Bram Lagrou: [00:00:00] So welcome back everybody to the Energize With Bram podcast, and this episode is one for your senior leaders out there. You and I know that your business and the outcomes that you produce as a leader largely depend on the quality of the people you have with you.
And this is exactly what we're going to unpack today with a senior executive coach. Globally speaking, this senior leader has had a stellar track record starting in sales, and then going all the way up to president level in a multinational environment.
So before I actually introduce him, think about the war for talent. This is exactly what we are going to unpack with somebody who is the whisperer in other executives ears with his 30 years worth of corporate excellence and obviously [00:01:00] helping today's leaders to thrive in a environment where talent is just not taken for granted.
Without further ado, Keith Brooks, welcome to the podcast.
Keith Brooks: Good morning, Bram.
Bram Lagrou: It's great to see you again.
How are you?
Keith Brooks: It's good to be here. Yes, I'm very well. Thank you. The weather is magnificent this time of year in South Australia.
Bram Lagrou: Exactly. We both are on this side of the world, which is fantastic.
And look, let's just get straight into it. Both of us like straightforward talk. We both are straight shooters and I'm sure that our listeners and viewers will appreciate the same. So tell us more, as we started to warm up for this podcast, you said there is a war for talent. Let's take it away from there.
Keith Brooks: Yes, Bram. So there is a definitive war for talent and that war is coming to a crescendo because here in Adelaide, south Australia, we have four major projects, which will be draining existing [00:02:00] talent. These are big builds, like a nuclear submarine agreement with two other major countries, which will take 15,000 jobs not just construct, but working in this business.
And together with three other major projects, those projects will encourage international businesses to move into South Australia so they can be a part of this amazing defense spending. So yes, there's a definitive war for talent. Curtailed with that, we have the adoption of ai, which is impacting people's career development and the choices they make when they enter university. So it's a very, very hot topic for everybody who gets people in their business to deliver outcomes for their customers. So what typically happens is that a business with a good reputation will attract and hire a good talented person. They'll put them in the business. They'll work them through. It probably takes 'em six to 12 months to be [00:03:00] fully effective in their role. And during that time, there's a risk that the recruit is tapping on back of the shoulder or that a competitor knows about them and offered them an extra $20,000- $30,000 "Come and work for me. Don't stay there." This is quite a common thing that happens, but there's ways that you can protect yourself from that, and that's what we might talk about.
Bram Lagrou: I appreciate how you unveiled the curtain there on the realities of today's job market. If you have engineers, you have project managers, you have all these very highly qualified people, obviously there's a brain drain.
And then what I hear you say, which I really appreciate about the topic that we wanna unpack today, is that as a senior leader, you wanna make sure that you put the right things in place so that people don't get lured away just for the sake of money. There's things we can do on a day-to-day basis as a senior leader to show that the workplace that people have signed up for is indeed the [00:04:00] right place for them and the right place to stay. Let's introduce here how you have been exposed to it yourself and what your experience was like when you stepped into the workplace and what your employer did for you back then, which still is relevant today.
Keith Brooks: Yes. So I won't go back to the early part, but I arrived into Australia in 1973, which seems like a very long time ago. I was fortunate to be employed by a international, pharmaceutical company who believed in promoting from within. It was made very clear to me when I was hired that what my journey would be.
I would be doing the equivalent of a third year medical degree over the next three years in my own time learning anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, all the things you need to do to work effectively in a sales role in the pharmaceutical industry and I took that on board.
And I really enjoyed learning, [00:05:00] in that way. And also being taught how to effectively. Be a professional salesperson of influence. So what then happened was that progressively over the next 15 years, every two or three years, I was moved to another job, to another state.
And then gradually I was given leadership roles. And some years later I ended up in the national sales role in New South Wales in Sydney, which was the business's head office.
I went into a group of people who were selected globally for further education. So we would go to campuses during summer breaks in the Michigan and London and Geneva and other places, and we were being taught by experts how to take the next step in leadership. So basically I did that and over the course of the next 15 or so years, I moved to four different continents and enjoyed having responsibilities for multi countries.
And finally my last role was as the [00:06:00] president in Hong Kong. Managing the change of sovereignty, when it was, sent back to China and, I then retired, at the ripe old age of 52.
Bram Lagrou: And you're not somebody to sit around, Keith. 'cause obviously then you had your next career of another, what, 30 odd years where you've been assisting other senior leaders?
Keith Brooks: Yes. I it, after a couple of years hiatus and, a lot of golf, a lot of red wine, a lot of lovely lunches, I was persuaded to come out of retirement and I did a bit of work at the universities.
I helped a couple of startups and then I found out about the executive connection, now called Vistage. And for the last 25 years I've been coaching and mentoring CEOs, which is something I love to do
Bram Lagrou: And you're extremely good at as well. So I appreciate you giving us a bit of the quick tour around your personal career.
But what I've taken out of that is that one company had a trajectory carved out for you already at the start of it, and a [00:07:00] lot of belief and a lot of support mechanisms in place to make sure that you would be happy to stay and keep contributing back to this organization. Is that fair to say?
Keith Brooks: That's exactly right. And I say I remember what I was told as a young lad, and I use the same terms now when I talk to the people I'm working with. I would encourage them to say to their good people, your future is only limited by your ability and ambition. If you've got ambition, make sure you've got some ability to go with it.
If you've got ability, then don't waste it. Be prepared to work hard, challenge yourself and take on other opportunities and good businesses do that in a structured way.
Bram Lagrou: So tell us more about that. 'cause that really sparks my interest, and I believe it was Richard Branson who said, what if you don't train people and they stay, right?
Sometimes people say, yeah, I'm afraid to invest in my people because what if they go? [00:08:00]
Keith Brooks: Yeah.
Bram Lagrou: Right. So I think this is the whole idea, like what does that structure look like? To ensure that the war for talent doesn't hurt you?
Keith Brooks: Well, I think it's a few things Bram.
So I would imagine that most people listening to your podcasts have got a business that they are running and they have some idea about the strategy of that business.
So let's say they have created, a one page business plan and they say, in five years time, this is what this business will look like.
We'll be doing this. We'll be doing it this way. This is our mission, this is our vision. This is how we're gonna get there. Every business would have something similar to that. So once you've got that, and let's call that the future, the next thing to do is to say, who's gonna get me there?
What people do I need in my business that are gonna help me achieve what we are saying is important? Now, they may be the existing people. Or there may be some vacancies or new roles that the business needs. Whatever that is, that's gotta be articulated. Who are going to [00:09:00] be the people that get me there?
And then you need to look at your existing workforce and divide it into three groups. There's a group of A players, there's a group of superstars, there's a group of people really performing very, very well who are already doing well and they've got the capacity to do more. These guys gotta be kept in the tent because they're the people that other people would be saying, come and work for me.
Then the second group of people is the vast majority of your employees. They're not yet superstars, but they might be. They could be with the right nurturing, the right development, and the right support. And then you've got the third group. These are either made up of people that are relatively new in the job or in a learning growth capacity.
They're not yet fully effective, but they can be if they're nurtured and they're trained effectively. And then the other part of that third group, these people unfortunately, often have the ability but don't have the attitude.
Bram Lagrou: Mm-hmm.
Keith Brooks: They're often the people that, with bad behaviors who don't follow the culture, [00:10:00] and they need to be uncoupled as quickly as possible.
Every conversation I have with a leader about their poor performers, when they finally make the decision, the rest of the business says, what took you so long? We were having to cover this idiot, and we were working harder. You weren't supporting us. And this person got away with it. So most businesses, in my experience are very slow in getting rid of their dead wood.
And every business has got dead wood. I say that hand on chest. Every business I've worked with has got dead wood. Sometimes they're there because they've been there for 40 years and there's a loyalty factor and we feel like we owe them. Or sometimes they're there because of relationships.
Everyone has them. And if you follow the Boston Consulting Group metrics, I call that shooting the dogs.
Bram Lagrou: Shooting the dogs. I like that. Throwing a curve ball at this. People could also, rightfully or wrongfully, use the excuse or the reasoning that because they haven't [00:11:00] got enough people, they have to put up with this idiot.
Keith Brooks: Yes, I've heard that as you have many, many times, and I think that's a very difficult position to be in. If this person that we're talking about has got the ability, but not the attitude or the investment to be effective, then they're not gonna be your future. If the person doesn't have the ability but really wants to do it, then you've got the chance to train them and make them into somebody that can do the job effectively.
But the argument that any person's better than nothing I don't think that's true today because when somebody leaves a business and somebody says, oh, so and so just left, I said, fine. Whatcha gonna do? They goes, I'm gonna go and advertise. I said, before you advertise, why don't you see whether this role is going to be as important in the future?
How is the economy changing? How is technology changing? Can you get that role positioned? Can you get the things done in a different way, in a more effective way?
Bram Lagrou: Yes. [00:12:00] A conversation that is not easily had. Typically people just tend to think in a sense of continuation of what was, but what you're saying is just challenge it and if it's really required or if it can be done better, easier, faster, and simpler
Keith Brooks: Differently.
So when you divided those three groups of your employees, how you lead and manage those becomes relatively more simple. The A Grade players, they want to continue to learn and grow and be part of the success of the future.
So they're looking normally for development and there's various ways you can provide that development for them. What I always encourage people to do is to say, what does success look like for this individual in the next three years? What role do they want to play, or do we think they could play for our business?
Do we create a new role or do we promote them into a leadership role gradually having trained them [00:13:00] appropriately? We do what I call a career plan. And it says that in the next three months we'll be concentrating on this. So If I say to this person, this leader, tell me about this person, and how would you mark them out of 10?
They might say, oh, they're an 8.5, they're a nine. So great. But they're not nine at everything. That's their strong suit. What's the weakest part of their makeup? What's the thing they don't yet have control of? Oh, we're not that great in doing this. Okay, so we've identified two things.
One, the thing they're really good at and one thing they could be better at, the one that they're really good at. Why don't you get that person to start mentoring the rest of the business or selected people in the business and help them learn that skill from that individual. The thing they're not that good at, let's put a plan together so that in 3, 6, 12 months time, it will no longer be a five or a six, it'll be a seven, eight, or nine.
So we are [00:14:00] focusing particularly on that core skill or knowledge area.
Bram Lagrou: Mm-hmm.
Keith Brooks: And we put a plan around that, which includes coaching, mentoring, formal study, group discussions, whatever works for that individual. But I believe in a good business, every single employee knows what they're supposed to do.
They've got KPIs that measure their effectiveness and they know the organization is saying, our job is to train and make you the best person you can be. As your leader, i've got you back. I'm gonna be with you when you make mistakes, which you will. But that's just a mistake. You're gonna learn from that.
And My job is to make you the best you can be. And that's my promise to you. We are gonna coach you. We are gotta mentor you. We are gotta train you, and you're only limited in your ambition. And when somebody taps that person on the shoulder for an extra $10,000 down the road, they're gonna say, oh yeah, I can earn 10 grand, but you know what, if I stay here, I'm gonna build a career.
Bram Lagrou: So it's really the career path [00:15:00] progression. Like higher within, it's really thinking that through in its entirety and having really a longer career path opportunity for an individual. Is that what you're saying? That is a key differentiator?
Keith Brooks: Yeah. Go back to basics. So if you look at a, a typical P&L, how much time is an organization spending on training?
It's seen as discretionary. It's the first thing that goes when things get tough. I mean, how much time should somebody spend developing further, someone they're paying $150,000, $200,000, $250,000 a year? Do they have a training budget for that person? It's probably not even in the P&L.
It sort of pops in other places like travel.
Bram Lagrou: And why is it that it's not in there, Keith?
Keith Brooks: Because it's seen as discretionary.
If your focus is on having the best possible people working for you and training them to become the [00:16:00] best they can be, you've gotta put that as a line item.
There's a cost involved in that.
Bram Lagrou: Yep.
Keith Brooks: It differentiates you from the marketplace.
Bram Lagrou: It's interesting how you're saying this because, just the other day I was sitting down with a group of managers of an organization that both of us have the pleasure of working with. The whole discussion to some extent was about how do we keep our people and how do we make sure that we put things in place that will help to keep us, which is not necessarily more money. And the funny thing that came out of that conversation was if we thought of, well, if there's a high churn amongst your technical people.
And we know what that number was like, and it was significant. It was double digits and quite high. And we said like, well, what's the average income that you pay these people? The salary? If you then factor in that, typically because of the time it takes, like you said earlier, to get him up to speed, six to 12 months for them to become effective.
Then you are mentoring as a senior [00:17:00] leader, which is your time that you're investing in them as well. Then other people do the same, Extra things that are all set up for them. Their accounts, their mobile, their laptop, the onboarding process.
All of this, by the time you add it all up, you're easily looking at two, three, sometimes four times the annual salary. So let's just say for easy sake, if it's a hundred thousand dollars salary, let's do it conservatively, double it, $200,000. It's funny then if you say, well, we lost somebody at that level, then they have to go recruiting and how much money does that cost?
So yeah, the line item just shifts. Right? And I think about all the knowledge that has been taken away, the relationships that have been moved on to another business, potentially to a competitor. By the time you try explaining, the little investment in training and development versus the cost of recruitment replacement [00:18:00] and brain drain, moving to a competitor. To me it doesn't make sense not to invest in training and development.
Keith Brooks: So why would somebody leave an organization when they've been there for some time? It's either the relationship with the person they report to, it's the belief that the culture has changed or is not fit for them, or if they don't see where they're heading.
Bram Lagrou: Interesting.
Keith Brooks: Or something happens in their life like that, they get married or, there are big items that changes people's perspective. But usually, I mean, people don't leave businesses, they leave their managers. We all know that's true. So if your manager is just holding you accountable, but not supporting you and not developing and training you, and not putting you in an environment where you feel you are growing. And I think you and I talked about this some years ago. One of the things that I've learned is that you can do the best training in the world. You can have somebody being exposed to new [00:19:00] ways of doing things, and people accept that that has happened, but they don't keep a record of it.
So it's what I call a learning registry where, because you've done the same job for 12 months, you might think I haven't grown, but in fact, you have just by doing the job, we're using new technology. You are using AI now. You are learning all these new ways of operating more effectively and productively.
You've probably built up a better communication style. You've done formal training as a group and hopefully as an individual you've had personal training from mentors and coaches in the business and sometimes outside the business. So I think organizations need to invest in L&D and they need to keep a record of how people are growing because if you are that person who wants a career and you're in nine, 12 months into the job and you're saying, is this the place for me?
Do they care about me? Am I treated like a person or an employee? And that is a very, very big [00:20:00] question for me. Everyone has employees and they have to treat their employees a certain way because legally they've got that responsibility. But if you treat that person as a person, not an employee, it means you know the names of their wife and kids.
You know if their mother's about to go into aged care. You know one of their children's going to get married. You know who they support outside of the workplace 'cause you get them for about 20% of their life.
And they've got 80% outside. You have to be there supporting them through that journey. And you know, the lovely quotes: people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that's the glue that keeps people together. That's the glue that creates the culture where people want to stay and contribute.
Bram Lagrou: So what can leaders do better from your experience? 'Cause obviously you talk to many senior leaders in multiple different organizations, large and small, and anything in between.
So what can they do specifically [00:21:00] to make sure that the people feel that they belong?
Keith Brooks: Okay. So the first thing is every individual has a plan. The career plan. This is my growth trajectory. This is where I'm at. I'm probably a six in my job because I don't have the knowledge yet or the experience.
But in six months I'll be a seven. And then, you are gradually growing your capability, which is in everyone's best interest because it's like when you're asked to do something for the first time, you've got somebody watching you do it just to make sure you do it right. As you get more experience, you get more capable, therefore you get more confident and then you don't need anyone to tell you.
You can be relied upon to deliver an outcome. Which is what leadership's all about, isn't it? Knowing you can ask someone to do something and you don't have to second guess, you just know it's gonna be done well. Because you are confidence in that person's ability, That's what everyone needs.
The fact that my boss cares about me, he asks me questions, he knows what's going on. Can I give you two examples? [00:22:00]
Bram Lagrou: Absolutely.
Keith Brooks: I brought this up the other day. There was an example I walked into. Somebody I had worked with for some years. I walked into his office for our one-on-one catch up, and he did not look good.
I said, what's happening? He said, you won't believe this, but so and so just, resigned. Wow. That came outta nowhere. I said, why is that? Well, she's a middle aged lady. She has no romantic connections. She realizes she wants a bit more security, so she wanted to buy a property. She went to the bank and they said, you don't earn enough.
So she said, I've thought about that. I love the job. I love business here. But, I need to get another job so I can earn more money so I can get what I need, which is a roof over my head and security. So we started saying, well, what's your response to that? How do you work around that?
And we landed on a solution. He said to her, you don't want to go, I don't want you to go, You are my rock. This person was an EA office manager. Made everything work around the place.
Bram Lagrou: Mm-hmm. [00:23:00]
Keith Brooks: They agreed that he would give her the money that the bank would loan her at commercial rate, and as long as she worked for him, that would be the arrangement.
If at any time she needed to leave, then they would make a commercial decision about how that would be funded, by which time she would've built up equity in the place. Anyway, so that was a solution. I had another situation. A building business, and they had a site manager that was an A player.
Suddenly his performance slipped and he wasn't as reliable as he had been, and people didn't know why. So he was being questioned. Turns out this guy was a very gifted motor sports driver, and when they had an interstate race meeting, he'd try and slip off early, get on a plane and go off and compete. No one knew what, why, how, until we dug into it.
When we found out that he was still an A grade player, he just said he had another interest. The business said, okay, so there were times maybe once or twice a month [00:24:00] when you need to get interstate. So we'll change your hours. We'll do something on these days and then you can take lunchtime, onwards off on a Friday when you need to travel.
Would that work?
So of course it worked and he was happy. In fact, about a year later they started putting advertising on his car. But what I'm saying is that if you only treat the person as an employee, you don't know these stories.
You don't know what's important to them. So you miss so many opportunities. So what I said to them was, what have you learned from this experience about the site manager being away on a Friday afternoon or your office manager having to leave you? What have you learned? And they rigged to the fact that they weren't having open-ended questions.
They didn't know what was important in their employees' lives. If they had have done, they would've seen it coming and they would've found a solution.
Bram Lagrou: That's it.
Keith Brooks: Because they're not having those conversations.
Bram Lagrou: So you say the value of open-ended questions with your employees as a senior leader, asking them [00:25:00] about other things, what they do outside are important.
I want to challenge that a little bit because obviously. People won't necessarily confide in their boss unless they feel comfortable. It's possible that sometimes a boss behaves in a way that doesn't make people wanna open up and confide and share what else they do outside of work.
So then it's very easy just to get the resignation letter without the chats that wouldn't have required the resignation.
Keith Brooks: People leave managers, not businesses. They leave managers. If you are the sort of person that genuinely cares about other people and you want their success for them, and you thrive on their success, people feel that. People know.
People know you've got their back and people know that you are invested in their success. And the best way to do that, in my experience, and this is a process that I have done for many, many years. I arrange a monthly catch up the first [00:26:00] month and the second month. It's nothing to do with me.
It's all about them.
Bram Lagrou: Mm-hmm.
Keith Brooks: What's going on? So brand what happened since I've seen you in the last month. What are you working on? What's happening with family or, your kids going into year 12, putting a bit of pressure on there. Is there any way I can help you around this? Oh, your mother's going into an aged care facility, a bit further away than I thought. What can we do to assist you in this process?
When you ask those sort of questions, you build trust. You build relationships and you find a way that makes everyone a winner, not a winner or a loser. So the first month conversation is all about you, what's important to you in your life. The second one is also about you and what's important in your life and your role and your team, and your outcomes.
The third one. Is a mini appraisal. This is your job. These are the accountabilities of your job. How have you gone in the last quarter? You rate yourself and then I'll rate with you and see if we're on the same [00:27:00] page. If something needs to change, let's look at how we do that now in the next three months.
Then we go back to it's all about you again. That's how you build trust and recognition, and that's how people believe that you really do want them to be successful.
Bram Lagrou: I love that. That's a nice structure. I appreciate you unpacking it the way you did. Thanks Keith.
Keith Brooks: One addition to that Bram, if you do that, when it comes to the year end, and I think most businesses believe they need to do a year end performance review appraisal, you don't need that.
You've done three already. So the end of year conversation about how you're traveling, where you're going, it's all about where you're going. It's all about your development plan, what I'm doing to help you become even better. So the whole focus is in not looking backwards, just looking forward.
Bram Lagrou: Beautiful.
That's a nice little accent that you put on there. I gotta ask you this as well. 'cause again, this came up in the conversation with the managers the other day. We were [00:28:00] talking a lot about the value of reward and recognition, what does that look like? Ideally speaking, knowing your experience in this whole conversation piece of the war for talent.
Keith Brooks: It could mean a lot of things. Bram, certainly the good companies are paying way above award rates. Good companies know if they want to attract the best, they've gotta pay appropriately and reward people appropriately. But again, they also know they've gotta spend money on developing those people.
Continue development, we are going to continue to invest in you. I think that's a given. The fact that it is so competitive, I don't think salaries are gonna go backwards. I think that will continue. At certain stages of your life, money can be more important than other stages. You know, on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
But we're not talking about here. All the basic shelter and food are being covered off here.
Bram Lagrou: Yep.
Keith Brooks: you are talking about hiring a Grade players. [00:29:00]
Bram Lagrou: Yep. And particularly the question is about rewards and recognition, not just the monetary, I'm talking beyond that.
Keith Brooks: Yeah. Yeah. When I walk into certain businesses, and I, you know, I work with about 60 different businesses here in Adelaide. When you walk into the reception area, when you walk into the boardroom or the president's room or the owner's office. You can feel the culture, you can smell what's going on. You can see the buzz, you can hear the excitement, you can see the energy, or you can see the opposite. So the culture of a business is gonna determine a lot of this question, I believe.
What is our culture? Do we work hard, play hard? Do we incentivize our people with a 20% discretionary bonus if they achieve the outcomes we want? What does that mean? How do we do that? Or do we say, yeah, this is such a great place to work. People would come here anyway, whether we paid them or not.
'cause it's such a fantastic place and we all like each other and we all work hard and [00:30:00] we play hard. Those are the different parts of that, I think.
Bram Lagrou: At the early start of our relationship, we started chatting away about profiling people. That was one thing that we had in common, even though we used a different framework, and I kind of want to bring it back there in the whole context of this war for talent.
You know, there is different personalities at the senior leadership level and the A players in their team and the B players and the ones that you know, have to move on. In that whole context, what is your take on personality and how can really be smart as a senior leader, not just to go by default behavior?
Keith Brooks: It's a fascinating question, Bram, and you can unpack it to all certain different levels. I think as you become more experienced in your role as a leader, in the early days you have to be a bit of a chameleon. And realize like an effective sales person would be, I'm talking to this customer, they're talking that [00:31:00] language. I've gotta talk their language in that way that they will understand.
Bram Lagrou: Mm-hmm.
Keith Brooks: As a leader, you probably do that, but you've probably developed a style that appeals to more people speaking different languages.
Bram Lagrou: Mm-hmm.
Keith Brooks: you develop your personal style.
Bram Lagrou: Mm-hmm.
Keith Brooks: And hopefully, if that is a style of humility, based upon knowledge and experience, then you'll be talking enough of their language for them to be attracted to that.
But the people who don't seem to care about people, they're just interested in achieving outcomes, I think they will always struggle to get the people that they want in their business.
We still need people because although AI will take on a lot of the roles that we currently have, there'll still be need for people to do other roles in future business. So the ability to lead, inspire, create a culture of belonging and build somebody's career, that's the thing. Build someone's career so that they look back and [00:32:00] say, wow, I do this exercise with my people usually every couple of years.
Tell me about the most important person in your life that had the most influence on you to help you to be successful, to where you are today.
Bram Lagrou: Mm-hmm.
Keith Brooks: And then when we talk about that you can hear the emotion in the voice. About the gift that that person has given them by their mentorship or their coaching or just being a person of wisdom that's really helped somebody.
And I say to all my leaders, isn't it nice if you could be the person that people would say, I love working for that
Bram Lagrou: business. And it's so true when people have had that gift of an experience, they do get moved. You hear it in their voice. Sometimes a tear might roll down someone's cheek, and that is very encouraging, especially if you would be one of those people that people talk about when you're not there. So I love that. Now, flipping it on the other side here: there's always these lethal things that senior leaders can do in this war for talent. If you would have [00:33:00] two or three that come to mind for you, what would they be?
The leathal things, the things that you don't want to do as a leader.
Keith Brooks: I wouldn't hire the cream of the crap. A lot of that happens. We don't have anybody. We'll take whatever we can get. So people hire the cream of the crap and it never works. It just creates problems further down the track.
I think the second one is you've gotta get rid of those people in the third group. As quickly as you can. I mean, legally humanely, but they're not your future and they're oxygen thieves as someone would say. They're not doing anything for your culture and they're bringing your good people down.
That's the second one that comes to mind. The third one is that, If you took the example that you just said where you were talking about this particular company, you were working with the leadership team and you looked at the true cost of having a non-performer or having a role not filled, I think the question then [00:34:00] becomes, how do we stop this happening again? How do we invest in our people in a way that they will never be attracted to another offering because they know that they just keep on this trajectory. We're getting for them more promotions, more roles. They'll earn more money, they'll have more prestige, all the things that go with leadership roles.
if you're not doing that, you're just buying what the market's got for you. I always believed that, in my role when I was going from country to country, I was being sent into companies as a change agent many times. As soon as I got into a territory, I then get involved in the industry association.
I get to know people in the industry, and then I start to meet with people. I'd go to a hospital and say, who are the representatives of the different industries that come and see you that you have the most respect for, or give you the best level of service? And I keep getting the same names.[00:35:00]
These were the names that I wanted working for me. So I'd meet with them and say, I don't have a job now. I've been told so many great things about you, though. We should stay in touch. 'cause one day I might.
Bram Lagrou: Yeah.
Keith Brooks: So instead of just going to market to grab a sales manager or a product manager or an operations manager, know who's already out there.
Start meeting and talking to these people and say, you know what, I want that person working for me. We'll find a way to make that happen.
Bram Lagrou: Brilliant. Love that. One final question here, and I'm mindful of time. I know that there's an important, lunch date with your spouse, with Gail coming up.
One thing that I'm curious to hear your take on is. At times, let's just say that a senior leader is not the ultimate senior leader, and there's stakeholders who control certain areas that they don't. That can only influence, but they're not really responsible for.
And let's just say that the senior leader has found out that one particular thing is really important to his A players. [00:36:00] However, they rely on somebody else's authority and potentially budgets to be able to make it happen. It's a huge culture builder potentially, but there's a lot of red tape involved.
There's a lot of complexity. How do you suggest leaders to go in the fight for their team? 'cause it's important to build culture, but knowing that they can only influence at best.
Keith Brooks: I think it's something that we've dealt with over the years with the groups that I work with. So one example would be, there might be a policy that says you can't do X in in the business. And yet you know that X would be very useful.
First thing I would say would be: personally, I never asked for permission. I occasionally ask for forgiveness if I believe it's the right thing to do and nobody can convince me that it's not, [00:37:00] I'll probably proceed and if I get into trouble, that's my call. 'cause I believe that there was enough benefit from it that everyone won. The second thing is that,
and this is the paradox, you could take a row of tenement houses and they've all got the same size garden in the front and the same fence for the roadway. They all look the same. You know, we've lived in countries where there's a lot of those sort of places. And then every now and then you walk past there, they all look the same.
Then suddenly you walk to one. Wow. There's green grass, there's smelling roses, it looks beautiful. There's a one garden in the whole row that looks good. Why is that? Because that person cared about that. That person cared about their garden. Other people didn't. And they made a difference.
So although the policy says, although the culture is that we don't do that, these guys said, you know what? We think it's important. We are gonna do it anyway. And they created that lovely garden in this horrible street. Does that make sense?
Bram Lagrou: Absolutely. [00:38:00] Yep. I like that. Just do it anyway and ask for forgiveness later. Be ready to cop it if it's important enough. And there's a lot of value for the business.
Keith Brooks: On the basis that you've looked at the ROI, you've looked at the cost involved, you're making sure there's legal, you're not doing anything illegal, but, yeah, absolutely.
It's the same way you say salespeople in general are very involved in and usually are offered incentive programs for their performance. It's difficult to do that for other parts of a business. if you're on accounts payable, how do I incentivize you? Well, you can do it, but businesses don't think in that way.
They just think the only incentive really goes to the sales guys or senior leadership 'cause they can make a difference. But everybody in the business has an opportunity to perform at a more productive level. And if they know how to do that and they can be incentivized to do that, then that makes sense for everybody.
Bram Lagrou: I fully agree with you. In fact, the Flight Center group has done that whole model across all of their [00:39:00] divisions very successfully over the years in multiple countries, so it definitely can be done. Now, any final words of wisdom coming from you, Keith, to other senior leaders out there that are still in this war for talent?
Keith Brooks: My advice would be, look at it in a different way. Don't bemoan the fact that there's a limited pool. As we said before, be aware of who's in your marketplace. Be aware of who works for your competitor. Be aware of who the people that you would like to work for down the track. Look at different ways of approaching a particular role.
Do we need to replace this role as it is or can we find a different solution for this role? Don't automatically just hire, what you've had, but look for something different. And I think always try and hire people smarter and better, and people that want to build careers. So do psychological assessments, make sure they are the right [00:40:00] person for your culture.
And I know in today's world this is probably a bit more challenging because many decisions are made quickly, but I would always meet a strong candidate and have a meal with them, talk to them maybe sometimes even meet their partner. if it was at that sort of role, because you're buying the partner as well as the husband or the other way around, husband or wife.
they've gotta be comfortable in the decision if it's a senior role. And I think basically the wisdom that I was, taught was, hire slowly on fire quickly.
Bram Lagrou: Exactly.
Keith Brooks: Get rid of that third group of people as quickly as you can, but it's an important role, which is gonna make a huge impact on where you want to be in three years.
Bram Lagrou: I always enjoy our conversations a lot and I definitely also always take new things from him. I also know that we have a lot in common and I very much look forward to continuing the journey. Keith Brooks, thank you so much. Should people wanna reach out to you, is it okay [00:41:00] for us to send them your LinkedIn way and the likes?
Keith Brooks: Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Thanks Bram. Always enjoyed talking with you. I think I do too much talking. You should be doing more talking next time.
Bram Lagrou: Next time when we catch up over coffee. So thanks again for joining. Okay, everybody. Hope you got a lot of value from this particular episode on the War for Talent with Keith Brooks.
Keith Brooks, as we said, is a Vistage chair working with business owners as well as senior leaders in large and small organizations, based here in South Australia, like me. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode of The Energize with Bram podcast, and for now, I wish you all the best.
Keith Brooks: Thanks, Bram.
