Welcome to Episode 47. Have you ever wondered why sometimes you’re just in flow at work? You’re doing something you love, time seems to just stand still. And you feel like you could do this task for ages. And sometimes you’re doing tasks that feel heavy, hard, difficult. And you look at someone else doing it and then think, why does that come so easy?
I’ve invited business and performance coach Osmaan Sharif, to talk to us about how understanding your own unique superpower can help you enjoy what you do at work, get the best results, and embrace your unique talents. And ultimately, this makes your business and your career much more satisfying.
If you’re working in an agency environment in account management and you’re ambitious, you want to accelerate your career and you want to increase your confidence with clients and improve your consultancy skills, so you can add more value to your client relationships and grow your accounts then my next Account Accelerator programme starts on January 27th 2022. If you’d like to know more, then please get in contact and let’s see if it’s a good fit for you. You can contact me on LinkedIn at Jenny Plant or you can drop me an email at jenny@accountmanagementskills.com
Transcript:
Jenny 00:03
Today I’m delighted to be talking to Osmaan Sharif. Osmaan specialises in quickly transform, transforming the Performance and Results of business owners and their teams through applying a mixture of his NLP Master coaching skills, psychology, and helping people find their entrepreneurial superpower using personality profiling tools, Wealth Dynamics, and Talent Dynamics. He works with entrepreneurs and their teams to bring a more entrepreneurial spirit and focus to the way their companies work. Was man welcome. It’s great to have you here.
Osmaan 00:39
Oh, Jenny, it’s an absolute pleasure to be here with you. And I’m excited to have an interesting conversation, I’m sure.
Jenny 00:46
Just a quick bit of background, I’ve known Osmaan for a number of years, and I’m actually working with him personally. And I have to say that he has transformed my business and my mindset so that’s why I’m so excited about him sharing what I’ve come to understand from his work with the agency community. So Osmaan, can you start by just spending a few minutes talking about you, your background, and what you do?
Osmaan 01:12
Absolutely. It’s been amazing to say seeing your journey as well, Jenny, and I’m sure what we’ll talk about today will give you a bit of an idea in terms of how you’ve been using your superpower to grow your business as well. So for me, Osmaan, I am based up in sunny Glasgow, I’ve got three young boys and a beautiful wife that keeps me busy. And a lot of other background. I’ve always been about people, I love helping people get the best out of people. And I started my career as a HR manager for Marks and Spencers thinking that would allow me to focus on people. What it made me realise was focusing more on the sorting out people and HR issues, which I didn’t absolutely love too much. So I managed to transition more into a regional training manager role, looking after about 30 stores across our region for Marks and Spencers. And that’s when I really knew that I loved not just helping people in terms of the day to day what they do, but more about how are they excelling? How are they embracing who they are? What does that look like for their careers and their future? So long story short, I then moved from the retail environment I worked in the banking world and London. And at that point, I then decided, right, how is it that some people make changes really easily, and why for others, they talk about it, or they think they’ll do it, but they never get itactually working. And that’s what I came across their toolkit of Neuro Linguistic Programming. And I just fell in love with it, because it was a transformational tool that allowed you to get over limiting beliefs and mindsets and really just get off autopilot as human beings to see, right, what do we want? And how do we move that forward? So since then, I then thought this is what I want to do day in day out, I then left the corporate world 14 years ago. And then I’ve had the pleasure of working with leaders in all different industries, from agencies, to army officers, to chief executives to you know, rising stars, and also work business owners as well that really want to grow their own business. So I then get to use a combination of practical experience from leading teams, as well as insights from NLP and also other profound tools that I’ve learned over the years as well. So that’s in a nutshell, I’m all still about helping people to get out there away so that they can rapidly grow their careers or their business.
Jenny 03:47
Amazing introduction. Thank you. I also want to say Osmaan that you are probably, wellyou are, the most positive person I’ve ever met in my life, consistently positive and not in a cheesy kind of way. It’s just it emanates from you the passion shines through and everything you’ve described. It comes back to your love of working with people and helping people. So I just want to say that you really do walk the walk when it comes to NLP for sure. So we’ve mentioned Wealth Dynamics and Talent Dynamics. Would you mind spending a few minutes talking about what that is?
Osmaan 04:24
Yeah, absolutely. So Wealth Dynamics and Talent Dynamics effectively, they are a profiling tool, a toolkit that allows individuals and teams to basically identify really quickly, what I call your superpower. So you get to see well what is the thing that you do that allows you to get the best results, that allows you to get the best enjoyment in what you do and truly embrace your towns. So Wealth Dynamics is very much geared towards entrepreneurs and business owners, and Talent Dynamics is like the sister or brother profile of it and that’s more geared towards if you’re part of a team, or more of a corporate or a traditional organisation as well. So the profiles are exactly the same, it’s just the reports and their translation are just slightly different from different contexts. So I work with Wealth Dynamics, day in and day out. I actually never work with any clients unless they’ve done their profile, because it makes life so much easier for me to help them. But also, it’s such a rich profile that allows you to then go out, okay, how do you weave that into your goals? How do you weave that into even your mindset? And then the strategies like what’s the best game for you to play, the best strategies for you to follow and from a habit perspective. So it’s a profiling tool that was created by Roger Hamilton, I then trained to, first of all, one of my peers and friend said,’ what is your profile?’, and I’m always curious and learning as a HR manager before, as I said, so I’ve done so many different profiles over the years, they’ve all been good to give me some insight. But when I did, the Wealth Dynamics, the Talent Dynamics, for me, it just like the penny dropped. Personally, it made me realise in the first few years of my business, I was trying to grow my business and the way that other people in the industry were doing it, because I thought that’s just what you do. But every time I would follow some of those strategies, it felt like I was just trying to shove my feet into the wrong pair of shoes, and I would never quite get the results that other people are getting. So then I would beat myself up slightly going , what am I not doing right? Am I going to make it work? So when I then actually did my profile, and there’s eight different profiles, and each of the different profiles, effectively, give you a recipe effectively or a strategy to go, this is the best kind of game, or tools or approach for you to follow. That’s when I went, ah, I’m a trader, for example, and I was trying to follow those that were the opposite profiles like Creators and Stars. No wonder it wasn’t working for me in the same kind of way. So that then gave me that chance to go, okay, well, what would happen if I actually played to my strengths more, if I play to my profile, and that’s where it felt so much easier, but the results were so much easier to get as well. So ultimately, and again, I’ll keep it high level because I know I can go into quite detailed, there’s eight different profiles, you’ve got the Creator, you’ve got the Star, you’ve got a Supporter, you’ve got a Dealmaker, you’ve got a Trader, you’ve got an Accumulator, you’ve got a Lord, and you’ve got a Mechanic. So they may all say the bit jargony at the moment, but essentially, when you understand out of those eight profiles, what’s the one that resonates most with you, it then allows you to go right, okay, how are you using that in your day to day job or your business to get the best results? And then when there’s things that you go, right, I may have to do that? Or is there somebody else that may be better to do that, you get to embrace your own superpowers, and other people’s superpowers as well.
Jenny 08:11
I have to say it’s the most powerful profiling tool I’ve ever come across. And obviously, I’ve been working with you for a number of years, I’ve met other people working with you too. And just understanding the profile has helped me beyond anything I think I would have done. And exactly as you described, sometimes you’re going along a certain route, and you think, why is this not working for me? or why do I feel so out of sorts? So can you give me, just going back to that very point, can you give me an example of you being a trader? And you initially thinking maybe I need to build my business, like a star word or a creator word? What was that actual event that made you realise that this feels not right?
Osmaan 08:58
So for example, a Trader is someone, I know this is jargon, but a Trader is someone that is very, very grounded, and so their ear’s to the ground, so they really enjoy working closely with customers or clients. And that’s where they get their best results. They build so much loyalty. So for me, I would get clients that would come to me, I’d help them to create a transformation. And then, a couple months down the line or even, you know, years down the line when they were taking that next step up, or they were dealing with what I call a better quality problem. They’d come back to me going right now I need your help with this. And it was so natural, and I would say things to them like, oh, how’s that going? And they’re like, how do you remember that? But it’s such a genuine connection, and that’s what I love. But whereas in my industry, everybody was saying, you know, I’m not saying everybody but other people were saying, oh one to one stuff doesn’t work. It’s not scalable, for example, or it’s all about creating groups and working with the masses. And at times I’d go, right, okay, I should be doing, it makes more sense. But actually, even when I was doing things like that I would miss, the feeling of, what’s happening with that individual or that team. So when I realised that I was at the risk potentially of completely changing my business model to be out of flow of what gets the best results for me and what I actually enjoy. But vice versa, somebody that might be more of a Creator, or a Star, they love a lot of variety, they come alive, and they get their best results when they’re in front of lots of different people. And there’s always new things happening. So if they were creating a business plan for them and it was what are they going to do in the next 10 years, that thought alone would drive them crazy, and they would never come back to it, because for them, it feels like the handcuffs are on. And it’s actually not really kind of inspiring them in that way. So what I mean by that is, I’ve essentially been doing the same thing, with the same tools for the over the past 14 years since I left the corporate world. But every single individual I work with, they’re different, the tools are the same, the methodology is the same, but never get bored, because I get my variety, from the trust that I build with relationships. And most of my business does come from referrals, or word of mouth, or people that go, I get inspired when I hear other people, maybe Stars and Creators talk about things, but I need that grounded support, I want you in my corner. And that’s where my sweet spot is. So that’s just the distinction between a Trader and a Creator or a Star, but there’s eight different profiles. And the reason why I could talk about this forever is because it’s so subtle, even in terms of the way you might structure a team, your role, or your business model. I’ve seen people when they’ve actually just made a slight shift that actually allows them to play to their profile so much more. And that’s where the real magic and the results happen as well.
Jenny 12:04
Fantastic. And that’s quite a good segue into, because I know, the people listening to this are either agency owners, or they’re account managers. So they’re team members, yeah. So can you talk about the benefits of applying Talent Dynamics, to that environment?
Osmaan 12:22
Absolutely.
So what it allows you to do, first of all, so it allows you to just really understand the team that you’re part of. You get to really have open conversations, and it also allows you to have, positive vulnerability is the way I think about it. So it means that you get to go, here’s where my real strengths are my superpowers, here’s what I’m not as strong at. But it means that actually, you then get to go well in the project that we’re working on, or in the business, where can I use most of my talents and my students, but also what might be your kryptonite, for example, might be somebody else’s superpower.
And that’s where you get to have real great meaningful conversations to go right, if we’re truly part of a team – let’s even take job titles away for a moment, how do we actually understand what our capabilities are, what gets us into flow, and ultimately, what gets us into the best results. And I remember I was working with a creative agency, and London, and their whole team, did Talent Dynamics has a profound tool, and then I did a session with them from the leaders all the way, everybody did it. And one of the biggest insights that they got was that they were quite surprised and they often over generalised. So for example, the creative and designers, they always just thought they’re operators can mean they’re always filled with great ideas. But when we actually profiled the individuals, and looked at it from a team, by team perspective, even with the creators we had those that were Creators, we had those that were Traders, we had those that were Mechanics, we had those that were Supporters. And what they actually really understood was that even with different clients, for example, you could bring a different creator in depending on what stage of the project that they might been. For example, some people love that blank canvas, but others that are more Traders, they like to really understand, they’be got their ear to the ground, for example, they can be so insightful, and when they work more collaboratively together, that’s where the real magic happens. Whereas the mechanic, their best if they’ve got a few drafts of something, then they can go, how do we improve it, and that’s where they really excel, but if they were given a blank sheet of paper that’s where they can sometimes struggle. So does that make sense? They all had similar job titles, but actually, when they realised that’s the kind of project I really find harder, or that’s why I loved working with that client, and they were able to make a lot more positive uses of their team to really go right, what client do we have. what’s a brief, who’s the right people? And it wasn’t always a case of going, right, you completely take over working with that client, but maybe what input could we get from different people that really got them to work so much better together.
Jenny 15:16
I think that’s fantastic. I think it’s, first of all, fundamental to understanding how to get the best out of a team to understand everybody’s strengths. And obviously, their strengths, depending on what profiling exercise you do determines how effective they’re going to be. And to that point, because there might be people listening thinking, oh, I’ve gone DISC, or I’ve done Myers Briggs. How does this differ? And what would you say would be the benefits of doing Talent Dynamics versus doing something like DISC?
Osmaan 15:52
I’ve used so many profiles over the years and they’ve always been quite insightful. So I’ve done Myers Briggs, I’ve done DISC, I’ve done Insights, I’ve done them all in my corporate role, but often what happened is afterwards, you’d be like, okay, now what, what’s my four letters? What colour am I? So they can be useful and I’ve got nothing bad to say about any of the profiles. It’s the application of it. So what I love about Talent Dynamics is it really, first of all allows you to go, okay, what are the best things or activities for you to do? Even for example, when you’re leading a team, so if you are leading a team, how would a Trader as a leader, how would their behaviours be different, or their approach be different compared to a Supporter, for example. So much more practical in the sense of what do we do? What game do we play? For me, it gives real life examples from the people that we might know, out there in the world. So let me give one tangible example. I know so many people they love listening. They’re listening to podcasts, they read lots of books, but for me, if I was reading, and I have, you know, Richard Branson’s book, he’s a Creator, I’d go, that’s what Richard Branson would say, or what he would do. That’s great for him and other people that are very similar to his profile. But for me, it just wouldn’t work. So there’s lots of real life examples that you can go okay what would Oprah, for example, just using famous names here, you mean, or Warren Buffett or Mark Zuckerberg, they’re all different talents, they’re all successful in what they do. And I love the fact that it gives people permission, both leaders and you know, individual contributors and teams to go, okay, who are the people that if I know what my profiles are, that I can start to find other people that are like me? And you know, from a superpower perspective, and then I can go, right, well, General, I’m more of a kind of a style or an Alan Sugar for example, he’s a Trader, and you get to go well how do I learn a little bit about or how do I expand my awareness of thinking around it. So it’s practical, is really easy for and that’s why I always recommend if you’re doing this, when you do it with a team, it then allows you to have the open conversation to go out what mix do we have in our team? And then you hear them talk a bit more, okay, let me bring my Supporter superpower into this meeting. Or, we need about a mechanical kind of thinking in here. Who’s our mechanics? Perfect, great. Let’s get them involved. So it’s something that is really much more, I just want to say practical is the word I mean, it’s not like a what’s the colour and how to do it, it’s really easy to kind of keep it ingrained, and build upon it from my experience.
Jenny 18:44
I’m going to give you a really small example that just come to my mind because, as I say, I’ve seen this work in action so many times is so bloody powerful. In my corporate life, when I was working for one of the big networks, agencies, groups, I was working with my friend Steve, who we both know. He’s a Mechanic, and I’m a Star profile. And I was somehow given the job of being in a meeting room, and having to map out this huge chart of all of the different areas of focus that we were going to have on this project, when things were likely to come. And it was mapping it out and analysing it and creating kind of a roadmap. Now as a Star, I wasn’t in my flow. It was too much analysing and I literally was at my wit’s end. Thankfully, my good friend Steve happened to walk past the office at that moment, he looked in he said, how’s it going? I said, and I looked at him, I must have looked distressed, because he said, What are you doing? And I said, I’ve just got this huge chart on the wall. And I had all these pens and post it notes and things like this. He came in, and he took over. And he was in his element. Because it had already been put there but it was just perfecting it and making things work. He kind of came alive. And it was at that moment that I realised that knowing that, like maybe I could have done things differently and actually gone and asked Steve to help me, rather than him discovering me in distress. So I love everything about Talent Dynamics, and Wealth Dynamics. And I’ve seen it in action all the time when I’m making a decision about what I’m going to work on. Just on going back to a team member listening to this, or an agency owner listening to this, and thinking, right, this could be an interesting exercise for us to do. Just to clarify, what you’re saying is, it’s not about the role. So for example, any one of those eight profiles, could be an account manager.
Osmaan 21:02
Yeah. Absolutely.
Jenny 21:04
And would you also say that, by knowing what your profile is, in the account manager role, you could also identify your blind spot.
Osmaan 21:13
100%. And what that allows you to do is, it allows you to see sometimes, okay, because we can fall into this trap of learned behaviour. So if you’re looking at, let’s say, for example, somebody that you followed, so it could be your boss, or somebody that trained you, and they see this is the way to do it. And you may have just done that, because that’s what you were taught. But that doesn’t completely play to your profile, you may be missing a complete trick in terms of it to be better for you. So what I love about it is, it’s not going to tell you this is exactly how to do your job, day by day, minute by minute, but what it gives you is that chance to do is a case of knowing what your profile is, how are you using that in what your job is, or what your role or your part of the team is. And it also allows you to recognise that there’s flexibility in there. So even if you’re being managed by somebody that’s a different profile, then don’t go right, here’s how you should do it, because if they’re a different profile than you, they could tell you how to do it until they’re blue in the face, but then they gets frustrated, why are you not just doing it my way, well, actually, for them it might be a different approach that gets them to have better results. So I love that in terms of it gives individuals that opportunity to go, how do I use my best talents to have these conversations happen or to make progress? And then it can give you a great indication, even as you develop your career to go, what type of roles or projects or opportunities do I want to be involved in? Because you can then start to go well, predominantly, for example, what does that involve? And will it allow me to use my strengths a lot more. Does that make sense? So for example, if I was in a role, somebody offered me a role where all I got to do was talk to people on stage all the time, and don’t get to have that interaction with individuals, I know I could do it. And I do do it times, which helps me with my business, so I’m on podcasts, I do speaker sessions, etc. But if that was me doing that all the time, I would hate it. But whereas it gives me that chance to go, I know that wouldn’t be the best ideal solution for me. And then the same thing would be in a team, for example. I’ve had people that when they recognise their strengths, they go, ah, I thought my career path was this way. But now I actually know that’s what my superpower is, for example, there are some superpowers that they can lead people and manage teams, but it’s not what they excel in. So it gives them that chance to go well, that’s not maybe the only path for me to, to climb in my career or get better responsibility or whatever that may be, or that stretch, you get to go well, how can I do that in a way that still plays to my superpower and my strengths in that way.
Jenny 24:09
Amazing. You’ve already given a few examples of where this can be used in practice. And, and and I’m just thinking from an agency leaders point of view, when you have very ambitious people that want to get involved in more of the business and take certain projects on. This is a good way of understanding and knowing which projects would suit which individuals.
Osmaan 24:28
Absolutely dependent. It’s also interesting to see, if there’s a new client compared to an existing client, who do you get involved in, and I’ll give you one other example. I worked with a leadership team doing this and they were really successful in what they’re doing. But they were also driving each other crazy because they had one leader that was a Creator, and they had another that was a Dealmaker, who’s very, very grounded. So the Creator would go, right here’s what we can do. They had their vision with this client and they effectively would we want to sell them the Rolls Royce version of what they can do. But that company didn’t really know them that well, they didn’t have that trust, they didn’t have that relationship yet. And also, the leaders of that other company, were not Creators, they were a bit more risk averse. They were more like, let’s see how it goes. And the Dealmaker that was in the team would get so frustrated with her colleague, her partner effectively, because it’s like, you go 100 miles an hour, and then if they go ‘No’, the Creator then goes ‘oh, not for them’, and they jump on to something else. Whereas the Dealmaker was using their talents and their superpowers go okay, well, here’s what we could do. Show them the lever and then from there, could we go to the next stage and the next stage, so they had much more of our long lasting relationship. Because that’s the way that they thought and how they would approach sales and account management whereas a Creator would be more about fast, in, are you in it? No? Ok, let’s go next, next, next. So when we actually recognised that, it allowed them to recognise the Creator was great with a vision, and they add a lot to it. But when it came to certain meetings, or certain approaches, how do we lean into more of what’s the long term game that we’re playing here, and vice versa? So again, just knowing that stopped them wanting to strangle each other, which is a positive when working with a team, but it massively can help them to recognise, how does that fit into our strategy when it comes to client attraction and retention in that way? And it’s been a massive change for how they continue to work together as well.
Jenny 26:47
Absolutely fabulous. And you mentioned before, the eight names of each profile, I think people listening to this might be thinking, or I’m really curious now, what am I? And I’m just wondering, I don’t want to take too long, but I I think it would be valuable to just have a short explanation of each profile, because I think someone listening might identify with one or the other. Would you be able to do that?
Osmaan 27:15
Yeah, absolutely. One thing is it’s great, if you may identify in terms of, I think I might be liek that. What I love about it when you actually do the profile, you get an individual personalised report and a chart, so you get to go, what is your dominant potential as your superpower, because you have what we call a primary profile, but we also have our secondary profile, so I’m not wanting to get too complicated about it. So all I want to say is it’s great if you want to go, okay, what does that play? And or what may resonate with me? One thing I would say though is, it’s not an excuse for inexcusable behaviour. So I always say this, because there’s times you may go, oh, I am a Star, I don’t do the detail, for example, or I’m not good with numbers. As a business owner, or as a leader, I can’t turn to the accountant or the tax man to go sorry, and I don’t do that. But it gives you that chance to go, well, there may be certain things in your business that you still have to do. But you know why it might feel like not your most favourite task, or what’s the best strategies to make it still happen, or who can help you with that. So that’s my one caveat that I want to say to everybody, you know, at different points in your business, you may still have to play on the different profiles. But when you know what your square is in your individual chart, you’ll get to see that’s when I really will struggle, or that’s where I don’t enjoy it as much, but I’m having to lean into maybe a different profile. So the big picture here is, I want you to imagine a square. And there are three profiles that are out there, kind of the top of the square. And those profiles are what we call, they have a lot of danger, energy. So they have a lot of creativity, they’re very much more the heads in the sky, they see the possibilities are very much more kind of innovative. You’ve got the Creators who typically can have a balance of being introverted or extroverted. But they are amazing at initiating things. They are the pioneers, they are the ones that go, here’s what I can see happening, give them a blank paper, and they will totally excel. They love variety. They are not great at executing, or you want to do something to say we’ve launched that, let’s do that again and again, because they’ll get bored. They’re the type of people that you might have a really successful campaign and you can say we can use all our work now for other things, and they’ll go, no let me try something else, just because they’d get bored. But Creators are great with vision, but they’re not always the best at communicating that vision. And that’s where the Star profile really can come into fruition. Stars are great at really translating an idea or a vision, but in a way that really engages with individuals. And they tend to do that within a group. It doesn’t always have to be 1000s of people, it could be a small team, but they’re very visionary. They inspire really, really well. So for example, Oprah is a Star profile, Barack Obama is a star profile. And so they’re very good at leading movements, they’re very good at being a spokesperson, in what they’re doing, and they translate their creativity and they will ask what’s the customer wanting or saying, because they have a lot of what we call blaze energy, very people focused energy. So these are individuals that you don’t want to hide away in your organisation. Even if they are not the more senior person in the organisation, they can still bring their Star energy in different ways or when they’re doing a presentation or a pitch or a delivery, it’s just how do we bring their way of thinking into a project. You’ve then got Supporter. Supporters are amazing at leading teams, they are great at collaboration, they are all about the people. So they are the ones that would love networking, genuinely love networking, they don’t see it as a chore. They’re very good at nurturing teams and getting the best out of teams. They don’t necessarily need to be in the spotlight. They’re often very good at being second in command, for example. Some that come to mind are Bill Gates, is a Creator, but Steve Ballmer in Microsoft, he was a supporter behind. Really building the culture and a team in an organisation. They’re the ones that really are great at building communities and connecting with people. You then have Dealmakers and they’re the opposite of a Star. They’re still all about people, but Stars love lots of people. Dealmakers get the best results from close relationships, they’re really good at understanding what’s happening, that take a lot longer to build relationships and nurture relationships. They’re really good at finding collaborations and joint ventures. So you can think about Dealmakers as being you know, tactical recruitment consultants or estate agents. They’re the person that gets to bring different people together, and they see how different value of parties can come together. So that would be a win win overall, does that make sense?
Jenny 32:29
I’m just thinking of agency owners thinking I need a Dealmaker to look for acquisitions, or to look for partnerships.
Osmaan 32:35
Fantastic, they will be the best people to be out there to nurture them to see what does that look like to have those conversations, because if a Star was to do that, they wouldn’t necessarily be interested. But actually, it could be quite a different conversation. So as high level example, like a movie star would never go and negotiate, their movie deal would they? They would have an agent that’s really good at doing that part there. So you get to play different kind of roles that can still help with the overall job as well. So then we’ve got the Traders. Traders are very, very grounded. They are again, a mix between extrovert and introvert, but they love being in the activity. So these are, and I’m saying this in quotes, but these are people that love working closely with clients over a long period of time. They’re the ones that would know more about their clients in a very genuine way. And they’re the ones that have a good read of what’s happening or not happening, for example, and when’s the right time to approach a conversation. They’re so trusted by individuals, when it comes to suppliers or customers. They don’t need a lot of variety because they come alive, when it’s about saying how do we make a difference, in that way, and they love multitasking, so you can give them a number of different clients or opportunities or projects and that’s where they get really in their flow. You then have Accumulators. Accumulators are one of the most risk averse profiles, but they are amazing project managers, they’re really great at getting things done. They know what has to happen, they can see what the risks might be, they can see what the opportunities are. If you’ve got an accumulator in your team, you’d want to listen to them because they’re not someone that we’ll say over and over again, Jenny need to watch for this. They might say it once or twice, and then they’ll go, I told them. And then if that thing happens, they’ll be the one to go ‘told you so’. But they’re not going to be the ones it’s going to constantly go , ‘come on, Jenny, I’ve told you about this’. I just want to give an example where an Accumulator and a Creator, they can sometimes not see eye to eye if they don’t have that relationship working, because a Creator may have a great idea, and an Accumulator will say it’s not going to work. Then the Creator’s like, ‘why are you raining on my parade?. Come up with a better idea’. Well, the Accumulators not always the best to come up with a brand new idea. But they’re really good at going, here’s a challenge, here’s the opportunities. How do we move that forward? So let me give you one tangible example. I worked with a team, a hotel brand. They came from the Netherlands. Have you ever heard of the Citizen M hotel? So, they are bored. They are so creative. That’s why when you go into one of their hotels, it is just creativity on steroids. And I love it. But when they had their first hotel in Glasgow, in the UK, it was an Accumulator that literally went how do we take the vision? How do we translate it, and she was the one that literally helped to make it happen from an operational perspective, and to really work and deliver so they are just amazing to have as part of a team as well. Is this helping so far, Jenny?
Jenny 35:58
Yeah, I stayed at the Citizen M hotel the other week in Glasgow.
Osmaan 36:03
So you get to see for example, and then she got involved in different projects when they were looking at how do we scale things up. It was always about we’ve got the vision, but how do we bring the practicalities perspective in there as well. You’ve then got a Lord and a Lord is someone that is very good at looking at the numbers, they get to see what’s happening, what’s not happening? How do we squeeze more efficiency, for example. Landlords – the terminology comes from there. And when you think about it, they’re very good at looking at systems that are a bit more behind the scene tend to be more introverted, but they’re very, very good at being able to see where’s the opportunities? Where’s the challenges here, for example, but they’re very much looking at the behind the scenes systems perspective. So they’re very technical expertise, they tend to be more specialist roles that people gravitate towards, if that’s their superpower. And then you’ve got Mechanics, Mechanics are still very creative. But the difference between Mechanic and a Creator, is Mechanics love to be able to fine tune to improve things. They’re really good at being able to spot inefficiencies again, but also being able to see what’s not happening, where’s the block? What if we change that colour for impact that haven’t converted or that headline, that’s the thing that they can count on, and that’s where they come into their power, and their superpower. And again, one last quick example, I was working with a business owner, who was a copywriter. She was very much, her business model was more towards being a Creator. And she also found it a struggle with a new client, blank sheet of paper, what are we doing, but when we did the profile for her, we realised what she realised she’s a Mechanic. And that just massively changed what she does in her business, because she recognised she’s not the best person when it’s like a blank canvas, new campaign, but she’s the best person when it’s like, Okay, what did you do? What can we tweak here? She needs something to work with. So you wouldn’t go to a car garage and say fix my car, they’d go, where’s your car, and you’d get in there, tinker, and make it better as well. So, I’m sure obviously, depending on the size of your team, you’ll have people in your team that will have, you know, one of these superpowers as their primary profile. And when you then get to go, okay, if that’s what gets them really the best results and, understanding that it allows you to say how do we help to focus on those strengths rather than going, you know, and one thing that used to frustrate me and I’m going to go my bandwagon here, as the HR manager, I used to spend so much time looking at Performance Management in my store. And it used to be , that manager’s not good at finance. We need to send them on a Excel spreadsheet or advanced finance course, even though that was their weakness, we always tried to fix their weakness instead of going they are amazing at turning around a team. They are amazing at, when it comes to launching a new store, how do we actually use and allow them to use their superpower to do more of that, and not try and get them to improve the things that really will just make a marginal difference compared to if they were to become mastery at their superpower? Does that help? So that’s a whistlestop tour of the eight different profiles.
Jenny 39:36
Thank you so much, first of all, for describing each one, and I’m sure everyone listening is thinking, oh, that sounded like me. And I think what you were saying was really quite powerful in that it also helps you to understand why you get frustrated with certain tasks or why, as you said before, I’m looking at someone else who seems to be able to do this really well but I struggle with it. So rather than feeling bad about yourself or disappointed with yourself, knowing your profile almost is like a comfort really, to think this is why it feels like I’m walking towards this wind tunnel that I just can’t get through. And I remember one of the first books I’ve ever read was ‘What colour is your parachute?’ about trying to find what makes you feel in flow. And again, I think everyone at some point in their life should understand and discover what makes them feel in flow, they probably know it intuitively but to actually have it defined for you. And with a set of tools that and principles that you can then follow, to accelerate that flow, to find the things that really suit you. Because Osmaan, as well as business leaders and teams, and you’ve obviously worked with a number of agencies, you also work with individuals don’t you?
Osmaan 40:56
Yeah, absolutely. And
that’s where, when you know who you are, you know what gets you alive, and what gets your best results, allows you to then be more proactive. You may look back at certain jobs to go, no wonder I was miserable at that. It sounded amazing on paper, but actually I was spending the majority of my time doing a role that wasn’t playing to my superpowers.
And that way it gives you that chance to go, right, Whenever I work with anybody, if they’re looking at making a change in their business or their career, I always go, okay, let’s just look at your profile, and let’s look at what that job is and what percentage of your time will you get to spend playing to your strengths? And if that isn’t the majority, then how is that going to feel on a day to day basis as well. So honestly, it’s one thing that I think everybody should know, like I said at at the start, I actually don’t work with anybody at all if they haven’t done this, because my coaching approach changes compared to if I know what their profile is. The way that we set tasks, the way that they overcome challenges are all dependent on their superpower, the way that they think, the way that they’re naturally going to move things forward as well. One last thing I know I could talk for hours on this. This to me is not just a nice to do, it’s actually fundamental. It helps with business growth, because different businesses also go through different cycles, different seasons, as I call them. And I know we’ve had conversations about this journey before. But when you also get to understand, okay, what kind of superpower do you have, without going into too much detail. we you can enjoy different parts of projects or different stages of business. So for example, if you’re a leader who is a Creator, you will love the fresh ideas and the new projects or the start up phase of working with things. But what will end up happening is you can end up sabotaging the success or the growth of your business, because you may get bored at a stage where actually we don’t need more innovation, what we now need is you’ve got a proven concept of your, your product or your service. Now it’s about how do we get that out there more for people to know about it. And that’s why if a Creator was just to do that, or themselves or not recognise that, it’s great to then hand the baton to go right, we now need to have maybe more Stars or Supporters or Dealmakers. And then, okay, now we’ve got people wanting to work with us, Stars are not the best people to actually deliver to do the doing necessarily, that’s when you can pass a baton on to more of the grounded people on the team. Or you go, right, now we’re in delivery mode and that’s where we’ve got different profiles that can play out or come into their flow. And the reason why I say that is I just see so many business owners and leaders, they don’t recognise where their strengths are. So what they end up doing as they create headaches for themselves, because they’re just jumping too quickly ahead. And I’m like, that’s great, but actually look at all that creative juices that you had, you’re not giving it a chance to actually now reap the rewards. And I’m not saying that you have to do that all the time. But if you recognise that you can go before we jump ahead on to the next creative idea, have we taken that full cycle or who can help with that, and vice versa. Sometimes, you’ve got leaders in a team that are so grounded or they’re on the system side or Mechanics and Lords or Accumulators, that actually they’re trying to fix things that are past its sell by date now, or you know, the industry’s changed. And what you might need to do is like, you’re not going to survive if you don’t adapt. Now we need to bring in maybe a bit more innovation in there and then even having different conversations with different superpowers can allow things to move forward. So I hope that makes sense. But you can hopefully see why I get so frustrated by it but also why I love it. When you know it you get to go, what will work for you at different stages of your business, and when will you get bored, because then you might go, I’m now bored so I now need to maybe hand this on to somebody else, or who’s the right leader for maybe a new team compared to a non performing team compared to a consistent team, different superpowers can play at different roles here.
Jenny 45:21
It must be actually quite frustrating for you to see teams working together, or business owners that haven’t done this kind of work, and therefore are coming across lots of different frustrations or difficulties. And you think, oh, my goodness, it could be so much easier for you. And not to mention, I mean, I don’t know if you have any case studies or evidence to show the actual financial impact on a team working in this way. Because with everything that you’ve described, all the little examples you’ve given, there’s a lot of time saving, there’s an increase in efficiency from your teams. It’s getting the right people in the right seats at the right time. Because we know the cost of hiring someone is absolutely huge. And right now, this is a bit of industry information, we have the biggest shortage, for example, of account managers. There’s a recruitment problem where everyone’s hiring, we’ve got a lot of work, which is fantastic, but getting the right people in the right seats. So you spend maybe months trying to get the right person, but then how do we know that that person is going to fit? So would you also say that you can do this profiling at any point in a team member’stenure, for example?
Osmaan 46:45
Absolutely. If anybody ever says to me these days, I want to do something with my team, do you do team building stuff? I personally don’t do team building stuff these days. Because it’s great, it can help people have fun and stuff, but actually, what was the impact of it? So I always say, what I’d actually recommend that we do is we actually really, in a very fun way, for example, so it doesn’t feel like we’re doing a business strategy session or something, let’s have fun with the team. Let’s get to really see where are their strengths? How does that work, how does that play and, honestly, the richness of conversations that are happening, because you know who you work with generally, and then it gives you that chance to go, ah, that’s why I always know, when you’re really annoyed with me, I can understand that, or that’s why, if you’re working with people that are Creators, or Stars, and you come in after a Monday, and it’s like, oh, I’ve had an idea, and all the other people that are grounded will go, here we go again. So you get to understand and you get to positively challenge each other, and say well, how does that work, how do we link that in with our version of what we’re trying to make happen? So again, I talked about superpowers, really simply, whenever I work with anybody, individual leaders, or companies overall to look at where are they, I keep things really simple. It’s like what’s your design, what is your vision, what are your goals, what’s your values, what’s important to you? And even in terms of that your personality is a huge part of that as a part of the design, because then you can go, what is our business model, does that fit in there. You’ve then got the mindset component, because you may have the best goals, but if your mindset’s holding you back, it’s going to be a struggle, or harder than it needs to be, but one of the biggest mindset blocks are that you don’t have to be an all rounder. Look at Andy Murray, for example. Top of his game in tennis, you wouldn’t expect him to go into basketball court and be number one there either, but he’s gone, this is my sport, this is what I’m going to master in that way. So it gave us a chance, from a mindset perspective to go, I don’t have to be a complete all rounder, how do I actually embrace where my superpower is? How do I be really honest with my team to go, you know, I’m going to struggle with this, I need support here, or who’s the best person to do that? And then the third part of my framework is the strategies. That’s when you get to go, okay, what’s the best tack? What’s the best habits? How can I become the most productive? And that’s where you get to see productivity, efficiency, getting to see how does that play a part of what we’re trying to make happen? So whenever I work with teams, I’m always about going, what are your goals? What would success look like for you from a real return and investment perspective? And then when we get to look at what the team are doing, are they playing to their strengths but also if they were playing more to their strengths or if we were to realign things or give them permission to play to their strengths more, what would that mean from a knock on effect from a business perspective as well. And again, that’s where the real insight and the magic impact happens for me.
Jenny 50:05
Thank you for explaining that as well. That’s why your company’s called Rapid Transformation, because it is transformational. And it happens so quickly. I was just thinking, actually, you gave me an idea, right now, many account management teams, agency teams are dispersed, but they’re starting to come back into the office, maybe one or two times a week or, but they’re looking for ways to get the team back together. And it actually sounds like a perfect exercise apply this trifecta of thinking and finishing off with a profiling exercise where it would be a revelation, and the relief that you feel and the kind of interest and the intrigue and it will be one of those discussion points. The realisation that someone is out of their flow, because they’ve got their head buried in a spreadsheet.
Osmaan 50:59
And that’s why even if you think about the working world that we’ve been in, some people have absolutely thrived in it working remotely, and that can also apply to some of the superpowers and what environments you excel in a lot more. One tangible example, if you’re a Supporter, for example, who loves connecting with people having real conversations. If you’re working remotely for a long period of time, you would feel it a lot more compared to the opposite profile, which is kind of a lower profile. So it’s not always an exact science or puts anybody in a box, but that’s where you get to understand if I’m managing a team, what are their different profiles? What does that mean, in terms of your team culture? What does that mean, in terms of the way I engage with different people in the team? What are the different needs? And that can be a really interesting insight for different people, and for the wider company, as well to go what does that look like with some of our policies, and some of the working practices that we have as well?
Jenny 51:59
Honestly, this has been so enjoyable and so much fun. So thank you Osmaan so much taking the time to explain it all. The reason you’re here is because it has been transformational for me. I’ve seen it transform many of the lives of the business owners that I know. So I would urge anyone that has a team or has a business in fact to look at this because there’s so much richness here. Is there any question that I haven’t asked you that I should have done, anything that we haven’t talked about that you think would be of value or interest to an agency owner or an account manager?
Osmaan 52:37
I think it is just about understanding. There’s so much potential out there. And there’s so many things that we can be doing to grow our business but taking a step back and actually understanding, what’s the best way of doing it? That can pay dividends. Some people will say, I’m so busy, that’s a nice to do, we’ll get round to it at some point. But it’s a case of going once, you know this you can’t un-know it. It just gives you permission. There may be times where, and again as a caveat, I say to all companies and leadership teams that I work with, when you actually know this that it can be such an eye opener that people may go ah, I’m in the wrong role but as a boss that’s a great thing for you to know, because it means that sometimes there’s opportunities within your team to go , is there a way that they can apply this profile in different ways or if they moved on, for example, how do we get someone that would be the best kind of role for them in that way. The one last thing that comes to mind is we can often get busy, we always go, who do we need? If you’ve got turnover in your team, you might go that person was amazing at what they did. We need another one of them.
If you’re a leader you often go oh, I just need somebody to replace me. That’s typically not what you need. Actually you don’t need another you or you don’t necessarily need another one of them. It’s what’s the gap that you have in your current business? What’s the goals that you’ve got, who is the right person or the right fit that you need at that point?
Does that make sense so initially you may have needed someone who was great because he came and set up something they brought the creative juices to your team? Well, they’ve now went on probably because they’re a Creator and they’re bored. You don’t need someone like them now you. If you’ve got a Creator in that role, they’d be bored as well. Now we’ve got that vision there we need someone that enjoys fine tuning They enjoy not reinventing the wheel every single day as well. Often people say to me, I just need another one of me, and that can be often worse. You often need someone that’s the opposite profile, or you need to think about what’s the opportunity or what’s your strategy in your business, so that we can see who is the right person, or what type of account managers do we need, for example, what’s our clients? What’s our plan? I could talk and talk about this for hour. I’ve been loved the conversation, and I hope that whoever is listening to this, it’s worked for you as an individual to go, well, what is my superpower? What’s my team’s superpower, and are we working together even as a whole team approach to really make magic and results happen in your business.
Jenny 55:28
I can honestly say, I think it would be the best investment that you’ve made all year, if you were to carry this out. And to that point, Osmaan I know how busy you are. But who would you like to be contacted by? Because I’m sure many people will be curious about this. Who would you like to be contacted by? And what’s the best way of contacting you?
Osmaan 55:46
Absolutely. So for me, I love having as much impact as I possibly can. So if you are a leader of a team, or an agency and you’re thinking right, this is something that can be really useful for our organisation then please do reach out. And you know, it doesn’t matter what size your organisation is, we can have a conversation to see what does that look like? For example, some things we do as a whole team, if it’s a larger organisation, sometimes we do area by area or department by department. And the best way to do that is actually over LinkedIn. Connect with me on LinkedIn, drop me a message, let me know you’ve listened to this podcast and we can have a conversation and take it from there. But also if you are an individual you’re thinking what you have said to me really resonates and I know you might not necessarily be in the best career or you’re not necessarily sure, you may be stalled in your career for example and you think actually I want to know my superpower, how would I move that forward? Please reach out to me because even doing that profile and having a mini debrief session can often open up your eyes and see what’s the potential. Connect with me on LinkedIn and I’m happy to help if I can.
Jenny 56:57
Amazing, thank you so much, Osmaan. I really appreciate it. Thank you for joining me. It’s been an amazing very, very valuable.
Osmaan 57:03
It’s an absolute pleasure and I love to see your superpowers playing out as well. So and thanks for having me here as well and I look forward to connecting with others as well, if you’ve listened and enjoyed this.
Jenny 57:15
Brilliant, thank you.
