The Framework Hiding Inside Every Founder's Head

TRANSCRIPT SUMMARY:

00:00 The Cost of Diluted Thinking
01:27 Business as a Positive Force
05:59 Service Beyond Shareholder Value
08:42 The Hidden Weight of Leadership
12:08 Leading Through Difficult Redundancies
18:57 Simplification Requires Sophisticated Thinking
24:04 Build Agreement Before Solutions
35:27 Models Remove Communication Ego
42:12 Aligning Strategic Thinking Levels
54:27 Capturing Your Company Genius
1:00:55 Why Gets Heard, How Wins
1:09:32 Company Genius as Source Code

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Simon Bowen (00:00)

What is the true cost of this decision? The founder's original thinking is diluted and dilution leads to market commoditization. How you think about it is actually a product, not the products and services themselves. Why gets you heard? How gets you chosen?

Jeff Holman (00:17)

Welcome back, everybody, to the Breakout CEO podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Holman, and I am really excited here today to talk with you guys and to talk with Simon Bowen, coming from Perth, Australia. Simon, it's great to have you on the show.

Simon Bowen (00:31)

It's great to be here.

Jeff Holman (00:32)

man, I I I love connecting with everybody around the world. We hear so many different things, different insights from people. And you know, despite where people are coming from and the maybe the distance between us.

Business there's a lot there's a lot in common about business, right? And I think you might be talking about that to today a little bit as we as as we talk about the models method, some of the things that you do that might apply not just to businesses across different geographic locations, but yeah, different sizes of businesses. And I I know you've I know you've worked with, you know, Fortune five hundred companies down to smaller companies that are growing and scaling and these concepts are are

Kind of universal, I think. So S Simon, I'm really glad to have you. I'm gonna let you give the audience a a taste for maybe some of the background that you have that brings you to the point that you are today.

Simon Bowen (01:27)

Well, you know, it's interesting what you it's interesting what you were saying about business because it's you know, I just have a fundamental belief that business is commerce is, you know, one of the most powerful forces for good on the planet. Yeah. because it's you know, it's it's reward in exchange for service, basically. And, you know, I grew up in really small country towns in Western Australia. And when I say small, I mean four hundred people and nine hundred people.

Jeff Holman (01:55)

very small by most standards.

Simon Bowen (01:57)

Yeah, very, very small in the town and then farmers around that, right? And so often there was one shop and one petrol station, and a fire station, often not a hospital, you know, just a small medical center. And you know, if if if any of those businesses went broke, the town starts to die, you know, and so the

So Enterprise is the cornerstone of the actual town and the only reason the farmers come into town is to get supplies or you know, get fuel or you know, go to the medical centre or whatever, post a letter at the post post office. and I can remember going down to you know, to Hills, the shop, the the corner store, and to get some milk for mum and

Mr. Hillard give you some lollies for being a good boy and going down and getting the milk for mum, right? Yeah. And I never paid for the lollies, so I guess that was him just you know, encouraging the kids in town. And I never paid for the milk because we had an account that mum obviously settled every month. And but that was business, right? And you know, I just had a I just had a sense of businesses were an inherent part of the community. And so as I as I, you know, grew and

I I I come from a big farming family and so, you know, farms are business, but they're businesses that feed a nation. And my you know, dad's one of ten, all my uncles and aunts believed really strongly in the fact that they were feeding the nation. You know, it's just so I think this whole idea of enterprise, free enterprise, the powerful force for good, finds its emergence certainly in my youth, and then over the years I've done a whole lot of different things work wise.

C because business can cross borders internationally, you know. For sure. It it it i and you know the whole point of business is reward, so money paid in exchange for service. Yeah. And when you s boil it down to its fundamental truth, if we stick with that, you generally y you know, you y y you can probably make it work, but when you start to stray too far from that, you know, if you don't want to be in service, you just want to get the reward.

That's gonna be a problem, right? If you don't know how to get the reward and you're just in service, that's a charity, you know? Yeah. so if you stick to the knitting, it's it's reward for being in service. And being in service means something that people actually really need. Yeah. You know.

Jeff Holman (04:40)

I love I love the framing that you that you're putting to it. It reminds me when I was d in college, university, many years ago, twenty five years ago, thirty years ago. I don't it was a while ago.

Simon Bowen (04:54)

If it's more than you can remember, it's you just say a long time ago.

Jeff Holman (04:57)

A long time ago when I was in university and I listened to w one of the local I'm in Utah and one of the one of the kind of very successful businesses that have come out of Utah is Huntsman Chemical. they make all sorts of stuff and and John Huntsman Sr. You know, the the family has left a legacy across the state and and elsewhere. I think he's built buildings at local universities and Wharton School of Business and i anyway, he's done all this stuff, but he talked and he he he created this contrast, you know

between people who do s what we'll call it civic service, right? US local politicians, whatever. They're in service. And he said he said, I chose to serve by building a business. And and it I'd never thought of it that way before. So I really like the framing you're putting to that. The business really is service and and if you don't have the balance the service component in the business, you know, what what are you really running? It's

you're you're doing something else. You're not serving and you're not having a business.

Simon Bowen (05:59)

Once you're in the realm of publicly listed companies, you know, I've I've sat one-to-one with many, many CEOs. And once you're in the realm of publicly listed companies, it's most common that the conversation with the CEO will be about share price. Sure. and the whole measure of the company is what is our share price, which is a shareholder-driven metric. and so they're worried about market cap or

Capitalization value. But what actually drives all of that is the reward you get for being in service of the community through the products and services you bring to market. And so you can absolutely talk about share value, but you know, in my view, share value doesn't supersede the need to truly serve the community by what you bring to market. Yeah, the solution you actually bring to market. I I you know, I was talking to the CEO of one of Australia's largest mining companies.

called BHP. You know, you think about mining companies digging big holes in the ground and everything else. And I said to him, so what is the but but what is the service of BHP? Mm-hmm. And he said, Simon, we we lift third world countries out of poverty because we build infrastructure. You know, we're an infrastructure company. What we do is we build mines and rail and port. We build infrastructure. Like if we build a mine and then a railway line to a port and we build a port that we can ship ore out of.

That railway system and port can be used for everything else the company might want to move in and out of the country. and therefore the country gets infrastructure. And I thought, well, that's that's interesting. You know, here's a person who's responsible for share price, but he's he's thinking about the impact they have on third world countries through the infrastructure they build. And people will have views about mining, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it wasn't just about digging holes in the ground to drive share price. And I think

That's I think that's one of the challenges for leaders in business. How are you in service? Yeah. For the rewards that you gain? That that's a big question. How is your company in service, truly in service, yeah, for the rewards it gains? Yeah.

Jeff Holman (08:13)

And and like you said, we can have, you know, you might people might have their their cynical views of of, you know, some CEOs just spinning things into, you know, messaging or whatever. But but in reality, if if there is not service happening, the you know, who's gonna how is that business going to survive? So there's there's some baseline service that must be happening in successful businesses, despite maybe some of the other positions or perceptions that are happening around them.

Simon Bowen (08:42)

Well, you know, I I have sat one to one, as I said, with many, many CEOs. Th most CEOs,

would probably acknowledge that, you know, there's a price to be paid for being CEO. You you are gonna hurt the people you love. You are gonna miss kids' school events. You are going to be away on an anniversary. You know, you are going to let someone go from the company that you've known for a couple of decades. You are going to you know, hurt people that you love at some point. It it kinda go it's a pretty tough job. Yeah. Yeah.

And most CEOs that I meet are actually good people. So the narrative that, you know, the that the that the world wants to attach to CEOs that they're all corrupt, they're just, you know, they're they're money hungry, they just want to strip everything out, is not at all a reflection of the majority of CEOs I meet who are actually good people in very high stress jobs.

founder CEOs, you know, company founders invariably started because they actually really believe they had something that would be of service, you know, to the world and that they sh that they can and should get reward for. and then they find out they've got this machine called a business that also is pretty demanding, you know, and then employees that need to be cared for and everything else. Most CEOs are good people. Of course there are bad eggs, but most of them are actually good people.

operating in highly stressful circumstances, right? That that actually the majority of the population probably couldn't operate in, you know? Yeah. and and they're just they're just trying to do good with the company, actually. and there's a lot of things around that that make that increasingly more difficult, but they're out there. You know, do the math.

I've done this math with numbers of CEOs. Do do do you know, you're a CEO of a company and let's say you have a hundred employees. Not many. Yeah. A hundred, right?

And I come along and say, okay, let's work out the number of people dependent upon your decisions. Yeah. You've got a hundred employees, right? Mm a bunch of them are married. So, you know, let's say another sixty, because they're spouses, and then a bunch of them have got kids. So let's say another hundred and twenty. Okay. and then you've got suppliers, and those suppliers have

twenty or thirty employees and before you blink, there's two to five thousand people reliant upon the decisions you make every day, whose whose livelihoods and whose daily existence are impacted directly by the decisions you make every day.

Jeff Holman (11:39)

I was gonna say that's before counting customers and other Yeah.

Simon Bowen (11:42)

We haven't got into any of that. Yeah. It's not for the faint hearted.

Jeff Holman (11:47)

Is this like an underlying philosophy that drives kind of what you do and and w the business that you've created? I mean, I I think what you're saying is I think there's a lot of truth to what you're saying, but it's it's an interesting, you know, lead in to ha you know, the models method and the things that you do and why you do what you do. Does this does this drive part of that?

Simon Bowen (12:08)

Yes. Well I I I was an executive in a company in Australia, one of Australia's larger companies. And I had to I I I was asked to merge three business units in Western Australia, South

Jeff Holman (12:25)

Okay.

Simon Bowen (12:26)

Australia, and each of them were about fifty million dollars and I needed I was asked by head office in Sydney to merge them into a single business unit of a hundred and fifty million dollars in revenue.

And they said that will mean about w by our estimates, about 300 people will be made redundant. Okay. Yeah. And I was a young manager, right? And they had hired me because I'd done a lot of change management, organizational design work prior to that. Yeah. And they said, You're gonna do it first, and then once you've done it, we're gonna use that and we're gonna apply that to the rest of the business units around the country, right? And so I'm a young manager in my mid thirties.

Telling three hundred people kind of a week at a time, in batches of three to five as we identified them, you've been with the company for twenty years, we really appreciate your service, but now we're gonna make it redundant, right?

Jeff Holman (13:20)

Those hard conversations.

Simon Bowen (13:21)

Yeah, very hard because of a corporate decision. And you know, did the corporate decision mm make sense? Well, I'm not sure what the research had been done on that. And it was this whole idea of it was a building materials company and so instead of having three different business units calling on builders to sell product, we'll just have a one stop shop, one size fits all, right? Yeah. Well the one stop shop approach has never proven to be successful, actually.

Because customers like to choose from different people and feel like they have some competitive you know, pressure in place. So was it a good decision? But I'm still making these people redundant. And then you know, young and inexperienced, I remember sitting in my office telling a fellow that had been with the company for twenty years, ex Vietnam vet. I I I know I now know that he probably had PDSD. And I told him, This is what's gonna happen, you've been great.

We're gonna give you a bunch of money. And he changed and I knew that I couldn't let him leave my office. I just thought this he's not good actually. Yeah. You know? Yeah. and so I went out to my PA and said, You need to find me somebody. I'm not even sure who it is, right? But he can't leave my office until we've got someone here to talk to him. Yeah. And she said, You need a psychologist and I said, Well, whoever.

Whatever, but you know, he can't leave my office. And that was a huge lesson, Jeff. That you know, like you can't just swing into these things that affect people, you know, without thought. And so but but we'd not had that mechanism in place before we started telling people they're gonna be made redundant. And in that moment I thought, you know what, everyone we make redundant's gonna get a bag of money because the company had been really good about that, right? They hadn't

They weren't trying to pinch pennies with them. And then they're either going to be close enough to retirement that money will let retire, or they they've always wanted to be in business, so that money's going to let get into a business of their own. Or they're going to have a career change. They're going to go and work for another company or do something completely different.

Jeff Holman (15:36)

You'd

logic through all of this and said, every i it'll work it'll work out fine.

Simon Bowen (15:41)

So I I I decided and I'll get to the point with this a minute. I so I thought I'm actually committing myself to get everybody that I made redundant to their destination of choice. they're gonna be made redundant. I can get that job done for the company, right? The company's done the right thing in terms of the payout, but I'm gonna get them to their destination of choice. So I went and hired a career transition person, I went and hired a business advisor, business coaching wasn't a thing then. So

just a business advisor, an accountant who did did a bit of sort of setup advice and things. I hired a financial planner for those that were going to retire and things. And, you know, as soon as I told somebody that we're making you redundant, I started a conversation with them about if if you know, if you had this amount of money that you're gonna get and you could choose what you were going to do, what would you want to do? Now not one of them said I'd like to stay here.

Right. Because they were f given an opportunity for the next stage that they'd been thinking about for a while, but weren't making the leap themselves. And I I look back on it now and I can with great pride say that we placed every single one of those people into their destination of choice, three hundred odd people. But it was a really it was such an impactful lesson for me about the weight you wield when you're the senior leader.

Like people's lives swing off this, right? And literally sometimes I had a second person who also went into a pretty dark place when I told him we were making him redundant, but I was ready for it then. But you do swing a pretty, you know, heavy weight that affects people's lives. And that was really also the start of my obsession with simplification, which is a part of where the models method comes from.

The most sophisticated thinking that we can do is simplification, not dumbing down, but simplification. E equals C squared is Einstein's simplification of a very large formula. Yeah. And we don't simplify enough. And I'm not talking about dumbing down. Simplification is sophistication.

Jeff Holman (17:56)

Yeah, I I actually think I like that you mentioned this. I when I think of simplification, I often think of stepping back and getting the larger picture, right? It's not about narrowing in and just d disregarding everything else that that that you know might be a factor in a situation, but you're actually taking the time and it seems like this is kind of what you did with with that, you know, personnel transition is is y you could have simplified it by just going and saying, I just gotta go get the job done and I I have a task, I just do it, check it off.

I'm done. I know it's gonna have some collateral damage, but you know, this is this simple way to do it. You didn't do that. You you went in and you said, Hey, how do we actually create the you know, and and maybe in some ways, you know, magnify the opportunities for these people to go into that next stage of life that they've probably been thinking about. That that in a way is systemizing, you know, stepping back and seeing the larger picture instead of just narrowing in and

Cutting everything else out.

Simon Bowen (18:57)

Well we have to step back to get the larger picture in order to figure out what you can cut out in order to simplify. So you know, when Michelangelo carved the statue the David, mm-hmm, it took him five years. And but he only spent twelve or eighteen months I th if I've got the story right, carving the statue. And, you know, when someone said why'd it take so long? he said, Well, first of all I had to find the piece of marble that the David was in.

Yeah. And then I just took everything away that was not the David. Right. And so yeah, I I love that story because simplification is the process of s step coming back out to the bigger picture to say what what what is it that is not actually that important? And then I can just focus on what is important. So when I started that process of making these people redundant, what was important to me was that I got it all done, right? Right. Because I'm thinking about career.

But that, you know, when when John was in my office and things turned dark, I just had this moment where I, you know, that forces you to step back a little bit, right? And you know, one of the one of the one of the dis one of the things I thought through was what where is the real cost of this exercise? The real cost of the exercise is to the people who are making it redundant and to the people who will stay.

So we we will be judged by the people who stay based on how we treat the people who leave. And so if I want a workforce who believe we care for them and respect them, then I'd better look after the people that were asking to leave. And because these are their friends, right? And then the people who stay are going to grieve because they're losing their friends. Their friends have gone off to a destination of choice, right? So they're kind of happy, right?

But the people left behind are going to judge us by how we treat their friends. And the real cost of this exercise is not me, not the company, it's the people that we're making redundant. I mean, they've been a 20-year career. That means their identity is attached to I work for this company. Yeah. And you know, their kids' identity is attached to that. So we'd better handle that respectfully, right? And so when you step back to the bigger picture, Jeff, one of the very early questions.

That leaders should be asking when they're stepping back to the bigger picture is what is the true cost of this decision? Which is what's behind me saying to a CEO, how many people are affected by your decision every time you make one? Yeah. Like what what is the true cost of every decision you make? And you know, what are you doing about those costs? Right? because, you know, what shouldn't happen is is an unexpected consequence or cost. And so

Then that allows you to simplify, basically. Yeah. which is more sophisticated thinking.

Jeff Holman (22:00)

Well and I think if I'm if not not mistaken, part of the way that you're simplifying things too is is through visualization and through helping people see things maybe differently or better than they have been. and that probably takes us into your your models method that you're doing, right?

Simon Bowen (22:18)

Yeah, I I left corporate life and and started a consulting business. And I would get hired. I built a reputation around Australia for being able to facilitate complex and contentious issues.

Jeff Holman (22:34)

Okay.

Simon Bowen (22:35)

And you know, so all the strategic planning for a large mining company that's building seven mines at two billion dollars each and we're gonna sp we're gonna build a one point four billion dollar sports stadium. Can you

find out what everybody wants, all the stakeholders, sports fans, disability groups, d broadcast stations, etc. And then write a brief that the architects will tender against to come up with the design. Or our Army, Navy and Air Force are going to deploy into a theatre of war and the Department of Defence would engage me and say, can you get them all to talk to each other, as well as the civilian contractors that are going with them?

to talk about how they're going to do this. And the Army, Navy, and the Air Force are not best of friends. You know, they don't get along. But we're going to put them all in a room together. And it's your job to get them to agree on stuff. So I built a reputation for being able to get people to reach agreement on contentious issues. And it's it's surprisingly simple. Again, if you step back and and and look at the bigger picture, if you've got, you know, two hundred people in a room who don't agree with each other on something,

What you have to do first is get them to all at least reach a point where they all want to agree.

Jeff Holman (23:59)

That doesn't sound simple though, Simon. You just you just said the i it's pretty simple, so

Simon Bowen (24:04)

It is simpler than I th you think. I'll tell you how in a minute. But but but but what the simplification is realizing where you have to get to with them first. So what most people want to try and do is get them to agree. Your first job is to just get them to want to agree.

Jeff Holman (24:20)

Okay. Okay. So you're breaking it down. Yeah.

Simon Bowen (24:23)

And and so if you've got them for two hours, they've given up two hours, they've come to the meeting. They didn't come to the meeting for two hours to disagree. They came to the meeting for two hours to get their point heard and to hopefully get, you know, their outcome. Yeah. And so if you just take a couple of hundred people who disagree with each other and you frustrate them for three quarters of the available time, so for ninety minutes you just frustrate them.

the a a a head of steam builds up in the room where they we we have to come we've spent ninety minutes at this we have to come out of this meeting with a bit of an answer. Right? And it's patently simple to frustrate two hundred people. You just listen to everybody equally. Okay. yeah everybody everybody wants their point heard, you know, louder than everybody else's, but if you just capture everybody's ideas, I'll put that on the flip chart and I'll put that on the flip chart and I'll put that on the flip chart. And then at the ninety minute mark,

I might go to I'm gonna draw for you here. I might go to the whiteboard and this is where the models method emerged and I'd say, look, do you know what? I've been listening to what everybody's saying, lots of different thoughts in the room. Yeah. But I think I can draw this for you. I think I can draw this for you. That language is really specific because when you draw, you draw people in. And I'd go to the whiteboard and I'd draw a two by two matrix, for example, on the whiteboard.

Four boxes, two by two matrix. And I'd say, you know what, when it comes to this issue we're talking about, there's really two dimensions in play here. There's the emotional dimension on the horizontal, where people are either acting out of fear on the left hand side or a desire on the right hand side really want to get this outcome. And there's the logical dimension on the vertical where people don't know the solution.

and at the bottom and people do know the solution at the top. And it it would seem to me that the bottom left corner where people are acting out of fear and don't know the solution

Jeff Holman (26:31)

Not very productive.

Simon Bowen (26:33)

Yeah, it like exactly, it's a prisoner zone. In here, people are prisoners of prisoners of the issue. They can't make a contribution. And I wouldn't imagine there's anyone in the room today who's in that quadrant in regard to this issue. Would there be? And they'd go, No, no, no, no, no. Of course not. There's no one in here. Yeah. Up here, i the amber zone, up in the top left corner, you know, people are acting out of fear.

but they do feel like they have a solution. these people are probably a bit like, you know, snipers. I I'm I'm I'm I'm acting out of fear. like I don't want to lose, but I got some ideas that could work. There could be some people in the room living in that quadrant. Could there be some people

Jeff Holman (27:26)

What

do you mean by fear then? I just want to make sure I understand this. So so somebody is afraid of consequences?

Simon Bowen (27:32)

Yeah, I don't want to lose. So I'm prepared to have other people pay a price so I don't lose.

Jeff Holman (27:37)

Got it, got it.

Simon Bowen (27:38)

And and I would yeah, I'd I'd explain that to them. And then down here in the bottom right quadrant, you know, where people are full of desire, meaning, I just want the best outcome for everyone here. You know, I think we can solve this thing, but I don't know how to get there. I I I don't know what the solution is, but I do believe we could get there. I think we could all have a win here. These are the hopefuls.

Jeff Holman (28:01)

Very collaborative group, even though they don't know quite what to do. Okay.

Simon Bowen (28:04)

I don't know what to do, right? There could be some people in the room in that quadrant. Would that be true? And they go, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then up in the top right quadrant, let's call this the green zone. These are the people who really want an outcome that serves everybody, full of desire. They want to move towards a great outcome and they've actually got some great ideas. Okay. And, you know, they tend to show up as volunteers in the room. And I'm sure there's people, and by the way, who in the room would put themselves up in that volunteer?

Quadrant up at the top right corner. And of course, you know, and and if you're not in the volunteer quadrant, would if you're in the hopeful quadrant as well, put your hand up and the whole room.

Jeff Holman (28:45)

You're supportive of the you you may not want to lead out but you're but you're supportive of a solution, so

Simon Bowen (28:50)

Yeah, you don't a solution that serves everybody. You're on the desire side, right? You're a volunteer, you're a you're a you're a hopeful, you're on the desire side. You want a solution that serves everybody. Some of you think you do have an answer, some aren't sure, but you want that who would be either in the volunteer quadrant or the hopeful quadrant? Everybody puts their hands up. And this whole thing is engineered. This choreography is very deliberate. The way I'm walking through this and punchlines that I'm delivering and things I and I'm going, Great. So we've established

That everybody in the room is to the right hand side of that matrix. They're on the desire side.

Jeff Holman (29:26)

Is that consistent with all group like like you don't have anybody is that because people don't wanna say that I'm fearful or I'm selfish or

Simon Bowen (29:33)

Yeah, they don't want to say it, right? So this is the key punchline. I go, Great. Everyone's to the right hand side. Can I accept that as true? And they go, Yep, yep, yep. And I go great. Okay. Is it okay with everybody if I call out fear based behaviour in the room when I see it for the next thirty minutes?

And let's just park fear and chase a solution that works for everybody. And they go, All right, let's do that. And I said, So all we're debating is what is the solution top to bottom?

Jeff Holman (30:04)

Everybody wants us.

Simon Bowen (30:06)

And so here's what fear based language is going to look like. As soon as I hear someone speaking against an idea because they think they will lose, we're going to call that fear.

Our agenda as a collective, is it okay with everybody if I also say, hey, if one group are going to lose, we don't have the answer yet. So we're going to stay in the top green quadrant where we've got to find an answer that works for everybody and an answer that everybody could support. Is that going to be okay? And they'd go, Great. Yeah. And they go, and I think I can also draw a model around what that answer might be and start drawing another model. And 30 minutes later, we have a framework that we can talk about.

because and the reason this works is, you know, we we we we have a lot of logical rationing br rationalizing brain. Yeah. And and then we have a creative brain, right? And the logical brain works in numbers and language, but the creative brain works in imagery and patterns. And the creative brain often can't verbalize into words the things it's thinking about. So you have to be able to give people

Imagery, imagination. You have to be able to give people something visual to anchor to that, you know, articulates dimensionality, you know, integration and things like that. That conversation about the two by two matrix and fear and desire and everything else would have been way harder to do if I was just standing in front of a room full of people speaking it. At

Jeff Holman (31:39)

Just lecturing at

Simon Bowen (31:40)

at them. Yeah, as as opposed to them building it on the board, right? Often in the room I'd ask them to label the quadrant.

Jeff Holman (31:46)

How important is it? Because you mentioned in the in this example that you've s you know, you've got a two hour meeting, you've spent ninety minutes of it letting people, you know, express their interests and you don't necessarily feel like I I I don't know if you said this, but it seems like there's not a lot of progress made until you say, Hey, let me draw this on the board. How how important is that first ninety minutes? Have you ever tried just jumping straight to the board and saying, Hey, I I know you got all all you you all have different opinions, but let me tell you how we get to a solution we can do this in thirty minutes instead of

Instead of a hundred and twenty minutes.

Simon Bowen (32:17)

it's it's it's really important. It's not always ninety minutes, you know. Sometimes I've gone there, like read the room and and sometimes, you know, within 45 minutes to an hour it's pretty clear we could actually jump to that. I think I could draw this for you moment, right? But if I go straight to the board and build the model, what I'm actually doing is expressing my opinion to the room. And so all I'm doing is putting another opinion in the room.

Jeff Holman (32:41)

Mm.

You're you're not getting buy in from from the people. You're not getting alignment.

Simon Bowen (32:46)

The room's already got enough opinions. Yeah. And and and and to ki to to form and hold on to an opinion, you need two things. First of all, you need information to inform the opinion. Mm-hmm.

But then to hold on to that opinion, you need ignorance. You have to ignore all evidence to the opposite. Okay. And so to hold on to an opinion that the world is flat, you have to ignore all evidence to the opposite. so you need to be informed and then you need to remain ignorant to hold on to the opinion. Opinion's flawed, right? And so if I go to the whiteboard and go, here's what normally happens, let me draw this for you. I'm just putting another opinion in the room. And what I you know what

What I'm doing in the first instance, remember, I'm trying to I'm just trying to get the room to get to agreement that they actually want to solve the problem. Right, right. And and in that I I have on occasions, it's rare, but on occasions, gotten to, I think I can draw this for you, and said to the room, I I actually don't think there's a collective will in this room to solve the problem. I think we should end the meeting. Yeah. Yeah, I've done that. And they go, No, no, no, we want to solve the problem. I go, I don't think you do.

Jeff Holman (34:01)

You're not in the right quad you're you're you're not in the right quadrants.

Simon Bowen (34:05)

No, I I I I don't think there's a collective will. What I would do is go back and report to the people that have engaged me that this group of people are not interested in solving this problem in a way that will work for everybody. Yeah. And so what they should do is just adjudicate

Jeff Holman (34:19)

Make a decision from the top.

Simon Bowen (34:21)

No, no, we no, we do want to solve it. And I go, I I don't believe that, right? Yeah. well let me test it and then I go to the whiteboard again. and you know, sometimes when I've threatened to end the meeting and just go and tell the people who are making the decision to adjudicate, the room does then align pretty sharply. But you've got to be bold, you've got to be willing to you know, draw people into the conversation.

And so if it's just me standing in front of a room full of people saying, I don't think there's the collective will here to do this, it's yet another opinion. But what happens is when you when you you know, if if you and I, you know, two little faces, me on the left trying to express an opinion, you on the right, the recipient of the opinion, whether this is a sale or a leader with a team member or whatever, I'm shooting an idea across to you, right? And that's a form of pressure.

I'm thrusting an idea into your thinking space.

Jeff Holman (35:22)

I might just reject that just naturally and be like, Whoa, I don't know about this.

Simon Bowen (35:27)

Well, every you know, as soon as any form of pressure is exerted on somebody, they react with equal and opposite pressure. Okay. That's the way the human condition is. So you will push back even if it's good for you. But in your your first reaction is to push back, right? And so this is the compete and retreat pattern of normal human communication. I push an ID towards you, you push back, even though the idea might actually be good. Yeah.

And this goes backwards and forwards, right? And so in the midst of that kind of dynamic, what what we would often interject is is a counsellor or you know or a coach or a third party, mediator. Yeah. I would call it mediator. and the mediator forms a triangle.

Between the two parties. And the triangle is super powerful because the mediator is a detached meta view, right? And the mediator, a good mediator, will go to the weaker of the two from a power construct point of view. So if the person pushing the idea forward is the boss and the person receiving it's the employee, a good mediator will go to the employee and ask, What's going on for you?

And that person will share an idea with the mediator that they would not have told the boss. Okay. Right? And so then the mediator can inform the other person, and the other person can go, I didn't realize they were thinking that. Yeah. And that other person can share an insight that the mediator can then share with the person and ask another question, get another sharing from the person back. And so you get this basically that the mediator is an intel gatherer.

Right? They're they're asking questions and instead of it now being face to face pe competing retreat conversation, the quality, the quality of the of the communication's gone up, right? What I figured out, because you can't take a mediator into a sales meeting. Yeah. And you can't, you know, and so I I I realized that I could replace the mediator with a model.

If I put a model between two parties and asked ask the questions through the model and share information through the model, it's not my ego sharing the information. It's not my ego asking the questions. It's the model asking the questions. And so when you put a model, even if I am the person on the left who's sharing the idea, the moment I say to to the person on the right, you know, as you look at this model,

What's that model sort of telling you? And the person goes, blah, blah, blah. Right, that's interesting. I'm informed. Let me share an insight. Had you looked at that part of the model, you know, what does that suggest? such and such. Now the model's carrying the ego of the conversation and it's now me and the other person side by side working on a model together. It's not me at the other person, you know, working on them.

Jeff Holman (38:40)

Is the model effectively because in the in the the the example with the two hour meeting and hundreds of people different opinion, is the model effectively doing the first stage of that meeting, the the initial sixty or ninety minutes of getting people to ag agree that they want a solution as opposed to agree on the solution?

Simon Bowen (39:00)

I I usually I would normally start it in a typical workshop format in language only and start capturing ideas on flip charts and things like that. And what I'm doing during the first hour is forming a view on the geometry of the model. Geom models are models are geometry, dynamics and dimensions, content, what what's in the model, and then which is context and

con concept. Yeah. and then and then choreography. How am I going to walk through the model to get them to a certain point of realization? What's what's the pathway and the punchlines in the model? And so I'm often figuring out I always start building a model with geometry first. And I'm often figuring out what's the best geometry to deal with this. And then you know, is it a triangle, is it a circle, is it a Venn diagram? Is it a spiral? Is it a two by two matrix? is it a simple

continuum from left to right. And then and I'm looking for the simplest possible geometry to contain a complex conversation. And then then I then I would usually use models to help them with their thinking to get them used to thinking in models. Because we've been we've been installed in us is to think linguistically and language always you know has

limitations in terms of what it can do for us. and then so when when I'm ready to actually put put the challenging models in front of them, they're now used to thinking in models. And they're they're not they're not they're not unused to me drawing on the whiteboard and putting it up in front of them. You know, when I present at a conference, I do a lot of keynote speaking and I never ever use PowerPoint. I walk around with my iPad drawing and it's going up on the screen

Jeff Holman (40:55)

So you're dynamically creating this as as you as you go.

Simon Bowen (40:58)

And and people are taking photos and everything else. You know, it's a very, very powerful process.

Jeff Holman (41:03)

Well, it seems like I I guess back to my question, the it seems like you're not necessarily telling people, hey, this is the model, but if you by by utilizing models, as you get to the point where you present the model, it kind of is that same question, hey, is this is this a framework that we can use for our discussion? Right. Yeah.

visual for us to have this discussion? Do we want to have the discussion this way? And how do you see this impacting or or have you seen experien examples where, you know, a a an internal team within a a company, maybe it's a leadership team, maybe it's, you know, middle management, maybe it's a a division of a company. Have you seen examples where people come in and and have tried to have conversations that don't go well?

And then you're able to bring in a co you know, this type of models method and and facilitate a different conversation.

Simon Bowen (42:12)

Yes. we I do a lot of I've you know, I do a lot of strategic planning organizations. And one of the challenges with strategic planning is that people are generally b back to your point from earlier, right? If you step back and look at the bigger picture of say an executive team or a planning team in a room doing strategic planning, when you step back and look at the bigger picture, it becomes really apparent really quickly

That the people in the room are all thinking at different levels. Okay. And they're never going to arrive at a at a sensible strategic plan while they're all thinking at different levels. And so I would walk into the room and I'd draw three overlapping circles in a vertical column, right? And I'd say, you know, when it comes to strategic thinking, there is only one, you know, there are only two reasons for strategic thinking, folks. What are they?

And it all of this is choreography, right? It's facilitation choreography. What are they? I'm actually challenging the room to tell me what you know. Wha there are only two reasons for strategic thinking. Think about the simplification of that. I've reduced all strategic thinking to only two reasons. What are they? And they and and usually no one says anything because no one's ever asked them before.

Jeff Holman (43:35)

They're they're on the now they're curious or they're defensive one of the two, right?

Simon Bowen (43:38)

Yeah, right. And I go, well, the first reason for strategic thinking is so that the company survives, right? That you know, the world's changed and you want to survive. And then the second reason, therefore, would be that you thrive. And in order to do that, you must be relevant, contextually relevant to the marketplace. Yeah. A species only becomes extinct when it fails to adapt to the environment. Now your business environment keeps changing. Nothing you can do about that. Yeah. Do you want to stay relevant?

And they go, sure. Do you want to be more relevant at competition so you can thrive? Absolutely. Great. So we agree why we're here. The output of strategic thinking is ideas in the overlap between the top circle and the middle circle. That that's the output. And so management teams like this come away with a whole bunch of strategic ideas they're going to share with the organization. And then those ideas become tactical, which is the middle circle. And tactical

exists for one reason, right? What is that reason? I mean just listen to the language and the choreography. I'm not telling them stuff. I'm letting the model carry the ego. I'm not sharing opinion. I sort of am, but I'm always using questions. So what is the reason for the tactical layer? And they have a big conversation about that and I go, repeatability. Business is the art of turning ideas into

into reality in a repeatable fashion. So tactical is structure, systems, projects, etc. All the stuff. Yeah. And so this becomes, if you like, protocol. How the organization operates that then ends up in operational deployment at at the circle at the bottom.

And operations exist for one reason. What is it? And they go, to deliver. And I go, Great.

Jeff Holman (45:41)

Yeah.

Simon Bowen (45:43)

So we're going to get from survive and thrive to deliver. So, folks, for the purposes of this strategic planning, it's critical. And I draw a horizontal line across the circles, which I can move up and down. For the purposes of this strategic planning, it's critical that we're all thinking at the same level. Otherwise, if if if

Two of you are thinking at the top of that column, two of you are thinking at the bottom of that column, four of you are in the middle, and the rest are scattered around. We'll never get anywhere. So I'm gonna move this line from the bottom to the top, and then you just call out when you want me to stop, and I will hold that line to that level, and usually it lands about there, just under ideas, right? And I go, okay, I am going to keep the room above that line.

So anytime I hear conversation that sounds like it's falling below that line, I'm just gonna say, is that below the line? Okay. And if it is, we don't worry about that. We're just gonna go back above the line. And our job is to come out of here with the ideas, not the tactical mechanisms. So if I hear someone dropping into project language, that's that's after this workshop. But what we've got to come out of here with are ideas.

that you can hand on heart will s say will make us more relevant in the marketplace than anything else we could have thought of so that we survive and thrive what's happening. That's the job and that's what the strategic plan is gonna be. Does that make sense to everybody? Now I've just set some boundaries with a mod now I would never get to that conversation without the model. So I you know, I I use lots of different models. Our flagship model is a model called the genius model.

And we should talk about company genius before we finish because it's critical. Yeah. but I use models for everything. I use models for leadership. I use I have project I have project management as a models based methodology. I use organizational change models that I've built and designed. you know, I I I use models for everything because it it locates people into a conversation. Bus the two biggest systems, the two most important systems in business.

Are the system for thinking and the system for influence. And yet people don't view them as systems. But every business is only as good as the thinking that it's built on. The idea that it's built on and the quality of thinking inside the business. And then your ability to influence the choices people make in support of you. Customers to buy from you, staff to work hard for you, suppliers to serve you, banks to fund you, regulators to let you operate. Business really is a function of.

How good is your thinking and how effective is your ability to communicate and influence? and yet we don't think of that, we don't even think of them as systems. Well, models, visual models, are a system for thinking and influence. Yeah. They are a system for elevated thinking and accelerated influence. And that's that's what I set out to build: a system. When I realized thinking and influence are the primary system of any business.

Then I went hunting for what is the system for thinking and influence and it's visual models.

Jeff Holman (48:52)

This is this is striking because I as I'm sitting here and you're saying, you know, these are the these are the ways that business work. I'm I I bet there are people in our audience, CEOs, who are listening to this saying, What if I don't know how to do that? Like how do I like like this makes a lot of sense and the stuff Simon's explaining, like like I can see it on the board and I I like it. I don't ha I don't disagree with it. What if I don't have that skill set or what if I don't know where to start for myself to

Bring visual models into this. I y I I'll bet some of our CEOs sit there and they they think back on the last ten meetings they've had and they're all monologues, right? And then and then and they're like, wait a second, that's probably not very effective. What do I do? Well like, how do I change that?

Simon Bowen (49:36)

You know, the most common thing people say to is, Well, I can't draw, right? And my writing's terrible. People don't care. Yeah. They're they're th they're much more engaged when you're drawing than that than they are bothered about how neat your writing is, right? Or

Jeff Holman (49:52)

Even watching a PowerPoint, you know, slide after slide.

Simon Bowen (49:55)

Right? Because we are analog beings living in a digital world. Humans are analogue. Right? We have shades of grey and emotions and PowerPoint's digital. Click next, click next, click next. Whereas drawing is an analogue form. And then I I sort of cheekily say when someone says, but I can't draw, I I I say to them, draw me a square, draw me a circle, draw me a triangle, draw me a line. And they do it, I go, That's all you need. Actually, we're just you know, we're just making shapes with those we're just making geometry with those four shapes. Right. So

If you can draw a square, a circle, a triangle, and a line, you're good. You got all the bits, right? And then then it's just thinking about you know, models. So I I I I look for shapes. you know, I I I look for geometry. I I I fill my brain with as many different types of geometry as I can. And then I start thinking about how I could use that geometry. You know, there are books, the the 60 management models every manager should know.

you know the the eighty models everybody should know. Okay. And so there you know, there are you know, I didn't invent models, but I did bring this way of using them to the marketplace, right? Yeah. And so I would say just start drawing them. And you know what? If you draw a model on a whiteboard and it's not working, rub it out and go, I don't think that's the right model and and do another one, right? Don't worry about it, right? People will fall will become engaged in what you're doing. and it it's

You know, it's a skill like anything else. It's learnable. And the more you do it, the better you get at it, quite frankly. I mean, no CEO woke up knowing how to

Jeff Holman (51:28)

Yeah.

Simon Bowen (51:30)

CEO. You know. So just start drawing. And then you know, but the the really important thing is to recognize that language by itself is so limited and language is laced with opinion.

And what you really want to try and do is extract thinking out of a room, but locate it. Yeah. You know, don't extract thinking from a room and just let it float around in the atmosphere. A big part of what a model is doing is it's taking this thinking and it's locating it so that people can now see it. You know, they they and when people can see it, they can keep referencing back to it, right?

Jeff Holman (52:08)

And you're also you're also at least in the models that you've shown here today, you're using some visual cue to bring people together. Whether it's that that line, are we all on this line together or this quadrant or are we all on this half of the matrix? Like you're you're you're clearly, you know, you're saying, Hey, here's everything we could talk about today, but let's all let's all align on what we will talk about now.

Simon Bowen (52:35)

Call that the punchline, right? It's it's it's so I studied stage magic and comedy as a part of this because those two art forms are the most curiosity triggering art forms, if you like, and they both follow the same structure, which is a setup, set up, set up, set up, set up in a known paradigm for the audience. And so the magic trick or the or the joke is being set up in a known paradigm, and then in a heartbeat, the magician or the comedian

collapses the known paradigm and replaces it with a new paradigm, with the punchline or the reveal. Okay. And so I I adapted that methodology for the choreography of a model, for how you walk through a model. So, you know, when I was walking through those three vertical circles for strategic planning, it was like set up, set up, set up, set up. What's the purpose of strategic planning? There's only two setup. Right. why would you do that? Relevance, set up, right?

and so then, you know, the output of that is ideas, set up, and then that's gotta turn into strategy into tactics. What's that about? Set up, which then should turn into protocols and operational deployment. Why for delivery, set up, set up, set up. But the problem is if you think through the all three levels while we're doing this, you won't get there at all. Collapse the paradigm. How about we pick a level and put a new paradigm in and just talk about the top?

Jeff Holman (53:59)

Above the line, below the line. Yeah.

Simon Bowen (54:00)

of the line, below the line. So, you know, I'm using choreography from, you know, old art forms, stage magic and comedy, to to then become the facilitation mechanism for the model.

Jeff Holman (54:13)

That's that's fascinating. I don't know if some of the people in our audience will say, now that's easier or that sounds harder now. There's right, there's there because there's because there is a lot of a a lot of art to what you're doing. Yeah.

Simon Bowen (54:27)

Leadership is art. Yeah. Leadership is art. You know, the creative brain works in images and patterns, not words and numbers, right? And so leadership is as much about speaking to the creative brain as it is about speaking to the logical brain. And y you know, when you use models, because they it's not you know, it's not fine art, it's not free form art, you're not sketching people and things like that. You're actually

addressing both structure and and creativity, if you like, and bring it together into a model. And it you know, it's it's it's just interesting. We and and a lot of people say to me, so the way we generally engage with people is to codify what I call company genius. Yeah. Let's talk about that. And so we let's talk so when you think about a company, you know, a a a company exists to for commercial reasons to make money.

I'll I'll draw this as well. It's more complex, but I'll try and explain it for people who are on audio only as we go. If I put company at the top of a page and and the company is defined by the vision and mission statement, a company exists for commercial reasons to make money, and it should exist to project value into the marketplace to serve. Okay. So, you know, there should be a cause that it exists to serve, right? If if a company just exists to make money, it you know, very quickly people

we'll sort of see through that. And then w it's measured by the impact it has in the marketplace in terms of the products and services that it delivers. And so, you know, we we organize the mechanics of the company.

And you know, a very well understood organizational design model is the McKinsey seven S model for organizational design. Well understood organizational design model. And the McKinsey seven S model means you end up with standard operating procedures, workflows, organizational structure, technology, et cetera, et cetera. And that creates consistency.

And consistency down this right hand stream with the pays divided into three columns. Consistency says to the market, to the customer, you can rely on us. And you know, when a when a company is eight out of ten or above in consistency, the referral rate goes up tenfold. Consistency is the customer experience, right? They're consistent. Down the other side, on the left hand side, is the magic of the company. The magic of the company.

Yeah, magic. Okay. And the magic of the company is the people. And you know, my culture model has values in the middle and then there's a model around it, but culture, people, is the magic of the company. And you have culture for one reason, and that's to create organizational character. And when someone says that company has character, who they are, who they are, i you know, has character, we can trust them.

The way they work is consistent, we can rely on them. We've got the left and the right hand side of these three columns down the middle of the page from company purpose at the top down to impact at the bottom. Okay. But I I kept seeing this gap through the middle and then I really kind of locked onto it when I was doing some work with a gold mine on a small island off the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea. And I've got to get a two thousand strong workforce who speak pidgin English to adopt safety procedures, right?

They don't read formal written procedures. Yeah. And so I started mapping chaos theory, which is the self-organizing system, and I built a model for the safety system out of chaos theory. Okay. And that became what I now call the genius model.

Chaos theory is the self-organizing system. And the genius model says this is our model of thinking down the middle. Here's how we think about the problems our customers have and the way we solve them. Here's how we think about it. Okay. And I built this model called the genius model. Here's our company genius. Here's the logical stuff that we do that everybody understands, how we organize ourselves and everything else. But particularly for founders.

This is the thing I saw as a founder and started a business to d to address it, right? Here's how we think about the problems we solve for our customers. And the market says they have serious capability. Therefore, we can believe them. And in an AI world today, believability is as critical as a currency as trust. No one knows what to believe anymore. Was that video real or not? Right. So

You know, we can believe you when we when we know you have capability, but you need to demonstrate that to us. and we need to be able to see what's different about you. What is different about most companies is how they think about the problem they solve for the customer. And yet most of the time it's hidden in the heads of the founders. Yeah. We we know how to extract that company genius into a single visual model, we call the genius model, okay, that you can explain in seven minutes or less.

So, you know, do you manufacture and design do you design and manufacture components for submarine constructions? I can show you how to explain the way you think about that in a single model that takes less than ten minutes. You know, are you a financial planner? Are you just talking about investments, four hundred one Ks, tax minimization? Or are you explaining how you think about protecting the financial future of the people you serve? I can show you how to explain that in a single model that takes seven to ten minutes to explain.

How you think about it is actually your product, not the products and services themselves. And you know, how Simon Seneck's you know, start with why is really valuable work. Yeah. But why gets you heard? How gets you chosen? Okay. You know, why why gets you why when when they go, you know, Simon said people don't care what you do until they know why you do it. It's not 100% accurate.

The more accurate statement is people don't care what you do until they know they are the reason why you do it. The

Jeff Holman (1:00:55)

Okay.

Simon Bowen (1:00:55)

only why that matters for any company is the customer. The customer just wants to know that I am your why, right? And when I hear a why that's all about me, I'm going to listen to you. And then my next question is going to be well, how do you solve my problem? How do you solve my problem? How why gets you heard? How gets you chosen? And the how is your company genius? The how you think about.

the customer and their problem and the solution. But if you but it but if you only have that in words, what often happens is that the deep, profound creative thinking that the founder had originally can't can't be captured in words, right? New new new people come into the business. The second tier of salespeople are selling, the third tier of salespeople are selling. All of a sudden they're just selling on the back of product and service specification.

The founder's original thinking is diluted and dilution leads to market commoditization. Internal dilution leads to external market commoditization. Okay. When your team dilute the thinking, you're just like everybody else in the market.

Jeff Holman (1:02:03)

just

revert to the revert to the mean average. Ha how how does the the how in the center for people who are s who are seeing this saying, well wait a second, I thought our processes on the on the side there, I thought that was our how. What what do you mean? Like what's the difference between the how versus the processes?

Simon Bowen (1:02:21)

So so the the the the the mechanics of the company are linear. They're you know, they're generally linear mechanisms and they are they they are a form of how, mm, but they're a form of how that just delivers with consistency, right?

Jeff Holman (1:02:40)

Just consistency for reliance purposes, really.

Simon Bowen (1:02:42)

Yeah, yeah, correct. The how through the middle, the company genius, is you figuring out the i well the the customer the customer wants to know above the line, if there's a horizontal line on the page, first of all they want to know, do you truly get it? Do you get it? How do I know you get it?

Like I had cataract surgery, right? which means they replace the lenses in your eyes. Okay. I really want to know that ophthalmologist gets it. Like they're gonna go they're gonna c go into my eyeball, smash up the lens of my eye with a laser, suck that out. I'm going I'm gonna go blind when that happens. Yeah. Then they're gonna put a rolled up prosthetic lens in and pop it open, and then I'll be able to see through that new lens.

Jeff Holman (1:03:39)

You don't wanna just you don't want them to just step you through the procedure and just say, well, first this, this, the i i that's not the how, right? That's the process.

Simon Bowen (1:03:47)

They've got a lot of procedure, right? I want to know who gets it. Like I want to know you get it, right? And this sounds terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. So I want to know that you get me. I like dentists are classics, right? I want to know that you get it. I want to know that you're a that that you you get dentistry and how important it is. Dentistry is the window to physical health.

A big part of the job of a great dentist is checking through the mouth for other health issues in the body, right? And I want but but what are most people worried about with a dentist? They're scared. Yeah. Ask the average person how good their dentist is, and they'll go, he he calms me down. He's fat like they have no clue whether they're good dentists. Yeah. But they get the fear thing. And then below the line, I want to know that you've got it.

So now that now that I know that you really understand this ophthalmology thing and cataract surgery, how do I how do I know that you're really great at it? Okay. Right? And so I say to him, how many of these have you done? And he says, that's not the right question. I go, really? And he goes, No, you should never ask a surgeon how many of these surgeries have you done. You should always ask a surgeon, how many of these did you do last week? Hmm.

He said, I did fifteen of these last week. I do five hundred a year. I've done five thousand. Haven't had a failure yet, right? And then so okay, I know you've got it. I know you've got the skill. So I know you get it. You've got the thinking. I know you've got it. You've got the skill. And then the fourth thing is I know you've I know you've got me. You've got my back. You've got me covered. So this sounds terrifying because you're awake while that that cataract surgery is going on.

By the way. Yeah. And it's only 15 minutes long per eye. But I know you've got me. You know, there there'll be a an anethatist there with a calming you know drug or whatever they're gonna use. so I know you get it. I know you get how important this surgery is. I know you get it in terms of the the the the depth of understanding of it, but I also know you've got it. And so the genius model, company genius.

is this. It's the how on that stuff. Company genius is you understand the deep ache that your customer has that they can't even put words to. Mm-hmm. You know, they they come to you with a problem that they can articulate, the non problem. In my world, people say we need to drive more leads and sales. Sure. I go, great, no non problem. Then then there's the hidden problem that they know that they've got they know you know they've got it, but they don't want to talk about it, right?

So the the hidden problem, so the you need more sales and leads, yeah, great. the hidden problem is we we're really bad at sales. You know, we suck at selling. but I don't want to talk about that. You know, I I I don't want to say that we suck at selling, so I'm just gonna tell you we need more sales and leads. Okay, right. but the deeper problem, the unknown problem. The unknown problem is the the real genius you bring to the marketplace.

Has never been codified and can't be explained. So, how could your salespeople ever sell effectively if if they don't even know what the genius of the company is? They're just selling products and services against the specification. So of course they sound like everybody else, and they end up saying to you, we need to lower our prices. Yeah. Because they're just matching spec for spec, because the deep, profound genius that the company was built on was never captured and codified.

The source code of the business was never established. And so this deep ache that the salespeople have or that the founder has, you know, emerges in language like, how come the market can't see our value? You know, how come people keep reducing us to price? We do amazing things, but we can't get traction in the marketplace. That's all known and hidden problem. The deep ache is.

You aren't sharing your core genius with the marketplace in a way it can understand because you're trying to use words and language and and you know it's it's more organic than that. Yeah. And so what if you what if you walked people through a model and in seven to ten minutes it says, here's how we manufacture and supply parts for submarine construction and the person looking at it goes, You guys get it. You get you get me, you get what we're trying to do. It looks like you've got it. Looks like you've got the skill set to do this.

And looks like you'd have our back as you do it. I'd like to talk to you. By the way, what are your delivery systems like? Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. We've got all the tech, we've got all the process, we've got all the protocol, we meet all the standards, we hit all the mill specs, blah, blah, blah. But we have this real genius about what we do. Does does that make some sense, Jerry?

Jeff Holman (1:08:47)

It

makes makes a lot of sense. And I'm thinking of you I've talked to a lot of people, our audience has heard from a lot of like, you know, EOS implementers, for example. And I think as you're describing the company genius, I'm like, maybe this is what has always felt like was kind of missing from the EOS side. EOS feels very process oriented. You know, even a little bit of people, right people, right seats, stuff. But but it doesn't talk a lot about it. I guess it's I guess it says something about like

You know, what w I don't remember the right words, it's what's your guarantee or your three promises or but but but it's not really capturing the the essence of why you're doing it with the people you're doing it with for the people you're doing it with. Does that make sense?

Simon Bowen (1:09:32)

And and and to and to sufficient level of detail that everybody gets it. So I think of company genius as the source code of the company. You know, in software, source code is the lowest human readable layer. Yeah. and and then it goes through machine compiling and then it goes through modules and then user interface. But if there's a problem in the source code, it eventually it shows up in the layer. Yeah.

Jeff Holman (1:09:59)

Two ways, for sure.

Simon Bowen (1:10:01)

And

Company genius is the source code of the company. If it was never ever documented, how does everything above it, how does every layer above it, your processes, protocols, marketing, sales, how does all of that populate, right? Well, it generally populates based on what the rest of the market are doing, as opposed to this is the real genius that I brought to the market. And you know, I you know, how and and I've got a framework, we've codified this so people can understand it, the source code of the business.

Jeff Holman (1:10:28)

So for somebody listening to this saying to themselves, I think I I think I need that in my business. Like I've we've got processes, we've we've got a great team, but we've got these these holes, maybe these, you know, company genius you know, voids or something. where would somebody turn to to to get this? Do they need to fly you out and have you have you come to the company?

Simon Bowen (1:10:47)

Yeah, we we work well, we work with people one to one. We can do all of this over Zoom. Because we use models, we can extract so when we work with companies in our consultancy, we just need people on Zoom. You know, we need the the the key thinkers on Zoom and we pull it all out of them and we build the models. We know how to do that. We've done with we've done with companies of all sizes and every industry you can think of. for smaller companies,

you know, we we also have a group process that they can go through. Yeah. Where my team works with them in small cohorts to extract company genius. But i you know, what we're doing is extracting the deep thinking of the company, putting into visual frameworks and models and we're actually writing the source code of the business in these models, right? And so two formats, the the consultancy for larger companies and the group process for smaller companies.

And you know, company size and complexity is usually the determining factor on which one of those pathways they go down. but certainly, you know, what we've come to recognise over the years that we've been doing this now is it's very hard for people to see this from inside. You know, the the the models that we use actu with our facilitation actually do the extraction.

And then what happens is once people get it's a suite of models that we build, five models that we build with them that become that company source code. And then what we see, which is actually my real joy, as people start using those models to explain what they do to the marketplace and internally to the team, they start to become models based thinkers and communicators. They start using models in other ways, they start inventing their own models, they start, they they start working at a whiteboard because they've got

structured models already that they can work with that we've built with them, but then they the the brain shifts and they start using circles and triangles and squares and lines to explain other things. They turn into model space thinkers and communicators.

Jeff Holman (1:12:55)

It's pretty amazing what just unlocking some of that right brain visualization can do at at every level. You know, we talk we talk here on the show about breakout moments for companies and, you know, what kind of transitions happen in a company, but but also we talk about breakout moments for, you know, CEOs, maybe in their internal leadership, th their leadership moments also. So having having the ability to kind of

put all of that into visual models sounds pretty exciting, frankly.

Simon Bowen (1:13:30)

it is. I have I have CEOs that hire me on like a monthly retainer who they say, I'd you know, I might not talk to you every month, but when I've got to do a big presentation, I wanna be able to get on Zoom with you and build the models for it and and get them in my head, then go and do the thing. If I'm gonna talk to all the staff, I wanna I wanna be able to do it through a model. And I just wanna be able to jump on Zoom with you, build a model and away we go. Because my art form is being able to

I hear and see and read conversations in models. Yeah. And so as soon as someone starts talking to me, I start seeing a model. Very because my brain's trained that way now, having done this for so long.

Jeff Holman (1:14:11)

Well and someday you'll have you'll have the you'll have maybe the the biblical reference book for models for business models. Yeah yeah. Simon, I I really appreciate I hope I haven't overextended my my stay here with you. We've we've talked about so such engaging stuff that I I see I've spent quite a bit of your time, but I really appreciate you coming on the show and and sharing this. sharing

You know, some visuals, sharing a lot of the insights behind the visuals. It's a very intriguing concept that I think a lot of our audience is going to connect with.

Simon Bowen (1:14:47)

it's been a pleasure being here and thank you for the opportunity to talk about it. I mean it's that's my mission. You know, I I want to make visual models the vocabulary of business. Yeah. You know, that it's it's it's very really transparent. It leads to much more honest, higher integrity conversations, you know, which is better for everybody. And you know, business needs to be successful because it is that forceful good on the planet. So I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about it.

Jeff Holman (1:15:16)

Yeah, that it that's the service you're you're bringing. So if somebody wants to get a hold of you, what's the best place but for them to visit?

Simon Bowen (1:15:22)

Well, modelsmethod.com, O D E L S Method dot com. but I think if people are also listening to this podcast, I'm I'm happy for them to send me a direct email to Simon at modelsmethod.com or maybe just reference Jeff Holman in the in the subject line, so that I c you know, recognise the connection. you know that d they want to send me a question or, you know, further questions or anything else, I'd be really happy to answer them. So

modelsmethod dot com and Simon at modelsmethod dot com referencing you.

Jeff Holman (1:15:56)

It's very generous of you and you've been generous with your time. So thank thank you for coming on the show and joining joining our audience and sharing your insights today.

Simon Bowen (1:16:05)

Been a real pleasure. Thanks, Jeff.

Jeff Holman (1:16:07)

You're welcome. And thank you to our audience. those of you who've joined us again for another episode of the Breakout CEO. We really appreciate you ha having you here and sharing these insights with you.

Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you enjoy the show, a rating or a review goes a long way. Our mission is to promote the stories of breakout CEOs in scaling SaaS, e-commerce, and tech companies, to equip peer CEOs with valuable perspectives and confidence. Thanks again for joining us on this episode of the Breakout CEO. I'm Jeff Holman, and I'll see you next time.

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