EP 201: [Interview] Leadership Fundamentals - Peter Anderton about the two rules of leadership

Peter works as Executive Coach and a High Performance Team Engineer. He is a public speaker and has spoken at tedx at the time of the recording the ted talk has 1,5 million views.

In our conversation Peter shares the 2 rules of leadership and we explore how the rules can be applied by leaders.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcast, Spotify or other platforms.

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EP 201: Leadership Fundamentals - Peter Anderton about the two rules of leadership

Peter works as Executive Coach and a High Performance Team Engineer. He is a public speaker and has spoken at tedx at the time of the recording the ted talk has 1,5 million views.

In our conversation Peter shares the 2 rules of leadership and we explore how the rules can be applied by leaders.

Guest Links: 

Peter on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-anderton/

Website: https://peteranderton.com/

Inspirometer: https://theinspirometer.com/

TED talk: https://youtu.be/oDsMlmfLjd4

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Transcript:

(This Transcript is AI generated)

[00:00:00] Jens Heitland: Hello Peter, welcome to the show. Great to have 

[00:00:02] Peter Anderton: you. Hello Andrew. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm absolutely delighted. Thank you for having me. 

[00:00:08] Jens Heitland: Yeah, great to have you. I'm really interesting discovering couple of leadership topics with you today, but before we go into leadership, tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:00:17] Who are you and how did you get to where you are today? 

[00:00:21] Peter Anderton: So who am I? That's a really big question, isn't it? I'm married with two children. They're adult children now, actually. So they've pretty much reached the stage where they like to disown me. I'm based in the uk, pretty much bang in the center of the country.

[00:00:37] I am an engineer by training, interestingly enough, and I still use the engineering thinking In all the work that I do. I work with organizations which are in reality, just another system in the same way you can apply from an engineering perspective and I work with senior leaders within those organizations.

[00:00:57] So what I do is I help senior leaders who need their teams to go further and faster. And the core element of that is around alignment, which I think goes back to my engineering perspective. Perhaps a give analogy here that's starting to become out of date as we shift to more electric cars.

[00:01:15] But you know, if you've got a petrol car the next time you're on a forecourt and you put in fuel in your car, be useful for anybody to think about this. Only 20% of the fuel that you actually put in your car drives it forwards. And the rest is wasted in air resistance, in exhaust, in hysteresis, and a whole range of different losses.

[00:01:37] And that's in something that's really carefully engineered and designed. So imagine what it's like when you start dealing with people that don't fit to carefully designed tolerances. And we start looking at senior leadership teams, and ask ourselves how much energy is being wasted. And even when we look at ourselves, and how much energy we're wasting, almost fighting with ourselves when we are out of alignment in whatever it is we're trying to achieve.

[00:02:03] I work as an executive coach and a high performance team engineer, what I do is I create alignment and I help people get out of their own way. That's the essence of what I do. Jens.

[00:02:14] Jens Heitland: Interesting. I'm an engineer too, so it's good to have another engineer who is interested in leadership.

[00:02:19] Peter Anderton: I would not, but you know, what they say about engineers is that you can train an engineer to be just about anything . It's uh, it's a very good starting point. 

[00:02:27] Jens Heitland: Yeah. True. What kind of engineer are you?

[00:02:30] Peter Anderton: Manufacturing systems engineering. 

[00:02:33] Jens Heitland: Interesting. I'm an el electrical engineer. 

[00:02:36] So I guess you have really work as an engineer as well, right? 

[00:02:39] Peter Anderton: Yes. 

[00:02:41] Jens Heitland: How did you get from working as an engineer with most properly technical engineering stuff to moving towards helping executives and high performing teams? How did you switch that and what was the trigger for you to say? I will jump over.

[00:02:59] Peter Anderton: I'd love to say it was a really conscious decision, but as is the case for most of us, it just sort of happened. Yeah. I started off as an internal consultant working for I C I, which is sadly no longer. Now all we see is as a brand, that was a huge organization at the time, and I worked as an internal consultant, as a manufacturing systems engineer, driving improvement projects.

[00:03:21] Across, you know, huge chemical plants. Stuff like hydrofluoric acid where you get one spot on it and if you don't deal with it immediately, you're dead. You know, there's a whole range of different chemicals that we're working with. And what was interesting is a lot of my take on leadership was actually formed even then.

[00:03:41] Because I had to influence people to do things, to make things happen, when I had no authority whatsoever over them. So I was working with a whole range of different teams trying to drive continuous improvement, and I had to find ways to get them on board to get them interested in what it was we were trying to do and see purpose and meaning and create desire for it so that I could actually do my job.

[00:04:06] And what's been really interesting is how. That has formed a huge basis for my leadership. Now, I've made a huge amount of mistakes along the way as I've developed from that, so I think there have been times when I've moved away from that, and there have been times when I've moved back towards that.

[00:04:24] But I think I learned many of my leadership lessons without even having anybody reporting into me. So I started off there. I got tired of improving other people's areas. So I wanted my own area to improve, so I moved into production management, but this time I moved from the chemical industry into the food industry.

[00:04:42] I used to be the man who made mini cheddar. And I was brought into the factory as the next hotshot. And having done a really good job on the mini cheddar line, I was put in charge of the chocolate hobnobs line, which was a complete disaster . And maybe if this time we'll talk about that again.

[00:04:57] And I ma I made many, many mistakes and it's only really in reflecting on probably some, Darkest moments that I've started to really realize what leadership is all about. But I moved again in production into the pharmaceutical industry from the food industry. And from that point around about the year 2000, I crossed over to the dark side and I joined HR, and this is why I was working for 3M and in the HR role there I progressed through various roles in the company till by the time I left in 2012, I was the organizational development manager across all of the UK. So I'd work on strategy change. I'd work with the board, I'd work on leadership coaching. The big switch was in the year 2000 when I moved over to HR. But the roles that I progressed into in, in HR, it was really all around playing to my strengths, doing more of the things that I loved doing.

[00:05:52] and then naturally the opportunities just flowed and moved me in that direction. The interesting thing is though, there's a lot of people out there who've done a degree or a master's or whatever and then have completely parked , all of that learning and they don't use any of it. And I still believe even today, whilst you know, people wouldn't look at me as an engineer, the concepts and the thinking I am using all of the time.

[00:06:15] And it's one of the things that drives me to simplify things. I believe we've overcomplicated the world and I think there's something about an engineer that likes to simplify what's going on and make it work. 

[00:06:29] Jens Heitland: Yeah. And thinking in systems as. Absolutely. That's what that, that's what I always see when I work with things.

[00:06:35] I always look into how does that play with this? How does this fit together? Like, as well, the in engineering part of. 

[00:06:43] Peter Anderton: And often, you know, if you don't take that approach, it's rather like, you know, if you take a balloon that's gone down a little bit and you squeeze it at one end, you can, well, I've moved the air along.

[00:06:51] As soon as I let go, everything goes back again. So unless you look at it like a system, nothing really changes. 

[00:06:57] Jens Heitland: When you moved into hr, 3M, I guess, is still an engineering focus organization if I understand it right. 

[00:07:05] You work with technical people, you work with engineers as well from a language perspective. In the company you worked in, right? 

[00:07:13] Peter Anderton: Yes so I wasn't involved in the product development side when I moved in initially in the production side, it was asthma inhalers we were making. So yes, there was an engineering input from the plant that we were using and the products we were developing.

[00:07:27] But my area at that time was specifically around the manufacturing. 

[00:07:30] Jens Heitland: I'm asking because what I've seen quite helpful when you work then with engineers, so you are focused now on leadership, but you work with engineers. You can use different language than. if, if you work with a banker.

[00:07:44] Yeah. If we just make this two extremes and at least from an engineer, being an engineer myself, I very much appreciate that when someone is straight to the point and it's not talking around the things like engineers do. 

[00:07:57] Peter Anderton: Absolutely. There's a chief exec that I coach who's an engineer as well.

[00:08:00] And again, we have very direct conversations and it's easy to cut out all the noise and just say it how it is. Absolutely. 

[00:08:10] Jens Heitland: Black and white. It's very easy. There's no gray

[00:08:16] Peter Anderton: although you do find, don't you? As you get older, you start to see more gray. Yeah, 

[00:08:19] Jens Heitland: true. Ooh, yeah that's a big one. I agree. Yeah. Um, and I always need to remind me as well, it's like there is still a world that is black and white, though, that is getting more gray.

[00:08:32] So talking about leadership I would like to do a little experiment with you. Looking ahead because it's the Human Innovation podcast that's connecting us to innovation. There's a lot of changes we see right now. The world is accelerating we talk about AI. We talk a lot of technologies that are changing the way we work, the way we produce products, the way we really interact with each other.

[00:08:58] If we look into 2030, what is changing when it comes to leadership and or has to change. 

[00:09:07] Peter Anderton: I think that's a really interesting question Jens, and I'm in danger of not answering it.

[00:09:12] That's fine. 

[00:09:13] But let me explain. One of the things that frustrates me so much about leadership is that there's a lot of people out there looking for a silver bullet.

[00:09:22] They're always waiting for the next new thing that will magically solve all of their leadership problems. And when they have this silver bullet and they fire it, then all of their difficult people will become compliant. All of their problems will be solved. They'll walk down the street and the birds will fly out of the trees and land on their shoulders.

[00:09:42] Music will play wherever they go. And of course, the silver bullet doesn't exist, and we need to get our heads around the fact that it's a truly mythical thing. But every day's a school day and we can always learn and there's new ideas and new concepts that can come through. But one of the problems I believe we've got is that despite the plethora of research that's taken place around leadership over recent decades, leadership hasn't become clearer.

[00:10:06] Leadership's become more confusing. And as we look forward into the future and we talk about the fat or the world will never be the same again, and everything's changed and we need a new type of leadership. It's true that the context has changed. It's a more hybrid workforce now. For example, we, we'd be idiots to not recognize that the, the context in which we're operating is shifting.

[00:10:28] And there are a whole range of other challenges that are coming from the environment in which we find ourselves. However, I am a firm believer that leadership is leadership. And rather than reinventing leadership, to create whatever leadership we require for the new world. Actually, what we need to do is go right back to the beginning and and, you know, to recognize what leadership was originally all about.

[00:10:54] And I think the answers that we need for the future are actually found in ancient history but it doesn't matter what context in which we find ourselves. The core mindset of leadership remains the same. And if we move away from looking at leadership as a set of tools and techniques or a new idea that comes through and get to grips with leadership as a mindset, then everything starts to fall into place.

[00:11:21] And when you apply the right mindset of leadership, it doesn't matter what environment you find yourself in, that mindset can be translated into the 

[00:11:30] environment. That you are in. So I believe what we need to do is almost go backwards and get back into the basics, into what leadership is originally all about.

[00:11:40] Because there's been some horror stories down through the years of how in different areas and different times we've taken the concept of leadership and we've completely turned it inside out and upside down. Let's get back to what it's all about. And when we get that right, then we are well-equipped to move forwards into the future.

[00:11:57] 2030, 2040, 2050. Doesn't matter how far you look, the principle of leadership is the same. 

[00:12:03] Jens Heitland: Love that, let's go deeper. How do we build the mindset and what is the mindset all about? 

[00:12:10] Peter Anderton: So in terms of the mindset of leadership, it comes down to two rules let me just use an analogy here.

[00:12:14] If you think of your phone, on your phone, there is an operating system and then you have apps that you upload onto your phone. If your phone's like mine, there's a whole load of apps that you've downloaded bonds and they're never used again. , yeah. Start clearing. Clearing some of those out. And the mistake I think we make about leadership is we think it's all about the apps.

[00:12:34] and in reality. No. It's all about the operating system and the mindset is the operating system. If you get that right, then you can load in apps and do useful stuff with your phone. But if your operating system isn't working effectively, then it doesn't matter how many apps you turn to or discover or find, nothing's really gonna work effectively.

[00:12:54] And the mindset of leadership, as I said, comes down to two fundamental rules and they sit side by side, and they paint a really powerful picture. Everything that we need to know about leadership actually comes down to these two rules. Everything else is noise. And we could go back a long way in, in ancient history to understand what rule number one of leadership actually is.

[00:13:17] We don't need to do that today, but if we wanna get to grips with the basics of leadership, the first thing that we need to understand. Is that it's not about us. It's not about you as the leader. It's not about your solutions. It's not about your way of doing things. It's not about your ideas. It's not about your ego.

[00:13:37] And when we get our heads around that as a leader, a lot of things start to shift. So I would say that the mindset of rule number one is when a leader realizes it's not their job to deliver the result, it's their job to deliver the team who deliver the result. And it can sound to many people like I'm playing with semantics there.

[00:13:58] But there is a world of difference between those two statements and when I'm working with leaders and that penny drops and they finally recognize that's the thing I need to be working on. It's not about me building and delivering the result. It's about me building and delivering the team and they deliver the results.

[00:14:16] And when we get that, then we get into a, you know, we really multiply the effect that we can actually. On the world around us, uh, and the environment in which we operate. Does that make sense? 

[00:14:27] Jens Heitland: A hundred percent. That's so true. Maybe just go into a practical example of that, because what I have seen over time as well, when it gets tough, one of my best mentors and the best leader I've ever worked for was always.

[00:14:42] it's easy to lead when everything is okay and the business is flourishing, when it gets tough then it's where you see the true leaders. Mm-hmm. . What often happens, and if we just take the pandemic a little bit, as an example, I have seen organizations where the leaders stepped in and did the job, did the job from a perspective of, I tell you what you have to do, and I show you how to it, rather than, Hey let's focus on the team. Let's build the team so that we deliver it long term. Because from a leadership perspective, what I've seen talking to a couple of managers as we, let's call them managers, they have focused on how can we solve this problem as fast as possible, but not how can we solve this problem that is not popping up again.

[00:15:29] Peter Anderton: One of the things that rule number one should help us realize is that the world's too complex for any one of us to have all of the answers. Two. So, you know, when you take something like Covid, there was no rule book for it. Nobody could say, oh, let me just turn to page 56 and I'll know what to do next.

[00:15:46] We didn't have a clue. Nobody did. So any political leader or business leader had a really tough challenge finding a way to navigate through that. I am not suggesting that a leader in that scenario, Should say, well, I don't know what to do. What do you think? I realize that the leader needs to give confidence to those around them.

[00:16:06] But I absolutely think it's okay to say there is no rule book for this. Nobody's been here before, not in living memory. In terms of the environment in which we find ourselves. But I'm confident we're gonna find a way forward together. Let's work at this. Let's find a way forward. But if you end up in a scenario where somebody thinks, oh, it's a crisis, right?

[00:16:26] Then I need to tell everybody what to do. I need to have all of the answers, and it needs to be all about my way of doing things. Then we can think we are helping the team, but in reality, we're just driving things that they probably don't even know and they probably don't even understand. and the likelihood of them actually happening is quite slim.

[00:16:44] You start to get into the hole or you have to start policing compliance. Yeah. Rather than people actually working on this and recognizing why things are being done and being part of that whole process in order to own the output. Because again, what happens with rule number one is you realize then, well actually I need to be creating leaders, and I don't necessarily mean, oh, the next chief exec, I mean people who own what they're.

[00:17:10] Yeah, but when it goes wrong, they don't just pass it up the chain and say, well, that's not my problem. You know, it's above my pay grade. You sort it out. People who, when there's a challenge, when there's an issue, they run with it, they solve it, they fix it. And when you're dealing with the kind of complexity that we were dealing with through Covid and the world in which we see today, that's the kind of problem solving that you need.

[00:17:31] So the best leaders will work with a whole range of different people and weave it all together. And their role is to see, well, how can I draw this from those around me and then piece it together? It was almost weaving it together rather than thinking that they need to be the source of all of the answers. And the interesting thing about rule number one as well, take Covid, the pressure that leaders was un were under.

[00:17:55] It was just in insane. But a lot of that pressure can also be self-generated because if we. But I'm in charge. I'm the manager. I need to be the one with all of the answers. That puts a huge amount of pressure on us. It just doesn't need to be there. So not only is rule number one really good news for the team in terms of empowering and growing and developing them and getting better results, uh, although of course investments required, you can't just step back and assume it'll all happen.

[00:18:23] But it's also really good news for the. because it takes a huge amount of pressure off because we do not need to be the one with all of the answers. In fact, we can't be the one with all of the answers. If we think we are well, we're wrong. We're absolutely kidding ourselves. Yeah. 

[00:18:40] Jens Heitland: I love that because like you already mentioned it's so healthy as well for the team members.

[00:18:46] If we just look into the world where we live in if you just hire people to execute tasks rather than taking responsibility, a lot of people are just not willing to work in that job anymore. People want to be, be valued in how they're contributing to the wider picture than just, Hey, I'm here to sort this thing out and I want to take responsibility. I want to develop, I want to be motivated. And I think if you do that, like you said with rule number one is growing the team, helping the team, forming a team, bringing people together. That's how you motivate people in my experience. Absolutely. Absolutely. Let's go into rule number two.

[00:19:30] What is rule number two about? 

[00:19:31] Peter Anderton: Just one more thing on rule number one, because it can sound to some people, like I've plucked rule number one out of thin air.

[00:19:38] And people could say, well, yeah, it's a bit of a trite statement actually, Peter. Prove it to me. And there's a really interesting exercise that we can do. So you've talked about one of your best manager you've ever worked for. I, if you think of that particular individual, what other kind of things that they did, what did they do?

[00:19:57] Jens Heitland: It started with, listen, 

[00:19:59] Peter Anderton: Fabulous. Okay. Now, what's really interesting of course, is listening is the epitome of rule number one, because when we think we're listening to somebody else, what are we really doing? Usually. 

[00:20:12] Thinking about our solution? 

[00:20:14] Absolutely. We're thinking about what are we gonna say in response?

[00:20:17] Yeah, yeah. Okay. Uh, and true listening is about recognizing, well, actually, what are they trying to say? And we all fall over this. I know my wife would've something to say about this as well, so I don't think for a minute that I'm perfect in this scenario. But listening is about rule number one. But listening, I would say is the very first thing that the best managers who ever worked for would, would have in common.

[00:20:38] Give me a few more. What else? What. Best manager you ever had? What did they do? 

[00:20:43] Jens Heitland: What he always did he challenged me, brilliant. So I was delivering things and then he was like, Hey, have you thought about this? Have you thought about it in a different way? I think you can do that better. What else can you do? How can you take it to the next level. 

[00:20:57] Peter Anderton: Brilliant. So part of that is challenging her, but we Are you also saying he gave you good feedback as well? Is that part of the pitch? Yeah, so that was part of it. I, 

[00:21:03] Jens Heitland: I agree. Yeah.

[00:21:04] Peter Anderton: Fabulous. Okay. Just give me, give gimme one or two more. Let's, let's take those two for now. 

[00:21:09] Jens Heitland: Another thing was putting the bar very high. Okay, brilliant. Maybe that was specifically for me in different situations. I wanted to have the bar as high as possible because I wanted to achieve something, but for me that was very, very helpful.

[00:21:26] Peter Anderton: Okay. Gimme one more then 

[00:21:30] Jens Heitland: maybe another one was opening up the world of a perspective. So that was specifically in one organization and you are working in, let's say you work in hr, you work in engineering, you work in a specific field and oftentimes you don't see yourself outside of that. Mm-hmm.

[00:21:48] He was taking the boundaries away to say, think bigger. Look at the totality. There are different parts of the organization where you can utilize your skills, even that you might not see them. So he was putting me into a project manager position for an IT rollout where I've had zero IT knowledge. This kind of things. . 

[00:22:10] Peter Anderton: Fabulous. I love it. I I, I I love this guy already. Okay, so talk to me then for a moment and we'll do this on a no-names policy. Worst manager you've ever had. What kind of things did they do? 

[00:22:23] Jens Heitland: Yeah, almost the opposite, but concrete, definitely not listening.

[00:22:27] The worst ever was shouting at me. Yeah. Attacking me.

[00:22:36] Pushing me into a direction, which was just helpful for the person. Yeah. Was not valuing my feedback. Yeah, that sounds very dark now, 

[00:22:47] Peter Anderton: Gimme one more. Um,

[00:22:51] Jens Heitland: The whole conversation was about How can you run faster than how do we think at the bigger picture? So it was very, very narrow. , almost micromanaging. 

[00:23:02] Peter Anderton: Okay. Okay. That's interesting. That's a very common one, isn't it? Yeah. Micromanaging. So if we go back to the best list, so the best manager you've ever had, they listened to you, they challenged you, they gave you feedback, they set the bar really high, they really stretched you. And they would remove boundaries and make you think bigger and put you in situations that really stretched you. Sometimes situations that you thought you couldn't handle, but they knew you could and, and they had your back. How did you feel when they did all of those things? 

[00:23:29] Jens Heitland: Awesome . 

[00:23:30] Okay. 

[00:23:31] That was the time I did the biggest progress in my career.

[00:23:34] Peter Anderton: Okay. Fabulous. So you felt awesome and you grew far more than any other stage in your career. Take the worst boss, the one that didn't listen to you, that would shout at you or attack you. You know, they'd be pushing you in the direction of what they wanted. It was all about what they desired.

[00:23:50] They wouldn't value your feedback. You know, it was all about how can you be faster whether rather than whether you're actually heading in the right direction and they would micromanage you. How did you feel when they did those things? 

[00:24:01] Jens Heitland: Terrible. Okay. Completely terrible. I was not enjoying going to work. I was not looking forward to engage at all.

[00:24:09] I was just trying to do business as usual without doing anything on top. 

[00:24:14] Peter Anderton: Yeah, and that's really interesting. So at that point you're giving the absolute minimum, aren't you? Yeah. You know, I'm not do anything, I'll just, I'll get, I'll get by with as little as possible. Yeah. Now, the thing to notice when we think about the best manager and the worst manager, so the worst manager ever had all those things that they did and how terrible you felt, where was the focus of their attention?

[00:24:34] was it on you or was it on themselves? On themselves? A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Okay. Yeah. Take the best manager you ever had then that did all of that great stuff. Listening, challenging, growing you, developing you, setting the bar high, getting you to think bigger. Where was the focus of their attention?

[00:24:50] Was it on themselves or was it on you? On me. Definitely it's on you okay. Yeah. So what we recognize now, then the rule number one, isn't just some trite thing that Peter Anderson's plucked out of thin air and said, that's a nice little sound bite. Rule number one is basically what your worst managers all have in common.

[00:25:11] they didn't get rule number one. And your best managers all have in common. Well, they got rule number one and they applied it. Yeah. So it, it's the golden thread that separates the best from the very worst. And this is what I'm saying now. It's not about the apps, it's about the operating system. This is the mindset that if we get this straight and we really get to grips with rule number one, then so many other things fall into place so you can prove from your own experience rule number one is the little thing that sets the best and the worst managers you've ever had. Apart. 

[00:25:44] Jens Heitland: And it's as well, if I talk to other people, because I've interviewed now a couple of people on the podcast as well, they will tell the same mm-hmm. , a hundred percent. 

[00:25:53] Peter Anderton: Yeah.

[00:25:53] That's key, and again, you know, in all of these scenarios if we have time, we'll come back to this later. When you are, um, when you're working for somebody and they're doing all those dreadful things and it's all about them. You are only giving the minimum level of commitment.

[00:26:07] And of course in the world in which we live today, we can't get by with the minimum level of commitment. No, we can't live a 

[00:26:13] Jens Heitland: lot of people leaving. That's the easiest way out. 

[00:26:17] Peter Anderton: Yeah. Well, it's been said before, hasn't it? You join an organization, but you leave a boss. Yeah. So.

[00:26:25] Jens Heitland: We see this a lot. At least I see it a lot right now that it's happening. I don't know if that's covid related and people come back to the kind of physical work environment and they discovered, ah, that's nothing for me anymore. I don't know what the triggers are. 

[00:26:39] Peter Anderton: Well, it's, isn't it? Cause I think during Covid there were a lot of organizations that I can remember some of the discussions that took place were along the lines of before Covid, they were talking about Agile working and you know, a whole range of different, we can't just trust our people to do work. They'll be doing jobs at home, they're not gonna do any work. And then of course, COVID comes along. and then they have no choice. And then they realize that people on the whole, of course, there's always gonna be somebody who pushes the limits. I realize that's the world in which we live, but on the whole, most people did far more Yeah.

[00:27:10] Than was required of their role in order to work forward. And then I think, Some organizations, and there's a whole different spectrum, isn't there? Of those coming back, some have been dragging their workforce back in because they don't trust them to be working out outta home, which I don't understand because they've already demonstrated what they're actually able to do.

[00:27:28] So it's a very strange working process. But I suspect some of them are losing autonomy. in the return back to normal working. And that's one of the things that people are struggling with. They're saying, well, actually, now that I've lost his autonomy, maybe I had already fallen out of love with what I did.

[00:27:43] Yeah, maybe, yeah. But now I've lost the autonomy as well. Why am I staying? What? What am I doing? I think a lot of people reevaluated what was important to them during covid and hopefully we remember those lessons. That was a really good phrase. I forget who gave it. They said in the rush to return back to normal.

[00:28:01] Let's take great care to work out which parts of normal are worth rushing back to. 

[00:28:07] That's true. Yeah. Rule number two.

[00:28:12] Right? Yeah. So rule number two. So one of the things we have to get to grips with as leaders is that there are genuine limits to what we can achieve. And we find ourselves, we set a goal.

[00:28:29] We want all sorts of things to change. All sorts of things to happen. And the sobering reality as leaders is for us to get our heads around the fact that we cannot change somebody else's behavior. Even when we talk about motivating other people. I actually believe that's a misnomer because we can't motivate somebody else.

[00:28:49] Motivation comes from within. They motivate themselves. We can create an environment that drains their motivation or helps. It builds. Absolutely. So we have a huge role to play, but we can't do it to people. Rule number two. Helps us really, when we look at our team, recognize we're also looking in the mirror.

[00:29:14] A lot of leaders will look at the team that they have, and they're frustrated, they're disappointed. It's not where they want it to be. And I recognize that we've all, at times inherited teams, from other people and some people have been conditioned over many, many years by different managers.

[00:29:31] To start with, there are challenges there that might be beyond our influence, beyond our control, but over time, I firmly believe that every leader gets the team they deserve because in time our team become a reflection of us. So if we want to get a different response from our team,

[00:29:52] there's no good looking at how we want person X or person Y, our person's Z to change, or what we want them to be doing differently or how disappointed we are in the results that we're actually getting. What true leaders do is they look in the mirror and they say, how do I need to change? in order to get a different response from this individual, from this team, from this client, or whatever.

[00:30:12] It's, and when they realize that the power that they have in changing themself first is the very thing that sets off the chain reaction that they're looking for, then it's another complete game changer. One of my favorite quotes from some Nelson Mandela, he said, I could not change others until I changed myself.

[00:30:34] And a lot of leaders are pointing the finger and saying, well it's not my fault, or it's this, or it's that, or it's the other. And true leadership says, look, whatever it is, is whatever it is now, how do I change in order to create a different response from those around me? And of course that starts with those immediately in our immediate environment.

[00:30:56] We, we create our own weather as leaders and any organization, there's different microclimates, aren't it? Yeah. In terms of the environment we finance as, but we create our own weather and we need to think about how do we need to behave. in order to get the best response from those around us.

[00:31:13] So if rule number one says, well, it's not about you. Rule number two says hang on a minute. It's only about you . It's no good. Looking at somebody else's behavior and recognizing that it's not what you want. Actually, how are you gonna behave differently? Are you gonna have those tough conversations that you've been avoiding?

[00:31:33] Are you giving the right level of feedback and specific appreciation to help them really be fired up. And at their best, have you helped them really connect the purpose for what it is they're actually doing? Or do they think they're just, you know, moving stuff and making decisions and processing information?

[00:31:52] Can they actually see the bigger picture? What is it that you are actually doing? And how can you behave as a leader in order to create the environment and get them working at their absolute best? But rule number two says, you have to look at your own behavior first. And some people say, well, hang on a minute, Peter, they're a complete contradiction.

[00:32:10] And of course they're not, are they? It's not about you is it's not about your ego, your solutions, your ideas but it's only about you says you can only change your behavior. Stop waiting for everybody else to get their act together and start cleaning up your own act. And when you get that right as a leader, then not only have you got the right starting point through rule number one, but then you've actually got the right impetus to make things happen with rule number two, because we create a ripple effect around us.

[00:32:41] We affect those immediately around us, and then they then take that impact away and they have it on other people, and we can set a chain reaction off in any organization that starts with us. And that's the power of rule number two. 

[00:32:55] Jens Heitland: Love that because it's very visible. If you see leadership changes in organizations, if you're in an organization longer time, they're always leadership changes, not necessarily even on the top.

[00:33:06] So you get inside of a management team, you get a new manager in, and that has an impact onto the total organization in a positive and or negative way, where one person is kind of interacting and bringing different ways of thinking into it. 

[00:33:22] Peter Anderton: Yeah. And there's almost two ends of the spectrum that you find.

[00:33:25] So let's say there's a new manager in place. One extreme is that you see positive changes taking place in the team as a result of the leader themselves. The other extreme is where this leader then brings people in from their previous organization, which is not, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, you know?

[00:33:44] Yeah. Actually, if people choose to follow us anywhere, a actually, that's a really, really powerful thing, but sometimes we find in a situation, Leaders get new into post and they end up getting rid of the people that are there and then just bringing in the people that they like and I would say the second to worst recruitment decision we can ever make is just to recruit in our own image. And it's really key to recognize that actually there will be diversity in whatever we inherit in a team. And whilst I live in the real world, there are often circumstances in which the only sensible thing to do is to manage somebody out of the organization. Of course, that is as often a valid course of action, but it's also thinking about how do I need to change in order to get different responses and behaviors from those around.

[00:34:33] Jens Heitland: The interesting part to that is it's so counterintuitive when you are under pressure. Yeah. You have an organization where it's extreme pressure on the management team. You need to double the numbers because it's only getting bigger, bigger, bigger, more and more and more.

[00:34:50] Peter Anderton: One of the things about that again, if you really get rule number one, that takes a lot of pressure off because you realize you don't have to be the one with all of the answers. Rule number two also takes a lot of pressure off because we can think, right, I need to go out there and inspire everybody.

[00:35:05] you know, that's not a big ask, is it? I mean, that's huge pressure, but what rule number two says, it's not your job to inspire your team. Remember what I said before. Inspiration comes from within. What rule number two says. It's your job to be inspired and if you are inspired, and as we said earlier on, you create your own weather, then actually that starts to spread around as other people start to pick it up and the whole thing becomes contagious.

[00:35:30] You could almost look at the know the R member for leadership, couldn't you to see how these things spread 

[00:35:35] Jens Heitland: Yeah. To that point a previous podcast guest Ferris in episode 199 was explaining that in the same way he was saying if he's working with an executive to build a strategy and the executive is not inspired him or herself around the strategies. They can try whatever they do, it's not going to fly into the organization.

[00:35:58] Peter Anderton: Well actually, I'd probably modify that slightly as I think about it, is that what happens when you hear the exec talking about the strategy, if they're not inspired? when they talk about it, then I'd argue it's never gonna happen. Because that's the That's the first. Exactly. Pick level zero.

[00:36:17] Obviously when they're inspired, then he'll pick it up and then others will start to pick it up. But it has to be do they come alive when they start talking about it? Or is it just another plan? Yeah, 

[00:36:29] Jens Heitland: there was exactly the topic we discussed . Brilliant. Yeah. 

[00:36:35] Good. I would love to talk about a couple of other things.So one thing I have on my list is the insparometer what is that? 

[00:36:45] Peter Anderton: Oh, right. Oh, okay. So it's something I've created that's actually, it's available with my compliments to anybody who wants to try it. It uses the two rules of leadership. It actually brings in another dimension as well.

[00:36:57] When we start thinking about, well, we can look at the leader and, Whenever we're dealing with a leadership problem, if we use the lens of rule number one and rule number two, we can solve all sorts of dilemma. And find a sensible way forward. But also when we look at it from the team perspective there are critical ingredients that the team require.

[00:37:16] And when you take these things together there are three key components that you need in a high performing team, and the first one is connection. And this is a classic one you see, you know, at the moment we've got the World Cup going on, haven't we?

[00:37:29] And you can see in teams where they might be packed full of stars. , but if they're not connected as a team and moving forward together, this is why I'm so big on alignment. They'll consistently be beaten by a side that perhaps have less talented players. So connection is key. We've gotta be moving forward together.

[00:37:47] Potential. Then you do need the basic skill, the experience. To the, you know, the different approaches and attitudes and thinking that you can piece together in a team. So you need the potential and you need them to be operating at their best. And then the third thing you need is reason. , there needs to be, why should I get outta bed in the morning?

[00:38:07] There needs to be a reason, something that makes sense, a goal that I'm working towards. Clarity, direction, all of those things that then come along with that. So you've got connection, potential, and reason. I talk about c p R for teams as just a shorthand. And when you take connection, potential, and reason, and you overlay them on the two rules of leadership. So you look at connection, potential, and reason through the lens of rule number one. It creates some really interesting pictures of what we need to create a high performing team. And then you look at connection, potential, and reason through the lens of rule number two.

[00:38:44] Then you get an overall picture of what leadership is all about and the inspirometer it takes less than three minutes to complete. It just allows you to assess yourself against, if you're like those six dimensions of what truly inspirational and inspired leaders are about and you can complete it.

[00:39:03] Like I said, it takes less than three minutes to complete and you get a little report that comes through with it, with some useful things to think about, to say, well, if there are areas that you wanna make strong, Here's how you could go about this, or if there are areas that are already really strong, again, some insights to think about that will allow you to build on them and take them further forward so you can find it.

[00:39:24] I'm sure you can post the link in the podcast as well, but it's www.theinspirometer.com. So theinspirometer.com, if you just go there, it'll take you three minutes to complete. And I'd love to know what you think. 

[00:39:39] Jens Heitland: That's very cool. I will put it into the show notes. So for everyone, you can just scroll down wherever you see, or watch or listen this episode and can find the link straight away. 

[00:39:51] Peter Anderton: Thank you for that Jens cuz it's when you start to bring these two things together, there's some really, really powerful stuff. Yeah. And and yeah, so the Inspirometer is a useful test. 

[00:40:03] Jens Heitland: Let's get into the last part. We could do for sure two hours more, but let's keep it in a normal boundaries of the podcast episodes I do at least. We can talk in a couple of years when I do Joe Rogan style three hours. That's not the case right now. So a couple of question I ask every guest. If you could work with a project that is impacting every human being on earth, what project would you work with and why would you choose to work with that project?

[00:40:36] Peter Anderton: To some extent, it would be what I'm doing now because I genuinely believe there are too many leaders out there making themselves and the people around them miserable. And my project is to change that. Really, that's what I do. So that would be probably the area that I would focus my attention on and recognizing how really for each of us, there is a journey of transformation.

[00:41:02] You talked about the best manager that you ever had and how you grew more working for that person than you did at any other stage in your career. And recognizing what are we here for? What are we here to do? What is our purpose? And starting to dig deeper into that and recognizing that it's not about waiting for everybody else to make that happen.

[00:41:23] But how can we own that and take responsibility to become the very best version of ourselves, not the person that just goes off and does whatever they want or whatever makes them happy. Cuz I think sometimes that's really trite. I think when we discover what we're really meant to be here for and we fulfill that, that's where true happiness starts to, to reside.

[00:41:46] Not the sort of hedonistic approach that I think we often find ourselves in today's society. So for me, it's. Helping people recognize why they were put on this planet. And become that. Now that's quite a broad, bold project. Are you looking for something more specific or can I No, that's good with that.

[00:42:03] Jens Heitland: It, it's good. We, if we want to change the world, we need to have bold projects. , I'll take that one. Good. 

[00:42:11] What advice would you give to a young innovator who is just getting started?

[00:42:16] Peter Anderton: Oh, what a fabulous question. I would say, first of all, don't worry about what people think about you. Okay. It this is about what it is you are trying to achieve, what it is you're trying to create. And we talk about this in teams, don't we? The stupid idea. The stupid question.

[00:42:36] That's usually the one that leads to the greatest breakthrough. Hmm. , but the more we're concerned about showing that vulnerability or being the idiot or appearing to be the idiot, then we're always gonna struggle to get to grips with innovation. So I would say that would be the first piece of advice I would give. You could extend that and say, don't take yourself too seriously, couldn't you? That's a very good life principle that comes through with that. Of course, what I'm talking about here is rule number one of leadership . Yeah. Um, you know, it is not about your ego is it? And but the second thing I would say is focus on what you can do and on what you can control.

[00:43:14] There is a whole world around us that we would love to change. , but you can change what you are doing. You can change what's immediately around you and you can make that influence happen. You can get frustrated and go nowhere by looking at everything else that's wrong in the world around you.

[00:43:30] Or you can get to work in what's in, in your immediate environment and start to change that and start to shift that. And when you're doing that to the best of your ability, you will shine and more opportunities will come. And you will end up in a better position to actually then influence the world and the way you wish to influence the world, to have the impact that you actually want to impact and to create that level of innovation.

[00:43:54] And of course, what I'm really doing is describing rule number two, because it's about our behavior. And what we can do. I'm really a two trick pony. That's all I can do. , everything comes down to these two rules, but genuinely, it really does. And if we, those would be the two pieces of advice I would give to a young innovator.

[00:44:12] Just starting off, last question. 

[00:44:16] Jens Heitland: Where can people find you and how can people reach out to you? 

[00:44:20] Peter Anderton: I'm generally quite active on LinkedIn, so that would be a good place to find. As Peter Anderton and the company I ran is called Internal Alignment. So find me on LinkedIn.

[00:44:30] The Inspirometer is probably a really good place to reach out because again you can contact me through completing that whole profile. I've got a website as well, which is very innovatively named www.peteranderton.com so, so check me out there as well. And in fact, actually, I also have coming up an opportunity for anybody who wants to work with me directly.

[00:44:52] I'm running a leadership program that's called Original Leadership, and if you go onto my website and look at leadership development you'll see that section there. And it's very much back to the idea I was talking about before you Jens where I said, let's stop looking for something new.

[00:45:06] Let's get back to what leadership was originally all about and apply those principles and if we can get that. And get the mindset right then. Then as we said before, everything falls into place. So that would be a great opportunity for us to meet face-to-face if anybody's interested. 

[00:45:21] Jens Heitland: Yeah and I will put the links as well into the show notes.

[00:45:24] And another link, which we haven't talked about is your Ted talk, which is 

[00:45:29] Peter Anderton: Oh, yes, of course. Yeah. So the TEDx talk.

[00:45:33] I think the last time I looked at it, it was heading for about one and a half million views, actually. So that just keeps growing. And yeah, and it does make me chuckle because I talk about the fact that we've overcomplicated leadership and you don't need an M B A to understand what leadership is all about.

[00:45:48] And they're actually using that TEDx talk in MBA programs all around the world which makes me, makes very happy. There's true irony in that. But yeah, so the TEDx talk is called Great leadership, comes down to only two rules. So if you were just to Google, great leadership comes down to only two rules.

[00:46:06] Peter Anderton is TEDx Darby in the uk. Uh, and then you'll find the talk there as well. Uh, and again I need to look at it again. I try and engage with the comments that go on that cuz there's some fascinating comments that have been added. What I need to do is make a mental note to go back and en engage with them again.

[00:46:23] Jens Heitland: Yeah. And of course I will put that as well into the show notes so everything is in one place and you can click through directly to Peter. Peter, thank you very much for your time. It was a pleasure having you on the show. 

[00:46:36] Peter Anderton: I've loved it. Yen, thank you so much for having me. 

[00:46:39] Jens Heitland: Thank you. ​