Scale Up Series #4 – Judith Beck – Transcript

Episode details

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, person, organization, business, thinking, advocate, clients, important, mistake, boss, advisor, role, women, book, percenters, employees, mentor, top, happy, answers

SPEAKERS

Judith Beck, Fraser Jack

 

Fraser Jack 

Welcome to the x y advisor podcast. A global community of financial advisors sharing and learning with one another to drive the positive evolution of financial advice. To get involved, go to x y advisor.com. Or simply download the XY advisor. portfolio construction of risk management tasks that take you away from where you need to be building relationships with your clients. Aberdeen standard investments can support you by creating bespoke investment solutions, outsourcing portfolio and risk management creates efficiencies enabling you to focus on fulfilling the ambitions of both your clients and your business. This podcast has been prepared with tears based on sources believed to be reliable and opions Express honestly held at the applicable day however, it is general information only and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. Just be prepared without taking into account the particular objectives financial situation or needs of any investment investing involves risk including the risk of losing capital. It’s important that before acting investors should consider their current circumstances objectives and financial situation the information is appropriate and is to them and consult financial and tax advisers investors should consider PDS valuable evidence standard.com before making any investment decision products issued by Aberdeen standard investments Australia limited ABN five nine double 0212336 for episode number 204263. Thank you for joining us on another episode of The X Y advisor podcast. I’m your host Fraser Jack. And today we are talking about scale through choosing the right people having the right staff, the right leadership and all these sorts of things. So who better to chat to then Judith Beck, welcome.

 

Judith Beck 

Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

 

Fraser Jack 

Now, you would totally be one of I would say the financial services, industry slash professions. Greatest finders of amazing talent for organizations. I bet that’s probably how I see somebody that’s in the industry or the professional.

 

Judith Beck 

Well, I’ve been around a long time. And I started my executive search firm over 25 years ago. And, you know, I’ve probably have interviewed or calculated over about 20,000 people in place people senior to managing director level over the years, hundreds. So there’s I said to people that when I start interviewing their grandchildren, it’s about time. That happened about three years ago.

 

Fraser Jack 

And the stories you would be able to tell from that. From that from those.

 

Judith Beck 

Yes, yes. Yes. There’s a lot of stories for sure.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yes. And you probably been involved with placing some of the, you know, most well known executives that we all know. So congratulations. Thank you. So yeah, we thought it was talking a little bit about the idea of how businesses run well efficient, effective scale and obviously choosing you know, what you call, often referred to as the you know, the the top 10 percenters is pretty important. You know, we sort of think about this, but when it’s hard to really quantify what that means to an organization, do you have a lot of sort of ideas around? How big a deal this is?

 

Judith Beck 

I think it’s a really big deal. And I think the thing is, is that, you know, I look at it from the point of view of being the founder of a business, but then also someone, someone who’s running a business and has to have staff and have to have structure just like everyone else, but then also seen so many senior people within the industry and what some do, and others don’t. And, and I know when I when I first started my business, and I was interviewing people who were general managers and senior level people, often I would ask them questions that I actually learned from myself. So from my own my own business, I’m saying, I wonder what they think about this, I might just ask this question in this interview, and find out and then you get that you weigh up what each one tells you. So it was a learning experience for me in the early days as well. But what I noticed is that there is a clear top 10% of people who do things consistently. And you know, because all the people are bright. They’re all they’ve all gotten there because they’re well educated. They’ve You know, they’re smarter what they do, but what did the top 10 percenters do differently and what they do differently is just basic stuff better. They’re very good at soft skills. They’re very good. They don’t lie. They don’t levelized I’m a big believer in that you can’t be a level Iser and it’s kind of a term I coined, and what that means is that a top 10% or does not treat One person one way and another person the other way, they treat everyone with the same respect, right from the moment they walk into a business, the receptionist, to the administration people to everybody that they deal with. And that is really important, because they get that get that those people are stakeholders. Yeah. And, you know,

 

Fraser Jack 

yeah, I couldn’t agree more when I think about, you know, the level eyes, you know, the word level eyes, which you know, is your word that you made up and coined, and it’s the kind of thing, but it’s 100% true is it’s all about the idea of, you know, not not having that hierarchy. And I think the business or chart is a is a major corporate in that, you know, like that, that the fact that they put the CEO at the top of the pyramid and then work it down. I’ve always sort of thought that needed to be the the other way around here that the people that are facing the client at the one end, they really need to be at the top of any particular liberalizing tree, or whatever it

 

Judith Beck 

might be. Exactly. You know, what, when I used to i, the person who, Stephanie, who was our receptionist for 17 years, and Stephanie was office manager, she, she ran the office, basically. And I would say that, I’d say to Stephanie, when candidates would come in, I would say to her, let me know what you think of this person when they come and ask these three questions. So she was originally kind of doing a pre interview, and then she’d come back and give me feedback. And she’d say, that person wouldn’t give me the time of day, that person was really nice. And really that person. You know, when when you came in, they all they lit up, like, Hi, how are you? And all nice, friendly, but they would just give me yes or no answers. So that told me that they were kind of people who levelized, you know, that they would, you know, they didn’t see the importance of the people at the front. And that was important to me. Because the thing is, is that in my business, and I think in every business, that that if you level eyes, then you see one person more important, the other and that the person who is the front facing person, that receptionist coming into the office, even if they’re the person who answers the phone, for your business, they are really important to the business. That is the person who is going to give that first impression. They and they know everything, that person knows everything. So when people would when people live allies and entry, receptionists or administration, people, they don’t have a clear understanding about stakeholder management and relationship and who’s important who’s not and that, and that actually would go against them. If I got that feedback, yes. Trying to set the pattern and kind of it would set the pattern. And then I and then I would clarify i would i would dig deeper to see whether or not was that nerves? Was that them just being nervous? And I would dig deep to see if there was a pattern.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, you’re exactly right. It could be those and first impressions are something so important. There are just so many micro decisions being made. And in somebody’s head when they first you know, from a from a user journey point of view, or consumer journey or a client Genie point of view, there are so many answers that are being calculated in somebody’s head in that first, you know, small amount of time. Let’s roll

 

Judith Beck 

and say the top 10 percenters, that’s what they do. They know common courtesies are important. And so right through their career, they are the people who they engage. They include they, like I said, they don’t love allies, but they also are very, they’re confident, not arrogant. And there’s a big difference. Yes, you know, it’s kind of like when they were, you know, when people talk about their achievements, a confident person, I would know that a confident person when they would talk about their achievements actually did the achievement because you could see the passion, and they could tell you how they got there. What was the result? The whole nine yards and arrogant person probably didn’t have most of the achievements that they said, and they overstated it, and they wouldn’t give credit to their team or other people and you could they really wouldn’t have the detail. So you could you know, after interview that many people over the years patterns form, and you can you can you can spot spot who’s telling you the truth and who’s not pretty much and top 10 percenters. They had nothing to prove. They knew they could tell you they exactly this is what I did. I came up with this idea. I developed it to x y Zed. Then I brought my team in who then helped me and we did this and that was the result. So it was really, really clear in The way they told the story about the achievement with people who don’t have them or who were taking credit for other people, they have gaps in their story. And they can’t really tell you everything about how that achievement got. And they’ll, they’ll sort of kind of brushed over it.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, wait, I just as you’re telling me that I sort of think about the difference between leadership and management in that scenario, you know, leading leading out in front, you know, leading the way leading the charge versus managing people to do that.

 

Judith Beck 

Yeah, absolutely. And and the other thing that stands out with top 10 percenters is they, then they are okay, with making mistakes and owning it. And that’s a really, really, because who hasn’t made a mistake? As a guy, like in the last five minutes, yeah, that’s fine. But the thing is, with top 10 percenters, they will make a mistake, and they will own it, they’ll go, and if someone else picks it up, they’ll go, thank you for picking that picking that up. And, and they’ll write it down, and they won’t do it again. Or they’ll put the process in place, and they won’t do it again, they won’t blame other people. And that’s a big difference between the top 10% or one of the one of the ones and and somebody who isn’t, because someone who is you need to know that it is okay to make mistakes. And if someone’s making them as made a mistake, and they go, thank you very much for picking up, it’ll never happen again. That’s the key. But if someone says, Oh, well, I wouldn’t have made that mistake. If this didn’t happen, or that mistakes, not really relevant or whatever, and continually, you know, sort of won’t own it. Those are the people that probably aren’t going to go as far because or they’re going to have things fall through the cracks. So those are the things that I would see through the years as far as what the good leaders did. And, and within the industry, you know, you would candidates often would say, I want to work for this person, I would never work for that person. And you know, their reputation, you know, you’d hit their reputation would go with them, basically. And why why do you want to work for this person? Because this person is somebody who one doesn’t level eyes, you know, they include everybody else there. give credit where credit is due, you know, they they’ll help and nurture and mentor and train and they’re not. They’re not people who, you know, will that you know, they don’t blame you. They don’t know troponin. So it’s all these really simple things. I don’t know if you if you remember in the book where I was talking about schoolyard behavior, yes. All this stuff comes out. You know, if you think about, you know, what we do at work happened at the schoolyard. You know, you have your bullies, you have your principal, who’s the CEO, you have your teachers who are the student, you know, and the student body and you have the mean, the Mean Girls and the mean boys and the geeks and the girl that all transfers into work, work life. And, and the ones that rise to the top are the ones that are consistent in in just the basic sort of human kindness and things that they do they they’re not necessarily the smartest, the top 10 percenters are not necessarily the brightest, the ones that got straight A’s, they’re the ones that do everything consistently in a good way. And own and own their own their responsibilities own. They’re, you know, they’re passionate about what they do. You know, and they’re, they’re very good communicators as well. You’re one of the things that t 10 p does I call them t 10. PS, is that if you’re working for a ci 10 P, you will always know the Why

 

Fraser Jack 

yes. Okay.

 

Judith Beck 

Why do we do that? Again, I go right back to the receptionist. Why do you answer that phone in a nice polite matter why I want you to rather than going answer the phone, you know x y Zed company. If you said to the employee, answer the phone, x y Zed, but I want you to say it in a really happy way. I want you to be an ask the client, what the dude The reason being because we want repeat business. We want our customers to be happy. So if the T 10. Peas always tell their employees the why they always that people that work for them know why they’re doing it. And that and they have buy in

 

Fraser Jack 

absolutely is and you mentioned that that blame and victim mentality is like to you know, pull myself up ever on blaming something or someone or somebody else and thinking Hang on a minute. If I’m going to blame somebody after that means I’m a victim and I don’t really want to be the victim so do not be the victim. Stop blaming,

 

Judith Beck 

you got to stop you got Yeah, and go, I made a mistake. I, you know, I’m really sorry, I don’t want to I, um, I talked about, I had the situation where when I was first started when I was working at a bank before I started my own business, and I was only probably about 24 it was like the first major big mistake I made. And basically what it was company had these brokers and there was a broker who was the sort of the really, he brought a lot of business to the organization. Anybody was very arrogant. And so I that was back in the days, we had to use the sharp calculators, you know that you probably don’t remember.

 

Fraser Jack 

It something that hit numbers, I remember you said I used to have a holdover on them.

 

Judith Beck 

Well, instead of it being calculated on a computer, and all done for you, we had to calculate it on the on our sharp computers. Anyway, I over calculated his brokerage by $3,000. That’s a lot of money back in the 80s. It’s a lot of money now. And I found the mistake, I realized, we had already paid them, I realized that I had had done it. And I went to my boss who was a great boss. And I and I was like devastated because I’m thinking that is going to take me months to pay them a lot. And I was definitely going to pay it back. And I said, I’m so sorry, I’ve made this huge mistake. I’ve over calculated x y Zed brokerage, I’ll pay it back. It’s my fault, everything. And he was such a great he was a T Tempe, and he was such a great boss, and he goes, thank you for bringing it to my attention, you know, you could have swept it under the carpet, he probably would have never found it, that kind of stuff. Because thank you for. And he was actually really mad at the broker. Because he knew that the broker knew that he had been overpaid. And so he literally got on the phone to the broker and said to him, you need to pay that money back, you took advantage of that, but settle his account quickly for him. And so anyway, what happened is the sky the arrogant guy, he came into the office with coin, a bag of coin, and he marched it through the office. So everybody could see it the bagger coin and threw it on the desk of my boss. And so everybody knew I made the mistake. But you know what, I never miscalculated anything ever again. And I appreciated the fact that my boss was the type of person that if you did make a mistake, you owned it. And that and that’s what he wanted. He wanted people own your mistake. Learn from it. And don’t make it again. Yeah, we make mistakes. It’s not the end of the world.

 

Fraser Jack 

Really interesting. You. You remember that so vividly. You said your first big mistake, obviously was your first deep learning that and that suppose that I guess a vending machine was the winner out of that store at the end of the day, the vending machine down the hall probably end up with a light coin in it.

 

Judith Beck 

That’s exactly right. That’s exactly that’s exactly right. You know, and you know, the other thing I learned from that by listening to him and how he handled it, he was looking after his employees, also the organization, and he didn’t buckle to the pressure of this is one of our biggest clients. And I’m not going to upset him. So he you know, he was ethical. And so he said, No, this is wrong. He shouldn’t have done that he knew better. And I’m going to stick up for for her and for, you know, the organization, even though he is one of our biggest clients. And I think that what that says a lot about a person.

 

Fraser Jack 

That was a it’s the title of the culture, I guess.

 

Judith Beck 

Absolutely. Absolutely. Which is really important. And that and that is what t templates do. They set the tone of the culture, what they do that it’s not just verbal, you know, vote, you know, words, oh, we’re going to be that, you know, you know that because you hear it all the time. You see it all the time, people saying, you know, we’re just such a great culture, and we do this and we do that and blah, blah, blah, but actions speak louder than words. And and those were the people who had the actions, you know, they they walk the walk, they roll their sleeves up when they needed to the end, and they did it all consistently. And that’s why they’re successful. You know, there’s still people who don’t do that aren’t that are successful in spite of themselves. But when I see those people, I think, man, how successful you would be if you just did it.

 

Fraser Jack 

Fair enough. I think it was probably one of these words. That’s a bit like trusted if you have to use it yourself, then it’s actually a negative.

 

Judith Beck 

Yes, yes, that’s exactly right.

 

Fraser Jack 

If you have to ask somebody to trust to you or you’re trying to convince someone that you have a good culture, then the culture is not shining through enough.

 

Judith Beck 

You know what they The the proof of a culture is how happy the people are. And also what should turn over like, you know, if you have a high turnover, I remember I had a consultant approached one time in Sydney from another for another from another firm. And I said, and he told me and I said, You know what, if you want to know, don’t listen to me, if you want to know what their culture is, like, go on to LinkedIn and see how many how many employees they’ve had. That will tell you because in a consulting environment, if people are turning over and over and over, then there must be something wrong with a culture that’s either too hard, or you know, they’re putting too much pressure on the what they need to achieve. There’s all kinds of things that go along with that. But culture, you know, they it boils down to how happy your employees are.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, fantastic. Now we’re doing a heck of a lot of work over many years with, you know, executives and placing senior executives. You then branched out and started I great quote, potential executive women. Tell us about starting that and why you started it.

 

Judith Beck 

Yeah, absolutely. So all the things that I had seen over 25 years with financial recruitment group led me to believe Okay, why aren’t women getting to the top at the same level as the guys are? And not once when I when I had FRG that I that, that I ever thought that any of my clients were discriminating against, you know, they were large financial institutions, great clients, they all would get me the best candidate for the for the job. And they all what they want balance, you know, they wanted balance that no one wants a team of people that all look exactly the same. They want people that are diverse. Yeah. But where do we where do we find these people? Right? So it wasn’t a case of I didn’t feel it was a case of discrimination. It was more boiled down to the fact that, that when I would had hot women, and I would call them up, and I’d say, students back FRG, like to speak to you about a senior role that I have in the financial services industry, often the first response would be, thanks for calling me Judith. I’m happy, I’m not interested. And I’d go, how do you know you’re not? I know, you’re happy. I’m not calling the miserable people calling people are good at what they do. And how do you know if you’re not interested? Because I haven’t told you what the what it’s about yet. And so I would see that pattern. And it and it made me think, Okay, what what’s going on here, you know, there are great women in the industry that can be doing these jobs. And but they won’t go to the table. And then it boiled down to a lot of things that I would say that the guys always had people in their corner, they all had advocates. And that is such an important part of the process, because from the time that they come in, as a graduate, they’ve got someone in their corner, like their father, their uncle, their brother, who says go in there, son and ask for more. And they do it and they get it. And then the girls just go, thanks very much for the opportunity, because no one’s pushing them to do that. They’re happy, they got the job. So all of a sudden, those boy graduates, and often, you know, there is a two, this is another, this is probably another whole session, the graduates, for some reason, they tend to have ranges, salary ranges, which I never could understand, because I think you’re a graduate should all be paid the same. There shouldn’t be a range until you prove yourself. So then what happens, the boys go in and ask for more Oh, I’m speaking to x, y, Zed company, and x y Zed. And they’ve offered me this and then the company will actually offer them more in that range. And therefore then they start off already on a higher level. That’s because I’ve had people in the corner to do it, right. And so as I go up in their career, they’re collecting people, when their boss goes to another division or another company, they keep in contact. By the time they’re at senior in a senior level role. They’ve got 10 to 12 advocates in their corner. And that from what I would say from an executive search point of view was really important, because that gave them the edge. Because when you get into those senior roles, it’s very close to who’s going to get the role. And if you’ve got Intel and people in your corner, it’s going to give you the edge. So I kept thinking, well, this is not right. Why aren’t the women don’t have I did a survey as well one time to where I found out that women, on average, have zero to maybe one person that that’s helped them within their career. And so the purpose of starting few was that wanted to make sure that we could give women advocates. And the idea was when they come into the membership they’re paired with an advocate is more senior than they are, and outside their current organization. And in turn, they become an advocate to someone who’s more junior than they are, and outside their organization, because the idea is that they need to build up their advocate base, so that people that you know, have support, that it’s not not their boss, or somebody inside the organization, a fresh high pressure support. So starting few was really to look at what kind of support can we give women to get them to that next level to give them that push to help them to give them the advocate, because it’s about, you can’t get the role if you don’t go for the roll as well. And, and we wanted to make sure that that they had a lot of support behind them, and they were building those networks, guys are very good at building networks. And you can’t blame them for doing it. Right. So we just want to make sure that you know that the girls have the the same opportunities, and that that’s been very successful, because we’ve seen over the year, so eight years on but almost eight years, since few started, we’ve seen so many of our membership base get promoted. And they attribute their promotion to their at the help that their advocate gave them through the process, or just giving them a little bit of, you know, heads up about something a role they heard. So what happens, if you have if you have all these advocates in your corner, and you’re within a large organization, then the guys would get phone calls from other guys and say, Hey, did you hear about the role in business banking, you should go for that. And I’ll help you through it. And I know the person who that role reports to so I’ll be able to give you some advice on how to how to approach the interview. That’s powerful, that’s really power. So so few few is a membership organization started is that it started as that and we know there’s a whole bunch of other support services. So I ran a few and built few. And then last year, I passed the business a few to the next generation, so that they can now take that into more digital, and that they could focus it in a you know, build it, build it, take it to it’s already success into the next level of success. So that’s happening now. And you know, it’s been and and you know, not just few, there’s a lot of women organizations out there that are doing fantastic jobs have been, you know, mentor and and I was actually speaking to a journalist the other day, and she was saying to me that, that there would have been an increase of the number of women in a management position over the moving into management positions over the men. And she was she wanted to know, she wanted me to respond on why do you think that is happening? And I said, Well, it’s because they have more mentors, there’s more women’s organizations out there that are providing mentors, and advocates That’s powerful. The companies are also focusing on capabilities over years experiences. So in other words, you know, let’s focus on are you capable of it, because you’re not going to have 10 years experience in that role. Because there’s no, there’s never been anyone in that role for 10 years. Let’s focus on the capabilities also, you know, increasing things like diversity, diversity panels in the recruitment, process, blind recruiting, those types of things. And, you know, it was it’s so few was, it was really important for me to start few and foreign few because I wanted to give back to the industry that had been good to me. And I thought that was just something that really needed to happen. And so hopefully, hopefully one day, we’ll be in a position where we don’t need fue anymore, or any women’s organizations because they’ll be totally quality. So we so that, you know, we also I started Few Good Men a few years back. And that was there’s there’s several men in the industry who are advocates, under the under a few good men, to senior women, other senior women in the industry. And that was in recognition of the fact that at a certain level, there’s only so many women at those levels that can be advocates to the next level. So we we needed to get the guys involved when we wanted to get the guys involved. They were more than willing to help and be advocates. And the women who have been mentored by them are saying things like, it’s been life changing, it’s really given me a different perspective helped me through to get to this next level. And you know, it’s a, it’s a diversity and equality is a industry init
iative. It’s, it should be involving everyone, because it’s to the benefit of everyone. And, and that’s really, you know, the purpose of making sure that, that people do understand that you will be more, you will have a more successful organization, if you have a diverse workforce, with different ideas and different ways of seeing things and doing things.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, wonderful. It’s been a wonderful initiative, congratulations on starting that and, and even the, you know, that when you enter into something like that, and then hand the baton on to somebody else says that with us, I guess you could say you were the custodian of that organization, and then you’ve handed it on, and it’s always nice to hand something on in a better place than where it was when you started or picked it up. So congratulations on that. And also introducing, you know, the, if you could mean concept, not only is it it’s a great name is Tony on based on the movie, but but it’s, you know, as you said, that whole idea of diversity in in that space. And, you know, like you said, Men are doing it for men. So why can’t they be doing just another person?

 

Judith Beck 

Yeah, and I even goes beyond that it goes into the diversity of, you know, culture. And, you know, when I was with no sex at work, when I wrote that, when I wrote the book, The idea was, basically leadership is not a gender. And when I grew up, I grew up in a family of six, and I’m the youngest, youngest of six, and there were five women. And my mother was very strong, and my grandmother very strong, and my dad, very supportive. And we never had this concept of mother, see, my father lost his job when he was 40. So then my mother had to go back to work, and actually go to work, because she hadn’t worked before. So she had to go to work at 40. And try it, because she needed to raise six kids, right. But never in our household was there, this idea of, you know, girls couldn’t do the same thing that boys could do. So I grew up in that we’re all equal kind of thing. So when I went into the work environment, my first job, I didn’t go up, I’m a female, you know, I’m gonna be discriminated against, and the guys are gonna hit on me. I didn’t go in there with that view at all. I went in there, I’m not a business person. How do I get from A to B? What do I got to do? I was very ambitious. And I thought, Okay, what do I have to do? How do we know that was because of things I learned at home, and the the role models that I had at home, but not everybody has that. In fact, a lot of people most people probably don’t have that I was very fortunate. So the idea of, you know, shoe and everything that you know, that and even with doing the book is to sort of get pass on the the knowledge and the experience, to the ones that haven’t had it, because what’s obvious to us is not obvious. So it’s obvious, not obvious. And that’s where you kind of gotta go. You know, it’s it’s kind of when someone says to me, Oh, thanks for that. I didn’t realize that. And I’m thinking, geez, I just thought that was obvious that people would do that all the time. And then you have to, you have to step back and go, No, because they didn’t have that same upbringing role models that, you know, they didn’t have the same experiences. So that’s where we have to teach people.

 

Fraser Jack 

Absolutely, we can so fall into well learned behaviors and past experiences in the way we were brought up. And you know, that’s, that’s the reason why people have different opinions on stuff, right. And so sometimes you have to sit back say, this is my opinion, but if it’s not someone else’s opinion, no one of either of us are right or wrong.

 

Judith Beck 

Yeah, I said, I often say there can be two right answers.

 

Fraser Jack 

You mentioned the book, great title, by the way. What was the inspiration behind writing a book?

 

Judith Beck 

Well, I kind of I people had been saying to me for quite a long time, actually, when are you going to write a book and put all the experiences and you probably have some really good stories? good stories. And, you know, I’m my first my first sort of response was Yeah, I have a lot of really good stories and maybe I can write them down when I’m about 99. What I don’t care what but but you know, I I had that title, no sex at work, probably for the last five years. So it was actually on my to do list I can actually go back on my to do list and see it Sa W, right? First 10 pages, right? Yeah. And then that would keep going up by two dealers and never happened never happen. And I wrote articles and stuff like that over the years. And I always kept all that. And it really wasn’t until I handed over a few in June, that I thought, No, I’m going to write this book. And I actually spoke to a friend of mine, Andrea Clark, who is fantastic. She said, I don’t know if you know, Andrea, but she’s written several books. And she’s an awesome journalist as well. And, and I was talking to her and she said, What are you waiting for? You tell people, like basically, I’m the person that always sort of tells people, what are you waiting for in time is now and she she goes, you need to, you just need to pick up the phone call, Leslie basically, is what she said, Leslie, the publisher. And, and I thought, Okay, that was the push I needed. That was the push I needed, I’m going to do it called Leslie at major street publishing. And she was awesome, and her team and everything. And then I just started writing because COVID hit. And I was forced, in my office at home, to sit in front of my computer, and write, and that’s what I did. Yeah, it was kind it was actually, um, it was actually really therapeutic as well, because it was kind of a, you know, it was during COVID. And everything was a negative, negative environment. So I was able to kind of channel that negativity, energy into writing and take my mind off it and put it and put it all down. And so that’s what how I’m shocked, I’m shocked. It’s like, I’m shocked that

 

Fraser Jack 

I did it. Because you just describe it, you had somebody in your corner that helped you and encourage you. And that’s exactly what the mentoring process was all about. So

 

Judith Beck 

and you know, the thing about that is what I say to people who are either starting businesses or employed or been in business a long time, you are never too old, for a mentor, or someone in your corner, you are never, you you never have enough experience or all the experience. Or if you if you kind of get to that that stage where you think you know, at all, you really know nothing. And so you really no matter where you are, you need to have people in your career, you need to have people in your corner, even if it’s people who you are just going to bounce ideas off of and brainstorm because it is a different you need it you need a fresh eye for I think for a lot of things that you do. You know, when I first did the first few chapters, I’m thinking, ah, this isn’t so hard, you know. And so I send the chapters into, you know, the publisher, and, and so it was like school, you get it back with all these red marks. And I thought I was pretty good when it came to grammar, and, you know, writing and I work capital crazy, like precisely, you know, because you forget when you’re when you’re, you know, we’re so used to doing text and quick communication, that you forget your credit. And I was capitalizing everything, and lessons coming back and going. You don’t capitalize this, you don’t capitalize my mother, you know, it would capitalize if you say mother did this. And you know, so that after the first couple chapters, I kind of got back into the swing of grammar. Yes, and what but you still know, I would say that, you know, any sort of document are things that you do anything that you do when you if you think about it, if you write something, and you give it to your staff, and you say find the mistakes, and they’ll read through it, and they’ll come back and I’ve had this happen to me before in the past to where I’ve done it with my staff, and they’ll come back and they’ll go, Oh, it looks fabulous. is Craig, ready to publish? We because we used to do salary surveys. And so I’d give it then to my partner, my husband, and I’d say can you just do a last look at this. And he’d come back with all these? No, that’s not right. This is so I met one time. I said to the staff, there are they came back and said there was not one mistake. And I knew that that was not possible. It is absolutely not possible. If you have a like a five or six document page document that you’ve read that there won’t be one mistake. I think that the the law of averages will say no, that’s impossible, and they came back because they were familiar with it and some of the articles that were in it. They weren’t as well. So I went back and I said, Okay, $100 bottle of wine to the person who finds some most mistakes. Do you know, there were like 10 mistakes?

 

Fraser Jack 

Yes, I would absolutely believe that. And I would not be the person that was checking that document, I would not win that bottle of wine, that’s for sure.

 

Judith Beck 

But each of them, each of them in the Melbourne and the Sydney office, each of them found several mistakes. So it was just kind of like, you need to focus on it. And, but that’s what with anything is the point I’m trying to get across is that with anything, business documents, whatever you do a fresh eye, an advocate, who is not part of it, who’s there’s no agenda, they’ll tell you the truth. You know, they don’t have to worry about that, that those that relationship with someone like that is really powerful. Because they’ll they’ll feel comfortable giving you and you have to be able to working with an advocate, or coach or whatever, you have to be a you have to take their critique. You can’t be defensive about it. If someone says to you, oh, I think you could probably do it You sounded, you know, you’re sounded really angry. You know, the I remember one time, I had someone ring me and said, I think I’ve really upset my my boss, my new boss, basically. So what happened is a new boss came in to this particular division. And the new boss called her on her car on her mobile phone. And so they were actually talking mobile phone to mobile phone, which is not a good idea if it’s if it’s a serious conversation, because the new boss said to her, so what do you think about the division? What do you think would it wouldn’t have the issues? Well, she proceeded in the car, because you know what that’s like, you’re driving down the Monash, you’re going crazy here, you your tone is gonna go higher than probably what it should be. So she’s driving down the road. And she told him everything that was wrong with the division. And you know that the tone was probably louder, because you know, people passing or things like that, so that he does went up. Okay, thanks. So she picked up that she thinks that she might have upset him. So she calls me. And then she says that I go take me through the whole thing. That’s when she told me she was on the man as she was on the mobile phone. You know, there was passing cars, she told him all these different things. And I went, Oh, my God, I said, I’m gonna give you really, really, really Frank feedback. If that if I was your boss, your new boss, and you told me that you said that to me right then and there. My first reaction would be, she’s gonna be hard work, I got you and she’s not on the bus. She’s not on the bus, I go, you wait you need to do now is you need to get back on the phone to him, and make a time to meet with him in the morning or as soon as you can. And just say, Oh, look, I hope what I said didn’t come across negative. It’s just that I’m really passionate about the business. And because I said to her as well, you told him everything that was wrong about the business, and you didn’t give him any solution. And you never go into your boss with problems unless you have recommendations for the solution. And to his credit, he said, Yes, I did. Thank you. Because I was worried. He goes, Yeah, I did think that it was really an egg. And it really was too. I mean, if you really gave it to them, and a few swear words in there, just throw that in at the time. Said, I go you’re building a relationship with a new manager. And now she could have asked somebody internal about that. And they might have had a different spin on it. And they might have been too careful about what they said to her not to because internally, internal advocates have to toe the company line, they’ve got to be, you know, all that stuff. And then she might not have wanted to say everything. So with an external cat, she could she was able to be frank with me open. And I was able to be frank with her because I didn’t know the boss. I didn’t know and I could I could give her my perspective based on how I would feel. Somebody called me and said that TV. And anyway she had the meeting with them and it went well. And that was the that was the thing is that you just the advocate relationship. She could have also got really defensive with me by saying be going to her. You started or your tone sounded angry your tone. She could have gotten defensive and not taken the advice and that’s the thing with an advocate. You’ve got to be prepared to take their critique and listen to what it is that they’re saying. Because nobody gives critique, you know, people don’t, it’s not fun to criticize someone like it’s not unless you’re really crazy. Narcissus

 

Fraser Jack 

sorry that that critique is so important. And obviously, you know, the fresh eyes and a fresh voice even you know, like this person who’s not in the organization, it’s super, super important. Yeah, that quickly wanted to mention the book, because obviously you’ve written a book, it’s coming out. I’ve read it. And I wanted to give you my feedback, not critique, and I’ll give you what happened. I’ve read the book. Amazing. And we can go through the chapters. In a second, what I have done with the book, after instantly reading, it was instantly gave it to somebody on you needed that information at the time. So it was one of those things that I’ve just read, I’ve read and then passed on, because I think here’s somebody I need. No, I know, that needs this instantly. So that was my

 

Judith Beck 

That’s fantastic.

 

Fraser Jack 

Now, just with the book, obviously, the title, notice at work, each of the chapters, as I quickly learned no six at home, six at Java application, or six an interview, pretty, pretty eye catching that point of view. But of course, the main theme behind it is, you know, how does? What’s the difference between men and women? And should there be a sex conversation as in the sex of the person involved? And how does that work? And you know, why should or shouldn’t it work? And obviously, you know, MIT home started, as you mentioned before, with the idea of around what, what are you saying to your kids,

 

Judith Beck 

you know, and that is the thing is, is that when people go into a work environment, the idea was basically, you should be an individual. So, you know, When, when, when, when you hire someone, or when someone goes into a role, the first thing that you when you look at them, or you go, you shouldn’t go, Oh, that’s a female, that’s a male? Or is there an individual? What’s their individual strengths? And what can they do? And not sort of getting tied down into your own? Like one not putting barriers in front of you real or perceived that are there? The other thing is, is that how do you address issues like that as well? If you do see them? How can you address them? And when you look at when you look at all those titles, and you see everything, no sex talk, no sex with your mentor, those type no sex when negotiating your worth, that type of thing? It’s about a business person, how do you know it’s not different negotiating, I don’t believe a salary increase. It’s not different for a female and a male, there are certain things that you should be doing in that process. And it’s not gender specific. So all these things are about, it’s not gender specific about how to get from A to B. And so don’t put it in there if you don’t need it. Like, it’s not like it’s not why why Think about that. It’s kind of like how I said before, I didn’t go in there thinking about I was a woman, I went in there thinking I am a business person. And I want to achieve in my position, you might recall call one of the one of the stories in there about a girl who came up to me at a conference. And she thought she was being discriminated against as a as a business development consultant new into her role. And I had a chat to her and and found out that basically what happens is that she was given all the low risk clients when she started. And I said to her, how many other people in your team started with you a couple more and, and were they given good clients? No, they were given lower and I said, You’re not being discriminated against, you’re the new kid on the block. And New Kids on the Block, get the low wrist clients, because you need to cut your teeth on them, they’re not going to give you the biggest clients, they’re going to give you the ones that if if you make a mistake on them, and they lose them, it’s not going to have a dramatic effect. But it will be good for you to learn. And that’s just what happens. But it but she’s immediately thinking and now the problem with that is that one, the induction, first of all, her boss should have told her the Y Remember when I told you about so basically the boss should have said to all these new people, you’re getting these clients because you are the new kids on the block. If you make a mistake, it won’t have a huge impact on the business.

 

Fraser Jack 

You tell them you make a mistake, you know if

 

Judith Beck 

Yeah, and they will. And you know, tell them the why. Because here’s this person going to work day to day every day thinking that she’s being discriminated against because she’s got and she was actually thinking about leaving. And I said that organization is one of the least discriminatory organizations that I know. They’ve got programs all over the place. There. They’ve gotten a good percentage of balance. And I said, so No, you shouldn’t be leaving the organization. And anyway, we have that chart, but that is what’s going to happen to them the next time something happens. So having, hopefully this book at all levels, will be able to give people perspective about why what they need to do as an individual to, to get from A to B, and what are the things to do and, and, you know, going in to a role as a new manager, you know, I’ve had people say, Well, I’ve got this role as a new manager. And, you know, women have said this, to me, I’ve got this role as a new manager, and I just feel that I’m being criticized, because people are thinking that I got it because of a quota. And, and you know, and I go, you know, what, the company is not going to hire anyone into a role that they don’t think can do the job. So forget about what you think is being said, What is or isn’t being said, Go out and celebrate that promotion, and do the job and do it? Well, and then guys, well, I’ve had guys say, you know, I feel you know, I got this role. And that, you know, I feel that I’m going to be criticized because you there is an imbalance in my table, then put a balance in, you’re in a leadership role. You’ve got the perfect opportunity to then turn it around and go, okay, we need a better balance in this team, how are we going to do it and start involving your staff in those conversations, so that they get in their part they have a buy in? And that’s why I think a lot of times companies make mistakes is that they don’t include their their employees in these conversations. In what, what some, what, what, what do they want to see happen? what’s acceptable and why, and why

 

Fraser Jack 

so much of a company or an organization success comes back down to the how somebody is thinking or feeling. You know, between the years a lot of the staff that are there, you know, whether they succeed whether the company succeeds or fails is all in the in the minds of the employees.

 

Judith Beck 

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

 

Fraser Jack 

Now, another one of the young the topics was the idea around that the conversation and talk that happens, you know, no six talk chapter where there was a, you really addressed a few issues around when people are saying things, and it could have been the way before and then learning new new behaviors. You know, a classic story you tell him the book was when somebody called you loved the first time in a conversation.

 

Judith Beck 

That’s exactly right. I mean, the so the first one of the first roles I had is, and I was and I was young. And that was actually at that same place that we were talking about before, but before before I was reporting to the to that boss, the first boss, I had, the moment I stepped stepped into the organization. He’s English, he was older, you know, his early 80s. And I hear this love, can you get such and such and love can you do and I’m thinking, this guy is not going to become me love. I am not happy with this. And I think this is I never had anybody at my previous organization that I worked before that we called everybody by their last name. So you know, and it wasn’t so for someone to call you love. It’s kind of like, No, no, no, it’s not gonna happen. But then I’ve been taught, you know, my grandmother was, you know, very good about catch more bees with honey, and nip it in the bud quickly, that was sort of her way of doing things. Don’t let things drag on. So I thought, Okay, what should I do? What would gramma do? And so I said, the next time he said, Love, I said, Hey, I don’t have a problem with you calling me love. If you don’t have a problem with me saying no problem, sweetie. And he just, you know, sort of stood back and kind of looked with displays die because he’s probably thinking I can’t have this 27 year old girl calling me sweetie. It’s just

 

Fraser Jack 

nearby connections going on behind it.

 

Judith Beck 

Exactly. Right. And, and, and he just goes up, okay, Point taken. And so he never called me love, but he never called any of the other girls love either. And so and it didn’t because I said it kind of like like I just said it now kind of laughing like I got a problem with you call me. I said it in a light hearted way it got the point across and it didn’t it didn’t damage our relationship, but I nipped it in the bud quickly, because otherwise I could have dwelled on it and got angrier. angrier and I just think that so many things that don’t that happen in the work environment happen because people don’t nip it in the bud quickly they are they assume that their perception is you know that this person’s done this or this, and they don’t just confront them. But that comes with confidence too. And that also comes with. So for instance, if I was a shot, I really shy person as you can tell, I’m not. But if I was, I would hope that I had an advocate, or somebody that I could go to, to say, this guy keeps calling me love, what do I do, I’m not happy with it. And that an advocate who’s more experienced would say, you need to nip it in the bud, this is what you need to do, or go to HR, and then maybe they can sell something like an action have an action. But if you’ve got no one to speak to, then it’s like the other person I was talking about where she’s thinking she’s being discriminated against. So these are, this is why those advocates are so important, but with with, with conversation, and in that chapter of no sex top, it’s, it’s not just, you know, love and those types of things. There’s other sort of things that people can say in a work environment, that you might think it’s fine, but somebody else won’t think it’s fine. So companies need to define what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable and also get their work and workforce involve men and women involved with what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable and agree upon it.

 

Fraser Jack 

This was a really interesting learning for me from the book was the was one of the stories around no nicknames at work. And and that’s something that from my point of view, I’m sort of more like a, you know, happy person. And I, you know, I don’t mind calling people by nicknames, but then for my realization to go, actually, you know, what, some people might not like that. And so I need to, I’ve sort of had to pull myself up a little bit.

 

Judith Beck 

Well, that’s perfect that that story is, you know, Connie McKay, who’s managing director of one view, that’s, she told me that story and that that’s the story about basically, they had gone into they had it were facilitating a sort of, like a working day. And basically, she had a facilitator and every she, this is when she first first started there. And what happened is people would came into the meeting, and the facilitator, one person couldn’t get there right away, and came in a little bit late. And when he came in, the facilitator said, Hey, killer, how you going? So what she said happened in that moment, is that immediately the other people could see that the facilitator had this relationship with killer. Yeah, and so that that so with nicknames if you’re if you’ve got if you’ve got four people imagine a new employee coming into the room into a meeting. And there’s Robert babo, you know, below whatever call. Yeah. And, and they’re calling each other nicknames, you are immediately going to feel like you’re not part of that, click, kind of think back to the high school days, right? You’re not part of that clip. You’re, they’re having conversations off to the side. So she actually then said to put in a mandate from a company point of view, that you must call everybody by their given thence the name that they introduce themselves spot, and she had people coming up to them up to her thanking her for that policy, because they didn’t like their nickname

 

Fraser Jack 

was definitely a new new road connection for me reading that part and thinking that’s actually

 

Judith Beck 

Yeah, because on one hand, he’d be going up, come on, it’s fun, you know, it bring you know it, it loosens things up and, and then not thinking about what the other person’s thinking. And so if you want true inclusion, it’s got to be for everyone. You know, it’s got to be people have got to be happy, happy with it. And you and other people shouldn’t feel like they’re not being included.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yes. Fantastic. Now, it’s a wonderful book. I’m not just for people in executive positions, but anybody from employee, you know, working, setting their business, understanding how anybody who’s managing or looking after a leading set up anyway, so yeah, wonderful. Thank you for for that. And of course, how can people get hold of the book, they wanted to get a copy?

 

Judith Beck 

Well, it’s, it’s going to be in all the major bookstores on February 23. So they can get it at the bookstores or they can go to Judas back, calm com.au. And they can preorder on my website, or they can also go to the major street publishing website as well.

 

Fraser Jack 

Wonderful. Thank you. No Obviously, we’ve been talking about, you know, scaling up and stuff and creating a business that’s efficient and effective. And to me that happens within the humans within the business. So thank you for coming and sharing your wisdom with us. Appreciate it.

 

Judith Beck 

My pleasure. It’s been fun. Well, there

 

Fraser Jack 

you have it, another episode of the Expert Advisor podcast. I’m Fraser Jack, and I’m joined by Emily. Hello.

 

 

Hey, Fraser.

 

Fraser Jack 

What are the time of the week it is it’s time to do a quick shout out the end of our podcast episode.

 

 

Let’s do it.

 

 

So today’s shout out goes to x y advisor all the way over in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And I hope I pronounced that right to Ashley Murphy. So Ashley is the resounding expat guru, particularly with clients, you know, hailing in America or in Australia, or a combination of the two. And over the last couple of weeks in particular, Ashley has been so generous with his answers and adding value to questions that have arisen in the platform from advisors who have got those, you know, international questions or those tricky situations where they’ve got, say, an Aussie client or an American expat, but they’ve still got assets in the States, and to be able to see international collaboration, where you know, an advisor can jump on, especially an Aussie advisor who may not be as versed in the American system and get a really credible, reliable and responsive answer is sensational. So amazing stuff actually all of your value you’re sharing and contributing it certainly doesn’t go unnoticed. So thanks, legend.

 

Fraser Jack 

Yeah, absolute legend. Thank you so much for being involved in in another country, joining and helping a group of advisors on the other side of the world. What a champion.