EP 199: [Interview] Focus your intelligence - How emotional intelligent leaders build business strategies with Faris Aranki

Faris Aranki is the CEO of Shiageto Consultancy. Shiageto helps their clients to fundamentally solve complex problems with senior stakeholders, designing solutions that are right for individual businesses and engaging across organizations to turn complexity into business-as-usual.

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EP 199: Focus your intelligence - How emotional intelligent leaders build business strategies with Faris Aranki

Faris Aranki is the CEO of Shiageto Consultancy. Shiageto helps their clients to fundamentally solve complex problems with senior stakeholders, designing solutions that are right for individual businesses and engaging across organizations to turn complexity into business-as-usual.

Our wide ranging conversation covers emotional intelligence for Leaders, building strategies, how Faris got onto a billboard in London and many more nuggets.

Guest Links: 

Faris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/farisaranki/

Business: https://www.shiageto.com/

Faris Blog:https://farisaranki.medium.com/

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Transcript:

(This Transcript is AI generated)

[00:00:00] Jens Heitland: Hello Ferris, welcome to the show. How are you doing? 

[00:00:03] Faris Aranki: Hey, Jens. I'm very good and even better now, I'm on the Human innovation, the Jens Heitland podcast. 

[00:00:08] Jens Heitland: And we managed to get the audio working without echo. It took us half an hour. 

[00:00:14] Faris Aranki: It took us about half an hour and people should have watched that. That should have been the ultimate podcast. Yeah, two, two idiots trying to work out an audio setting on a podcast.

[00:00:22] Jens Heitland: Yeah. And one of them is an electrical engineer. Even worse. 

[00:00:26] Faris Aranki: Yeah. not? I always say those should be like the job interviews. Yeah. Not, or the assessment centers where you do something, you create a fake activity to see how people handle it under pressure, and that's their real character, and that's the kind of person you might end up working with.

[00:00:38] I would love to, I'm.

[00:00:40] Jens Heitland: Yeah. Yeah. That's, and I happy, that's maybe one of, one of the few I wouldn't fail. . . I still remember my first ever assessment was so terrible. I didn't want to do any, I was crying after that. I was 15 something. Yeah. and one of the most important electrical companies in the region.

[00:01:02] Why I grew up, and it was super theoretical. There was no practical, there was zero what goes into my world, so I needed to do, which may be funny to you. I needed to, to to calculate in my brain, in front of the CEO o of the company, which was Oh, super intimidating and I was already bad with it, even using my fingers at that time,

[00:01:25] But yeah. But let's not talk too much about me, . 

[00:01:30] Faris Aranki: Hey. Hey. I think both, you are just as fascinating as I am Jens. People will thank you, will enjoy whatever they hear on this podcast. 

[00:01:37] Jens Heitland: Let's start with crime analyst and civilian support Project manager. 

[00:01:42] Faris Aranki: Okay. Yeah. 

[00:01:45] Jens Heitland: Tell us more about that.

[00:01:47] Faris Aranki: Yeah God, years ago I was transitioning between careers. I was, I'd been a school teacher and I was moving over to the business world and because the way sort of my jobs fell and when I was due to start when I had like a six month gap. So I just took a random ith the British Transport Police here in London it was a basically a temp job.

[00:02:07] So I got it through an agency and my role was to support police officers in project managing crime. So when crimes came into the center, they would they would allocate them to us as project managers, these civilian guys, and we'd oversee sort of 30, 40 cases at a time, and we'd make sure all the evidence was collected, things progressed through the system.

[00:02:27] And it was super fascinating. Up, up until then, I knew nothing about how crime was managed and it was handled. So that was fascinating, seeing how and thinking, oh, it's just like any other piece of work. You've got a project manager it, you've gotta, you've gotta look at, but then you've got a really interesting subject and interesting people you're working with.

[00:02:42] I often tell people that my six months there is a bit like imagine you worked in a sausage factory. You probably wouldn't eat sausages afterwards, right? When you actually see what goes into something that you previously thought was amazing you're like, oh, that's actually maybe best not to explore too much.

[00:02:56] But yeah, absolutely fascinating. Six months. And I could probably talk for half an hour about that all longer, but that explains why I was there. Jens. 

[00:03:03] Jens Heitland: I was more imagining something like Sherlock Holmes, you wandering around and helping them to go deeper into the most interesting case.

[00:03:15] Us. That's how would I imagined you at least . 

[00:03:18] Faris Aranki: Yeah. Do you know what was interesting? Because it, I, and I'll, I'm gonna apologize in advance to any project managers who watch your podcast or listen. I find project management incredibly dull. I was doing this and it wasn't really taxing me on a, on a thinking level.

[00:03:31] So actually in my, i, in my spare time while I was there, I started to just pick up some more stuff. And one of the things I picked up that I was fascinated by was analyzing their crime data. So I said to them, look, has anyone ever looked into patterns of crime in this department? And thing.

[00:03:46] And they said, no, that's not really right. I'm interested. We just wanna solve the crimes. So I said can I play around with the data? And I just, I'm a mathematician and economist. So I just started, breaking it down, running correlations looking for statistical regressions.

[00:03:59] And I became absolutely fascinated. I wasn't really Sherlock Holmes, but I was giving them some insights there. He was like, do you know that this type of crime tends to happen on a Tuesday more? And they're like, no, we gone. That's crazy. We never thought of that. And it was I'm not sure they actually used the work that I did in that six months to build a sort of prevention arm, but at least I was giving them the insights.

[00:04:18] And do you know what, that's something that I always look for in any business that I do, is, what is the data telling us? What can we really learn? And then how can we actually use it? Yeah. Maybe 

[00:04:27] Jens Heitland: They, they used it for the movies at least , 

[00:04:31] Faris Aranki: maybe. Yeah. . I'd like to hope so. It's best sometimes not to go back, but yeah, maybe maybe I should become a crime movie consultant now.

[00:04:39] Jens Heitland: Why not? There are opportunities out there, which you might never. Never think of . So what else is interesting about you? So when I, we definitely will go into blogging. I will not spoil it right now. Okay. I need to lead up to that

[00:04:57] now. So how did you get to what you do today? Tell us a little bit from the crime analyst to. what you're doing today. 

[00:05:07] Faris Aranki: Okay so let me explain to your listeners what I'm doing today and then we can take it back. Yeah, this can be like a movie. We'll do flashbacks and jump forward. Let's do that.

[00:05:15] But like any good storyteller will tell you is you've gotta lay out the situation, complication question, answer. And so what I do today is I run my own consulting business, which is all about strategy through emotional intelligence. So I, me and my team, we work with companies to make them more effective unlocking their strategies and getting people to buy into those strategies and teams working better together.

[00:05:36] Now my journey to get here did involve some crime, a analysts and project management, but it all started as a school teacher actually. I was teaching high school maths and economics. I taught globally. I taught in different countries around the world and then back in the uk. And then I made my transition into the business world fire.

[00:05:52] Fire being a bit of time at the police and I end up working in the for an energy company in their strategy team where I absolutely loved strategy. And maybe that was building on the analytics piece that I loved. And from there I entered strategy consulting. So 12 years spent be being paid to be a big brain solving complex problems.

[00:06:09] And yenz, what I discovered is people are don't just want a big brain, 90% of the time they paid no attention whatsoever to the strategies that me and the companies I worked for were developing. So they just became very expensive paperweights. That's when I had my eureka moment around how actually to really unlock strategy, you need the buy-in.

[00:06:29] You need to focus on the emotional intelligence side and then the focus side. And that's what I do. . Yeah. 

[00:06:36] Jens Heitland: So many things in that paper. , let's start with paper . . So I've seen that working on the other side with consultants. Some consultants in this world are getting paid on the kilogram or whatever you have in the uk, stones, of paper they're producing.

[00:06:56] But yeah, how do you link that to emotional intelligence? How did you get bringing these 

[00:07:02] Faris Aranki: links together? I'm just gonna I'm just gonna pick up on your weight of paper. My very first day in consulting, I was told by a very senior person, I was the most junior person in the team.

[00:07:11] He said, I need you to print out all their annual reports like for the last 10 years. And I said, but that's a lot of paper, right? What about the environment? He said, no, we need to carry a physical amount of paper to show that we really know a lot. And literally, and I was like, that's just crazy, right?

[00:07:24] The, but apparently that visual impact made the client think we were super clever. But anyway how did I make the link? Yeah I would sit in boardroom after, by the time I, went through my 12 years career, I was operating a very senior level and I'd be in boardrooms all around Europe watching as we presented our very expensive papers and watched the reaction.

[00:07:42] And you could see instantly whether people. Believed what you were saying and whether they bought into it. And most times they didn't. Because cuz they didn't understand it was too complex. It wasn't, but they were too afraid to say anything. Or they loved the idea, but because the person proposing it, they didn't like because of politics.

[00:08:00] They were like I'm never gonna agree to this. Or they love the idea. But you could, you knew at the back of their head, they were working on 78 other things and they would never have the bandwidth to do it. And so you could just see it in their eyes, this look of fear, this look of, oh, this is, yeah, this is like a great half hour, but I'm not gonna do anything with it.

[00:08:16] And that a just was really disheartening for me for the, on their behalf, but also for myself. I just spent weeks of my life, months of my life developing whatever this was only for it to be shot down for other reasons, apart from the quality of work. Yeah. 

[00:08:34] Jens Heitland: I've heard that before, . Yeah. Why?

[00:08:37] Faris Aranki: I challenge most people out there, if they really look at their work, how much of it is actually impactful? It's pretty scary. And you probably don't wanna ask that question, but It's true. 

[00:08:46] Jens Heitland: Especially the big 5, 4, 4. Yeah. I see this, I see nothing against them. I was working in one of them as well, and it was an awesome education, but as well on learning what I don't want to do.

[00:09:01] Faris Aranki: Hey. Which is an important lesson. It's a very important lesson. 

[00:09:04] Jens Heitland: Agree. But I for me, the interesting part is really because they, this companies, if we just take the big consulting companies, they get the chance to try to solve the most important problems in this world because they have just this.

[00:09:21] The opportunity to get into the big companies. Let's say I worked in ikea. IKEA is working with the big ones. Why should they work with Yenz or Ferris? They should, I believe, especially Ferris, not Yenz, but it's always the thing when you go into a boardroom where it's like, Hey, yeah, we have used let's just name one of them.

[00:09:38] We have used McKinsey and they have worked out their strategies. So yeah, it's good. If someone else internally would came up, was the same thing, maybe less paper, it wouldn't be as much worth. Yeah, 

[00:09:53] Faris Aranki: it's absolutely true. And yeah, both sides are just as guilty of it. It's an easy risk of a, approach.

[00:09:59] But what fascinates me about this is at the core of it is the very essence of how do you build trust. either as an individual or as an organization. And this is something I grapple with all the time, both for how to build my business, but also, the work we do around emotional intelligence is basically getting people to increase their trust levels amongst each other.

[00:10:20] So it's absolutely fascinating and to me, and I, I don't wanna be a big company but it means as a small company, you have to use other levers apart from your brand and big thing. And that's fine. But once you realize that, yeah. Then it becomes a fascinating journey.

[00:10:34] Yeah. 

[00:10:34] Jens Heitland: Talking about trust, how do you help companies when you work with companies, and if we go back to you presenting the strategy Yes. How, what are you doing differently than what you have done in the beginning when you started doing 

[00:10:47] Faris Aranki: that? So the first thing is I would, nowadays, I would never build a strategy in isolation.

[00:10:52] All right. A strategy needs to be built by the by the people who are gonna you want to buy into it. It's the same reason I often say to people that it's why back in the day, apple used to put their iPads and iPhones in the stores about 10 degrees wonky, right? So that the first thing somebody does is touch it and correct it, because that's what the human brain wants to do, and suddenly they feel like they, they've more connected with it.

[00:11:13] So you need to have a wonky strategy so that people go, oh I can input into this even if it's like adding one idea or just endorsing it. So I would never build anything in isolation. And what goes hand in hand with that is talk to people in their language. So gone are the days where I'll have a jargon filled strategy.

[00:11:30] It's a, it's not only in the language, but also the style they want to talk to. So that's a big thing that I go into organizations and either do by getting to know the individuals or I teach leaders to do, which is flex your own style and accommodate them rather than expect them to accommodate you.

[00:11:44] So these are two, two big aspects for strategy in my eyes. One 

[00:11:49] Jens Heitland: of the challenges I have seen, one, one part is presenting the strategy to an executive level. The next step is how did you get this into the organization? So that's in the end executed or done and work through in inside of the organization.

[00:12:07] What I've seen, let's say, give you a bad example, , the PowerPoint presentation that was printed out was basically shown through the rest of the organization in five hour long meetings. And then everyone should have gotten it and two years later, everyone wonders like, why is this strategy not implemented in our 

[00:12:26] Faris Aranki: business?

[00:12:28] Yeah. And it's exactly, A lot of clients say to me, oh, so is the output of your work a deck of slides or a , a strategy or play or a road would say no, actually, if we never get that's fine. Because what it is all 10 of you who are the leaders all knowing the strategy by heart, all walking outta this room, excited, enthusiastic, and speaking about it in the same language.

[00:12:47] And I said, that doesn't just happen by me showing you 30 slides. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't surprise me that story you said, 

[00:12:54] Jens Heitland: but that would mean you need to do that differently then. Okay. I'm interviewing five people, then I go back into my room and I will write 20 slides of PowerPoints or 200 more, most properly.

[00:13:06] How, what are you doing differently with the leadership? . 

[00:13:08] Faris Aranki: You do that thinking in front of them, you get them to hold the pen. So nowadays the tools, why should I be the one? When you control a flip chart as a facilitator, it's a very powerful thing because you are actually translating people's ideas and words and writing it in your own language.

[00:13:22] Nowadays we've got digital tools. They can all fill in the whiteboard at the same time. And all I'm doing is tidying it up and maybe putting it into a nicer order so they can see their own words there. And I make it very interactive, right? I get them to actually say things back. I get create an environment, say we hear everyone's views.

[00:13:39] I play games just like I used to with the children, right? How do you reinforce something? Learning is about actually using the knowledge you have to do something with it. So why not take a strategy and make a game of bingo? , right? This is just an idea. Yeah. So get people in standing up, sitting down, filling in a card when they hear the key parts of the strategy that's gonna re really enforce it in their heads.

[00:14:01] And I, I'm not saying you do that all the time and you don't take some bits seriously, but how do you get them excited and really understand it and eat, sleep, and breathe It is bring it to life rather than take it away and come back with slides. 

[00:14:14] Jens Heitland: Yeah. And specifically if they don't do that, it's not going to happen afterwards because you feel it straight away if a person believing in it and want to do it rather than a person that is just taking a PowerPoint from someone else and trying to explain it.

[00:14:28] You see it all the time. At least I have seen it . 

[00:14:32] Faris Aranki: Yeah. Yeah. I was talking to a ceo last. About possibly helping him with his change program that he'd just launched around his business. And he said to me, we're having real struggle getting people around the business to really get excited by this.

[00:14:44] I said, okay, explain to me why you're doing the program. And he talked nonstop for 10 minutes without taking a breath. He never once smiled. He often had to refer to his piece of paper. And I just stopped him after 10 minutes, said, oh my God, I am so bored. . I hate to tell you this, but your change. Did you literally say that?

[00:15:01] Yeah, I did. I said, I am so bored, and you don't look happy about the change. So I don't feel happy about the change. I don't even work for you. So I said, I can see where you need help or at least one place you need help. And he was like, he actually said, are you not meant to be pitching for my work?

[00:15:14] And I said, I'm just being honest my friend, and this is the kind of stuff I do. Awesome. So if we are gonna work together, this is the kind of stuff I'll work on with you. And he said, , I've subsequently won the work. But that, that doesn't always work. I'm here to tell your listeners, but that is the kind of stuff that is very impactful 

[00:15:30] Jens Heitland: and it's I love that because in the end, the story of what if we take the c e o, if this person can't get this message into themselves so that they truly believe it and burn for it, it's not going to work.

[00:15:47] You can have the best PowerPoint or the best speech writer if you are not believing it, it's not going to help completely. Yeah, and it's the fun part is if you would have been internal saying the same thing, he would kick the out of the room . 

[00:16:01] Faris Aranki: Oh, completely. Yeah. Completely . And that's the strange thing.

[00:16:03] Yeah. Sometimes it's who says what? It's absolutely crazy to me, Jen my dad finds it amazing that I have a couple of clients that pay me to just sit in meetings. and call out biases or bullshit or just challenge them. And he said, I can't believe grown adults pay you to say things like that to them.

[00:16:21] And I said yeah there is definitely a need for that. Because you believe your own hype you create, particularly you're very senior, people are afraid to challenge you within your own organization. Yeah. But I just wish more companies not just from a business point of view for me, but more companies were open to that.

[00:16:35] Jens Heitland: So how does it work? You're sitting around the table with the executives and you have a bell, and you ring the bell 

[00:16:41] Faris Aranki: every time on base. Ba yeah. Not quite a bell, but I say, look, hang on a minute. What? I'll say something like, Hey, what, what's just happened just now? Are you making a decision based on fact?

[00:16:50] So I will usually present it in a question. Are whose opinion are we listening to right now? Have we asked everyone's opinion on this topic? Cuz it's amazing how much group think and follow the leader takes place in a room, even with very senior individuals. Yeah. 

[00:17:04] Jens Heitland: Oh, and then going back to the political thing, this is incredible.

[00:17:08] In these meetings I've had the pleasure to be in some of them as a member and as well facilitated. That's incredible. 

[00:17:15] Faris Aranki: Yeah. And do you know what's scary? Yeah. And this is, I know I do it myself when I'm in meetings. I wish I had a me to say . It's very hard to, as I often say a hammus can't read its own label or whatever your favorite food is, it can't read its own label.

[00:17:29] So you need somebody external to read your label for you. 

[00:17:32] Jens Heitland: Yeah. Because specifically you, because you are so experienced in these things, , you can use it to your advantage as well for good and bad. And if you want to influence someone in your organization to get towards the direction, 

[00:17:49] Faris Aranki: that's true.

[00:17:50] That's true. But yeah, we are just human. Human. We are just human. , 

[00:17:54] Jens Heitland: so let's go deeper into emotional intelligence. Yes. So we talked now a little bit more about strategy and we are scratching the surface when it comes to emotional intelligence. , maybe for those who have never heard about this word, I know there are still people who are thinking that IQ is the most important thing in the world.

[00:18:12] What do you think about that to get started? , 

[00:18:14] Faris Aranki: I'm glad lost. I think being successful is about three components. Y and you need all three. You do need iq. You need great ideas. And I'm not talking about IQ in the classical, like a high MENSA score. You just need great ideas. And lots of them, you then need iq, which is the ability to get others to buy into your ideas and take them on the journey.

[00:18:32] And and then you need fq, which is something I c which stands for focus. And people who are desperately Googling that. Don't worry, it's something I invented as a phrase, but it is about the ability to focus and deliver on your. Okay. Too many of us get distracted both at an individual level and a at a company level to really see the fruits of all our great ideas and get success that way.

[00:18:55] Jens Heitland: Yeah. So important. I need to double down on that one. . Okay. Let's hang emotion intelligence. 

[00:19:02] Faris Aranki: Yeah. Let's talk intelligence first. Don't lose your FQ on EQ before we get onto fq. 

[00:19:07] Jens Heitland: Yeah, I have to follow my my, my enthusiasm . That's a good thing. I'm the moderator. , sorry. Okay. As, as long as you shut up in between

[00:19:17] So focus, this is a big topic. I see. From small to big, from an individual, like you said, to an organizational level, that organizations have different perspectives and no focus. They're just reacting depending on what's happening outside. Competition, Market dynamics, whatever, and then they figure out after a couple of years or sometimes earlier, that things are not working.

[00:19:44] So focus, and the same on an individual level, looking at younger people. We are struggling right now in my experience over the last year with people who were, have been two years lockdown into our rooms, into our houses, and then the focus is distracted in different ways. And then you bring them now back into the working environment or physical working environment where some people are still thinking that I need to watch over your shoulder all, all day long to see that you are working, that you are doing your job.

[00:20:16] So long winding set up for the topic. I'm really interested, how do you get organizations to focus. 

[00:20:24] Faris Aranki: So the biggest thing to do for an organization for them to be focused, so you talked about the d the split between reactive and proactive and Yeah. Far too many of us are reactive.

[00:20:32] But you, they always say it should be about an 80 20%. 80% reactive, 20% strategic and forward playing. But, and a good way to be strategic is be really clear what you want to achieve and what you know what's gonna get you there. So make sure you're working on those things, but don't work on too many things.

[00:20:50] So many times, I'd say 99% of the companies I go into are doing too many strategic projects. I often say to them, how can 178 things be strategic? You wouldn't try and do this many things in your personal life all at the same time. So why do you think your organization can and they just look at me blindly.

[00:21:07] We're a big organization. I'm like it's far better to slim that down and do them really well. So that's the number one thing. Be really clear and prioritize. And so take stuff away from your employees and be really clear. Say, these are the three things we need you to work on. And don't stop talking about them.

[00:21:22] So that really helps organizations, but that's really hard and people really struggle with doing that. That's okay. Because again, having someone external can really help you with that because they're not emotionally invested in each of those projects. They can see them for what they are.

[00:21:35] So that's probably the biggest areas that organizations can help with focus. And then at the secondary level is look at the things that are stopping your employees or your teams from actually achieving what you need them to achieve or working what they need to achieve. And it can be obvious stuff that people never address.

[00:21:53] I'll take you a classic one. Think in an office environment, Yens, how many times a, yeah. Imagine you have a printer that keeps breaking. . And let's say it's a, it's an office full of lawyers and they're always printing out papers and ev at least once a day somebody has to take it apart, fix it, slap it, call it I would say to a company, if you were to step back and add up all the hours lost to that on all the important projects you want, just buy a new printer.

[00:22:15] Remove the focus drain as I call it. Yeah. Early on to get people back to what is really important and why actually they add value or, or hire an IT guy or whatever. So it's stuff like that and there can be macro, so many of these things, you don't have enough licenses for people to use the software.

[00:22:30] You haven't taught them how to use it. You all these things that p chip away from people's days and focusing on what you really want 'em to focus on. A and instead distracted elsewhere. 

[00:22:39] Jens Heitland: Yeah. So important. though. It sounds so easy. It's so hard. Yeah. 

[00:22:47] Faris Aranki: Yeah. It's the old it's the old SAS motto difficult.

[00:22:50] We do immediately Impossible. Just takes a little bit longer. Yeah. But you've gotta be up for it. That's part of the fun. 

[00:22:55] Jens Heitland: Yeah. And I think the, looping that back to emotional intelligence, that takes the requirement for leaders to be emotional intelligence, to understand what's going on in the organization.

[00:23:08] So how do you work with the leaders on, do you work with the leaders on emotional intelligence? Do you tell them what it is about or how do you do that to bring that in? 

[00:23:19] Faris Aranki: I do. I do. I do. So I, I'm not a coach, but I do end up coaching. I'd rather work with teams on strategic problems. That's what I'm here to do.

[00:23:30] But invariably when I do that, I end up working with individuals either because they suddenly, one of the a lot of leaders aren't self-aware. A very common conversation for me, Yens, is I'll have a leader ring me up saying, we've got the strategic problem. And they'll say to me, between you and me, the problem is with the team.

[00:23:47] right? . And I'm always like, oh yeah, it's a good start. And you go in and you watch them and you're like, oh, okay. Everyone in the team says, no. The problem is that person there, of course, at the top. I've got a client just like that at the moment, and the leader cannot see that his style is terrible for his team.

[00:24:01] So how do I do stuff? There is you've gotta raise the level of self-awareness. And the two techniques that I use a lot are, one is bruising. Somebody's ego. Okay? If you bruise somebody's ego, they're more, as long as you do it in the right way and not. Annoy them, they're more likely to listen to you or they're more likely to pay.

[00:24:19] And a good way to do that is to get their peers to share feedback about in environment. Yeah. Yeah. Because so many times people will say to yeah, you are an expert in this. I'm not sure or I don't know you, so I don't, I'm not gonna trust your opinion. But if they're hearing appear, say that's terrible and and, I wouldn't do it like that, then they're more likely to open up.

[00:24:38] that's the same with bruising. Their ego, if you if they realize they're they could be better then they might be open to listening more to you. But not everyone is self-aware and not everyone has that level. So sometimes I have to change processes around leaders to get the, get them to change because they still need to change, right?

[00:24:57] And that that can be equally fun, equally challenging, but Yeah. I do work to get them to listen more, get them to flex their style, get them to engage with their teams. Go and walk the floors more. Go and listen to what's actually happening in your organization. And these invariably make them better leaders.

[00:25:12] Jens Heitland: Yeah. Do you then work in the same way with the team? So one part is with the leader on a one-on-one. Do you work with the team members in the same way? I 

[00:25:21] Faris Aranki: do. Yeah. And again, it depends what the specific challenge or the strategic problem we're trying to unlock and how much time the company wants to invest.

[00:25:27] It's it's always fascinating. Everyone wants everything done in half a day. I can give you half a day they say, and I'll be like, when have you ever changed people's behaviors in half a day? But I can at least make them more self-aware that they have problems in. . 

[00:25:42] Jens Heitland: Yeah. And then what, in my experience the challenge with these things is it's not just one team and one leader in the bigger organization, you have different leaders and different teams, and that's a melting pot of cultural politics, everything in one, one piece.

[00:25:58] And one, let's say one bad leader, if we call it bad leader, can influence the totality to be a mess. 

[00:26:07] Faris Aranki: Yeah. And it not just a leader, right? One team member can Yeah. Change the dynamic. Teams hate it. When I say, look, don't get too confident. Even with a well drilled team, all it takes is a change of a team member.

[00:26:18] Either somebody leaving, somebody new joining or a new goal, or a change in a deadline. And you almost go back to the start, right? Yeah. You go back to the start of the forming, storming, norming curve. And what great leaders are good at is. Constantly being able to accelerate through that curve to peaks.

[00:26:34] So yeah. 

[00:26:34] Jens Heitland: Its such, such an important leadership skill as well to see that on an ongoing basis and then turn the clock back to, okay, we are right now here. I see where we are, self-awareness, let's move us. And being transparent about that is half, at least in my experience, half, half the way is done if you're transparent about that and call things out.

[00:26:56] Hey guys, we just moved back here, . Yeah. 

[00:26:58] Faris Aranki: Let's get together. Yeah. Yeah. I'll often ask a team when I meet them for the first time, I'll say, when was the last time you all had a proper argument? And I'm always worried when they say never. Never. Like in marriage. . Like in marriage. Yeah, exactly.

[00:27:13] It is, it's like any relationship . And equally if they say we have them all the time. I'm like, okay. We need both. Both. Those are not necessarily great places to be. Yeah. 

[00:27:21] Jens Heitland: L looping us to you as a person. Going a little bit away from the business, but still linking it.

[00:27:26] Blogging. Yeah. Blogging. Yes. Your mom. Oh my God. Now you're an unemployed. You're . You are unmarried. What else? Oh, it's, I need to scroll the screen. Sorry. . Oh my God. You're unemployed, you're unmarried, and you don't own a house. Yes. What will I tell people? Tell us more about that story, . 

[00:27:54] Faris Aranki: So that story, it was when that story specifically was when I decided to leave my well paid consulting job and start out on my own.

[00:28:03] I announced it with grand fanfare over a dinner with my parents. And one of my sisters was there. And and I thought, I looked across to my parents. My mom went very quiet during the rest of the meal whereas my dad was quite happy because he used to run his own company. So he was quite excited for me.

[00:28:18] So when I spoke to my mom after dinner and said, mom, what's wrong? You've gone very quiet. That's what she said to me. Oh my God, I'm worried about you son because you have no job, you have no wife, and you have no house. Which suddenly struck. Obviously every part of me wanted to scream and say ah, you that's not how I see it.

[00:28:33] But this goes back to the emotional intelligence. Those are the important things for my mom. That's her definitions of success, rightly or wrongly. So it was about helping her navigate through those and see that her son wasn't a failure and that there's more to life. But yes, that was her initial reaction ladies and gentlemen.

[00:28:49] Hopefully three years later she she's a little more proud of me. But no, I, Jess, of course she's is, but yeah, that was her initial reaction. 

[00:28:56] Jens Heitland: I'm pretty sure I've seen a photo of, I think it's your parents and yourself in a train station. 

[00:29:02] Faris Aranki: You have. Funnily enough, earlier this year, y I happened to be in a billboard advert here in the uk as a small business owner.

[00:29:08] My insurance company decided to have me as their billboard star and promote my business and my mom and dad. My mom in particular has never been more proud than watching as we went on a billboard hunt around London to look for my face on giant posters. So there you go. I reminded her of the conversation and I'm very grateful to my mother for her support and for allowing me to blog about what she said to me in confidence and share it with people.

[00:29:34] Cuz I, I thought it was so entertaining. 

[00:29:36] Jens Heitland: It's small. It's not small, but it's fairly simple. Yeah, just get on the billboard. You can buy it. Worst case. 

[00:29:45] Faris Aranki: Yeah. I'm here to tell your listeners if people have lost faith in you, just, it goes back to your trust and how, just get yourself on a billboard.

[00:29:51] Or do other things. Have you been on a billboard yet? 

[00:29:54] Jens Heitland: No, not that I know at least. 

[00:29:56] Faris Aranki: Have you been on 

[00:29:56] Jens Heitland: tv? Yes. But long time ago. Long long time ago. 

[00:30:04] Faris Aranki: Is it something you like to talk about, ? Yes. 

[00:30:08] Jens Heitland: Now we turn the table now. It was, so I was playing trumpet for plus 30 years. Okay. And I was playing in a band and through that I was in television, so nothing business related, unfortunately.

[00:30:24] Okay. That's, I 

[00:30:24] Faris Aranki: never say never. You're a young man. There's plenty of time ahead of you, True. 

[00:30:28] Jens Heitland: I'm on my own tv. That's why I do my own show that so nobody can, cannot invite me. , 

[00:30:35] Faris Aranki: that's it. Yeah. I You like Rupert Murdoch. Just own the network. That way you can always be on it.

[00:30:39] That's how 

[00:30:40] Jens Heitland: he works. , 

[00:30:40] Faris Aranki: Or Trump with truth social. That's why he created it. I dunno how many people are unre to social. But 

[00:30:44] Jens Heitland: yeah, I've never even seen it or downloaded Not 

[00:30:48] Faris Aranki: my, no. I'm gonna suspect that the the Venn diagram of your listeners and Trump supporters probably doesn't have a big overlap, but I may be wrong.

[00:30:55] Jens Heitland: I dunno, I have never asked

[00:31:01] Faris Aranki: We'll put a, we'll put a pole in the comments we won. It's not my, it's not my partner. I can say whatever, right? Yeah. You'll send you each 50 euros. I can make these claims and they'll never come true. And, but you'll hold Yens accountable, so that's great. I just lo 

[00:31:14] Jens Heitland: lost all the two listeners.

[00:31:16] I have

[00:31:20] Now let's dig a little bit in into blogging, because one interesting thing for me is you as an entrepreneur documenting a bit of what you are doing, but as well doing random topics. It's not all your business topics, at least what I've seen when I read through this, that this has nothing to do with your business, but maybe it does.

[00:31:41] I don't know. Yeah. Tell us a little bit how you deal with your 

[00:31:44] Faris Aranki: blog and how I approach it. It goes back to the conversation we were having earlier about trust. How do you build trust? How do you build connection? So I am not a big five, I'm not a big organization. I don't have a big brand even though I've been on a billboard.

[00:31:55] When I stepped back and thought, what am I actually how am I building that trust with people who've never heard of me? And have you heard of the trust equation Yenz? 

[00:32:05] Jens Heitland: Not sure. I guess 

[00:32:06] Faris Aranki: I have. You probably have but scientists while back tried to break down what builds trust, and they basically distilled it into three components.

[00:32:15] Okay? It is your authenticity. Do people like you, it's your credibility. Do they believe what you're saying? And it's your reliability? Do you time and time again, do what you say you'll do Now, that's where the, that's where the, for the big organizations, they pay, their big brands is equivalent to their reliability and a bit of their credibility.

[00:32:34] They throw money, they have big posters. People have heard of them, so they assume they're reliable and credible. Now, as a, as an entrepreneur, as a small business, you don't have, especially if nobody's ever heard of, you don't have reliability. They've never heard of you unless somebody is recommended.

[00:32:48] Which is great. Get a referral, get a testimonial. And so how do you come across as credible? They'll have to start talking to you, so you can, your blogs. When I thought about this from blogs, I can write blogs that are very technical and talk about emotional intelligence and essay.

[00:33:00] But the other aspect that every one of us has that is unique to us is our authenticity. So why not unleash your authenticity? People, I find by a bit of trial and error that people are fascinated by the journey I'm going on. So why not share it? That's what makes me authentic. Yeah. And yeah, I, so you are absolutely right.

[00:33:19] Yenz. I write blogs about going to the gym. I write blogs about having a nosebleed, that, and nothing business related. But you know what? I turn up to business meetings. I went to one this week and at the start of the meeting, the client said, did you do your exercise today? and I went no, not yet.

[00:33:35] And she goes, you better cuz you blogged about it last week about how you're trying to do every day in no in the month. And I went, oh, yeah, it's and do you know what, that was great because she and the team are invested in me. And that's a large part of business. So yeah, if anyone of your listeners does follow my blogs, I write once a week, they will get to hear lots of random aspects of my life.

[00:33:56] And hopefully it's entertaining. If not, let me know. But yeah that's my approach to blogging. It 

[00:34:01] Jens Heitland: is definitely entertaining. I've not heard about it before, but now I'm going to read it more of them. I of course read a couple of them. Yeah. Of course the one with the way where you talked about being on 50 podcast.

[00:34:14] Yes. And year and these things. Yeah. Very interesting topics, by the way, for podcasters. So if anyone is a podcaster, you should go to that blog and I will put it into the show notes. I'll not spoil it right now. . 

[00:34:28] Faris Aranki: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I encourage people that find whatever works for you, find whatever channels your authenticity.

[00:34:35] It doesn't have to be blogs, all right. But whatever don't be afraid to share. Show yourself and nobody can ever replicate you. There is 8 billion of us on the planet, but nobody has your connections, has your way of doing things. So just unleash it. 

[00:34:48] Jens Heitland: Yeah. And it's people. People follow people.

[00:34:51] People are interested in people. Yes. We love brands if we take Nike or whatever, but you are more interest even in the person who has founded. Yeah, that's maybe not that famous for the every person out there. But if you would know, hey, this the person who has founded Nike. Everyone was like, whoop.

[00:35:11] That's interesting. Tell me more. . 

[00:35:12] Faris Aranki: Yeah. You, there'll probably be someone out there who is so fascinated by you. They create a Wikipedia entry, Ys, and they update it. . No, that's probably the extreme, but but yeah. It's amazing what people are interested in.

[00:35:24] I was te actually, I was telling a story last night or the day before about when I was a bit younger, I was running an interview in a consulting. And the interviewee turned up and I, one of the first things I say in an interview when I'm running interview said, let me just tell you a bit about me so you understand who's sitting on the other side table and make me a bit more human.

[00:35:42] And this young lady sat opposite me and looked me in the face and said, don't worry, I know all about you. I've Googled you, . And she then reached into her bag and took out six pages of a four and started reading me to me which was one of the weirdest situations. I've had an injury for a while.

[00:35:58] Jens Heitland: That's really 

[00:35:59] Faris Aranki: weird. It was weird. It was a bit weird. I don't mind people. No, she was it was indication of her, she was a very aggressive young lady. I I remember asking her questions such as, tell me about a time that you worked with a team that was dysfunctional. And she said I've never worked in a team that's dysfunctional cuz if it's ever dysfunctional, I crush all the dysfunctional members.

[00:36:18] So just her response to every question was super aggressive and I was like, I don't think you really fit into our culture here yeah. Which maybe I could have guessed from the Google printouts. . 

[00:36:28] Jens Heitland: That's in my experience, it's the first five seconds and you know it's going to work or not. That's true.

[00:36:36] I do this a lot. Like we did as well, the pre podcast chat. I did one today, which was fascinating. Oh yeah. We looked at each other. We didn't say hi yet and I was knowing it's going to work. 

[00:36:51] Faris Aranki: interesting. And can you work out in your head what were the, why? What were the telltale signs? 

[00:36:57] Jens Heitland: No, I have no idea.

[00:36:59] Of course I read about the people, I check their videos before I jump on to a call, so I have a feeling already, but no, no idea. Spider sensor. Spider 

[00:37:11] Faris Aranki: Sense? There was there's a body of research that shows that you get just in an interview, you get just as much information from the first question as you do from 20 questions.

[00:37:20] Yeah. I watched this ex TV show once. It did an experiment with this where they had 10 people turn up for an interview and they told them it would be an hour long interview. And when they walked into the room, they asked them one question, which was, how was your journey to the interview today?

[00:37:33] And the person answered it. And then they said, sorry, we've got no more time for the interview. And left. And they They from that one question. It was fascinating watching because everyone answered it differently. Some people answered it just said, oh yeah, it was okay. And other people told the story and said, actually, I got the train this morning and the train was delayed and then this happened.

[00:37:49] And and everyone treated it differently. And and you could really learn, cuz the rest of the show you learn about their personalities, who would be successful just from that one question. And it really always fascinated me that and I think you shared it with your podcast interview.

[00:38:01] Jens Heitland: Yeah. Te who was successful in that example? ? 

[00:38:03] Faris Aranki: It depends. Depends role. It depends what role you're going for. So obviously if it's a, if it's a salesperson, you want someone who's good at telling a story. Yeah. If it was an engineering role, you wanted someone who was very, all over the detail.

[00:38:15] So yeah, it just really depends on what role you're asked for. 

[00:38:18] Jens Heitland: Yeah. It just published a podcast episode, which very cool in storytelling, but that's also a little bit an American trait in my experience. The American guest I have on there, they're just better than that. I can only compare it to me , as a German storyteller, , 

[00:38:33] Faris Aranki: Yeah it's all about culture and confidence because the American mindset is very fascinating.

[00:38:38] Again, you'll see a common theme here. I read a lot of articles, right? So spend at least now a day reading. And then I look at, I, and I get fascinated. Mostly it's around business psychology emotional intelligence. So I once read an article about a group of British salespeople who were okay at that job, had a performance level like this.

[00:38:58] And this sales train, they got them all to put on an American accent. And do their job ex exactly the same job, follow the same script. So don't change your words, just change your accent and ch go out and sell. And as a team they sold 20% more. Wow. After this . And I was like, because the whole concept was British people imagine Americans is more confident.

[00:39:20] So just by putting on a more confident mindset, even if you're roleplaying it, they sold more. So I read this and I was like, that's a load of, can I say bullshit? Of course I say that's bullshit, but I'm gonna try it with the next team I work with. So do you know what It worked. So I often with teams, not Amer, not just American actors, I'll say, put on a person in your head or the most confident person you've ever met, or the most technical person you've ever met and let's have the same conversation.

[00:39:46] Cuz often I bring in actors and put people in situations they find difficult as a way to help them with their emotional intelligence. Yeah. And I'd say eight, eight times outta 10 it works. Just that ch flick of a switch of just imagine you're somebody else. Now yeah you just talking about Americans triggered that story for me, but yeah there's a lot to be learned.

[00:40:03] What switch can you flick in your own brain to get something, unlock something that's holding you back? It's 

[00:40:08] Jens Heitland: it's, again, you can do so much just with a mindset and your brain with going back to your formula. Focus on the right things. Ju one example me being a sports person at least two years ago, , no I finished a full Ironman Trilon two years ago.

[00:40:27] The last one at least. It's a lot of people think it's extremely physical and yes it is, but it's less physical. I would say it's 40% physical and 60% mindset. Because you could finish that without knowing what you are into sports, except that you do every day . You could finish that if you train for it a year at two years, you can do that.

[00:40:53] It's more the mindset which then gets you to a direction how good you will be with it. But finishing, like running a marathon, you can do that tomorrow. We'll take you maybe eight hours, but you can 

[00:41:07] Faris Aranki: Okay. Yeah. And actually running eight hours is harder than running three hours. Agree. Yeah. And there's a lot of research that shows endurance sports.

[00:41:14] There's a high correlation between that and successful business people. Just because of the mental toughness and the ability Yeah. Just, and I. I often joke that a lot of my mental toughness comes from my teenage years of playing Mario Cart for eight hours straight. And just being able to sit there, even when my mom's shouting, get off the computer, now come and, do your homework.

[00:41:33] But, thanks Mario . 

[00:41:36] Jens Heitland: That's awesome. But it's something you can train? Definitely. Yeah, definitely. It's not that difficult. It's more doing it every day and getting you into a situation that are uncomfortable. And then the, in, in sports it's called the perceived effort. You getting used to it.

[00:41:51] And then what was hard yesterday is today not hard anymore. You can push to the next level, and that's with everything the same business. These are my. . 

[00:42:03] Faris Aranki: Yeah, I agree. I agree. That's why I dunno about you, but that's why I personally like pushing my comfort zone across lots of dimensions regularly.

[00:42:11] I, I set myself monthly challenges. I do stupid things just to keep , my brain and my own comfort levels on edge. 

[00:42:17] Jens Heitland: What is the most stupid challenge he did? 

[00:42:21] Faris Aranki: Oh I try to make them fun. But I've done things like, I'm only gonna use my left hand. I'm right-handed for the next, the next week.

[00:42:27] Just, yeah, why not, force myself. And actually as a result of that, I use my mouse left-handed so that I can type it the same time. So it did increase my productivity. But yeah I gave up trying to write everything left-handed because that was really quite slow. But again, it was, once you go back to the old way, you're like, oh, this is so much better.

[00:42:43] So yeah you are only limited by your imagination as well. I tell people your creativity. So you can, there's literally, you can set yourself and it don't have to be as ridiculous as, it could be to do, to do a, an hour study of a language a week, or, pick up a new hobby or something, whatever.

[00:42:58] But it's always good to add a little bit of a challenge or a mix into your day-to-day life. 

[00:43:04] Jens Heitland: Yeah. I love that too. , I'm right now in a pushup challenge, which is terrible because I'm so terrible and Oh, yeah. But who gets through it? 

[00:43:13] Faris Aranki: You get through it. How long have you got left on the challenge?

[00:43:16] Oh 

[00:43:17] Jens Heitland: yeah, that's a longer one. So I want to, I, my, my long-term perspective is I want to be able to do 100 pushups when I'm 80 . Okay. Okay. I'm now 42 and I can't do 100 . 

[00:43:30] Faris Aranki: Okay. . It's perceived effort. You just need to build up. Exactly. Yeah. 

[00:43:35] Jens Heitland: But there's perceived strength missing. Missing as well. . But yeah. Get there.

[00:43:43] No, but okay. I did one fun one, which was the video challenge, which I tried 365 days, a video vlog. That was ah, tough. 

[00:43:54] Faris Aranki: Okay. 

[00:43:55] Jens Heitland: Yeah, which nobody remembers anymore. That's the fun stuff. It's already two, two and a half years ago, , 

[00:43:59] Faris Aranki: Was it? Okay. It was two and a half years ago. Funnily enough, I did a press-up challenge two years ago.

[00:44:05] which was 25 press-ups per day for 25 days. That's okay. Which is nothing. It's okay, but be me, being me, I was like that's just boring, right? So each day I had to do press-ups in a different way. Ooh. So over the 25 days, I actually put them all on YouTube, and over the 25 days, what did I do? I did hand step press up, handstand press-ups.

[00:44:28] I did press-ups and fancy dress. I did press-ups on the top of a car. I did press-ups while drawing. I did press-ups on a ironing board. So it was, for me, it was as much a mental challenge as it was a physical challenge. 

[00:44:44] Jens Heitland: Yeah. I love that. There, there comes the innovator, . 

[00:44:46] Faris Aranki: I'm just loving it into your mix.

[00:44:47] That might make the a hundred easier if you, 

[00:44:49] Jens Heitland: Yeah. I'm n I'm not sure if I could get even a hundred in in the next hundred days, but yeah, let's. I'm working on that. It will tell you in the future, . Okay. Awesome. Let's get into the last part of the podcast where I ask a couple of random questions.

[00:45:07] Okay. That I do to every guest. Yeah. Not that I haven't used any random question until now. . If you could work with a project that is impacting every human being on earth, what project would you choose to work with and why? 

[00:45:24] Faris Aranki: I would, I just extrapolate what I do, right? So I'd really focus on emotional intelligence.

[00:45:29] I genuinely think if we had more people connecting with more people who they don't know the world would be a better place. So I would work on a project that was a random conversation generator. That at least once a year, everybody in the world had to take part in to meet one of the other 8 billion people they've never met and hear about their life.

[00:45:56] Jens Heitland: This is cool

[00:46:02] It might sound funny, but imagine what's going to happen. Yeah. And we have never met since a couple of weeks ago. 

[00:46:10] Faris Aranki: Yeah, exactly right. look how amazing this is, right? There are lots of great tools out there. And actually this is something I implant in companies, but there's a lot of great apps out there that is about random networking, which might sound people probably listening to go, that sounds crazy and scary, but actually is so great.

[00:46:26] For half an hour of your time, you get to meet someone fascinating around the. And you can talk about whatever you like. And usually there is more than enough topics. They give you starters of conversations. And I've been doing one of those apps for two years now and my life is definitely so much richer because of it.

[00:46:42] Would you share which, which app you're using? Yeah. The app I use is called Lunch Club. So lunch club pairs you, and the beauty is you put in which topics you're interested in when you're available and it auto matches you so you don't have to go back and forth with value free at this time. So it could be that, we, you and I both put in podcasts, we're both free on a Monday night, and it automatically says you two get together for half an hour and just have a chat.

[00:47:06] Cool. 

[00:47:07] Jens Heitland: Yeah, we'll check it out. Definitely interest. , what advice would you give to a young innovator that's just getting started? 

[00:47:16] Faris Aranki: Again, link to what we've talked about. If you're a young innovator talk to more people, ask more questions, right? Really sharpen your message because that's just as powerful as the innovation you come up with.

[00:47:27] How you talk about it, how excited. Think back to what I, we talked about earlier about that ceo, if you can transmit your energy and you can explain it simply, you are gonna go a lot further with your ideas than if it, if you invest more time making it a better idea. Yeah, 

[00:47:44] Jens Heitland: so very cool. Yeah. Ferris last question,

[00:47:49] Yes. How can people find you or where can people find you and how can people reach out to. , 

[00:47:55] Faris Aranki: If they just close their eyes and Drew no . That's the next level two. That's the next level. That's for the Zen people listening to the bonus extra edition. But hey, two great places you can find me. One is on my company website.

[00:48:07] My company is called Sheer Ghetto which is the Japanese word for a sharpen stone. And it's spelled S h i a g e t O. So sheia ghetto.com. I'm sure Yens will put it in the the links, sir. And the other great place is I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. That's where I put my blogs, my vlogs, my podcasts and just daily musings.

[00:48:26] So you get the added bonus of finding me. But you can also read about my all those weird things that I write about. 

[00:48:33] Jens Heitland: Yeah, and if you connect on LinkedIn, there's always something fun coming. There 

[00:48:38] Faris Aranki: is a treat. There is a treat. There is a treat. 

[00:48:40] Jens Heitland: I'm not going to spoil it. . Ferris, thank you very much for spending the time with me.

[00:48:45] It was an awesome evening. And was fun having you on the show. 

[00:48:48] Faris Aranki: Likewise, James. I've had bad toothache all day, but actually I've forgotten about it Totally. For the last hour we, we've been talking. So thank you very much for that and for inviting me on your podcast. 

[00:48:58] Jens Heitland: It's a pleasure. Thank you.