, and it does feel like and I said to you just before we press record, there's, there's this kind of weird sort of irony right now of the fact that I'm doing this podcast, which is all about how people are busy and rushing around and so don't have time for stuff. And it's like, actually, a lot of people do suddenly have a lot more time on their hands or spending a lot more mostly quality time with their kids in my case, and various things like that. So yeah, what are your reflections on how it has changed you this whole thing and, and what are your sort of bigger reflections on how it can change all of us I suppose it's a small question.
Katz Kiely 33:03
I know not a good question, I suppose
my entire ethos, and is that purpose is the most important thing to anyone, whether they be at work, whether they be at home, and my business beep is driven by purpose. That purpose is to prove beyond reasonable doubt that businesses can be more successful if they look after their employees better. And back to that point I made about reward and threat. There are a set of conditions in which human beings are as amazing as they can possibly be as creative as innovative as collaborative. Those six pillars are respect. If people feel that you care about what they think or say they're going to be much more, they're just going to be much more productive. And happy. autonomy is like if you trust someone, and you really trust them to get on and do something, and actually allow them that if things go wrong to tell you when they go wrong so that you can learn from those learnings that makes sense. So connectedness, people need to feel connected to the people around them, like in most organisations, you know, talking back to the NHS, people are told not to talk about the things that matter to them. And not to really connect that's terrible fairness, people like to know why decisions made certainty people like to see why decisions have been made and see the thinking behind it and be able to plan there. As I said before, if you throw change at somebody and they're not expecting it, they will react to that much worse than if they can see the data so they can see what's happening. If you can see what's happening, you can deal with that. And obviously empathy which is something I talk about a lot. If you Understand how people feel if you put yourself in their footsteps, it basically means that you can treat them in a way which is going to get the best out of them. I guess how it's affected me is this is an opportunity for me to be able to put all of that ethos into practice. And it's extraordinary watching what happens when peoples when people come together around a shared shared purpose. It's you know, we have some of the most incredible people working on this programme. And the generosity you know, give you another example. I've got a friend who owns one of the biggest digital out of home companies, ocean outdoor, I've got another friend who runs a production company who does most of the really interesting experimental stuff for you do. So we're thinking how do we get the workout word out better with this? So I go to Jim from ocean outdoor and Keith from Voodoo and say to them, Look, we haven't got your money. This is all being done from love. But we're trying to save lives. What can you do to help us? And so they give us 13 of their biggest screens for free.
Graham Allcott 36:11
Cool.
Katz Kiely 36:12
All of the things I believe to be true about people, and I've struggled because people go, they're not. You're just an absolute optimist. You know, you're too, Tigger. I am not do Tigger. As it turns out, it turns out that people are fundamentally beautiful. And when they get behind a purpose, they can expect you to achieve the most extraordinary things. And again, you know, there's this feeling of sort of collaborative collaboration without borders between people to to achieve a bigger aim. How will it change the world after this? Well, I think frontline live is just one of many, many things that are going on across my network. It's proving that seeing live data from the front line is constructive. It's not negative. If people And see the data they can rally around and find solutions. The bigger that gets, you know, once the cats out of the bag, it's difficult to get the cat back in the bag. If the cat gets a lot bigger, that ain't going back in the bag. So how do I think it will change? I think, you know, for me, the Bible according to beep, which is the software that we're building, it's very much about all of these core principles. And I think people get it now. It's like, Oh, so actually hearing from people on the front line is not that scary. No, it's not. Because every single person on the front line has got something to tell you that should listen to you. Because if you listen, you can make things better.
Graham Allcott 37:41
And it also strikes me that those six pillars that you talked about, so respect, autonomy, connectedness, certainty, empathy, and what was the one I missed? fairness. So those six pillars Feel like things that that lead there's a relationship there between whether you're in the threat state or the reward state, right. So if you're in the threat state, it's really difficult to feel like things are fair, do you have no certainty? It's quite hard to, you know, to start connecting with those other things, right. So, how do you, particularly through periods of change, get people to be connected to that purpose? And those six pillars because, you know, if people feel threatened, it's more difficult, isn't it for for them to
Katz Kiely 38:32
really feel comfortable? Oh, God, the research is insane. I mean, you know, you when you look at the data, which I do often
and look at the relationship between productivity efficiency and the reward state. It's extraordinary. I mean, and I don't have any stats with me, but in the threat state, which, by the way, most people aren't most of the time because if you look at most organisational structures inside public sector private sector, they are diametrically opposed to those six pillars. You know, nobody listens to the front line, you're micro managed to with an entry of your life. You're actively dissuaded from connecting to people, you never really know why decisions are made, you've got no idea what's going to happen because they only tell you things write the last minute. And people don't really care. They don't really ask how you're feeling when you come into a meeting. And then if you look at the stats, again, people are in the threat state, which most here's a stat 87% of the worldwide workforce is disengaged. Wow. 87% of the world's workforce is disengaged. That is insane. And it doesn't matter whether you're looking at that from a people perspective, because disengaged people are on predictive, they're honest, they get ill more often yada yada. If people don't have a purpose, Well, basically behavioural science says without you know, beyond is proved beyond reasonable doubt the purpose is the most important thing for human well being. So then you think can't and then you look at the purely commercial side of things, and actually engage people are, you know, nth degree is more effective, more productive, you know, companies that have engagement actually loads more productive, most prop more profitable. It's all crazy. And then you look at what happens when people are under threat state. Again, this is all backed by serious research, it affects memory affects decision making affects productivity, their immune system suffers. So so what you do as a leader within any organisation is basically understand all of the principles from behavioural psychology and from organisational psychology and understand that you absolutely need to create new environments in which people can be at their best.
Graham Allcott 40:58
I really want to see that data because We just we say my company think productive, we just changed. Well, we, we tweaked our mission, vision and values. And the the value that we added to the existing ones was trust and kindness are our rocket fuel. And it just hearing you talk, it's like, oh, I was just doing this out of kind of instincts and experience, right. But there's data that backs this up that actually if you create the right, psychological safety, then yeah, like it's, it's the rocket fuel for productivity for me is like, trust comes from empathy and empathy comes from kindness, and you can kind of almost track behaviours back to what the end result is going to be.
Katz Kiely 41:44
It's common sense. This is what we talk about all the time. It's common sense. It's like he would never keep a family group together by treating people the way you treat employees. It's like something happens inside large organisations. And you need some smaller organisations where we lose common sense. And what what do I mean by common sense? And it's a little phrase that we Bandy around a lot. But what common means is something that shared between two people or groups of people. Yeah. What sense is a way by which we can respond to external stimulus quick?
Unknown Speaker 42:23
Yeah.
Katz Kiely 42:24
And so common sense, is more relevant now than it's ever been before. And it's something in fact, the way that most companies operate, the way that most large organisations operate are nonsensical. And so yeah, I mean, as you say, you know, we know if you're nice to people, if you listen to them, if you let them know what's happening, if you communicate with them, you're gonna get a better reaction out of those people, right? Yeah. How do we lose track of that,
Graham Allcott 42:53
you know, and also then how to like it, all the data their backs it up, and it I don't believe that 87% of the managers in those organisations are bad people or want their people to be disengaged. So it that strikes me as it must be systemic, I never speak like that 13% of people have just found a way to, to sort of rail against the system and and create that psychological safety. So do you have an my, my sort of reading around and very limited experience of some of the sort of more non hierarchical changes to the business operating system and Hulk cracy and all that kind of stuff is that it hasn't, nothing's really caught fire in a way that you can see the success of it. So do you have any thoughts on what people can do differently in terms of the structures and in terms of how they set up culture in their organisations to be more biassed towards Those things rather than against them.
Katz Kiely 44:03
Um, yeah. And I think, you know, you'd be surprised. There are there is some really hard data. There's there was a brilliant report that was launched by McKinsey last year, a year ago, it was called. I don't know the power of design or something. But it was looking at over five years, they looked at I think it was 300 different companies. And they were looking at how the way that organisations operate have impact on the financial success of those companies. So I think they use they had 300 companies and something like 20 million pieces of financial data over five years. And they prove beyond reasonable doubt that the companies that are most successful, are most profitable and most efficient. All of those good things operate around a different set of principles to the traditional. They operate, we call it it's a bit embarrassing, really, but it seems to stick We call them the future ways of working future while we talk about it as, but basically it's all based around the fact that the senior leadership, I mean, look at Microsoft. Look at Satya what he's done over the last couple of years. You know, the leadership are empathetic, they empower their workforces. They allow and incentivize cross disciplinary, cross silo interaction. They make sure that every single person within their organisation is constantly looking for little fixes because the truth is, everything can always be better. Yeah, always. And again, because we've set up our organisations like machines, you know, with blueprints and silos and all of these things and we make the assumption that for some reason, within an organisation, it will operate like clockwork, you know, we can have these clearly identified little parts and departments and they've all operate separately and you can take one of those parts out and put another part back in, and it won't affect the system. Funnily enough. Every organisation is just a collection people. And people are not rational, and therefore you can't treat them as if they are. And so the most successful companies and this has been proven beyond reasonable doubt now operate in different ways. They operate in ways by which they, like I say they empower their workforces to make mistakes. And you know, the only real failure is the failure of not learning from mistakes, because if you don't invite people to talk about them, they get pushed underground, and you keep making them again and again. Yeah, so the research is there. I mean, you know, given over the last couple of years, it's been proven that companies that operate this future Wow. Like us Say I'm much more profitable. They're much more brand loyal. Employees like to stay with them, all of those good things. So the commercial argument is there in a way it's never been before. And people like Satya have proved it, which makes a lot easier for people like me who are trying to help large organisations go through this transformation. Because we have a really clear
business argument. This is not fluffy people stuff.
Yeah, if you want to be in the top 20 you change the way you operate. And the way you operate has to be about people. It has to operate the way that people work, which means it needs to harness these conditions. It needs to nurture these conditions of respect and autonomy and connectedness and fairness and certainty and empathy. You treat people in the way that we all know we need to be treated,
and you'll get the best out of them.
Graham Allcott 47:57
Yeah, and you need those. Those big credible role models right to help to help win that argument? Because otherwise, yeah, like you say, people do feel like, Oh, this just this is experimental or fluffy or whatever. Like, they need to see that there's a commercial drive behind it too, right?
Katz Kiely 48:16
Oh, yeah. And you know, and again,
you know, three, an extraordinary company, they adopt these kind of things into it. There are there are acres of companies that have started to see the commercial game from changing the way that they operate, to change into a way which you know, even 10 years ago would have felt that kind of, we will be out there a bit Silicon Valley. It Yeah.
It's proven,
you know, and the companies that don't move. And it's interesting. Now, again, going back to COVID. The companies that are doing best in this situation are the companies who already started to change their way of operating and therefore their employees are loyal. It doesn't really matter whether they're working at home or not. Because they know the score, they know what they're working. They know what they're working on. They know what working towards they feel respected. So they're working just as hard at home. The company's not so much.
Graham Allcott 49:10
Yeah, I mean, yeah, you mentioned three em, they're one of our clients. And I think they were about the first people on the phone when all this started to happen, saying, Hi, guys, what do you got? How can you help us? They're already you know, really thinking ahead in terms of, you know, what does that mean for their people over the next few weeks? A month? For sure. Yes. And we've got a couple of minutes and I could honestly just talk to you all day. It just there's a lot of really interesting crossover in terms of not necessarily crossover, but there's a lot of alignment with what you're doing and the stuff I do and I just find it really fascinating, but I know you've got to go because it's a Saturday morning and you're doing you're doing other podcasts and other work today, which I guess kind of shows you shows everybody really at the moment the fact that you're still Certainly busy through this whole COVID thing. So yeah, just before we finish off, it'd be great to just hear any other reflections you have around what does busy mean to you? And maybe just coming back to the core theme of the podcast Really? what's what's most important to you in terms of how you define things like productivity and happiness? How do you know when things are in the right kind of place for you?
Katz Kiely 50:30
I think as it's as simple as purpose, and passion, drive productivity, and actually being busy at work, when it doesn't feel like work, because it's something you genuinely care about.
It's the best thing in the world.
Graham Allcott 50:47
That's the perfect note to end on. So if people want to find out more, it's frontline dot live right and we'll put the we'll put the links to how you can you know, the different hashtags that you need to use on Twitter and bit more information in our show notes get beyond busy.com. And is there any way that like, how do you want people to kind of interact with you connect with you? How can people get hold of you? Just give us a bit of that sort of contact detail before we finish? Yes.
Katz Kiely 51:17
Okay. My email is caps at we are beep.com. My Twitter handle is at katzie. That's k t said why. And I'm Catskill on LinkedIn.
In fact, it's difficult not to find me.
Graham Allcott 51:33
Although I saw on your LinkedIn, you said, Don't send me an email.
Katz Kiely 51:39
Because I find myself getting loads of people contacting me without even bothering to say why and I tend not to link with people unless I really want to meet with them. Yeah, it's not for me. It's not a numbers game. Yeah. So if you really want to have a conversation, reach out to me have a conversation, then I'll link him with you. But don't please visit Some horrible numbers game. It's It's really annoying.
Graham Allcott 52:03
I started thinking that a while ago that said, it's a secret game that's only played by middle aged men, but the winner is the one who gets the most connection. So that was really fun. But thanks so much for being on beyond busy. You're doing amazing stuff. And yeah, I'm just just in awe of what you're doing right now and how quickly you've got that set up within a couple of weeks. It's just a huge achievement. So just want to say congrats on what you're doing. We're behind you and thanks for being on beyond busy.
Katz Kiely 52:36
Thank you so much for the invite. Talk to you soon.
Graham Allcott 52:45
So thanks again to Kat for being on the show. Thanks also to Sophie Devin shear from the caffeine partnership for helping me to set that one up Sophie Devon shared previously have been busy as well. So check out her episode we'll put a link to that one in the show notes. Also To mark Steadman, my producer on the show and particular Thanks Mark for turning this one round quickly, we just wanted to get it out as soon as we could. Just given the nature of it and how urgent this whole thing is. So just thanks for turning this round quickly. And likewise, thanks to Emily, who is my assistant doesn't often get mentioned on this show, but really worth saying that it really helps having these things a bit further on in advance. And that's not always been possible recently. So just thanks to Emily for just turning around all the publicity and social media posting and all that sort of stuff so quickly on all these episodes, it's so appreciated. And as always, we are sponsored by think productive, so good to think productive calm if you're interested in productivity and helping your people to be more productive either through this periods or in general and rest assured that we Come up the whole productivity thing from very much a human and not superhero angle. It's, I think it's there's this whole thing going on at the moment where people are unhelpfully, getting obsessed with productivity and learning violin, or how are you going to use this lockdown period to become an infinitely better person and all that stuff. And we start very much from the opposite end of that spectrum of like, it's all about you as a person. And we're going through a really tough time right now. And if you're not super productive during this period, there's probably a very good reason for that. And so I think productivity can become almost like a dangerous word through something like this because it it creates these really unhelpful and false targets and aspirations for people. And if you want an antidote to that, then our stuff really helps, I think productive calm and think proactive.com forward slash wfh. If you particularly want to hear about How we can help with this whole working from home and locked down kind of period that we're in. So do check that out if you're interested. And also, if you want to find out more about cats and link through to frontline live, and all the hashtags and all that other stuff that we talked about in the show, if you just go to get beyond busy calm, then you'll be able to find all the Show Notes for this episode, as well as all the previous episodes and everything else, podcasts related. And just a final reminder, if you want to sign up for my mailing list, it's Graham allcott.com. And then straight from that page, you'll see a little box that you can fill in. Also on my website is the contact page. So if you just want to drop me a message, then you can just do that from the contact page at the top there. Send me an email, send me a message and let me know what you think of the show. Let me know what else you'd like to see from beyond busy either generally, or particularly themes around COVID And that kind of stuff. I'm just trying to put stuff out this relevant and stuff that feels helpful. And there's not like an infinite supply of that kind of thing, right? So if you have sort of questions or ideas, the chances are I probably haven't thought of it. So do drop me a line at the contact form at Graham Allcott. Calm and yeah, I'll do my best to just put out stuff that serves the community and helps and feels relevant and sparks thoughts and all that other stuff. In the time where we are. Perhaps a bit less busy than usual. I was gonna say, Yeah, like, are we less, I'm less, I'm not less busy. I feel like I'm busy with other stuff. I'm busy with a lot more childcare stuff than usual. And all of that sort of thing, but I don't find myself feeling like I've got loads of time on my hands. And I'm sure some people do. I'm sure if you're furloughed, you might feel like that. But I think there's a lot of people You know, volunteering or doing other stuff with that furlough time rather than just sitting around. But anyway, I'm rambling now and so I'll finish off. But yeah, if you've got ideas for for sort of future episodes, either just in general normal life or in COVID life, then drop me a line at Graham Allcott comm we'll be back next week because this was an off week. So we usually do two weeks time, but this was the off week so we will be back next week with another episode. So until then, get me on visa.com if you want to find out find out more, and take care. Stay safe goes without saying really, but yeah, stay safe and see you next week. Take care Bye for now.