Episode 40: It Pays to be Nosy

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Nosy: an adjective of prying or inquisitive disposition or quality, intrusive. Merriam-Webster doesn't have much good to say about nosiness. We've all encountered nosiness: a nosy neighbor, a nosy coworker, a nosy family member even, and our desire for privacy forces an adverse reaction within us to these types of people. But is nosiness ever a good thing?

Well, according to our guest this week, when it comes to company finance, yes, it literally pays to be nosy. Hey, it's Luke here with another week of SphereCast, and this week Xenia and I speak with Andy Bray, Chief Financial Officer at Sermo. Sermo is a social platform, connecting more than 1.3 million healthcare providers across 150 countries. This physicians-first online community allows clinicians to communicate about issues that are important to them and their patients. In no other industry is mind-share more important than healthcare, as sharing expertise can literally mean saving lives. The sum is much greater than its parts.

Bray has held financial positions in various companies across many different industries, including an early run at one of the “Big 4” accounting firms. Having seen and experienced much over the course of his seasoned career, he offers a unique perspective on what makes a good finance department. But one prevailing attribute that spells success in a financial professional? Nosiness. On the podcast, Andy deep dives on the value of curiosity in finance, offers some insightful leadership advice, and much more. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Andy Bray.

Hi everyone. Xenia's here, and today we're speaking with Andy Bray, CFO at Sermo. As our listeners well know, we always begin with our guests looking back for us and sharing experiences they feel prepare them for the leadership role. Andy, what comes to mind for you?

Hi, thank you for inviting me today, first of all. It's a good question. There's a few specific moments I can think of, but I kind of prefer to look at it almost in chapters of a career that have kind of helped make me the leader that I am, and I think that's why I'll break that down a little bit.

I think what's been key for me and I see on a lot of people is simply kind of getting out of your comfort zone. So firstly, moving to different countries and experiencing different cultures, I think professionally that just builds you up so much that you look at things differently. It's not just from a professional environment, but also then having to live that personally and growing as a person. As whatever leaders we are professionally, everything comes back to what you are as a person. I was lucky enough to do that in Bermuda with the insurance industry, but I got as much out of that professionally as I did personally from that life experience.

In a similar vein of thought, I think differing roles are very important as well. So, I mean, I'm an accountant by trade as a lot of CFOs are, but certainly had, I would say it hasn't been that traditional CFO trajectory going from an accountant to a controller, to an FD, to a CFO. Within insurance, been in underwriting, been in strategy, and then before being CFO at Sermo, I was COO of a startup company. Those differing roles, again, give you that broader experience to very much understand people and what the broader team are working towards.

Again, within that, which I'm touching on, is that kind of experiencing different companies. I think it's so different working in a big corporate to working in a startup, be that a single-figure workforce or even kind of getting up to 100 people. I think understanding there the challenges, which are often quite similar between corporates and startups, but just looked at so differently. I think that whichever environment you're in, I think understanding how you can look at those differently is very important for that overall leadership view.

And then finally, I think it'd be remiss to kind of mention, I think, the last 12 months or 18 months now for those of us that have gone through, well, all of us clearly have gone through COVID, but kind of the challenges and difficulties that that has posed everyone. Again, personally and professionally, I think I've grown immeasurably in that last period going through kind of everything we've had to go through personally, but also kind of having challenges professionally and working through to a successful outcome. I think that then only makes you a stronger leader, and one kind of a phrase I heard recently, the strongest trees grow in the strongest winds, I don't think could be anymore apt for a lot of people at the moment having gone through this tough 18-month period that we're hopefully now kind of seeing the end of.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I agree there that a lot of the organizations or companies that have survived through this period, they will get even stronger as we come out of this period. So that's true. There are those that are struggling still, and probably at some point those companies will sadly have to go under or whatever happens. I wish them all the best. But we have seen a lot of businesses coming out really well in this climate.

Indeed. There's exactly two sides to that, and I think those companies that perhaps haven't managed to get through it, I think there's lessons to be learned from that, and every experience like that should absolutely be taken positively and how you can use that going forward to everybody's next challenge.

Completely agree there. Andy, I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier, so the comparison or the contrast between working in a corporate environment and a startup. So what do you find most fascinating about working at a startup, or vice versa if you don't feel there is any kind of edge working in a startup? Maybe it's a tricky question.

No, it's a good question. Having been in a corporate environment, I'll have to get my years right here, probably the first 15 years of my career kind of going the Big 4 to then a listed insurer route, I always thought I was kind of a, if you like, a corporate guy. But then I absolutely love that startup environment. I think the biggest thing there is knowing that you're literally sitting in a room, if it's a true startup, or maybe not during COVID because you'd be sitting remotely, but certainly pre-COVID, everyone sitting in a room and you know that everyone in that room is accountable and responsible for whether what you've committed yourself to is going to be a success.

That creates a wonderful culture if you've got it right. I think that just simply isn't the case if you're in a big corporate because it works both ways. Either you can do successfully well in your team and someone's done something silly on the other side of the world and it impacts the overall company, or vice versa, you can get protected because if you do something wrong, it's more likely than not not going to blow up the whole company. So I think having that in that startup environment, it very much focuses the mind to know that the responsibility is key, that you're all in this together.

I think it's worth saying where I am now, at Sermo, we've been around for 20 years. It'd be tough to call Sermo a startup, but we're constantly focused on that startup mentality because we kind of see that benefit of being able to move quickly, be agile, and then be able to make the right decisions that are linked to the correct long-term goals. I think we are, we're not a big corporate either, so we're lucky enough to be in that position that we can move quickly, but kind of have that be beyond that startup, but not far, far from being a kind of staid corporate.

It's funny that you say this. We've recorded a podcast episode with a CEO, and what she said was like even if the company will grow, they would always try and have this balance. What she explained is that 20% corporate and 80% startup is the kind of right formula to keep the organization going in that way, and that way they could just have some things behind the curtains, and then there is some transparency needed. So that was her number. Do you think there is such thing as you can do a percentage in this world, or maybe the corporate world will change and say, "Okay, let's go startup way and change some stuff"?

I think that's right, without getting too specific on the percentages. That feels about right because you certainly want that startup mentality to be the driver, but it's important that 20% to have that governance, to have that process in place that everyone is still working within what is hopefully a flexible structure, but also still there is a structure there to be able to deliver. And as I say, and I'll repeat probably a few times, having that ability to be agile and to move quickly. I think, yeah, 80/20 definitely kind of feels the right balance.

I'm going to dive into some tough questions here. I'm assuming you have to spend a lot of time on analytics, PowerPoint presentations, and things like that. What is your preparation process for a meeting with a board where you'd expect some tough questions from an audience that might get lost in the density of the analysis? How do you extract the highest level of thought to share?

That is a good question, Xenia. Firstly, it is impossible to be able to answer every single question. So I don't think that should be something that you're going into a board meeting kind of necessarily preparing for every eventuality. I think the best way to be doing that is to certainly prepare and be very focused on what you're trying to deliver and that you're answering what are the strategic questions that are on the table. And for that, you therefore clearly need to be very clear what your vision and what your goals are. So they need to be identified. We need to then very clearly address them and then have very simple KPIs to be able to get there and to show how we are delivering as a company. That's how any leadership team and certainly myself as a CFO needs to do.

And I think I have to talk about Sermo a bit here. And now having been here for five months, I can already see we're in a very strong position because we are focused. We are limiting risk and we are keeping things very simple. And that's what we need to do to be able to deliver on what our goals are. We're a social network for doctors and we have a business model where we're very focused on that social network and growing that social network alongside our market research capabilities. Within that, within the teams, have the same objectives, but various strategic goals to how to get there.

So within our mission of revolutionizing real world medicine by connecting doctors, with that mission at the heart of everything we do, we're able to be agile and to make short-term decisions to get there. But they need to, going back to your question, they need to be very firmly addressed to what our goals are and that we're being very clear with that with the board. So just on that point, to be clear, I've answered your question, the decks just need to be absolutely ferociously focused on what the company's objectives are and what those strategies are we have in place to meet them. And if you know your numbers, even if you can't specifically answer maybe a detailed question that's gone down a route that you weren't necessarily expecting, if you can bring it back to those strategic goals, if you're on top of everything, you should be able to very much be able to respond to any question.

Interesting. Very interesting. So I mean this is just a bit off-topic. How often do you have to do this with the business, with the leaders in the organization, like yourselves, your peers? Do you do like a monthly town hall or like what kind of meetings are these where you talk about values or some goals and strategic objectives and bring everyone together and just a check point to see where the organization is progressing or how?

Yeah, again going back to my point, we're in a great position because we are so agile. We have, which probably isn't out of the ordinary, maybe this goes back to the 20% corporate angle, we have court—

I wanted to mention that as well, that this is the 20% coming out.

Sorry, say again?

I wanted to mention too that this is the 20% coming out when you talk about the values and to see if the company is going with whatever the strategic goals and objectives were. And I think this is the corporate side that is really sometimes missed out when you have a startup because people can have different personalities and different directions and everyone's doing their own thing, so yeah.

Yeah, no, you need it. You need that. So we just, the structure is probably not that exciting. We have quarterly board meetings and we have bi-weekly leadership team meetings. But I think within that, our leadership team is constantly talking, constantly making sure we are still aligned. I think, yeah, that ultimate structure is make it at that board meeting, but we are completely aligned to make sure we're on top of that on a regular basis. I think that it goes back to your startup point, right? You don't need big corporate where you have to come together in a very formal setting every quarter. I think we're doing it consistently.

Interesting. I want to focus on some of the KPIs, and I don't know how your organization calls them. I know other organizations call them OKRs. But what are some of the business dynamics that you're trying to better expose and measure within the organization?

We're in a very strong growth phase at the moment, so we're trying to keep it very focused, very simple. So for me as a CFO, I think really it is looking beyond that spreadsheet, though, and looking at what those KPIs are. I think without kind of divulging too many of the key KPIs, it is quite simple. We're looking at growth, both from a financial revenue perspective, but also from the social network perspective. And then we're looking at simply EBITDA margin. It's making sure we are making money now, and we want to continue to do that as any company does.

So again, it maybe goes to that point that we are moving beyond being a startup, and we are certainly growing, but also being profitable. And we need to continue that. So if we focus on those two things and making sure that we've got the handle on the various lower-level KPIs that are within that, we will make sure that those key KPIs are being kept to, and that we'll continue to meet our goals.

That's interesting. Would you be able to share with us some of the goals that you have for Sermo maybe for the next few years? Let's say five.

Certainly, I'm going to sound like a bit of a scratched record, really. It is on growth. It's absolutely on growth. We're an established market leader and we want to continue that and make sure we're going into the next three years and continuing to take advantage of the opportunity that is there. I think that's just that's quite simple for us.

You mentioned earlier that you've been at Sermo for the past 5 months now. So, interestingly, I'd love to understand when you entered Sermo, and I mean it's a small team, like you said, you're a startup, so obviously you work with a few different colleagues. So was there anything in particular that you found out like a particular metrics or some KPI that maybe the team was not focusing on and you had to sell that to that particular team to be, "Okay, as an organization, this particular thing is important to us. We need to focus on it." Was there anything like this? Can you share an example, and how did you get the buy-in?

Yeah, just to be clear, maybe I wasn't clear earlier, I wouldn't categorize us as a startup for sure, although we've got a startup mentality.

Let's call it scaleup, right.

Scale, yeah. I think in that in that five months, has there been one KPI that wasn't being looked at that I've magically come in and said, I wish I was that good, to be honest, that there was something huge that we were missing. I don't think there was. I think what I've come in and realized is—

Slack of focus perhaps, you know? Not missing, but people were not focusing on something. It was there, but it's okay.

Yeah. I don't think it's necessarily people weren't focused on it. I think it's part of my role in that growth is being very clear that we are growing that membership base. That is key, as you say, as a social network and our business model. The key thing we consistently have to be focused on is making sure, just like any social platform, that our membership base is growing and our membership base is active. So we have to keep, and certainly as a CFO, which as a lot of CFOs now, I'm not sticking myself on a pedestal at all, but having more of a strategic role than just a classically financial role, is just making sure that we as a company and as a finance team, just making sure everything we're doing is moving towards that membership growth and that membership activity level.

So I'm curious to understand if when you joined Sermo, did you get like an established FP&A team there, or was it, you know, more like people who were helping with some of these responsibilities, switching hats? Would love to know that, and then I have some follow-ups on this as well.

Yeah, I'd love to delve into this. I think just quickly before jumping into Sermo, my first role out of the Big 4, out of audit, was joining a new FP&A team at a large listed insurer. So I've kind of already had that experience about kind of developing an FP&A team. This is far too many years ago now, so kind of in a more junior role, but certainly exposed to seeing what was required to build an FP&A team.

So then when I joined Sermo, yeah, we do have a dedicated FP&A team. We actually call it commercial finance, which for all intents and purposes is the same thing, which was certainly before I took the role and then certainly came in was a big piece for me to be able to do my role. As that strategic CFO is something you absolutely need. To Peter, the CEO's credit, and the rest of the leadership team, that was already in place with a strong team.

I think the biggest part of what that FP&A team needs to do, again going back to a common theme, it's the people you have in it. And if you're going to have a strong FP&A team and they're doing what they need to do, not just doing their job, but excelling in it, you need to have that analytical mindset. You need to have that curiosity. You need to have that, if you like, nosiness to need to understand what is going on in the company so that you can look beyond the numbers and see what is going on.

So within, I think the key thing just with any team within FP&A team, and we'll probably come onto systems in a minute, you can talk about the systems, but if you haven't got the right type of person on that team to fulfill that role, that's key. And I'm lucky enough to come into Sermo that we did have that in place.

Yeah, I think you can have, you know, you can expose all the numbers, but if you need the the curious minds behind it to scratch them and peel them and and read between the lines quite often and make sense of those things. So yeah. So you're saying that you were very lucky to find these people already embedded in your team that you took over.

Yeah, indeed. As with any team, it's evolving a little bit, but yeah, we have that, and where one of the team members was kind of openly admitting that they were nosy, which I loved. Because I think you've got to be, going back to the same point, you've got to ask a stupid question, right? You've got, if the usual saying there's no such thing as a stupid question, but especially when you're new in an organization like I have, you've got to be nosy. You've got to kind of ask questions which maybe if you've been, to people that have been at the company for however many years make sense to them.

But then guess what? Companies, the world evolves, and maybe that's now not a stupid question. Maybe that's a question which is now very relevant in today's environment. And guess what? You suddenly think, "Oh yeah, actually, maybe we should do that differently. Maybe we should look at that slightly differently." So yeah, I love that curious, nosy mindset. It is just key. And I'm saying it for FP&A, right, or commercial finance, it goes across everything, really. I think you've got to have that same mindset.

You know, Andy, I think this is it's a it's a growing breed of professionals that I'm seeing in the startup culture that people are nosy and inquisitive and they want to know what other departments are doing, or other people are doing in the organization. And I think I see that this is something that a lot of the CEOs are now looking as as as a quality in people like when they hire these players or A players for their organization. It's becoming part of the interviewing process as well. We do a lot of this. We do a lot of this when we are interviewing people. Me and Xenia happen to be the gatekeepers. So anyone who is being hired in Sphere, we have to do their first interview, so we have a lot of we have a lot of you know, sessions on this and we've got trained how to find the A players and how to, you know, find that chip on the shoulder sometimes, like somebody out to prove something. So we look for these qualities. So yeah, I think it's becoming really important to the CEOs and the people who hire teams nowadays that they want these people who are curious. And I think this is one of the things that drives them to success as well.

Yeah. How am I doing then?

So far, so good, I guess.

All right. Let's go a little technical with this next question. Andy, could you tell us your experience with using data and new data management technologies in driving business?

Yeah, to focus on Sermo again, I'd love to come back and talk in probably six or nine months because we're at the beginning of implementing a new finance ERP system to the key focus of that. Like any system implementation, it's not just a finance system in a silo, it's making sure that that is implemented and we've got the appropriate management of that data and the appropriate technology that is just front and center.

Being a social platform with huge amounts of data, we also do have an extremely strong data analytics team, which we work very closely with. So within with that data analytics team, which isn't always immediately linked to finance, there's clearly a huge a strong link between the two. And so I don't want to use the word challenge because we're working very well together, I think part of the successful implementation of this system is exactly that, is that making sure the the data implementation and the finance finance system implementation is as seamless as possible so that the efficiency going forward is just going to be absolutely key to how we're then able to support the rest of the business and grow for the next 3 to 4 years.

In terms of being a little bit specific, we're currently using Power BI an awful lot, which is awesome, and we're getting a lot of our daily reports out of that. I think that will always likely be a key piece of what we're doing going forward, and we just need to improve that, what route we go to supplement that and the ERP system to support that. We're still figuring that out, which as I say, I'd hope if you have time, I'd love to come back in 9 to 12 months and give you stories of a true success story in this implementation.

Interesting. Very interesting. We actually as an organization have just implemented something last year. So we implemented our ERP last year, which was I think Oracle NetSuite, which we are which we are partners with. So we have we'll be doing a lot of implementations in that area for our business partners. Aside from that, we are now building on that and one of our this is work that we do for our clients. So our data practice lead is currently implementing a Qlik data solution, which will sit on top of our ERP and CRM and collect all the organizational data. And funny enough, I mean after this podcast, we have our quarterly business review, so we will all be looking at these things for an hour or so. Yeah. So yeah, I mean have you chosen anything yet, like in terms of the ERP system or the financial management system that you've gone for, or still thinking over it?

Yeah, no, we're very much still kind of going through a diagnostic phase and understanding exactly what we're doing. And through that phase, we are finding things that as as the point of the whole phase is is maybe take us in a keep going in the same direction or maybe understand things that maybe what we thought we were going to do maybe isn't actually right for how our how our underlying systems and data warehouses are set out. So yeah, we're still trying to figure out what the best way to go is.

So Andy, I read one of your comments on LinkedIn about agility and ability to embrace change. You have been a COO in the past and now as a CFO, how do you harness and foster a culture which enables agility and ability?

Oh, great, great question. You're one of the many people that read my LinkedIn posts then. Excellent.

I think I've touched on it, right? Agility for me is just huge and it's such a key attribute, and I think it's just massively linked to culture. I think and it's very important if you're going to want agility and be agile to live that culture and harness that. Importantly, culture gets used so much, and I almost hate using the word because I think it gets overused, but it's really it's what you allow to happen more than what you say with culture. So you have to encourage that environment where you can be agile, where you can listen to and and take on different views and different ideas and it's supported that those views are heard and listened to.

I think where things get mixed up sometimes, it doesn't mean you have to implement things based on those views if they're not right, but I think it's just so important that you get different perspectives. And by encouraging those different views, guess what? I think that often then people realize that you listen and then that snowballs and becomes more, and people are then more willing to speak up and more willing to say things. And I think that just needs to be embraced more. I've seen so many throughout my career where kind of it's the leader in the room speaks, and I'll I'll mention this a bit more later, and just it doesn't matter what anyone has to say, so they may as well not be in the room. It's madness. You need to be able to, if someone's part of your team, whatever level they are, you need to listen to them because they'll have a different perspective and something that you need to encourage.

So in that kind of you need to have the right people to be able to do that though. But at the same time, as every company and every team's different, you're going to have your nine-to-fivers that maybe aren't kind of always going to want to kind of put their head above head above the parapet, if you like, and just sit there and do their their nine-to-five and do what they need to do to get their job done. But I've seen it numerous times and I'm already seeing it, if you get that culture right, then guess what? They also start thinking about things a bit more and thinking, "Actually, maybe I could this could save me a few hours a day," or like, "This could be so much better to do that a different way. I will say something and I will suggest we do something a bit differently."

So I think that agility and that culture kind of goes hand in hand, that to to to be agile and have that agility, you have to have that right culture in place to allow that.

I think it's it's really important. As a leader, like I think you made a very good point that you have to listen to people. It's not about implementing those things, but it's all about making sure that everyone is heard and there is good morale in the team. And sometimes, you know, things you hear from other people, they open your eyes as well. So yeah, it reminds me of I read a book once and I think it was Obama's book and he quoted Nelson Mandela in that book, and he said somebody asked Nelson Mandela like, "How did you become such a great leader?" And what he said was, his answer was just one simple line. He said, "In any meeting, in any conference where I go, I'm the last one who speaks. So I let everyone else have their piece of mind, and then I speak last, and that's how you become a great leader." Yeah.

I couldn't agree more. Absolutely couldn't agree more.

Andy, could you describe your typical day for us, if there is such a thing of a typical day?

Yeah, good good question. I wish I could sit here and tell you that I have this perfectly structured scheduled day that I just repeat every day, every week, every month. I think that is either before COVID or pre-COVID. I think it's obviously as as we've touched on a few times today, it's quite a different environment at the moment that's changed how we work, I think long-term for the positive.

My first thing, I'll just touch on a few things as opposed to a kind of structured day. My first thing first thing, as soon as I tend to wake up early and I just have to get out, whether that's go to the gym or go for a run early in the morning. I love it in the winter actually when it's dark because it really just kind of you feel as if you are out there before anyone else is getting up. It's also pretty good in the summer at the moment when it's nice and sunny, though. And I think there's two things there, especially with busy days, it sometimes it is impossible to get out and do a bit of exercise, and you need to do that just for your personal well-being. So I always make sure I do that first thing.

I think I've changed a bit as I've grown up, that I use that time as much now to kind of think about the day ahead, listen to a podcast, usually SphereCast, obviously. And then just get my thoughts together of what what is on for the what am I trying to achieve for the for the day. I think just two other things to mention, which I think are key for me and a lot of people, and it is a huge benefit of COVID at the moment, I'm lucky enough to have three amazing daughters and an equally incredible wife. So I make sure I have breakfast with them in the morning and kind of see the world through their eyes, which is also quite enlightening. And it just means that more often than not certainly start the day with a smile on my face.

And then I think the second thing I'll just mention on my days is just you have to be strict, and I've begin to learn this, to block time in the day for yourself, whether that's to do a bit of strategic thinking, whether that's to kind of prep for meetings, whether that's to make sure you're you're not going through every email, but you're scanning the important emails. Just if you you need to block that time out or I don't think there's anything worse than kind of looking at your calendar and just having back-to-back seven hours of Zoom meetings. Because guess what? By the time you get to the fourth or fifth one that day, they're all merging into one and as however good your note-taking is and you're sitting down, you your mind naturally freezes on looking at Zoom all day. So I think it's much better both just for yourself and your team to just be strict on your own time and making sure, I don't want to call it personal time because that kind of suggests it's not work, but kind of that that me-time where you're setting things aside to focus on what you need to get done as much as, and it doesn't mean by any means that you're kind of ignoring your team at all, but it's just making sure that it's structured well enough that you're being able to focus on the key things.

I might sound like a guy who has many quotes, but something I read recently, because I was writing up an email, and it was from Tim Cook from Apple. He said, "The longer the meeting, the less is accomplished," you know, so really try and yeah, the more, you know, the longer it goes, the less is done. So yeah. Okay, with that, with that, I'm conscious of the time, so I'm going to run through some of the questions here. So tell us one thing that you wish you had known, you know, when you started your career, when you began it?

I'll go for two if I can be cheeky. First one, and I think I've done this pretty well myself, I think don't be afraid to make those career decisions that maybe not necessarily as orthodox as you think you should be taking. I think everyone has a long career, and the difference in perspective you get from going down a route which is not traditional is hugely beneficial. And I don't think at the time it sometimes feels risky. I think that risk is never as great as people fear it is, and why often they don't necessarily maybe go with the decision that they want to, and it's just too easy to stay on that same track. So that would be the first thing.

I think the second one, and I'll go for my own quote here then, Luke, which was from Sheryl Sandberg, although I'm not sure it was necessarily her who first said it, is, "Done is better than perfect." I think that is so appropriate in so many areas. Not just, I think this is corporate as much as startup, although I think it's very much aligned to startup mentality. That doesn't mean at all don't do things well, but it just means do things excellently and properly, but it doesn't have to be perfect. Excellence is not perfection and you're arguably never going to get to perfection, so don't try and seek it. But if you do that, if you do things to the best of your ability and get them done well, you can then move on to the next objective and the next task, and you get so much more done. I think earlier in my career maybe I did spend far too long just making sure things are absolutely perfect. And in short, I don't think you need to.

All right.

It has to be taken in the right context, though, that one. So I'll caveat that.

I think, you know, in the engineering world it's it's really common. So they always ask engineers to not overengineer something because they go for perfection and and then perfect becomes the enemy of good. And yeah, so that it's quite a common thing here in the engineering world where we operate, and we have to be conscious of the deadlines and keep those things in mind and come to the best compromise to get to where you want to be rather than trying to get something that you have in your mind, which fits the perfect image. So yeah, I completely agree. Those are really wise words, by the way. Yeah.

Yeah. That's why I said with the right context. Sometimes in finance, you have to be careful with it, though, because things do have to be right. But yeah, it's just always at the back of my mind, that one.

I think with with with all of us working from home, there's no line between, you know, when does work stop. So I'd love to know how do you manage your time and on top of it, how do you unwind in the evening, if there is such a thing?

Let me take the second one first actually, because I think that's so important. As you say, with that merger between kind of the gap between work and personal life just literally being a door out of people's offices or living room at the moment. I think you just have to, it's so difficult, especially if you're motivated and engaged to want to be on your phone all the time. It's pretty simple, right, and I've started doing it. You just have to leave the phone away from the living room or away from the kitchen, right, because it's you just find you I've tried not to do it, and then you do pick it up, and then you're not engaged with your kids or your family and you've just got to be in that moment, right? So you just have to be again be strict with yourself to create that barrier between the two. So it's it's quite simple for me in that, just leaving the laptop or the compute or the phone in the other room.

I think in terms of of management, it's I was talking about someone with this the other day actually. Again, going back to this new environment, and I won't I won't push on this too much, when everyone was in the office all the time, more likely than not, you kind of had a whiteboard in a meeting room or in the team room or out on the floor and you kind of had everything on there that was key and the task and the and the pathway to what needed to be done. I think that's that's just physically not the same now. So what I've started using myself and started to use with my team, and there's so many out there, I just love Trello. And I I do just use Trello a lot. I've been conscious at Sermo, as I say being in for five months, not to just completely impose that on the team and to kind of bring it in slowly.

But to me, that's kind of like the office whiteboard where everyone is able to see virtually what everyone is doing, which is so important for that collaboration, but then also being able to see what is priorities and where we're going. So for me personally, I'll use that myself, but then also starting to build that out more with the team.

Excellent. Excellent. I mean, we use Trello as well within our organization. It comes with Jira apparently. Jira overtook them as or Atlassian, I should say, the company that took over Trello. But Xenia, in Xenia, you have a product consultant who works with our partners monday.com, which is also a collaboration software, so we are familiar with this space really well. Xenia, anything?

Oh, so you you have Trello and monday.com?

We have both, yes.

Yep, absolutely.

We love monday.com. For for podcast purposes, we do the whole production process in monday.com, just so you know.

Mhm.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I've used monday.com as well. Yeah, I like that. I think I've kind of just, I don't know, I've kind of merged towards Trello more. I found it more useful.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Over to you, Xenia.

Amazing. I have some leadership questions for you here. So Andy, if you were able to go back in time 10 years, what would you tell yourself about leadership that you didn't know then?

I think about leadership, I think, oh, I'm going to repeat myself again, I think just go for that non-traditional path. I think that's that's key. And experience different roles, different industries, different countries and cultures. I think that's that's just so key. Leadership is just all is is about people, right? And you have to have that broad depth of experience to be able to understand people and lead people and know and know the best way to get things done.

So I think I think that would be that same point to for me that just to make sure that you sort of not just understand people, but to almost be able to sit in their shoes and know what's what they're thinking when you're sitting there as a leader, and to be able to understand where they're coming from. I think that's a that's just critical.

We're almost done with the tricky questions, just one more left. And that one would be: what are the most important attributes of a successful leader today? What are your thoughts?

Great way to finish. I think hopefully I'm not going to say anything too different to what I've touched on before with common themes.

I think the first one is, as Luke touched on, to listen more than you talk, right? I think that's just key, to be able to listen and understand different perspectives, and not just perspectives, but different facts and viewpoints so that you're using your team, you're engaging your team. And then once everything has been has been put forward, yeah, that's what your role is as a leader, to then make the right decision with all that in all that together. So then you're being a leader and making the right decisions, but you're leading in, engaging your team, and making sure everyone's voice is heard. I think that's a just an overriding principle.

I think one thing, and and I'm trying to get better at this, although sometimes don't get it right, is punctuality. And it's not just a matter, although it's a key bit of being on time for every meeting as a leader, I think you have to be, touching on what I said earlier, you have to be respectful of people's time, that if you do have time with someone set in the calendar, you don't change that at the last minute, you don't move things around because, guess what, you're their leader, and that meeting might mean everything to them for that day or even that week, and they've probably prepared for that. And so you have to put that team, you have to put your team first, and making sure that you don't change things around because something's come up for you, that you make sure that your team is as important as you are. And it works with clients as well, right? It's not just employees. You have to be punctual and keep to a schedule.

I'd say the last two are kind of almost a bit fluffier, I think. As a leader, if you're not authentic and you're not passionate, that that lack of being genuine comes across very quickly. And then that will spread to your team. And that has a couple of implications in terms of you're kind of wasting your time arguably if you're not engaged and passionate about something, and you could sort of really consider what you're doing. But you're also kind of chasing your team out, all right? They're looking for you as a leader to be driving things forward, and that you need you need that passion, you need that authenticity to be able to do that.

And then wrestling through these quite quickly, I think you just need to be very focused as well. Every company, there's so much going on. I touched on this as where we are as a leadership team at Sermo, you just have to be very focused on what needs to be done. And when things are going off on different tangents, you as a leader just has to make sure that you are focused on what needs to be done and that a slight tangent might be all right because that might be where the work has led to that you need to go somewhere different, but you just have to be very focused.

So I think to summarize that, I think be punctual, be passionate and genuine, but listen and be very focused on what you're doing and need to do.

I love that. I think being punctual is is really important. And I have been in those situations where in my previous organizations, the the leaders would would come late, and you are getting all excited for like two weeks preparing, etc., and then it's like, oh, anticlimax. You know, just nobody turns up and it's like, okay. That that kind of takes your it hits your morale, you know, within the

Yeah, and it lasts, right? It lingers.

Yeah, so you don't stay that motivated and like, you know, the energy goes away. Maybe you don't resent anyone, but you just feel like, "Hey, you know, nobody cares. I can just, you know, float now, or just go through motions," you know? So you lose interest. So I completely agree. I think those were absolutely important, vital points, you know, that you would expect from a leader, attributes, I should say. So yeah, thank you for sharing those.

Andy, I think we have come to the end of the episode. You were very kind, open, and transparent throughout the process and answered a lot of questions. So yeah, I want to thank you for being here, for supporting us. And as a podcast, SphereCast is growing fast, you know. We have been recording almost, you know, a few episodes every week now, and we'd love to have you back really soon in in about 6, 7 months' time. We'd love to know—

Yeah, let's do that.

—how Sermo is progressing and where you are and how things are going in life as well.

Yeah, I'd love to do that. And yeah, thank you for inviting me and the time, Luke and Xenia. You've been wonderful hosts.

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