Reclaiming the JOY of Business
Reclaiming the JOY of Business brought to you by Inspiring Business.
Your fortnightly gateway to genuine and authentic conversations with Australian based business owners and experts from all over the world. Tailored for business owners who are planning their exit strategy or are looking to remove themselves from the daily grind of Doing.
A blend of real and sometimes raw stories of how businesses owners, just like you, have made mistakes and found the lessons from those mistakes to grow and improve their business. A common theme is when the power of people and culture are utilised, the business makes a critical improvement in the business and a positive impact for all stakeholder.
Bringing JOY to business.
This is the second series from Inspiring Business, that had over 70 episodes between 2021 and 2023.
Steve Sandor, your Host is excited to bring these inspiring guests and to add bonus episodes for Subject Matter experts who will share their secret sauce on how to improve your business.
Reclaiming the JOY of Business
Scott Ko Series 3 Episode 5 Reclaiming the Joy of Business
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In this episode of Reclaiming the Joy of Business, host Steve engages in a thought-provoking conversation with curiosity advocate and business leader Scott Ko. Scott, founder of Color Space Gallery and former CEO of Leadership Victoria, delves into how curiosity can combat fear, inspire innovation, and transform businesses.
He shares his diverse career journey from consulting to social enterprise, highlighting the significance of understanding business systems and maintaining a curiosity mindset.
Throughout the discussion, Scott emphasises the balance between the mechanical aspects of business and the human elements, like trust and leadership, offering valuable insights and practical strategies for business owners aiming to foster adaptable, innovative, and engaged workplaces.
Stephen Sandor CEO Inspiring Business
Inspiring Business website
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I hope you are enjoying the new format for reclaiming the joy of business. What I've tried to do is bring shorter, sharper conversations with business owners. Talk about the their successes, but also their failures, and what is the future like for them, and how are they reclaiming the joy of business. I mentioned very early in the piece that what I'd be doing is bringing in subject matter experts on occasion to talk about particular areas. I met Scott Co and I was really keen to set up a conversation to talk about the work that he does, particularly in the area of curiosity. He's got a vast experience in the areas of education and government policy and running a small business and setting a startup and supporting businesses, and he's got a very interesting take on how we can work with our, I would say, left and right side, or the yin and the yang, the systems and processes and the human aspects of business. And so I, I, this is a longer episode. It's about an hour, um, but it's full of flavor and rich conversation between the two of us and again, I'm very fortunate to be in the front row of these conversations. I, I must apologize for the quality of the sound at my end. Not so much at Scott's end. Uh, it was just a technical issue that I had. Uh, and hopefully you'll be able to hear me fine, but Scott's the guest, and he's the one who you should be listening to. Welcome to Reclaiming the Joy of Business. Today we have a fantastic subject matter expert joining us. Scott Ko. Scott believes that curiosity is humanity's greatest gift and the most powerful tool in a fast changing world. He helps people harness the curiosity to move past fear and growing confidence. I might have needed some, a little bit be before we started. Scott. Um, he's also the founder of Color Space Gallery, recognized for its social impact and he was the CEO of Leadership Victoria, and is a sort after speaker. Scott addresses topics like the need for curiosity mindset in leadership and implementing innovation in business. So I'm really excited to be in the front row of this conversation. Welcome, Scott.
Scott KoThank you so much for having me, Steve, and thank you for the introduction. I'm really, I'm really glad to be here.
Steve Sandor (OD)Yeah, we've had some fun conversations before today, um, which is obviously the reason, um, I invited you here. Uh, the, typically the conversation that I have, I. With, uh, business owners is about their business and their life's journey. Um, you know, the mistakes that they made to get them to the successes that they have today. I, I've invited you along today as a subject matter expert in a particular area. So as much as you know, we'll talk about a little bit about your business, the audience, what they'll get today is more of the subject matter expert perspective, if you like, rather than just simply your, your business. So that for those of you who are listening, who are used to a certain cadence, this is the first one of, of the subject matter experts that I'm introducing. So, um, before we get into the subject, you know, your subject matter, so maybe what you could do is give the audience a, uh, the history of your business. Uh, so that obviously gives the context of so what, you know, how you can talk about Absolutely. Being a subject matter expert.
Scott KoYeah, absolutely. No, well, look, thank you so much for having me here. And yeah, I really enjoy some of the early conversations we've had, um, around business, around leadership, uh, around what it means to be, um, a business owner, but also just a person trying to run a business as well. Um, and. What, what I will do is link it all back into curiosity. The, the first thing I, I will start with curiosity just very, very briefly because I think it's important to frame this and then I'll go back in history to kind of lead you to this point. Um, so the first thing is, yes, I, I, I do talk quite passionately about curiosity, but I, I, the first thing I wanna, um, establish as a expectation for everyone is I don't, uh, think curiosity is just asking more questions. I think often we have this perspective, this interpretation of curiosity as, oh, uh, I, I love learning about new things. Great, fantastic. More power too. I think it's about how we know the things that we know and how we take the things that we know and apply them into business, into how we do things. And that's why I think it's really important that, you know, when we are, especially when we are business owners, we run businesses, we get as we get so used to how things are supposed to be, you know, we build up systems, we, because that's what business is. It's a, it's a system of ins and outs and value transformation that delivers something that we become experts in. And that's what we're known for. It's what people pay us for. But it's also the trap as well. It's the cognitive trap within it. And so that's why I think curiosity is so important and that's why I, I'm very grateful for this opportunity to sort of talk a little bit more about this. But what led me to this point is, well, when I, um. I, I, I'm one of those people that's had a real portfolio type of career and that was a, a real challenge for me and for my parents as well to, to really, um, grapple with because I don't have that traditional career type of career, uh, of experience, you know, where, you know, job in marketing, get an internship and then, you know, you go move, move up through the ranks. I kind of ping ponged back and forth across so many things. So I cut my teeth at Accenture, um, a big four management consulting firm. Did a lot of work in process engineering, uh, and then decided that I wanted to, it wasn't really vibing with me, so I went and did a master's of marketing, uh, because I thought, well, maybe I appreciate understanding how people think and maybe that's something there, like there was already a seed of a passion for understanding how people think the way they think. But then the course I found to be quite unis, inspire, uninspiring. And around that time I started to, to cultivate a deep experience, a, a deep interest in, um, how governments work, how society works, how people work in communities. And so I found myself back in consulting, albeit for a, um, pub for the public sector, uh, consulting for the public sector. So I did a lot of work there. Everything from establishing the project management framework for the NDIS rollout here in Victoria, all the way through to writing the public discussion paper for gender equality legislation. Just things that I never thought I would end up doing, but I did. And then at some point, halfway through there, I, I realized that I had stopped learning. I. So the work was bigger and bigger, but the work was the same at the same time. So I wasn't learning anything new. And so around then I really started to get into the world of business. And I remember a point on which I thought, you know what, what if I just started from scratch? Again? I, I lemme take everything that I've learned. I've got a great safety net. What if I push myself to try and start something a bit different? And that's when I landed on the idea of color space, which is my first primary, um, business, which is a social enterprise. And so for anyone who's never heard of color space before or come across this concept, basically think fresh flowers for an office. But with art, instead we come or my business comes to a hospital or a workplace, or a university or a government office, so to speak. And every three months we change the artwork around on subscription. We don't own any artwork. All of it is sourced from local emerging artists. Who share in the subscription, um, uh, payment and whose artworks are on display for sale as well. And so we're a bit of an anti gallery, right? We pay artists to exhibit their works for sale. And then on the other side of the coin, when working with businesses, um, it's about, well, imagine if you could get a, a refurbishment of your office for a fraction of the price every single quarter. You don't, you almost don't need to know all the social impact stuff that we do, but just know that you'll have a beautiful office to work in. And that change is what will trigger engagement and conversation and which is good for wellbeing among staff. So I started Color Space about seven years ago and uh, that was a big learning experience. And then we hit Covid. Uh, you know, we all know that was around what, 20, uh, 2020 or so. Um, and that then triggered another round of reflections of, well, here I am running a facility services business at a time when facilities were closed, what do I do? And so I went back in the tank and I looked at everything I did in my life and looked at, um, what was the thing that connected all of them. And that's when I realized actually. The way we think, the how we think about the world. Um, that was my own curiosity at play. How I thought about business, how I thought about designing tools and templates for government, how I thought about supporting other people through their leadership journeys, for example. All of that was under curiosity. And once I made that realization, an opportunity at Leadership Victoria popped up, I joined Leadership Victoria. Within a few weeks they asked me to step into the CEO role, and then I was there for another two and a half years to reflect that. And so now having both consulted for organizations run my own business. And I'm very proud to say that we're at a very, for a social enterprise, we are market sustainable and we have contributed over $200,000 to local artists as a part of doing good business. Right. And I've been able to lead a very, um, prestigious, uh, organization with a. Big network of leaders as well. And to bring all of this together, I've come to really reflect that a, a big part of whether it's running good communities, running good organizations, running good businesses, the way we think about them is really vitally important. And if we're not aware of how we think about, um, the work that we do, as in with fixed mindset in this way, we are not deploying curiosity, then that's what leads to businesses either being disrupted by the next wave of disruptions. It might be, you know, not being able to keep up with this extremely fast change of pace that we're seeing and just, and at a personal level as well, you know, that can put a great deal of stress in ourselves too. So how we think about all of this is really important, and that's why I'm so passionate about curiosity. Cultivating a curiosity mindset for everyone
Steve Sandor (OD)beautifully set up. That's, that's fantastic. It's, it really does. It's, I've, I've already got half a dozen questions that I'd like to investigate with you around this The audience is, uh, business owners predominantly, you know, they're running, um, businesses that range from anywhere from a solo operator all the way through to, you know, some man, some people in larger organizations. But the, you know, the, the podcast is directed at businesses that are in that sort of small to medium range where they've got a level of. F you know, staff involved so that they're, they're now having to communicate with people and give directions and have control and look at opportunities and growth, et cetera. So there's a particular, you know, it's the typical, you know, working on your business, not in it, but we haven't been able to, for some reason, we haven't been able to convince business owners that that's a good thing. That there's return on investment when you actually work on your business and take yourself out of the hub of the business. And, you know, and that, that's a, that's a common problem that, that a lot of businesses, business owners have. So, given that framework that we're, you know, that's the, the person that we're talking to at the moment, what would be a way, let, let me come back a little bit. You and I both have migrant backgrounds. Yep. It has formulated a. In me at least, it has formulated a particular way of thinking about the environment that I'm in. I wouldn't classify, you know, I'm, I'm white skinned, I'm born and bred in Australia, you know, grew up in Sydney. Um, all the typical, all the typical things that, that someone of my age would would've experienced. But I've always been sort of on the edge of the traditional Anglo-Saxon white male, um, in business. And I've always felt a little bit on the outer for that reason. Whether that's reality or just my reality, I don't know. Given that we're in this environment now where we are multicultural, you know, we do have this need to be concerned and caring for our staff regardless of their age, sex, creed, religious behavior, and given that we are talking about curiosity, what advice would you give a business owner who is faced with that particular problem or challenge, and how would they then go about formulating a way of thinking of being more, being more curious, learning more, rather than staying in their, in, in their knowledge bubble?
Scott KoYeah, absolutely. Um, it, it is a really interesting question and, and I appreciate how you frame this question because it, you know, it is, it's one of people, um, and it is really topical at the moment. You know, we're, I mean, ultimately we're talking to this world of, um, if you wanna give it a formal name, you know, DEI, we know that's in the news a lot at the moment. And if we. Depoliticize that, um, a little bit, just the idea that there is a lot of diversity that we want to encourage because different people have different ideas is a good thing, right? It's not, not a bad thing. Um, so we don't have to politicize that part of it. So how do we think about this then? And so this, this comes back to something that I think is actually quite important for businesses and business owners, which is you are not your business. Okay? Um, and so I wanna establish that as a, as a starting frame. And what I, what I really mean by that is a business itself is an entity, right? It, it, it, it exists as a system of we take inputs, we do things with those inputs to turn it into an output that people will then give us money for. Okay? And if we do that really, really well. Where we make more money back than we expend in doing it. That money can be used to then support, um, further investment. It can be used to support people. Um, it can be used for, um, you know, to create a living for all of us. And I think that is a, you know, being able to hold that separate to the people who work inside the business is actually one of the most difficult mindset shifts that I had to go through because when I started Color Space, I was the business, the business was me. And I really understand that because I'm, I'm living inside the business, you know, and it's really hard to separate the, the change that I want to make in the world because it's all me. I'm putting all my life into it. You know, I've left behind a, a, you know, a, a well paying job. I'm now eating two minute noodles because I'm trying to minimize my life costs and all that type of stuff I'm putting into it. And, and what do you mean that my business isn't doing well? What do you mean that, you know, like what are my margins? All those types of things, right? But I've come to learn that I'm being able to separate the two becomes really important and really quite healthy to think about because one is with, with every business, if we do it well, it, it's a system that can continue to perpetuate when we talk about a sustainable business, for example, right? It's one where the right people. Take the right balance of ingredients. They show up, they do the thing that it needs to do, and then we sell it to the right target market or the right customers, and we get to do that over and over again in a way that is joyful. Cool. So then we get to the messy part of it, which is people or Right, it's the business owners, right? It is the employees. And what's that? What's that quote? Um, business would be great if it wasn't for the customers and the people. It was, it's no wonder that some people kind gonna get into the tech space. Right. But I think within that is, is also some, some beauty as well, which is, yeah, businesses are set up by people, right? We, we start with a founder with a really good idea, and then over time we realize that the founder can't do everything by themselves. Uh, you know, it, it takes a group of people to do something well, so therefore we then start to bring different people on board. And therein lies the first challenge. Who do we bring on board that's gonna help us drive this? You know, maybe we need help with a, a marketing person because I can't do it myself. So, okay, I'll bring a marketing person on board, and now all of a sudden we've got different perspectives, we've got different ideas in the, in the, in the space. And so this is where being open to that diversity becomes important, right? Like different perspectives. But this is also where there can sometimes be a trap. And that trap is, well, are you clear what you need this person to do as part of the business? And so this to me is the two sides of this particular seesaw, right? It doesn't have to be one or the other. And this is what I mean by not needing to actually, um, politicize this, right? Which is very simply, well, if we, if a business runs well, it creates all of the extra benefits that everyone else, right? Then if everyone understands that, then we can work together in service of that particular goal. Again, that's not, that doesn't have to be super capitalistic. It's not just about making profit. But if it's a for profit business, then that's fundamentally what we are all here to do. And I've been through this mistake so many times where I've hired people and I've not been clear what, what they're there to do. Because I wanted to believe, Hey, I'm someone that can support all these different voices and I can work with everyone to empower them. But if I'm, if I've hired you to be a salesperson and you've brought on board all these ideas about how we can change the decor of the house and how we can have different, I'm like, that's cool, but you are also not helping do the thing that I engaged you for. Right? And so that's what I mean by having these two things together. And so when we talk about this curiosity component, I. The big piece of advice here is actually both. Do you know what your business is trying to do and you know what the system is trying to do? Do you know which bits are not doing as well as they could be? So for example, are your costs people costs really, really high at the moment? Or, you know, or are, are you finding that your, um, customer base is starting to dwindle a little bit? You're losing a bit of market share, for example. if you're clear on that, then you can go to the other side and say, Hey, everyone in the team, this is the problem that we're seeing at the moment. For some reason, our costs are really, really high. I don't have the answers. Could all of you just work with me on this? How might we cut costs if we don't do this well, I don't, you know, I, I would like to keep employing everyone, but if we don't do this well then that's going to be the result I. So please help me on this. So you can see how both of these things can work together, right? So system and also the people within it.
Steve Sandor (OD)And, and there's a, there's a tension there, isn't there always between those two? Um, and as you were talking, and I've made a, again, I've made a, a number of notes is, is, um, the business is an experiment. So if this is, if you've done it frequently, like with you, you've set up a, you've set up a business, the next time you set up the another business, you'll, you'll make mistakes, but they won't be necessarily be the same mistakes or they might even be the same mistakes because of the nuances of this new business that, that you're in. What, what I, what I, um, and this is a, you know, making assumptions are, are a big no no, right? Because you, you don't know. What I sense in the marketplace is that there has been, for the last 50 years, an emphasis in business on profitability. You have to be profitable. I think it's been misinterpreted in that you have to have, a profile that you have, that you attach meaning to, you know, so if I'm driving around in a nice car, you know, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, they, they, you know, Bentley, that's, that's their whole marketing stretch, you know, Rolex watches, you know, it's, it's what I, it's what I perceive other people to see me as. And so when you talked about, you know, we are lose, we're not losing money, but you know, we are, we've got expenses that are above a particular benchmark. Yeah. And I'd love to continue to employ you, but unless we come up with an answer, we can't continue. Right? Yeah. Now, the result might be that one of you loses your job, right? Or we all take a haircut and we all drop our, you know, salary until we over overcome it. So how does that, so there's a learning, or you know, this historic learning that I went through school, right? You, you know, you have to be right or wrong. Your grades determine where you are in the pecking order, and then you go to university or not, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So we end up with this, we end up with this positioning in, in, in society, in the business, in, in the business world. When you come up with that tension and the history that you've had, the way that you've dealt with this is. I don't wanna use the word fear, right? Because a lot of businesses care about, a lot of business owners care about their staff, and that's not what they do. But maybe the communication comes across as a bit threatening or miscommunicated in terms of its intention. Mm-hmm. And so what h how does a business owner with the right intention, not un, is it unlearn what they've learnt? Or is it, you know, how do they, how do they then reposition Yeah, totally themselves.
Scott KoWell, I think this is for me, when I, I go back to this point about curiosity being both the system and the people in it, because everything that I've just described before, and, and to your point, your of your question, right? By no means am I suggesting that, you know, it's always about making lots of money, right? It's, it's the business is a, in, in some ways a cold, hard entity. Uh, it, it is just a system of things that produces a number at the end of, at the end of the day. So understanding that really well becomes really important. Now, what you choose to do with that information. Now, this is where the people side comes in this is where the leadership side comes in. Um, two different business owners approaching the same business. Imagine they were both in parallel worlds. We we're both running exact same business, and you have two different business owners running it. One might say, you know, I want all the money for myself, right? Greed is good. They might think this way. And another one says, no. I believe in supporting people. That's, you know, I, I grew up in a very collectivistic society and that's what I'm, um, taught to do. Being transparent about both of these things is, um, that's the leadership side and that's the people side of it, you know, and it does come down to upbringing. It does come down to, um, different perspectives, right? And what's important. And sometimes it's, it's really understandable as well. And I think this is, this is the real challenge here. And this is where, again, this, this point of curiosity keeps sort of creeping up to it, which is, well, do we know enough about different leaders? For example, like a business owner, let's say a business owner says, you know what, I need to cut staff, right? And one interpretation could be, oh my God, how dare they, right? That's so selfish. But what if they weren't really paying themselves much? 'cause a lot of business owners, they start off and they forget to pay themselves. I've made that mistake, right? And so every decision is like, sure, I, I, I can keep you. But I'm losing money now, and I, I, I, I'm worried about my mortgage. I'm worried about my rent. I, I'm eating the cheapest food I can possibly get my hand on so I can keep this business sustainable. I mean, some businesses have gone through, some business owners have gone through this. So it, it can go the other direction in terms of the empathy for, uh, motivating behavior. And then of course, on the other hand, you can have ones who, you know, don't care about that at all and they just wanna be greedy as well. Fine. Um, but this is where sometimes understanding, uh, what can be really healthy is actually understanding what the business is itself. So, I, I know you are, you, you specialize often in that joy of business and business exits, right? And a business exit requires in many ways, a good understanding of, well, what is this business that other people are buying? It's that little separation from the business owner to the actual entity itself. And I argue that that's really healthy. I think as a business owner, a lot of our job is to try and create almost this, it's almost like a cruise ship, right? It does. It's got the right staff. It's, it's a classic factors of production. It's got the right staff, it's got the right resources, it's got the right capital, it's got the right system. It's on autopilot, right? But then the captain is the one that can choose where to go and they turn it on or off. And this is sometimes where you can see the captain, um, can often make, can sometimes make bad mistakes here. And I, I love to use the, I mean, it's a bit tragic, but the, the cost of Concordia, um, um. Disaster that happened a few years ago where there was, um, this cruise ship that will sail too close to a coast and the system underneath it, the autopilot was saying, don't go there. Don't go there. We are gonna crash. We're gonna crash. And the captain's like, no, I know. Better turned it off, crashed and it sunk. Right? So that's what I mean by someone separating the two, right. Like assistant set up to do, um, to, to protect people. It's there to be, and for it to be healthy, it can nourish people. It can all the jobs that, you know, that particular cruise ship was able to sustain because of what it was doing. All the customer serviced and then a quote unquote business owner overrode that for personal reasons. And that's what had a, had a direct impact on someone else. So you are always gonna get these two, this, this balance, right? So. Hence, being curious about it all is, is going, okay, well let's just look at it. Let's just look at the system, understand it, and then what do we think about it? And how do we think differently about that? How do we acknowledge our, our own personal backgrounds? Um, do we believe that greed is good? If so, well, where did that come from? Um, vice versa, am I being, am I protecting my own health and wellbeing enough as a business owner that I can take a hit to sustain everybody else? And that's gonna be a judgment call that is going to be different for every single business owner, especially as we're going into this world of uncertainty as well.
Steve Sandor (OD)I'm probably gonna say something that's not politically correct here, but, uh, let's go for it anyway. Go for it. Go for it. Um, and, and. You know, life's full of pendulums. I remember when I was 17, and then my very first job was, I was a laborer, um, in a, um, in a, uh, a guy, a demolition company. And I was on rooftops, you know, stripping tiles in shorts, no shirt, no, you know, sand shoes, no safety gear at all. And I fell through the roof three or four times. Wow. You know, and it was just like, oh, okay. I fell through the roof, you know? Um, and so, you know, I, I get, you know, safety is psychological safety, personal safety, physical safety is important. And it requires, there is an incumbency on the business owner. I. To ensure that that is, is available to all of their employees. Right. It's a part of, and we are getting to a point where we, I, I think we're getting a little bit ridiculous around compliance and legislation, but it's a pendulum, right? If we don't go there, we don't find the middle. So, you know, there has to be this, there has to be this tug of war between politicians, you know, union and, and business leaders to try and find some common ground that all they can agree with. So, so you know, there is that there. My contention has always been around this collective accountability. So having worked in large organizations, gossip is the cancer to the business. You know, people sitting around talking and whinging and complaining about. Their boss or the person next to them or the, you know, the, that they're not getting paid enough and they're, that they're bitter and twisted and angry. And, and then what they'll do is they'll sabotage whatever they can. Right. Um, to, for their own, for their own good. And so my contention is that it's a collective accountability. It's a bit like what you are talking about. You know, if I don't know the answer, then I need to be transparent enough to come into a room and be open and, and make a statement that I don't have the answer. I'm not, I don't, I don't know how to get through this, but the expectation is for the business owner or the boss to be seen, to be the person that has all of those answers. Mm. And so, given that, you know, we, we are now starting to get into, um, sort very deep. Leadership strategies, you know, mentoring, coaching, consulting, all within the, the realm of a business owner. Yeah. Can we just flip it now? So yes, we get that the business owner has that requirement upon them. How does the business owner then create that environment within their organization for their employees to feel as though they are able to make mistakes and be honest about that, you know? Mm-hmm. Either in a, you know, they've done something and they've, they've, you know, they've messed up. How do I, how do I, you know, come back to, um, you know, that honesty and openness, but the curiosity in that conversation, you know, of, I dunno, the answer. Can you help me uncover the answer? What are some of the things that a business. That the group that, that not so much the business owner, that the group could, could utilize a framework that they might, that you might have, that they could use to encourage that open conversation, um, without giving it any specific meaning.
Scott KoAbsolutely. So I, I, I love this question and I, I love your starting point on this as well, which is that I do want to acknowledge there is a strange paradox in it, in that level of vulnerability that there are times, and I've experienced times as well, where saying I don't know, is not good enough because you are the leader you are supposed to know. What do you mean you don't know? Because you know the idea, the story be vulnerable, people will connect with that. Doesn't always ring true. Right. Which is very interesting as a dynamic. I think the missing part of the, I don't know, the second part of it is I don't know however, I have a idea of where I think we're going to go to your point about experimentation and experiments, and also let's go find out together how might we answer this question. And so within that, there is a path, right? And this is, you know, some for me, some of the methodology and some of the things that I sort of teach and talk about. So everyone who's still with us, hopefully at this point has heard me bang on at length about systems. And the reason I start there is because it is the most objective starting point that we can, you know, work on. So as a business owner, as a leader, I don't know. Great. Well I can probably find out some things. Right. I can probably go do a bit of research. I can probably understand. Well, yeah. Let me find out what I'm supposed to, you know what this is about. So let's, let's use, you know, for, for, for me, for my art business, I mean, I, I don't know what was needed to kind of, um, get in front of different customers. Well, did I just say that to my team? No, I then did some research. Well, who are the people that I'm trying to get in front of? How, how does that work? So let's go through that process of it. And then it's, it's not in terms of the failure of it, it's not, um, ah, you failed. We, we failed. No good. It's, what did we learn from this? Um, I think it's, it is in, in the startup world, we often talk about runway. Actually, not forget startup, just business world. We talk about runway. What's your runway? What's your runway? Right? So what that's supposed to mean is, well, there's only so much time, so many resources we have, I. In order for this plane to take off, become sustainable. Otherwise we run out of the runway and we crash. Okay, so that means out of the a million ideas we could possibly do, there's only really only five. And for those five to be really meaningful, we both, A, want to do a whole bunch of research. And then B, what did we learn, right? So if we do the first experiment, what did we learn from? What did we think about this beforehand? So we thought, I thought right, that for my business, the people that would make the most decisions around bring art into the workspace was HR people. And then I went out, I tried to contact a whole bunch of HR people and it just kind of didn't really get anywhere. And then I learned that what a lot of HR people, especially in Australia typical be clear more about is um. Uh, what's it called is, um, workplace, uh, relations. It's, it's more legislative type of stuff. And I learned that actually it is the executive assistants who are often the decision makers that I need to be talking to. So we just sort of learned that process and we brought that through. And so I think it's more powerful to demonstrate how we go through the process together, right? So step one, what is this what is the system? We, there's always research we can do to understand what is it that we're really trying to do. And if we do that together, fantastic. And then step two, what do we think about this? How we interpreting it? How do we interpret this information? And that's where, again, some of that diversity of thought comes into it, and the diversity of different opinions from people come into it. And that's where encouraging people to learn from failure, um, becomes really important. And I think to encourage that. That's, that's the role of the leader, you know? But you know, within that it's, it's being able to say, okay, it's we, which we, we are trying to achieve these goals. We can, we have time for three major experiments, come back and let's talk about what we learned from each of these experiments, what's worked and what hasn't worked. Because then at least we can reframe this and say, well, we invested this amount of money to learn that this strategy works and this strategy doesn't work, but if we tweaked it, it can give us a new strategy. So I think that's one of the ways of demonstrating this type of psychological safety, um, in a way that still meaningful for business in a way that still creates progress, but without it feeling so confronting.
Steve Sandor (OD)Um, thank you for that. I can, I, and this is without notice, right? So we didn't speak about this particular part of this conversation 'cause it's only just occurred. So who knows, who knows where it's gonna take us, right? But most we, we were talking earlier before we came on board, or before we started recording about, you know, the technology and how that's, you know, obviously everybody's into to technology. If it wasn't for technology, we wouldn't be doing this. You know, we, we have the platform that's able to record this and all of the things that enables me to, to have it, um, edited and, and published AI is, is, feels like 2000 all over again, but on steroids, you know, the technology, the internet, late nineties came on, you know, and in 2000 we had the, we had, you know. Um, Y 2K, everybody thought the world was gonna, you know, the sky was gonna fall in, didn't fall in, and now all of a sudden, websites are now starting to replace, um, marketing material magazines. Never's gonna happen. No one's ever gonna give you your, their, their credit card, uh, details to buy something online. It's never gonna happen. Here we are 25 years down the track and it's like, what the hell were you talking about? So we, you know, it's, it really has shifted. Ai I, I think, is going to have a huge, oh, I mean, I'm stating the obvious, right? This is, this is not something that anybody's gonna go, oh, fantastic Steve, you know, you're the guru of, of, of, you know, the, the Yoder of, of ai. But what, but the, the common problem that a business owner has is, how do I now learn about ai? How do I think about how it's going to apply to my business? What are the jobs potentially that I can replace with that? And how can I redeploy the people in those jobs to do more value add type of business as opposed to thinking about I can get rid of that person. 'cause most businesses, at least that I know, most employees are working at a hundred, 120%. If you can find the employee, that's the biggest, you know, that's the biggest challenge that we have. So, can we just workshop this a little bit now? So, you know, I'm the, I'm the business owner. I've got this particular problem. I've got, you know, 10, 15 staff. I've got someone who is, you know, uh, I could probably lean on who is a little bit more, you know, not age related, but they're a little bit more tech savvy and, and a little bit of an early adopter. They're happy to be wrong and take risks. And I've got my, the rest of my staff. What would be your advice to me about how I could go about thinking about and relearning my business model? Because now I'm introducing something that I've very few people have had to, to deal with. Mm-hmm. We are all at this bleeding edge of knowledge.
Scott KoAbsolutely. Look, I love this question and, and I've, I'm a, I'm a quite heavy user of ai. I jumped on the band bandwagon quite early and it is really interesting to see its developments, um, but also see where some of the things it still can't really replace. I, I think you are right. We have a quite a shallow understanding of this. So let's bring it back to, um, the, the two things that, that I mentioned before. The first one is, well, what's the system and how, or do we know it? Right? So within your business, you are in this scenario. You don't, you're not really using ai. You are aware of it and someone's saying you should use ai. So firstly, do you know what work is happening within the business at the moment? What are your people doing? Okay, what is the type of work, what is the nature of that work? So let's understand that part of it. The second part is then, well, let's understand the capability of ai, the ins and outs of that. And there's a million resources that demonstrate that. I think people, I also, I, I do think people, I think underestimate the potential of types of thinking that AI can do whilst overestimating its capabilities as well, right? So what I mean by that is a lot of people I see think of AI as, oh, it's helping me write my emails. It's helping me write social media, but we've also seen how many businesses are doing this, and there's just this sheer amount of noise that's out there. Right. It is just overwhelming and it's turning a lot of people off. And so, you know, even within this, it's, it's a really interesting question of, okay, let's say you can generate content. Why are you generating content? What's, what's the point of content? What are you trying to do? What is the system here? What, and of course, classic marketing, um, and I don't mean classic as in traditional, I just mean you put out messages to raise awareness in order to attract people to your business so that they might be interested and they might buy something from you. Cool. How many touch points does that really need? Okay. Uh, do you need to be on LinkedIn? Are your customers on LinkedIn? Right? So these are just very simple questions in many ways of going, well, do you know why people even wanna engage with you in the first place? Okay, so let's say we do, let's say we do, then we might start to think about, well, how might we use ai? So within the business, I have a person who's spending quite a lot of time, um, pumping out content. Okay. And I am noticing that they are spending quite a bit of time on it. We, we, we know exactly what they're, they're doing, but they are spending a bit of time on it. And this is where we might then bring AI in. But here, it's then, this is the part where I think we're overestimating the capability of ai, right? AI is great at accelerating work and accelerating insights, but what it can't do is, or what is not as good at, is discernment. And that, and, and, you know, agency, so someone who's good at what they do, this, this, this marketing person, if they know these are the types of messages that resonate, right? They know the system, they know what people are clicking on, then they can work with AI to accelerate the process of generating, let's say 10 new ideas. But they'll know which one is much more likely to work. They'll know which ones to experiment with. In contrast to, let's say, as a business owner, you don't really know much about marketing, and you've been working with a marketing agency and you're spending a few thousand dollars on them, and you're like, oh, I can just replace 'em with ai. You could, but if all you're doing is just pumping out noise, then it's just another shiny new thing. So you see here the, that balance again of going, well, what is it that you are really trying to do? And then how can AI come into it? Now, the last point that I'll touch on is that you also ask that question, well, how do we, um, you know, some pe, some business owners thinking about replacing staff. That's a, as we can look at it, that can be a very shortsighted view. Because for people, and this is such an embrace, the diversity, in some ways, we can be optimistic about this. You know, maybe this frees people up to do higher value work. Um, as, as business owners, you and I both know, there's a lot of our day, um, sometimes is fairly low value stuff like writing an email from scratch, doing a bit of market research from scratch. It's a lot of it is quite low value. If things that be, if we can cut that out so that we can deploy our mastery of understanding which decisions to make, which insights to generate ai, can't do that. Well, I mean it can, it gives you a close approximation, but it's also very, very affable and it's very, you know, it's like, I believe this is great. Oh, that's fantastic. It's very, it's keen to, please, shall we say, so it can also lead you down the wrong path. And so now it's saying, okay, well imagine if our staff did that, could do that as well. What if instead of this marketing person spending 70% of the time writing content, we say, you know what? You're good at making these decisions. Why don't we minimize your lower value time so that you can focus on the higher value time? And perhaps we can then grow the business as well. And here we come back to, for a business owner, do, does a business owner know what they actually want to do in the business? If a business owner does not want to grow the business, just happy for it to be a lifestyle business, cool. More power to you. This, it's understandable to say, right, we're doing this because it's a cost cutting. Um, measure more power to you if you want to grow the business in order to sell the business, or, you know, just grow the business in general, then we can look at it from a different lens. This is now about giving your staff amazing tools to do their work better. So I hope that that sort of answers your, your, your question in how we might think about ai.
Steve Sandor (OD)Yeah. And, and it comes back to the role of the business owner. You know, we would, we were talking about the, before we started recording, you know, business owners, um, working on your business as opposed to working in it. The majority of business owners are really good at their, their discipline, you know, whether it's, whether it's marketing, whether it's, you know, selling, whether it's being an electrician or an architect. They're really good at that, and most of them understand their numbers. Reasonably well. They understand profit and margins and you know, all of the metrics that they would, that they would know. Um, they're not great at people skills per se. I I think they're good at relationship building. Um, but not necessarily giving clear instructions to people and delegating and, you know, being less controlling, not letting go of control. So I think there's, there, there's that. And so in the space of ai, it's what's your role in this leadership? You know, and you, you, I, I just laugh, you know, you, you said, you know, do you have systems in place? The majority of businesses that I go into as an initial, you know, discovery, have a chat with them and I say, okay, well, you know, give me all of your systems and process. And they look at me with this blank stare and they go, we're we're, we've got 15 employees. You know, we sell eight products. Why do we need systems and processes? Oh, right. Well, you, you actually do have systems and processes that you follow on a daily basis. You just haven't documented them. That's, that's all we're talking about. So, how, as you, as the owner, how do you know that people that you know, that Mary and Joe who are doing the same job, are following the same process? That, you know, Mary might have come up with something brilliant that's saving her a lot of time and Joe doesn't know about it because they're following different processes, but I just, it, it's, I think it's the basic fundamental, and I get eyes rolled every time I talk about this. I'm sure you, you know, it's like, why do we need this? Well, you need it because, because you need it. You know, it's, it's, it's the foundation on which you are building a business and it's, and you'll be able to see the, you'll be able to see the. Inefficiencies in your business when you start to drill down into that, oh, and this is the curiosity part. You know, when I come in and I'm looking at it, I'm asking, oh, that's interesting. Why do you do it that way? And you know, there's some history, intellectual property or co commercial, you know, um, property that is, that has, um, evolved in the organization and they go, we do it this way because of something that happened five years ago. Right? Oh, great. You know, do you realize that there's, you are in version one and there's like version 8.3 that is available to you, you just don't know. So yeah. So yeah, the, I
Scott KoI, if I may, uh, let me, let me, um, yes. And into this, right? Yes. I, I think this is the, the classic analogy of being on a football team, right? A football, the reason a football team works well. Or when football team works well, it's because people understand what each part, each player in the team is supposed to do. Okay. The forwards are there to attack, the defense is there to defend, and the centers run around and try and help everybody out. Okay, cool. So it's very clear there is a system there and then the more robust that is, the more the team works together. So that's why for many, to your point, so for a lot of business owners, they're just working together as a team without understanding that level of strategy. And that's why if you want to be a great team, having been clear about those things, it's not a dirty word to understand. You know how much you know if, if, if this particular forward is spending too much time in the gold square, they're not creating as many opportunities to reach in. That's not a bad thing to say, you know? But in a business, if you've got a staff member who's spending far too much time on, on a, X, Y, and Z, or even if you are the, you are the business owner and you are spending far too much time on the tools, is that a good thing? Dunno, let's start understanding that. Then the second layer, and this is the leadership layer. So let's say people do understand the system, then how do we inspire, how do we motivate, how do we encourage people to learn from failure? This is, and again, football teams, great coaches know how to do this. Sometimes it's discipline, sometimes it's working individually, knowing which each player, what motivates them, what engages them, how do we work with them? So you see what I mean by this is the blend of both and exactly. To your point, some business owners just do not have the system. There may be greater people, but then the whole team is still sinking because it's too many, uh, too many, too many chefs in the kitchen.
Steve Sandor (OD)Mm-hmm.
Scott KoYou know, and I think this is one of those big challenges because, yeah, so many business owners start, they're technicians in some ways. They're great at what they do, but if they don't know how to leave the legacy behind, it's like, well, what? Why are you doing this?
Steve Sandor (OD)Mm-hmm.
Scott KoUm, and, and I, I really appreciate where you sort of specialize in this exit. And, you know, as someone who started my own business, it, it took me so long to understand what's the point of thinking about exiting a business? Because I, because I'm like, what do you mean exit? I'm gonna run this thing forever, aren't I? You know, it's like, well, no, like even, like one way of exit is it becomes a passive income generator. Oh, that's how I'm supposed to. You see these ways of thinking, they, they cultivate and they develop over time. And with each new lens, we might see our business in a different way. And I think those become like super important. And the final thing I'll say here is. A business owner starts, we're great technicians and we set up a thing because it suits us and our way of working. That's that cognitive bias part of it. So curiosity, being in a bit of an antidote to this type of cognitive bias, it's knowing how to shine the different lens on all these different components and go, oh, how do all of these things put be put together? I mean, a business is great. Business is one of those things that is such a self developmental, it's a, it is such a journey if we're gonna, and, and it's stressful and it's depressing and it's hard and it's, you know, why am I doing this? And so it is like, if you're gonna do this, do it well. You know, it's, it, it, it's not a bad thing to kind of learn the skills of doing it well, you know, like just with any hobby, like we can do some stuff for, that's for fun, but because it's just connected to income levels, it's like, well, why not do it a little bit better? That, that mastery? You know, every football player that I've seen, if they have natural talent, what improves them is a good understanding of the systems and, and dynamics of what makes the game good. That elevates talent. You know, same thing for business. Mm-hmm.
Steve Sandor (OD)Yeah. It's, it's, it's a funny thing, isn't it? You know, a lot of business owners, they start the business 'cause they think they can do it better than where they are and. You know, they think that they're gonna make more money and they'll have lifestyle, or they'll have choices that are different to being an employee. When I was an employee, I always treated the business as if it was my own business. I, I never really thought myself, myself as a, as an employee, you know, obviously when I was a junior, it wasn't the same. When I was in senior management positions, I took that approach. So if I wanted to take time off, I took time off. Right. Um, and, and I would tell everybody, I'm going, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm going to meet Mr. Green. It was a golf course, right? Yeah. Um, but because we, I made sure, and I was very fortunate that I had employers who were outcomes based, not time based. And so, as long as I was doing my job and getting the results that they were expecting, um, it was a, it was a much. It's more enjoyable relationship to have with the people around me. And I think what's happened is, one thing we haven't touched on, which I'd just love to, 'cause I've, I've just got an eye on the clock, um, is where, uh, is a lot of the times I see if we reflect back on the start of the conversation that we had where, where you know, you, you experimenting, you are curious and then you give somebody, um, something to look at and then they go away and do something with it. They make a mistake of it. And then after a period of time that that experience becomes a little jaded, you know, I keep giving you work to do and you're not doing it to my expectation. Now, did you give them the skills to be able to do the job, the time to be able to do the job, or you just. Flogging a willing horse or giving somebody something so that they can fail, you know, so that we we're talking about that. But trust becomes a major factor in, in relationships. Like, you know, the, the human relationships. If you trust somebody, then it's a different relationship to someone who you don't trust. I mean, there's obviously transparency or, or, or that you're holding things back. So how, how important is trust? That's a dumb question, but you know, what, where, what, what does trust, where does trust fit into this whole aspect of being curious and enabling people to be curious with you?
Scott KoYeah. Uh, look, I love this question. Um, my first question back would be, is trust a verb or a noun? Is it something that you do or is it something that you earn? I, and, and it's, this is a question that you can apply to so many different areas, right? Leadership, is it a verb or is it a noun, right? Are we leading or is leadership something that we see in hindsight? Um, it it, it goes, it really goes both ways. And, and this is why I think, you know, and I don't mean to be spiritual about this, right? I, in everything that we've talked about,
Steve Sandor (OD)please be spiritual.
Scott KoPlease be okay. So we're familiar with the yin yang, right? Black on one side with a white.in the middle, white on the other side with the black.in the middle. I, I think over time, I've really come to embrace just the simple messaging behind this, right? Which is that in both, in all of these things, there has to be a little bit of both. So for trust, we, you know, if it's a new employee, well, I don't know what this person is about. I. So maybe my first step is to put a bit of trust in them and say, Hey, I wanna support you. They might make a couple of mistakes. Hey, let's work together. Um, let's learn from this. Let's demonstrate the learning from this. And you sort of keep going. But then as a business, putting on the other side of the hat, there is a runway. How much time are you willing to give to someone to support this? And there is a real answer here. I I, I would love to say that it is possible to empower and encourage anybody to learn. It's very noble. But if I, we, in a business I only have, or we only have, I don't know, six months worth or worth of runway, can we afford to nurture someone for 12 months? Well, what if now we need to start putting our mortgage into it? Well, now it's getting personal. Can we reasonably sustain this? You know, I, I, I think it's great to recognize that, um, within our system of business, what, what is it? It, it is a a, a experiment. It's an ongoing experiment. And we've, people have come together to make this experiment work. So in this context, this is what I can, what we can do as business owners to support people. And if people reciprocate and they demonstrate that willingness to learn that mindset, and they start to earn some of that trust. So we invest some of the trust and the return on investment is a trustworthy, um, uh, employee who does the thing that they want, or they bring back learnings, brilliant. Now I can invest more trust. And then it goes back again. You know, get the ROI, you see the yin yang at a play here, right? But if we are not clear on how much we want to invest, then the people who suffer might just be the business owners. And, and like I said, I, I've been through that process before. You know, I, I've invested in people to my detriment. 'cause I wanted to believe that I, you know, I, I'm a, I'm a leadership person. I want to believe that I can help people, and then all of a sudden I'm out of money and I'm just like, well, what did I get? Because that person has gone on to get another job and I am down in cash. So you see what I'm saying? Like, it, it goes, it goes both directions. Right. And I think it's, it's healthy to acknowledge that both things are important.
Steve Sandor (OD)And I think, I mean, we are so much on the same page, obviously there's no coincidence that you're on, on here talking about this. Um, you know, to, to your point about the, the, the football team, you know, and I guess the, you know, the, the question of how long is your runway is if you need a forward and the forward, you know, the forward pack. Is going to Dom, you know, is going to be the thing that dominates the season for you, then you're going to hire the best forward that you possibly can afford, right? You're not going to bring somebody in from third grade and nurture them, put 'em into that pack and go, you know, um, we'll see how you go. You know, I'll, I'll be there to support you as you are getting thumped, because you don't have all of the skills, you know, so we, so yeah, I just, I I whole lot. Which sort of goes back to your point about, you know, the systems and processes that you have in place. Do you understand what your business is? Do you understand the impact that you're going to make? The, you know, what, what, what, how long is your runway? Have you critically thought about that and are you curious about that? So, Scott, thank you so much. I mean, I've really enjoyed listening to you as, as I keep saying on this podcast. I have got the front row seat, um, to genius. You know, the minds of people who are, are geniuses, genie I in, in, in their space. And you have obviously demonstrated today that you are at a leadership, um, or at the pointy end if, uh, of this subject. So thank you so much for being my guest here today. Um, I only have one question, which I, you know, I um, I normally ask this of, of our, of our traditional, you know, um, business owners. But over the next 12 months, what, what's gonna bring you joy?
Scott KoUh, what's gonna bring me joy is simply being able to, again, being able to speak with people like yourself, being able to, um, go out. And I, I, I've got such a, um, amazing privilege and opportunity. Um, uh, I'm represented by, uh, corporate Speakers Australia. I get to go and talk about curiosity, but it's more than just that as well. I also work with businesses, uh, I work with schools as well. I think about the future of education and, you know, how to support the next generation of young people to deploy their curiosity. I mean, if AI is gonna have an impact, it's really gonna have an impact on their futures, right? So I think that's really important. Um, but I think what brings me joy is that there's always space for finding things out together, right? There's, there's always a pathway. If we remain curious, it's, it's why I'm on this mission. If we remain curious, if we remain open, then there's always a path for us to be able to. Grow better businesses, a better breed of businesses, you know, a better breed, a healthier relationship to diversity, a healthier relationship to how we do business together. This is all possible. We, we, we just have to see it in some ways. And I don't mean that in a, just manifested, I'm just saying by actually deploying how we think we can better find these pathways. And every time that I have worked with a business owner or a leader and just showing them how they can just mild, even mildly, adjust the way they think about the systems that they're in, how they perceive it, and then the directions that they want to take. And seeing people go, oh, I never realized I could think about this in a different way. Like, that brings me joy and that, and so I'm looking forward to being able doing this more. Even more at scale with different people around the world. That's, that's what brings me joy.
Steve Sandor (OD)Wonderful. And I'm, uh, a subscriber to your newsletter. So what we'll do is we'll make sure that in the show notes for this episode, that there's connection to that, um, and, uh, connections to your website and to your LinkedIn profile. So if anybody here is, um, wants to connect with Scott, um, Scott Ko, KO, um, please, uh, you know, please connect with him. I'm sure he'd be more than happy to have a conversation with you. Scott, thanks so much again for being, uh, my guest on reclaiming the joy of business.
Scott KoNo worries. Thank you so much for having me. It, it is been very joyful to be here. Thanks, Scott.
Steve Sandor (OD)There you go. I was gonna call it inspiring Business. So that's my first blueprint. Always their tongue tied on the first things that we say, right? We get, we get, there's nothing to be nervous about, but I'm still, you know, as they say, if you jump, if you're not jumping, if you're not nervous, when you jump on the stage, something's wrong. Alright, let's go again. maybe what you could do is, is give the audience a history of, of your business and, you know, what got you to a point where you are now, um, you know. maybe what you could do is, see, there's another blooper that I have got thousands of them. Um,
