Why Your Team Hides Problems Until It's Too Late: Ryan Saridar, Elryan.com

Ryan Saridar runs Elryan.com, one of the largest e-commerce marketplaces in Iraq, and he's built a rule that changes how his entire management team handles bad news. Nobody on his team gets to sit on a problem and hope it resolves itself.

Ryan breaks down the exact line he uses to separate a genuine excuse from a simple update, why he hires for behavioural fit before skill, and what changed the moment he stopped trying to control outcomes and started building a team that tells him the truth first. If your management team only flags problems once it's too late to fix them, this is the one to send them.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Step one is about almost letting go of the outcome and I suppose not being ruled by fear.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

I think that fear is fine. I mean, things happen and and things are tough. I think the thing is that a lot of the times that gets stuck. A lot of CEOs are incredibly self-reliant. And that also creates a barrier because there is a a beauty in being able to sit with your team and say, like, things are tough. We can sit and feel that and figure this out. But if a leader is self-reliant, then they might feel burdened to shoulder that challenge in some capacity.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

And I think you can you can set up a business in two different ways. You can set up a business in sort of a control everyone's fundamentally bad, I need to be on top of them.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Or you can set up in a way like everyone's fundamentally good and they're trying.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

And you'll be proven right in both scenarios, but you'll also be proven wrong. And actually, there's people that prove you wrong, you just remove them, but make a choice.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

I think on that point there's an interesting thing there about control, which for me, whenever control's in play, there's fear in play. Like to can try and control the situation is not organic.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Hi, I'm James Johnson, founder and CEO coach. And this is the Pure Effect Podcast, where your peers will tell you what's unlocking their 10 million plus business. My guest today, Ryan, is the CEO of Elder N, Iraq's biggest e-commerce marketplace. And today we're going to talk about how to scale effectively in uncertainty. Before we get into the show, remember to hit subscribe and let's get cracking. So, Ryan, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Thank you. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

So today we're going to sort of dive into how you scale amid uncertainty because it's something that you deal with a lot of, which we're going to go into. But when we're doing the research this, we found out uh that you started out as a professional hacker. Is that is that correct? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

I was uh in the cybersecurity for two year industry for two years, but I was doing it since I was a kid. Basically, I'd be at school doing things I probably shouldn't be doing. And uh I've been to techie all my life. So I was a programmer before that. And then I graduated in electronic engineering and I went straight into cybersecurity, which is what I always wanted to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Amazing. And how how how do you sort of move from that to sort of doing what you are today, doing today?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

So the business is a family business, and um it started back in '99. I originally wanted to go and do my own path, basically, which is why I didn't join the business straight away. A lot of encouragement from the family and and join, join. Um, but I never wanted the pathway of the thing that was handed to me. So I had my passions, I had the things that I felt I was good at and interested in, and I and I went down that pathway. It was always technical for me. I always seemed to get on really well with with that and was always interested in computers, so I ended up going that direction. The side of the business that I run was started in 2014. And in 2024, my brother passed away, and I jumped in to help manage the transition, and it ended up being something that I stayed with and have been in position for the past now two and a half years.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Wow. Oh, sorry to hear that. And uh so you've now been doing this for two years, two and a half years. Do you do you feel that kind of is it have you anything with you across from sort of that sort of those hacking tech days in terms of how you approach uncertainty and how you how you deal with things?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

I wouldn't say specifically around uncertainty, but I have always been, and this is something that I I learned and reflected on over time, someone who likes to solve meaningful problems in a somewhat agnostic way. You know, when I was younger, the type of work that I did, a lot of volunteering was development on game servers. Like I'd play online games, but I'd have an opportunity to develop something for the community that I'd be playing with. And so I'd love to work on that and I'd love to do something that can have a felt difference for the community in in some way. So when I was in my cybersecurity role, although cybersecurity itself was a passion and interest of mine because it was quite cool. I ended up transitioning into a little bit more of a business role towards the end. I'd say I was very business technical. So I'd started um just doing what you call pen testing, um, doing security assessments for companies for a brief time. And then I ended up doing more focused long-term client work. And by the end, I was working on um we were calling it offensive security operations. So it's more continuous ongoing programs um related to offensive security services. So I was starting to lead and manage that part of the business and more of the commercial end and and team end of things there. And then I went full immersion when I moved from that into this full CEO role. And um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Which question would you play there? So both risk assessment and commerciality, which is almost at the heart of what a CEO job is in many ways.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Aaron Powell For the work that I do, I'm a very unstructured or unrigid person in the way that I do things. So, for example, the risk work never like fascinated me. I was never deeply excited by that and processes and all that stuff, which is actually something that I bring along into the role that I'm doing now. I'm very um freestyle in in some capacity, which I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Okay. So perhaps sort of set the scene for people listening in terms of where's where's the business now? What's some of the main sort of challenges, sort of uncertainties that you face? Because they're they're on a scale different to just the AI uncertainty that a lot of people are facing.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Right. Yeah. The market's always changing and it's not a safe or predictable market. You know, before I joined and through to now, it remains true. Like you can never trust the good times fully. It's not this long-term amp up. Like there are shots in the market, there are changes this year, there have been a lot of changes in in the landscape. Um, obviously, the war affects things. Um, there's also economic factors in Iraq around customs decisions and so on that have a large effect on the market. This year they've introduced much higher tax rates. One, it's affected the value of the currency. The value of the currency had dropped substantially, and faith in in that dropped. Effective affordability substantially. So prices for everything were going up and ability for people to afford things was going down. Mid-government uncertainty as well around um wage payouts for government employees and factors like that that have an impact for sure on on our market. But you sort of roll with the punches in that way. It's it's the the thing that's certain is uncertainty.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Yeah. Well, I think that's what's so fascinating. I mean, everyone is dealing with uncertainty around AI now. And never say, Oh, what do I do planning forward? But it feels really baked into what you're doing, both by market and by sector. Like as a largest e-com player in Iraq, I wonder how you can maintain that sort of nimbleness while also having size. So what you're like 150 plus people now?

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Yeah. Uh so across both sides of the business were larger, but around my side it's about 130 now, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Wow. So how how do you maintain like because part of dealing with uncertainty is being responsive? Part of I imagine is being intentional. How do you how do you get that balance right?

SPEAKER_01 7:25

I think the interesting thing that plays out in struggles of uncertainty is um personal factors for individuals in often more on a psychological level than in anything else. Like we face a lot of challenges, more challenges uh or tougher challenges than a lot of people are are are used to facing and talking about. And yet the way that we move through it is with a comfort in some way. Like it's part of my mentality and approach that I mean things have happened, right? And things will continue to happen, and I can just ask myself where I am in this moment. I think for a lot of people, there are a lot of emotional tie-ins that make it difficult to process that uncertainty where the challenge that you're facing represents the death of something that's important to you, maybe a fear of failure that people carry with them, a fear of for different reasons, you know, if you own the business, then it it could be uh, this is my success project, this is the thing that will get me what I need for my family, all of that stuff. So there's a big emotional barrier there for people of like when an uncertainty hits, I'm scared and I don't know how to process that. Whereas for me, I think an important thing is I'm not particularly scared of any outcome. Like I'm ready for whichever way it goes, I'm ready for it to stop tomorrow, I'm ready for it to stop in 10 years, I'm ready for whatever comes in that capacity. So I think there's a really useful thing for people in facing the thing that they're worried about and making peace with the idea of that outcome. Because when you do that, then you're really prepared for whatever direction it goes.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

That's very nice. Maybe we'll start with like what you do differently as a leader, then. But it sounds like step one is about almost letting go of the outcome and I suppose not being ruled by fear. So it's like like not being too worried about the negative consequence of something.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

I think that fear is fine. I mean, things happen and and things are tough. It's a hard thing to say to someone like, oh, just don't be scared, right? I think the thing is that a lot of the times that gets stuck, right? And especially with um, I'm I'm sure you probably see a lot of CEOs are incredibly self-reliant. And that also creates a barrier because there's a a beauty in being able to sit with your team and say, like, things are tough, and we can sit and feel that and figure this out. But if a leader is self-reliant, then they might feel burdened to shoulder that challenge in some capacity. There's a distance between them and the team or them and the world in in some way that amplifies the weight that's on their shoulders.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

True, I suppose what you're what I'm hearing is that there's almost temptation to think, show think you have to show that you have all the answers. And if you if you can acknowledge that, particularly in your case, that there is so much uncertainty, maybe it takes away that burden of like, because obviously you can't have all the answers. Yeah. Therefore, you can step away from it more freely. Whereas in some place you might think, oh, I I the expectation is that I do have all the answers.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah. I mean, what's the truth that is there that you tend to avoid or struggle to face? And one of those, as you mentioned, is is around that, like this discomfort with the idea of I don't know, or or I don't have it all figured out. I'm not a finished product. There are things for us to to experience and and learn from and adapt to here.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yeah. Okay. So what what else does this mean for your leadership style thing? Because obviously you've been doing this now two and a half years. Yeah. I imagine it's been evolving. What are some sort of tenets of your leadership that other people might look at and go, this this might help me?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

I'm very internally focused as a leader. So I'm always looking at what are the things that I'm doing and how am I affecting my environment, especially when things are stuck or or not in the right place. If I'm uncomfortable, it's not an external thing. It doesn't mean that external influences and factors don't exist, but ultimately it's my relationship with that reality that that dictates how I handle it. You know, you can, I mean, an analogy I've given before is, you know, if you go home and you open the fridge and there's some some food that's gone off, right? There's one approach that is like, okay, I'll just take that out, I'll clean everything up, whatever, it's fine. And, you know, if you open the fridge and you have a panic, oh my gosh, this ruins everything. I, you know, this really sucks. Like, probably it's not about the food that's gone off. Probably it's a tough day or you're in a tough period or whatever. And so people really get amped up on this thing of like, no, I'm dealing with concrete problems. So of course, like this is what I'm feeling. And it's completely natural and fine to feel that way. But there's a really real value in recognizing that actually this is about me. It's not about the problem.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

So actually, sort of sound that there's been a fair amount of sort of self-work in here in terms of controlling your reactions and not being controlled by them.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah, I wouldn't say controlling my reactions in in some sense. I think I think control can be a difficult thing for people. And you don't want to be in that moment where you're feeling something and think like the thing that I need to do is suppress this somehow. In fact, a lot of times people do that in a way, in my experience, that is quite negative, like to bring it into like some of the challenges that people face in business all the time that I'm sure you see like when meetings aren't working well and no one's saying anything, right? Because there's a feeling that they have, but nobody is speaking up about it. The the real difference is what your relationship is with that thing. Like, what's the part of me that wants to yell about this or get really tight about this or feel angry about this? So there's sort of like a, am I gonna express this with an open heart or a closed heart kind of thing? And so I don't necessarily try and manage myself. What I do is I ask myself, what makes this thing so tense or tough for me? What's the thing about me that it would mean if I accept this thing and I don't avoid it or fight it?

SPEAKER_00 13:15

How do you think your team have experienced you differently then as as you've done this? Like what's been the benefit to them?

SPEAKER_01 13:22

I think a much more connected and enjoyable environment. And a lot of the challenges that people are facing start to clear up. It's something that we're in the process of right now because this year has also been a really positive transformational year for me in that. And so we're continuing on evolution. But for the past two and a half years, I constantly ask myself the questions of I mean, what's going on with me in this situation? What are the things that are stuck? What are the things that are frustrating me? And how do we learn and adapt from them? And I'm open with the team about that. And to get to have conversations with the team of like, yeah, you remember that thing we were stuck on a while ago? I can sort of laugh about the fact that you see how I can show you that actually my pattern was holding that in place. People take such a deep sense of shame about things not working in the right place. And like when you're looking at, especially patterns that are emergent throughout the team by and large, or things that are consistently getting stuck. The question for me is like, what am I doing to either reinforce this pattern or enable the pattern? But it's one or the other.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

How are you making time to do this work? Clearly, your business is busy, you're scaling. There are all these, there are all these sort of changes you need to make sure as you're growing. Yeah. It sounds like there's great commitment and there's benefit to doing it. Yeah. How have you managed to prioritize this?

SPEAKER_01 14:37

It's some of the most important work for me. And my um shift in how I spend my time has changed over the last two and a half years. I moved from being someone who was more involved in directing execution in some capacity to now sitting back a little bit and being in a place where I'm comfortable that the team can manage the operations and that I'll hear about things where I need to. And we have our check-ins and make sure that the flow is working well. But I get to be much more of a mechanic for the company these days. But yeah, for me, the inner work is the most important work because it's the thing that affects the things in your environment that are stuck, right? It's like, like I mentioned, those meetings that aren't working well is a discomfort within the team to share what they're feeling. And that doesn't always come immediately from your environment, but your environment that you create shapes, whether that continues or not. Sometimes people are just used to working in environments where to speak up about that thing is uncomfortable or wouldn't be rewarded, would be punished in some way, or you know, there's a there's a feeling not to do that, especially when people can't handle it. Like there's there can be a real, I hate to use the word, but ego thing effectively, um, where if you speak up in a meeting, what does that mean about me as the person who's running the meeting? I take this personally and then argument and all of this stuff, right? But if people can be open with each other, what they can realize is, oh, when you share that, actually, that's not about you and what you're doing. That's about me. And there's something in me about how I feel about myself as a leader or as the person running this meeting. And if people can start to separate their emotional experiences from being personal in some sense, there's a real power to that because you start to see that what I'm feeling is a signal, not this thing that I'm choosing to do. I'm not choosing to be angry about this, I'm not choosing to be pleased with this thing or or not with that thing. It's just something that's arising. The question really is what do I want to do with that information?

SPEAKER_00 16:29

And so how how do you practically make the time so you've prioritized some of the most important stuff that you do? Is this like sort of self-driven? Are you doing you working with someone? What for other founders, like how can they follow you down this path?

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Yeah. So for that last question, I'd I'd put a focus in what are the things that aren't working and what are the things that throughout a given day make me feel uncomfortable or or negative in some capacity. And if you can take those things and really sit and spend some time with them, then the transformation can be there. I think the marker of whether someone will be successful in that is whether they're willing to face the things that might be uncomfortable for them. Like if I sit and there's this problem with the team and I start thinking, yeah, there's this problem with the team, and you just like get in a loop about it and get aggravated about it, of course, that as a reflection isn't going to take you anywhere. But really the the raw thing is to say, like, what is it about me that that this hurts? And also what are the ways that I as a leader am responsible for this pattern? Like, if deadlines are being missed, for example, or things aren't being proactively communicated when they're not in the right place, what's the way I, as a leader, incentivize or or repel people coming to me with those problems? What is the way in which somebody who's running these deadlines might feel a sense of obligation to chase perfection and to not fail in some capacity? And can I create an environment that makes it clear that that that's welcome?

SPEAKER_00 18:00

This feels like it does take quite a lot of self-reflection. Like it's but it's great. It's but it's very controllable. It all starts, it starts with you first, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

It's a journey, right? And it doesn't end and it's probably not over for me, right? Um, the person I am today is completely different to where I was two and a half years ago, but it comes, starts from there of being able to look at yourself. And a lot of these things are very concretely identifiable. Like, I mean, we could talk about specific classes of issue within businesses, and I could probably see that there's some sort of pattern holding that in place. So those things can be applicable today for people, even if the journey of understanding yourself takes takes time and is a continued iteration and refinement.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

I read the phrase you used a second ago, like a mechanic of your company. Yeah. Which what I heard, I'm not sure what you meant by heard this idea of like you're you're consciously designing your company in in a way to allow you to lead you want to be. Perhaps you could run through some sort of the key elements of that design, because it feels like start step one is it starts with you. Yeah. But then two is you need the right design and the right people and the right teams to be able to execute as well. Like if you wouldn't be on it, someone needs to be in it. What are some of the ways that you do you have now designed your company?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Something I'm in the process of right now is, and actually, let me give a little bit of background for this. Um, a trait that I have is I'm a very people person, and I've just as a result of the way that I've been raised, been very sensitive to people and and empathetic in in some capacity. So there's always been a way in which maybe where others might get frustrated with people that things aren't working, I've been somewhat reflective about it and and driven by an understanding. And there are ways in which that pattern is great as a leader, and there are ways in which it's not, right? And that's part of the journey that especially has unlocked for me within the past year or so of again seeing how my own patterns start to affect the business. Because I used to be in a place where if there were team problems and I can see that maybe there's some antagonization going on that might be causing some tensions or whatever, I would work with people on controlling their behavior, which is also a place where I have grown to understand that actually that's very oppressing to the soul in some capacity. You don't want to have to live and work uh through some sense of control. So, how do you make it organic, right? It was the case that people would come to me with problems and I would give them advice on how to manage the interpersonal rather than being able to sit with it and say, what does the environment need here? A little bit more. So that context is to say like the thing that I'm building now is how can I take the elements of that pattern that work really well and give things to the team? Like, how do I create a really good internal community environment? So, one of the things that I'm looking at a lot is psychological safety. And, you know, in a concrete way, there's a there's a happy tie into a lot of research that's been been done around this. I think McKinse had some piece around the importance of psychological safety. And there's this um research done by Google called Project Aristotle, which outlines different layers of like what makes a team uh work well effectively, and the base is always that psychological safety. But what that means to me isn't the um, it isn't like the stereotypical or the obvious, like, are people yelling in the workplace environment? No one's throwing stuff around and making people feel scared, right? It's uh it's really this thing about like when you're in that environment and something's not working well, are you comfortable to say something? As a leader, like how comfortable are people coming to you and saying, I'm worried that this thing isn't working? And how receptive is the leader at actually taking that and processing that for what it is? And different patterns in leaders and teams can shape different areas where psychological. And safety emerges like perfectionism as a leader can create one environment, for example. Um, someone who's very resistive or takes things personally might create different patterns. So the question for me is, especially with the size of the team, how do we understand what the elements are for each team? Because I could implement something that I could deploy across the entire company, say, just everyone do this, but that will work for one team and it will feel useless or almost maybe bureaucratic's not the right word right word, but very process driven for another team who don't get the value of that. Like there's um a company who um who's quite inspiring on this stuff, I think they're called next level. And one of the things that that they do is they front load meetings with the question of like, what's the thing that you don't want to tell me about? And that thing can work really great if it's appropriate, if there's some sort of barrier. But for people who are very open and easy to approach, like, does that feel enabling or does that feel redundant? So part of what I'm doing really is how can I construct an assessment across the teams to understand what patterns are at play within each environment and to be able to enable leaders on a more systemic scale rather than trying to apply a one size fits all. So it requires a way to measure effectively how the internal state of the culture is and psychological safety with questions like how comfortable are you to fail? Obviously, things like that. I tend to avoid a more corporate approach, I'd say, to things, because it's very easy to get a question like that and for it to just feel like corporate noise and here's your survey, how would you rate us on a scale of, you know. Um, the important thing with that is action, right? So if you can create those questions, create comfort in answering them authentically, and then create an environment where change actually occurs in a positive way, then people can feel comfortable and believe in the change that you're trying to bring about.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

I think that action point is really important, isn't it? Because it's hard in an environment of low psychological safety to get people to answer questions because there is low psychological safety. But I think the only way you can rebuild it is through action and completing on stuff. Because I actually think when you talked about it sounded like we were almost going to drift into talking about low accountability. There can be a sense of if you are overly people focused, you can drift into ruinous empathy, you can drift into like low accountability, which ultimately I think leads to low psychological safety. If people don't trust it, it's like, how can I be getting away with this? And if or how can they be getting away with this? And that for me is almost like the the killer, low psychological safety.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Yeah. Uh yeah, and that's a place that I was in part for a time because I would, and I this will connect into something that that I know um you you work with or or think about the excuses concept. And I would take responsibility for solving problems myself, and also didn't necessarily have the level of self-awareness to understand what was really bothering me, which is something that can play out in the workplace. Like you can talk about deadlines, let's say, and you can say deadline's been missed, and you can have a conversation with someone about that, and a lot of justifications can arise. And you could sit there and think, that's sad, like what do I have to say about that? Can I really say that that's not right in some capacity? And so that was a struggle for me at one point. One key thing that comes from the reflection is realizing that actually the thing that I'm bothered about isn't necessarily the deadline miss. It's maybe the lack of communication. I and on a deeper level, it's a feeling of trust. It's like, if we've agreed on this thing, can I trust that this thing is going to happen? And so that's the empowering conversation you get to have with someone. The thing that gets avoided a lot of the time that turns into a very tense, like miss the deadline type of thing. We need more processes in order to enforce this thing rather than like, we really need to have a conversation about the fact that I can't trust you. Yeah. And that's a mutual problem that we just have to look at and call out for what it is.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

I mean, in my language, right, I do talk about sort of no excuses and what the three levels of excuses. The one thing I'm curious about is in the environment you're operating in, I imagine there are a lot of reasonable excuses.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

So does that impact how willing you are to hold people accountable?

SPEAKER_01 26:26

No. Um I'm we're quite accountable these days and we're always looking at what's the thing that went wrong here. And the thing that went wrong usually isn't the deadline miss per se. Like, I'm completely open to the idea that things can happen. And sometimes things are also determined by outside parties if we're doing a partnership like this was over on them. Like, I'm completely understanding of that. I never want to hold someone to account, quote unquote, in a way that's like, here's a consequence for this thing that you never could have influenced. But the thing that remains with me is like, what's the outstanding discomfort that I have with this situation? It's like, well, you knew that this was a potential problem three weeks ago. And now here we are talking about it. And the transition line that I used um at the time was, and the thing that was really important for me in moving to a place of greater accountability was that it's only an excuse if I ask you. If you come to me and tell me it's not an excuse, that's just the situation. And the problem was that I would align with someone on some something being done. And if it wouldn't be done, then the real problem is that you didn't tell me about it because you knew two weeks ago that that this wasn't gonna be on time. But maybe that person was avoiding emotionally that reality.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Yeah, that's really nice. So it so almost as soon as they knew, and as soon as they realized it wasn't going to be hit, yeah, they're coming to you and it's no longer an excuse. It's just an update.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

If hypothetically we're in a meeting and there's a deadline and we had everything in the right place, and we have all the results and data on this server, and literally an earthquake just hit and the data centers down five minutes ago and you couldn't tell me, I'll probably allow that as an excuse, right? But the real problem is like you knew, you knew about this. You knew it wasn't on track, you didn't tell me. I do take a little bit of pace with how I approach that with a sense of understanding. Obviously, you need to um you need to hold to the outcomes that are important. And it's not, I think it's a style thing with the leader of how you approach that. My style, because I have spent a lot of time reflecting on myself, is an understanding of why those patterns are happening. I don't look at the person and say, like, this person's just bad for this. I think that's a really important frame as well, like that you're building a community, like you're all in this together in some capacity. So the first question is, do I think that this person wants to succeed? If not, then probably there's a fit problem there. But with the assumption that they do, then it means that they really care about solving this problem in some capacity, even if they defend themselves and even if they, you know, might argue about whatever the challenge is, but they do care about solving this problem. And the reason why they get defensive is because they care and they know that there's a problem and they're maybe stuck in it. So for me, in my approach, because I can see those patterns, I um I try and look at what is what is the thing that's going wrong there. And the thing is, like, you knew about this two weeks ago, but you didn't tell me because you were afraid of letting me down. So, how can I, as a leader, create an environment where that's just comfortable and important and where we understand that that's a necessary part of action. Because what happens if you run away from letting me down is you let me down even more. And you let the team down and you let the environment down. And you think that you're solving problems by avoiding this thing, but actually you're just getting it stuck and keeping it going.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

What really about this is this this is really behavioral rather than performance. Like it's not like on this task you didn't achieve X, it's a conversation most managers come having. This really is a whole behavioral lens, like, do I trust you? Which is kind of the ABC thing. Like, where do you sit? And if if I really don't trust you, there's a bigger issue. But if I if I do trust you and it hasn't happened, what's going on for you? And what have I done to contribute towards that?

SPEAKER_01 30:15

And I think it's a hard conversation for people to have because people don't often like to touch into the emotional layer. It's like an uncomfortable thing of like, oh, I have feelings, like you let me down. To say that for a person might even be tough and like feel like weak, like, no, you can't, you can't, you don't have that influence on me. I gotta present a strong guard here.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

I'm untouchable.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's your fault.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

I love it. So before before we wrap up, I'm curious about like practically what are some things that people do when they're looking at their business when it comes to their people, meeting structure, yeah, operating rhythm. What are sort what are those sort of few things you'd recommend people do just kind of when they're designing their business to deal with uncertainty?

SPEAKER_01 31:01

The thing that people can do today, no matter where they are in their reflection journey, is to face the fear. To notice, to pay attention to yourself when actually to I can admit to myself, that's the first step, that I am scared here. It doesn't mean I have to do anything about it, but the first thing is to be able to face that. And then the growth will come when you can say, okay, what like what is the deepest fear here? And can I see through it? Can I see through the thing that I'm scared of? Can I see through how the collapse of my company is not the end of my life? Can I see through how homelessness is not the end of my life? Right? Like there's a continuance. And when you can face that, it doesn't mean succumbing to that outcome. It doesn't mean saying, like, yeah, okay, I'm just gonna do this. Actually, it empowers you to then make decisions from the best place rather than the place that's avoiding the problem. And you'll see that in a lot of companies. A lot of companies will crash just because there's a problem that's clearly there, no one wants to look it in the eye.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

I suppose the Kodak examples, like, I mean, lots of examples of like technology coming over the hill, which people are like living in denial of.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

What about the people that you hire? Has that changed based off as you've changed the leader and your sort of scaling and digital sanity? Has that changed the type of profile that you look for?

SPEAKER_01 32:26

I think it definitely gets more refined as as we go on. And um, but culture has always been important to us. And I don't do much first hand hiring these days, so that that happens within the team. Culturally, ultimately, we're making that assessment of whether someone's the right fit. I have a very pro-developmental mindset. And the benefit of the work that I do is I can often see the place that someone needs to get to for something to work. So there's maybe a little bit more tolerance and capacity of like, can we get this to the right place? But the first thing is, are we in alignment? Is this person motivated in the right way? And if I think this is a good person with good core capabilities and there might be certain challenges, as long as we're comfortable, we can get that clear within a decent timeframe, then I'd like to extend that. I like to create that developmental environment within the workplace. I want it to be a place that people can come and leave and feel like they're better, not just professionally, but as people in some capacity, as much as possible.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

So when you say challenges, though, that's these development areas, could that be behavior as well as skill-based? What what sort of things are we talking about?

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Especially behavioral. Behavioral for me is the number one in terms of selection. Like someone needs to be a good psychological fit in in some capacity. The skills are usually just an assumption of the role, right? Like if we're hiring someone for a marketing position and they just don't have marketing capability, it really depends on the role, obviously, whether that's something we're willing to support or not. But if we need certain competencies, we we need them. But the better fit and the better distinguishment is how will this person fit into our culture? And is this somebody who's passionate about what we do and the way that we do it? And if they are, then then great.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

So the behavioral stuff is not the area where you would sort of expect develop people. You you're looking for behavioral match. And then these gaps you're willing to support on are where?

SPEAKER_01 34:19

They are behavioral. We do, we do also behavioral work, yeah. So a lot of the things that I that I talked about in terms of how we create the right environment, I think the main thing for me is like, can we create a safe environment? And if somebody can't fit into a safe environment, then that's ultimately the the differentiating factor on selection, right? There's an element to which you're not gonna know fully when you onboard someone that comes out in probation period and with experience with them. Yeah. But I would probably be more selective on leadership roles, because leadership roles, you need to have a good behavioral fit from the start.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

And how would you identify that when you're having those conversations?

SPEAKER_01 34:59

I think that's a really hard thing to describe in a tactical way in some capacity. The analogy I'd give is sort of like if you see someone laugh and you're like, oh yeah, that person's happy or they found something funny. But if you've never experienced laughter before, can you make that identification? And so the inner work generates a lot of sight onto this stuff. If you can see, like, oh, this person's uncomfortable in avoiding something, that comes from being able to see that in yourself. Yeah. So there's an empathetic element there. You can give tactical things and questions in some capacity, sort of like I mentioned, we're trying to work on and iterate on the psychological safety assessments, and and you can do work around that. I think the challenge is then what do you do with it? And it requires a certain maybe presence to see that.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

That's what I'm hearing. All this fit together in terms of creating this sort of culture that can scale almost, is doing the work yourself as the leader so that you can identify how you're going to do it.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Create an environment of psychological safety, and then really look at people's behaviors both when they're bringing coming in and once they're in your business. And then you can trust them more and actually you'll be able to deal more with uncertainty and you sort of more clearly flag what's an excuse and what's just fact.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

If I could give just like one idea that helps on that journey, it's to give yourself a bit of love. Yeah. Right. Like when things aren't working, I'm fine. Like it's okay. When this thing's not in the right place, like it doesn't mean anything about me as a leader. Like what matters is like, what am I going to do about this? Right. Um, shame is the stagnating thing. Like when you start beating yourself up, when you start beating other people up, that's a real nemesis in the environment. So on a concrete level, I'd pay a great deal of attention to shame. And shame is a great prompt for reflection to realize concretely that this is not about them, it's about me. And what people don't also realize is that they have an external relationship with the voice in their head. Like it's not, they they think this is personal, this is my thought in some capacity, but in a deep sense, it's not, right? Like if I shame myself for this thing, what's the way in which when I was young, I was shamed for that? Like you didn't, you weren't born as a baby and as a toddler, and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm such a bad leader, and this is like this Lego structure that I built is absolutely atrocious. But you do when someone criticizes you, and then you learn to adopt that.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

I think that's really nice. I suppose what we're really saying is if something goes wrong, stop spiraling into something's gone wrong. I it this this is a bad person. I'm actually a bad CEO. Actually, this is like rubbish. It's all like it's just it's just a bad situation. Yeah. They can still be a good person. Absolutely. You can still be a good CEO. Yeah. It's just this particular thing might suck. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Use shame as a as a point of reflection. Give yourself and others a little bit of love. And the people, you know, there's a great relief that comes associated with that of the belief that people are fundamentally good and trying. If you're in a situation where you genuinely think that someone isn't, probably not a good idea to work with them, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

And I think you can you can set up a business in two different ways. You can set up a business in sort of a control everyone's fundamentally bad, I need to be on top of them.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Or you can set up in a way like everyone's fundamentally good and they're trying.

SPEAKER_02 38:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

And you'll be proven right in both scenarios, but you'll also be proven wrong. And actually, there's the people that prove you wrong, you just remove them. Well, I think make a choice.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

I think on that point there's an interesting thing there about control, which for me, whenever control's in play, there's fear in play. Like to can try and control the situation is not organic. There's something where you're like, there's this thing that's not in the right place, and I really need to get it in the right place. Otherwise, what will that mean about me? Homeless again. Or the situation, maybe homeless. Yeah, maybe I'm gonna let my family down. Maybe my dad is gonna see that I'm a failure or whatever it happens to be on an individual personal level.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

Right. This has been this has been really good. Thank you for sharing so honestly. Like I've I feel like we're gonna talk about one thing, but actually I think we've talked about what it means, what the things you can control as a leader to truly build an organization that can scale based on trust, based on the best version of you. Yeah. And it sounds like a much happier outcome as well. Like if you can appreciate yourself, you're probably gonna enjoy the journey and your team will probably be a lot happier as well.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

If you look at scaling as a question and as a challenge, right? Like how many steps might a person take in a day? Like 5,000 steps, maybe more for someone more active, right? If you take that out to the span of a year, um that would be, you know, let's round and say a couple million steps, right? You take that out to a decade and let's say 20 million steps, right? So there's this huge Goliath challenge. But how much do you ever think about how many steps you're you're making, unless you're running and active and all this stuff? Like you'd think 20 million steps is a crazy challenge. It seems really hard. Of course, it's natural to buy into the idea that this is really difficult, but you're just doing what you're doing. And within business, if you just do what you do, then what's so hard about it, right? There's a way in which it's it's actually easy by default. The only, the only thing that makes it difficult is when you take it personal and when you say, Oh no, I couldn't possibly complete this because there are going to be so many buildings and boulders and hills in the way, and you create the obstacle for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

Amazing. Well, Ryan, thank you very much for this. And uh we'll catch you again soon.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Such a good episode today with Ryan. I loved how he really took responsibility for the stuff that he could do to make sure that his whole business could operate in uncertainty and scale effectively. As always, we'll see you next Monday for a Freddy episode in the post bag, or next Wednesday for a founder episode. Any questions, just reach out at hello at peer hyphen effect.com. Thanks for listening and happy scaling.