Ross Saunders (00:00)
Hello everyone and welcome to This Is Not What I Signed Up For, the podcast for the new manager teaching you how to swim so you don't sink with your new responsibilities. And I'm very happy to welcome today Brent Spilkin, also known as Spillly with three L's. Now Brent has been a big part of my career. He was a huge enabler for me when I started one of my businesses in South Africa and he was my business coach for a long time.

And I attribute a lot of the success of my privacy consulting business to him. ⁓ He's a great guy and I'm excited to have him on board. So welcome to Spillly

Spillly (00:35)
Thank you so much, Ross. Wonderful to be here.

Ross Saunders (00:37)
Yeah. Now you've got quite a colorful background, ⁓ in terms of business, ⁓ and, and that side of things outside of just the coaching. And I'm very keen to chat to you about this because prior to being a coach, you had several successful businesses in food production, residential property and more. And now your coaching clients are spread throughout the world. And I was looking on your website, generating hundreds of millions of dollars across your coaches, which is.

Spillly (00:45)
Hmm.

Ross Saunders (01:07)
That's awesome. The coachees, I suppose.

Spillly (01:09)
Hmm. So I mean, mean, my journey was was. don't know the word is like unplanned is probably the right the right word. I studied architecture and never finished. I landed up in a what was a small food manufacturing business that I thought I'd be there for a couple of months and landed up here for many, years, like 17 years in total. It was for 15 of the 17 years, very successful financially. And then

We had a few items on the risk matrix.

that were all existential but highly unlikely and over a two year period, of four out of the five actually transpired at the same time. And we went from a very profitable business to a loss making business very quickly for a long period of time and eventually got out of that business in what I call a very unsuccessful exit. The opposite of what a normal exit is. But I was thrown into that business with zero, zero business experience, knowledge, education.

pre-internet, pre-chat GPT, pre-coaching wave where coaches were everywhere. ⁓ And it was very much, you know, single swim, figure it out as you go. And I was dealing with very complex pieces. I was dealing with ⁓ a very immature supply chain. I was dealing with very uneducated labor force.

I was dealing with very mature retail buyers and retail systems. So like a mix of all these things. And I had to learn a lot around how to run the business, how to get the people to do what I needed them to do successfully without too much pushback.

I had to learn how to sell and get people who are formally trained in buying to believe my dream and to spend money with me. And it wasn't all plain sailing by any means, but I learned to fortune and through that journey I also had a German business coach that really took the blinkers off the way I thought about the business. And that stuck with me enough that when I got out of that business in 2012, that's the career path I've chosen. So since October 2012,

Ross Saunders (03:16)
Hmm.

Spillly (03:20)
It's coming up to an anniversary soon apparently, but I've been doing this full time and predominantly business owners. Historically, it was only really in the service space, so media advertising, comms and tech and a couple of consulting sort of practices. But over the last four or five years, for a couple of reasons, ⁓ COVID, me being bored and selfish.

the AR wave, which worries me about my clients' future in certain categories of business, I've brought it starting to sort of more traditional analog businesses, manufacturing, logistics, farming, stuff that's bigger, broader, slower, probably a bit more impenetrable to AR and just interesting to me again.

Ross Saunders (03:58)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Spillly (04:10)
But through the journey, I've dealt with a lot of very mature business owners, by mature meaning well-educated, 20 years plus experience in the seat, and then guys that are just starting out and making their first hire and figuring out how to speak to them and manage them and so on and so on. even though the majority of my clients have been business owners, make no mistake, they're also first time managers.

It's like, you know, they're not in a corporate, but they're managing their suppliers, they're managing their teams, they're figuring out how to manage salespeople or specifically managing creatives, which is a whole different category of management. Exactly. you know, completely. Well, software development is lot easier than actually a lot easier than creative. ⁓ But none on average. But nonetheless, lot of lessons learned. And then people are always looking for

Ross Saunders (04:40)
Hmm.

hurting cats like software development

Hmm.

Spillly (05:09)
frameworks and solutions to problems that they're dealing with. And a lot of them have been solved traditionally, so you can copy and paste certain ways of thinking and dogmas that do work. But then there's always the nuance of culture and maturity of the business and the values of the people that you're speaking to. And then you've got to solve differently for different problems.

Ross Saunders (05:23)
Hmm.

Yeah. I think you've hit on something there and kind of where I want to hit you with a first question kind of thing. And I mean, from what you were saying as well, I think I was one of those first time managers as well, first time owners when I was dealing with you. I, that was gold. But when we started talking about coming on the podcast chair and we were chatting about like kind of where we're going to go, one of the things that came up was communications.

Spillly (05:35)
Thank you.

Ross Saunders (06:02)
And I think with you saying now, you know, there is that when you're a first time manager, you've got the, you're managing supplier relationships, perhaps you're managing clients, you're managing teams internally. There's a lot of managing is not necessarily just one kind of person. And you talk to the values and things like that. And I think when, when you are an individual contributor, you're the only person doing your role, you're a specialist or you were a senior or something like that. Your communication style could be very.

kind of internal, I guess. But when you move into management, I think that communication skill set and style perhaps changes. And I'm keen to get your view on that because now you've got these different values and different systems and different people. What's your thoughts around that and how it starts differing when you suddenly get into the management space?

Spillly (06:54)
So, I mean, it's such a big conversation piece, right? But I think, well, the first thing is that there's obviously different kinds of management. So there's management up, your boss, your stakeholders. There's management sideways, your peers, and there's management down, people that report into you or below you on the hierarchy chain, depending on the kind of organization you're in. So you approach those differently because you do have a different...

Ross Saunders (06:57)
Yeah.

Spillly (07:19)
position in those conversations depending on who you're speaking to. So understanding your position and who you're speaking to is probably the first piece. The second thing is, you know, always with the greater good for the business ideally. it's even if you selfishly want something to be done or need someone to participate or

or trying to do something for your own benefit in the role that you're in, you've always got to apply the lens of, what's my position in the relationship? And does this solve other the big strategic, you know, the goal towards the goals of the business or some kind of, you know, overall, overall initiative within the business? Otherwise, you know, these little pieces, they may seem insignificant day to day, you know, moment to moment, but you layer those on and suddenly you're going in the wrong direction.

Ross Saunders (08:10)
Hmm

Spillly (08:10)
So

I think good managers firstly understand that there is no, you can't paint everybody with the same brush. So it does take time to sort of understand the people you are speaking to or the person and get a sense of who they are and what are their drivers and motivators and the opposite of that too. So what things would stop them doing work or put them in, know, put their back out. And then you've got to try and not maliciously but

coax them to get things done potentially. It's a very rudimentary way of thinking about management, but management is around allowing them to do things. So depending on the culture of the business, with autonomy, i.e. we're empowering you to make decisions, but in some organizations, they're not structured like that and not wrongly so. Sometimes it's a little bit more dictatorial or ⁓ less autonomy within the business.

Ross Saunders (08:43)
Hmm.

Spillly (09:09)
And again, not right or wrong, depending on the business owner and depending on the way that business functions. So you also got to understand the way in which the business functions determines the way in which you manage. And sometimes people's natural management styles are well suited for that kind of organization or they're actually incorrect for them. And very often you hear people going, you know, why did you leave your previous job? I wasn't given the freedom. Or...

Ross Saunders (09:29)
Hmm.

Spillly (09:36)
I was left to my own devices and no one was managing me. I actually wanted more constraints, more gardens. So understanding how you manage and who you're managing based on who they are is a huge initial piece. Unfortunately, you can't just flip the switch. You've got to spend time to understand and that requires that initial conversation. And hopefully HR or whoever HR is, you know, the head of human people.

Ross Saunders (09:50)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Spillly (10:03)
has recruited someone that's right for the organization beforehand. Otherwise, you're left with someone that's difficult to manage.

Ross Saunders (10:08)
Hmm.

Yeah, that

does get very difficult. I've seen that many times. You hit on something there that I think is very important and something that I've seen in a lot of new managers as well. that's still keeping in mind the business goal of that communication as well. I've seen it a few times with folks where, you know, they have moved from perhaps being working with peers. So they,

Spillly (10:14)
Hmm.

Ross Saunders (10:40)
We're in a team of people, a manager leaves and then one of the people in the team is promoted. And it's a different vibe then as well, because you may have been very good friends with all your teams, but now there's a balance that comes in way more with balancing the business interests. And a lot of the communication style has to bear that in mind now as well. And I've found a lot of new managers don't bring that in because these were my friends, we're working together.

They come to decisions, they make arrangements, they communicate while everything happens. But like you say, it can move in the wrong direction then because the decision is made sort of as a group of almost friends, I suppose, without holding in mind like, okay, well, we actually have a strategy to get to. And as a manager, you now have a responsibility for that as well. So very, very interesting point there.

Spillly (11:26)
So I think that

in that scenario, it does also depends whose decision it was to promote that person outside of the group. Because that person's responsibility is to communicate to the group effectively why this has happened and why him or her and not you and the clarity of the role division between those people. ⁓ And then it is... ⁓

There's a phrase being, you must be friendly with your peers, but not friends. And there's a very subtle difference there, but it's an important difference to realize is that you can be jovial and friendly with everyone in the organization. But as soon as you're friends, does judge.

Ross Saunders (11:57)
Hmm.

Spillly (12:12)
It changes the way you engage and it can make it far more difficult to actually have harder conversations should those people not be performing. You're deemed to be punishing your friends or that becomes very messy. So it's got to be dealt with very, very subtly, I think, in those scenarios.

⁓ I also think what's important is that people tend to forget that when you look at at an org chart, know, organogram, we have the people set out with their role, their title, their name, maybe sort of the headline of what they mean to be doing, the sort of the key KPRs. But what we forget is that there's a line joining people together in that structure. There's always a line, right? And that is the reporting line. And

Ross Saunders (12:55)
Hmm.

Spillly (12:58)
People say, yeah, that's a report too. But I'm going like, well, what is the report? And the report is, what does the person above you need to know from you? So what do they need to know? When do they need to know it? Why do they need to know it? And in what format? So it can be a text message, it can be a meeting, it could be a formal written out report, it can be a meeting, one on one, one on many, it can be a Slack chat.

So it's figuring out that that line of communication is important. And everybody below needs to know what does my line manager or my boss actually want from me? Why does he want it in what format and how often? Because what you tend to find is that for both parties, the manager then in the hallway, you know, the cooler talk, will like, hey, Ross, where you with this report? And then you're caught off guard. Did you need it now? And you actually don't need it now.

Ross Saunders (13:53)
Hmm.

Spillly (13:57)
But it creates pressure and then it's like he's always asking for stuff at the last minute and it creates the excuse me the The wrong bar between the two people where if the boss is going I want this report on a Friday by 2 p.m. In my inbox in a PDF format

then at least it removes the weird expectation of when does he want it, how does he need it? And then that's often where the communication breaks down. Because a lot of communication is actually quite formal. It is a report to some degree. So all of those touch points should be mapped out. And that removes a lot of the friction often within organizations.

Ross Saunders (14:15)
Hmm

Yeah, yeah.

Hmm. That managing expectations is, is very, very valuable. I speak to it quite a bit in the book as well, like a whole chapter dedicated to it. But you, so you mentioned something in there and I love the kind of looking at that reporting line and the report part of it. think that's awesome. But you, you mentioned also there, ⁓ going up the chain to, to someone above you or who you're reporting to.

So speaking to that managing upwards and managing up the change, I think you've hit on some of the points there, know, there is that, how do they want it? When do they want it? Things like that. What do you think are some of the things that a new manager needs to be really aware of on the way up? And maybe this ties into also what we discussed a little bit before this was self-awareness and things like that. But where

How would you guide someone first time coming into how you start managing upwards to new reports as a manager now?

Spillly (15:43)
So again, broad question, but there are a few things, right? Is that ultimately, when I think about this generally, what does every business actually want? What does every manager need, need, right? It's one of one or a combination of the following things. Can you help me make more money? Can you help me save money? Can you help me save time?

Ross Saunders (15:46)
Mm.

Spillly (16:09)
Can you make me look good to other stakeholders? There's an ego piece there. Now, it's generally those four that are the combination. There are others, but those are often the major ones. So as a relatively new mid-level person who is reporting up into someone or people at large, the way you frame your communication, the way you produce your reports should speak to one or a combination of those four things. Because if you're telling someone information,

Ross Saunders (16:14)
Hmm.

Spillly (16:38)
and it doesn't tick those boxes within a business. Generally it's like why you tap, I need to know this. This doesn't help me, okay? Doesn't help me in some way. And make no mistake that the ego piece is often overlooked. Very often is that what tends to happen is that if you are making your boss look good and that boss gets the promotion,

Ross Saunders (16:44)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Spillly (17:05)
but he knows he's getting a promotion because you assisted him to get that promotion. Guess what? There's a gap above you, you fill the gap. So he gets promotion and so do you. And so the corporate ladder climbs. But I think the point being here is that it's the subtle things of I can send you a report or I can send you a report in a format that you can just send directly up the chain that makes you

Ross Saunders (17:31)
Hmm.

Spillly (17:35)
the manager looked like you produced this and you're a rock star. So if I remove work by formatting it, making it look pretty, making it look presentable, and obviously the right data, and you can just go, that's amazing, I'm forwarding it on, and no one needs to know that it's come from below me, but it's come from me, everyone thinks I'm an amazing employee. I know you're the guy below me that's helping me here.

Ross Saunders (17:40)
Yeah.

Spillly (18:02)
I will help you with whatever I can. And I'm saying that like, obviously there's some bad players out there, there's some bad actors out there, but by and large, people that are seen to be doing better and supported by people that are maybe underneath them, take them with or motivate for a promotion or motivate for an increase. So those things don't underestimate the power of those things. framing the communication is important, number one. Number two.

think being visible is huge. And I'm not talking about like your social media presence. I'm talking about being visible in terms of the way in which you show up at work. So managing up is also making sure that your manager is aware of what you're doing and how you're doing it, hitting those four sort of key things. And then it also is the psychology of it is to understand the motivators and drivers of your manager or your boss.

Ross Saunders (18:50)
Hmm.

Spillly (19:03)
Because if you understand that speed is everything to him, where saving money is not important to him, then you need to make sure everything you're doing speaks to speed. Because that will be, he'll be like, I love this kid. Everything he does is so quick, right? Where if it's all about saving money, frame it differently. So it's also understanding that person's drivers within their role and then their personal motivations and drivers so you can speak to those if you can.

Ross Saunders (19:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And think that comes back to the communications that we were speaking to in the beginning. It's like, have that communication, have that, like, you need to talk to people around you and actually find that out, your own team and going up with what you were saying in the first place with like framing it. I, what I normally tell a lot of the new managers is to almost come with a business plan when they're coming with something to the boss kind of thing. Cause it doesn't help saying, you know, Hey, we have a problem with X.

Spillly (19:40)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Ross Saunders (20:01)
And that's where the conversation stops. It's like, okay, well, what are you going to do about it? What's, what's the proposal? So I kind of come with a proposal there, you know, structure it. And this is perhaps a bit of coming from almost like a lecturing background as well is, you know, structure a golden thread through something. What's, what's your introduction to the problem? What's the context around it? You know, what is the problem? But then what is a proposed solution or a route forward or something like take some of the thinking out someone you're meeting above you.

Spillly (20:03)
Hmm.

Ross Saunders (20:30)
probably doesn't have the time to spend that time thinking themselves. They've put you in this position for it. So I think come with a solution, look at what the risks are. Flip side of risk is always opportunity. What is the opportunities that you come from? And you build that nice framing out, which I quite.

Spillly (20:47)
So

I talk about like driving versus doing. Doing is checkbox. You ask me to do it, I've done it. Driving is I've done it, I've taken it to the next step, I've thought about the risk, these are the three options, I've looked at the three options, this is the best option, and I've already engaged the next stakeholder. So it's the same thing. When you report that, don't just go, I've done the work, or you ask me to do it, I've done it. Try and figure out what...

How do you value add your solution? how do you like, I've done it and I've done something else, like the next step, where I've analyzed it, or I can make a recommendation, or I've started a negotiation, like take it one step further, where possible. And if you do have the problem, 100 % don't go to the boss and go, I'm stuck. Okay, you want to go to the boss I'm stuck. I've looked at all the options, including A, B, and C. None of these seem to work.

I spoke to Joe in department A, in department, he also couldn't help me. Now I need your help. So it's, you've proven the fact that you've really tried to solve this problem as best as you can. You've chapped GPT the hell out of it and you still can't find the solution, then ask for it, right? And explain to them that I've got, I've tried things, I'm stuck because...

Ross Saunders (22:06)
Hmm.

Spillly (22:11)
The reverse of that is that I tell the owners about their staff, is that when a staff member comes and goes, hey boss, I'm stuck with A, B and C, even if you know what the answer is, even if it's obvious to you, you've it a million times, do not give the answer. Say to the guy, Ross, thanks for coming to me with your problem. I want you to go away 15 minutes, come back with three solutions. Think about the three solutions and which one you think is best and come present that to me.

They'll come back with solutions and if the three aren't right, give your solution, but make them think. But you do that every single time and train them so that the next time they get up from their proverbial desk to come to your office to ask for a problem, they go, ⁓ I know what he's going to do. He's going to make me go away and ask for three solutions. Then they think about those three solutions. Actually, one them might work and they go, actually, I could just try that. And they stop coming to you because you're training them to think.

Ross Saunders (22:45)
Hmm.

Spillly (23:09)
So like it works both ways, right? So come with solutions that you thought of which aren't working, or if you're on top of that person, push back in and make them go do the solution. It is a training. It's creating a habit is very valuable.

Ross Saunders (23:09)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah. that, that's also, I think back to, back when I was starting out and probably where I got into my first senior role, ⁓ in terms of like being an individual contributor and specialist. ⁓ I had a, a CTO who was very much along those lines. ⁓ and that was a good lesson for me as well. Like, no, he knew the answer and he would also send me away to go.

Spillly (23:30)
.

Ross Saunders (23:50)
come up with it and it was a very good exercise for me. I grew a lot from it.

Spillly (23:55)
And Ross, mean I think as well which is interesting to me just while at the of mind for me is that I fly down to Cape Town once a month for a couple of clients and I get the two hour trip there, two hour trip back and it's my two hours of selfish podcast time. Like that's where I get the most amount of time. And two months ago, and I can't even tell you where I heard it, but it's not mine. I think it was Brene Brown.

Could have been. Or Susie Orman, I can't remember who was. But she spoke about this principle of the 15 puppies in the cobra. Have you ever heard that? No. So it's very simple. Here's the scenario. You walk into a room and on the left hand side are 15 cute little warm puppies. And on the right hand side is one spitting cobra. Where does your attention go?

Ross Saunders (24:31)
No.

you

Spillly (24:48)
goes to the cobra. Okay. So, but what's amazing about that is that 15 amazing things versus one bad, and we actually look at the one bad thing. And she's speaking about human nature. And I think a big part in management is that we are geared for growth and savings and risk mitigation, i.e. cobra. And we tend to ignore the 15 puppies.

Ross Saunders (24:49)
I would be looking there, yes.

Spillly (25:16)
And what tends to happen there is that very often with communication up and or down is that we're only ever talking about the cobra. It's the problems in the business. It's the risks. It's the pain points. Right. And we're negating the good stuff. And I think it's really important that you balance the 15 puppies in the cobra when you are speaking to people, because if your narrative is always

Ross Saunders (25:25)
Hmm.

Spillly (25:44)
Bad news, solve a problem, there's risk, like danger, danger, danger, red flag. And we never go, but by the way, well done here, that's amazing, know, good stuff. Just a sprinkle of that occasionally. That is often very, very poor management. And it's natural for us to go, here's a problem, let's solve it. And business is predominantly that, right? We're predominantly solving problems in a business. That's what management looks like, more than anything.

Ross Saunders (26:01)
Hmm.

Spillly (26:13)
But we do solve it and each time we solve it, we create a new warm fluffy puppy. But we move on very quickly to the next Cobra. So it's figuring out how to make sure we do communicate the good, not just the bad. And we recognize the successes, not just the gaps in what we need to close. And that, for some reason, has stuck with me for the last couple of weeks because I see it everywhere. The conversation is always, let's get into the weeds, the dirt, the pain.

Ross Saunders (26:32)
Yeah.

Spillly (26:43)
We never stop and go, well done for something or see the goodness in the business.

Ross Saunders (26:49)
Yeah, I think just bringing that down into an individual team and experience of mine as well is that is very valuable. I used to look after call desks when I first got into management and call centers and no one ever phones a call center for something good happening. The call center is there for when something goes wrong. And in those teams, it's like very important for a manager to be aware of that as well. And everyone's getting bad news all day.

And people in the team are going to think, what is this crap product we're selling that everyone's always complaining? It's actually a fantastic product. 1 million users are satisfied. Three are unhappy. But in the call center, you just see the bad. So it's very important to balance that as well. And that makes me think of that kind of space.

Spillly (27:39)
And as I say, the ratio is generally is 1 to 15. 15 good, 1 bad. Generally, right? mean, some businesses are going through tough times, but generally that's true. But everyone's focusing on the one bad thing. So it does help to figure out how to balance it. And if there is no 15 puppies, then acknowledge the fact that we're all in this together. We're all trying to fight the cobra together. We need to kumbaya around it and try create

the warm safe conversation around the negative thing that we're dealing with. I found that also very valuable because we don't, we just, we literally just hacking away and hustling through the, going back to the cobras, but all these different cobras, all these different, the dragons we have in the business,

Ross Saunders (28:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No. Great. Billy, I'm looking at the time. We're coming up on time. So this has been fantastic. I love this conversation. I've always enjoyed these conversations with you. And it's very raw and

to the point, as I want to say, and I appreciate that. If our listeners want to follow you, find out more about what you're doing, where can they get in touch, watch something you're busy with at the moment?

Spillly (28:41)
Thank you.

So I'm spilly everywhere with three L's, S-P-R-L-L-L-Y, website spilly.com X.

Instagram, although I'm taking a bit of an Instagram holiday for the last year or so, it's been a while. ⁓ Definitely find me on LinkedIn, Brent Spilkin. I'm probably the most active there. And then two of my mates and myself have a fun podcast we put out every once in while. Basically three old middle-aged white guys dealing with midlife crisis and the desire for more toys and more time and just enjoying that. So you can find that on YouTube. It's called The Threshold.

It's actually on all the platforms but I tend to watch on YouTube because it's always better for me to visually see it. Otherwise, I'm easy to find. Easy to find.

Ross Saunders (29:38)
Great. And we'll include those details

in the show notes as well. So for listeners, can find the links in the show notes. Spillly, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been great.

Spillly (29:49)
My absolute pleasure, Ross. Wonderful to see you again.

Ross Saunders (29:52)
Yeah, likewise. And to our listeners, thank you for listening today and till next time, keep swimming.