Video - Robert Craven interviews Michael Tipper - Peak Performance Productivity
VIDEO: 55:12 mins
AUTHOR: Robert Craven and Michael Tipper
In this GYDA Talks, Robert talks to Michael Tipper of Peak Performance Productivity. Michael is on a mission to help busy professionals squeeze even more juice out of this thing called life by helping them cross the bridge from overwhelm to overachievement. From distraction to disciplined delivery. From procrastination to purposeful progress.
His specialities include: How To Be Productive Working Remotely, Finding Focus In A Distracted World, Eliminating Procrastination To Get More Done and Taking Back Control Of Your Email.
Robert and Michael discuss:
"Productivity is a habit!"
What is your definition of productivity?
Is personal productivity (for the CEO) the same as productivity for the team?
How do you improve their productivity?
How do you improve your own productivity?
Why does productivity matter? We’ve all done the courses…
There is no shortage of productivity gurus… who do you rate?
How do you differ from the run-of-the-mill productivity trainers?
Do you rate the get-up-at-4 brigade?
Michael’s recommendations/pearls of wisdom, golden nuggets
Transcription:
Robert Craven 00:52
Hello, and welcome to GYDA talks and grow your digital agency talks. And it is an absolute pleasure to introduce you, a gentleman who I've known for some time, and I've been learning loads from a gentleman by the name of Michael Tippett, and Michael is going to talk to us about productivity. Before we came on, he said productivity is just a habit. So without further ado, welcome, Michael.
Michael Tipper 01:20
Robert. Thanks for inviting, really great to be here.
Robert Craven 01:23
It's absolutely great to have you. So you've got this really wild backstory. So why don't you just tell us a little bit about what you are known for, maybe what you were known for?
Michael Tipper 01:37
Well, certainly well, I've been in the people development space for about 20 years, my first career was in the Royal Navy. So I was a weapons engineer officer in the submarine service, running the combat system on a nuclear powered submarine. Then I got into memory development. So I won the silver medal in the world memory championships. I dined out on that for a few years and got into the speaking space. I taught a lot of kids how to learn study skills. I think I was one of the early pioneers of large scale, entertainment type educational events, working with kids with a company called positively Matt a few years ago. So I cut my teeth as a presenter for the teenagers that then developed into beyond memory going into creativity. And ultimately, I ended up doing productivity as part of that, then I left to turn into the leadership development space about 10 years ago when we had the last financial crisis. And I then got into developing people and teams. And then I stepped out of that about three or four years ago to get back into focusing on productivity and helping people understand how they can get much more done.
Robert Craven 02:43
Okay, so let's just go straight into it. So I mean, I do find the idea of being Mr. Memory, man, you know, that was, let's just go down that route for a moment. So it was about people being a whole pack of cards in front of you. And you then telling them back what it was? Or was it just telephone numbers?
Michael Tipper 03:05
I was all that stuff. So where it came from was, when I joined the Navy, I thought I had a poor memory. So I was used to need it, I need to take time to process stuff to learn it. And so when I joined the some low levels back then when they were called low levels, that was fine. But when I joined the Navy, I was suddenly faced with modular learning. So I do a week's course on gyroscopes I'd have the exam or which course explosives have the exam. And there's a lot of pressure to it. And it didn't suit my learning style. So I thought I had a poor memory because naturally am I can't remember this stuff as quickly. Therefore, it's my memory. So I bought a memory course that was advertised in the Sunday Times and discovered that it wasn't my memory, I just didn't know how to use what was between my ears. So I started using it. And I then actually literally forgot about the course. And the irony of I forgot about the course until about eight or nine years later, when I came across mind mapping that led to memory techniques that then led to the world memory championships. I thought, Mind Mapping is fantastic. I started using it was amazing, made all sorts of differences. And I then went into I did a memory of my mapping course. And suddenly I was in a training environment where people weren't shouting at me. And it was like, Wow, that's amazing, cuz that's what the military was like back then. And so that then led to me doing the wanting to teach mind mapping, but I thought, well, I need credibility for this. I saw the world memory championships when I had look what they were doing, thought I could do that. So I did, I won the silver medal and ended up being on TV, and I've written books and I've memorised packs of cards. So I did nine packs of cards in an hour in the world championships. I did a 750 digit number in 60 minutes. So to be able to remember it and then recall it all. I did 966 binary digits, which is just cheap. So that's basically a sheet of ones and notes in 12 point font and an a4 sheet. And I did a pack of cards in under three minutes. So I went through all that and basically it was a credibility piece because I wanted to prove what you can do when you put your mind to it. And my memory is exactly the same as yours. Only now I've got a few skills I can call upon if I wanted to use them.
Robert Craven 05:10
So do you remember that you still owe me a drink from when we last met?
Michael Tipper 05:17
Yeah. I think the business plan I missed was having five pound every time someone made a memory joke, because I'd be worth a fortune.
Robert Craven 05:27
Okay, so now heavily into productivity. I've watched you researching productivity, and I've watched you literally just surrounding yourself with it. What is your definition of productivity?
Michael Tipper 05:46
It's a really good question. I think it's context dependent. If I was going to give a short term, a short description, I'd say it's about getting the output you want, when you want it. And that's pretty, there's the simple if you're encapsulated, then what we find is that things get in the way of us doing that that might be issues around effectiveness or efficiency. But broadly speaking, that's what it is. If I was to go deeper, I would say it is more of a work style choice. So productivity is often something that comes up as a deficiency need, it only becomes an issue when it's a problem. So if you think about people's health, when do people start getting fit? Or when do people start focusing on their health normally, when they've had some form of scare, or they suddenly had a fear based realisation that actually, this is the only body I've got a bed, do something about it. And so you've got this sort of almost a fear based approach to it. So I define it as was it in health, you'd say you'd make lifestyle choices about what you drink, what you eat, when you go to bed, and all that sort of stuff. I believe productivity is a holistic, workstyle choice. And I've got this, I've been trying to think, how do I encapsulate this because there's all sorts of various ways of looking at it. And I've come up with this pyramid of productivity where there are four levels. At the bottom, you have the level of energy, this is about the ability to do things, this is about your spiritual energy, your physical, your mental, your emotional energy, this is just having the fuel, to be able to get out of bed and be able to apply yourself to the stuff you've got to do the ability to do things. The next level is about the level of efficiency. So this is about being able to do things quickly. So why do it in two hours when it can take one hour. So this is about doing things right. Then above that, you get the level of effectiveness. And this is about goal setting and planning. And this is about doing the right things. And then on top of that, you've got what I call the elite level. And this is about doing extraordinary things. This is about mastery of your craft. And this is about leadership. And so within that pyramid, there are various ways of looking at productivity of various things that you can do. And all the techniques that you can apply for within that pyramid and depends on where you want to be in terms of what the output is that you want. So if you want to operate at the elite level. So for example, I was ranked number two in the welding competition memory when I won the silver medal. Now to get to that point I had to do, I had to be in great physical shape, my energy had to be good, I had to be doing the training in an efficient way. I do the right training. So I had to be doing goal setting. And then I had to practice until I became that good. Now, at the other end of the spectrum, you might just be someone working an administrative role. And you just want to get the paperwork done in a way that you can go home on time without getting stressed out, you're still going to be in really good shape, and it might be doing things in an efficient way. So this structure just then is a framework about which you can then decide what the output you want is and when you want it and decide which of those things are most appropriate for you.
Robert Craven 08:45
So I have to confess in kind of preparation for this interview, I took on doing a presentation about giving people back time which is an aggressive definition of productivity for owner directors and talking about morning rituals. So I have this big deck. Okay, and because I'm obsessed with the 80/20 rule, I decided publicly to so here you go, here are the 50 slides, I'm now 80/20 those slides so now these are the remaining 20, which I then at 80/20, which are then at 80/20. So I ended up with one slide I then took that one slide now at 80/20. I ended up with two bullet points and then at 80/20 of them and I ended up with one word. And that word was...
Michael Tipper 09:34
Was energy, energy.
Robert Craven 09:36
Yeah. Because it's a flip brown because of what I was saying, but you're 100% confirming it is kind of the bedrock for all of this stuff is energy. If you haven't got the energy, if you haven't got the enthusiasm, the excitement to actually make it happen if you don't fit and healthy, I guess in terms of those sort of the Stephen Covey sense, you can't do any of the rest of it.
Michael Tipper 10:06
Yeah, but coming, just extend your point a little bit. If you think about the brains functionality, the brain primarily, I mean, does a lot of stuff, but it has two primary functions. Number one is to keep you safe. That's why the reptilian brain controls everything that we do. The second function is to preserve energy, so that it can keep you safe. And so when we start looking at things like effectiveness and efficiency and procrastination, sometimes we don't want to do things because it just seems like too much work. That's the brain saying, I'm going to conserve energy, just in case Sabre toothed Tiger around the corner. When we think about the quality of thinking that we apply to what we do. We have the system on system from Daniel Kahneman, who wrote thinking fast, thinking slow, that's about our default mechanism is to see the easy answer. And a lot of people default to that. But actually, progress is made by some deep thinking. And we avoid doing that and a lot and a lot of the problems that we have in terms of stuff getting done, the right output when we want it is the fact that we don't dig deep enough because we're trying to conserve our energy. And until we're aware of that, until we actually start making conscious choices about what energy investments so we're willing to make, because we can start to see the long term benefits from that, then we're just going to be at the beck and call of our natural tendencies to minimise energy so that we can stay safe.
Robert Craven 11:27
So it's kind of like in praise of lazy that when it's easy because we don't want to do the hard work for fear that we haven't got enough energy left for something more important, that is kind of the argument.
Michael Tipper 11:46
That's one side of it, that's definitely one side of it. But there's another side to it, that they sort of the symbiotic and that's this, the reward mechanism we get for achievement. So dopamine is the most addictive drug that we're known to mankind. And it's there for a reason, it's there to reward us. So for example, when we eat, we get a hit with dopamine. So back in the day, when we're out on the savanna, we eat, we feel good, we'll do that again. And that means that we survive, because we take in the nutrients, and so little things like progress towards goals. So as I'm wandering through the grasslands 200,000 years ago towards the apple tree than it was going to give the apple every time we get close to it, I get a hit of dopamine, I feel good. The anticipation, anticipation, anticipation. And so what that happens, we've got that, but I don't want to spend too much energy because I don't want to in case something. So we've got this like, push pull relationship. So today, what we are designed to because our default mechanism is the easy stuff, we do the easy stuff, it feels good, we get to that feels good, therefore it feels right. Therefore it must be the best thing to do. Whereas in actual fact, what we need to do is recognise the short term pain sometimes for long term gain, but because our mammalian brain drives our behaviour, in terms of and it's it's driven by emotions, and also its time horizon is now. that says, right, we should do this. But that's like the little ride on top of the elephant wherever it goes. If I want a bun, I want a bun now as you can do to stop me.
Robert Craven 13:18
So does that kind of explain why I don't know I've given you an example from this morning. It's like Ticketek attack, where did I put that address? Now I know where I should have put the address. The address should have gone into the CRM system when we first got the address in that email. Okay. So but an error, my gateway, where did you want to search? Google Drive is not the Google Drive search. It's not a drop off search? And are you saying that that original lack of discipline, because I know what the process is, I know what the system is, the process is we get an inquiry, we there if there's an address, you put it in the CRM system, you're saying that lack of discipline, I couldn't be bothered is because I wasn't prepared to pay the short term pain for a reward further on down the road.
Michael Tipper 14:13
Thus, possibly, that's possibly one of the reasons I mean, a number of reasons why you may not have put it into the system, it could be that actually to do it is probably more steps than you're willing to commit to at that particular time. It might be that you have a system that actually is difficult to put stuff in therefore, it's a bit of a harder and you might have then been suddenly attracted to something else because remember the reptilian brain controls this is always looking for something new is loving novelty. You thought oh, do I have to put all this has come through could have been a call and it gets distracted or sudden you lose that? And that's what sometimes happens. But this concept of a system is really powerful. Now I interviewed Gavin Ingram, who is a sales and marketing genius. And one thing that I took from him was this use or the need for systems and so a good system that makes things easy for You means that you don't rely on your emotional brain, which will take the easy route. So if your system for collecting your email addresses and contact details was so easy that it was harder not to, then you wouldn't have the problem. And so this is why I'm such a big believer in systems, I'll create systems. So for example, let's take Amazon, for example, beautiful. I can go on my iPhone now, I can press one button. And tomorrow, I'll get an email saying it's here. Because if I go and click and collect, or am I gonna knock on the door at 10 o'clock tomorrow, say, there you go. That's beautiful. But to get to that, the amount of effort, the amount of work to make it that easy, is considerable. And I think when it comes to productivity, my angle, although I want people to be more efficient, but it's about doing things right. And if you can create a system that makes your life so much easier, there's a lot of benefit to be gained from the investment in time. So to put one of the things together, such that down the road, you've got a system that just like that.
Robert Craven 16:06
So I'm gonna push back on this, because we've all been on productivity time management courses, we've all done them. And someone's stood up and shown their five step process or whatever it is. I mean, they don't work, do they?
Michael Tipper 16:29
In some, well, they don't work if you don't use them. Okay, so let's look at why this is. So a lot of people will collect information because they'll read something. Let's take I know a book, we both shares a favourite book is The One Thing by Gary Kelly read that book thing. What a great idea. This is just fantastic. If I did that, if I just chose one thing every day, that was the most important thing in my life. We are fantastic. I feel good about that concepts. Let me just go and do things I don't normally do, okay. And that's what happens is we collect these ideas that we know, would be good if we use them, we feel good about knowing that we know and do bugger all with them. And that's the problem. And the challenge that we've got is that we're in, I love to fill in the matrix because think the analogy of the red pill, blue pill is absolutely perfect. The majority of people are just getting by their life's just okay enough that their needs are satisfied. They could possibly do more, but because their brain tells them to reduce energy, because they're safe enough. So what's the point is that the realm of productivity, if it's not a deficiency need is almost like something that only the few will choose. There's only a few people who are willing to take the red pill, willing to go down the rabbit hole and find themselves in a new world where they set clear goals, where they work hard at them, where they hit the failures, where they feel stupid, where they develop and grow, when it feels uncomfortable, whether they get up early, if they need to get up early, whether they do their prioritisation, where they only focus on one thing to exclusion, everything else. There are very few people who will do that. And so the reason why this thing, well, it worked does it work? Yeah, they do work, but only for the few who make them work. Now, not everything works for everyone. So I'm a process person, for me processes a word of arousal, spreadsheets, and detail and planning. Now that works for me. And I have to understand something by processing it. Now that doesn't work for everyone. But I have a desire to be able to perform at a peak performance levels. And I realised that I could apply my strength and my skills to be able to do that. But it's a choice that people take. So in answer your challenge, they do work, but you have to choose to make them work. And you have to do the effort necessarily, until they work because the concept of the one thing question, it's brilliant. You ask yourself it and then try answering it and then try putting in the answers into place. That's bloody hard work. Okay, and if you believe in it, it will happen.
Robert Craven 19:11
But yeah, I run a business, I employ people. Clearly, I want them all to be more productive, partly from a purely selfish basis if they can do it in 45 minutes rather than hours. That's a good thing. Also, because I think if people are productive and effective, they enjoy doing more and also because I think speed is safe speed is really important. How does one get the people around you to be more productive is that just about surrounded them with spreadsheets? Because that's almost like what you're suggesting. And I don't think that anything that's quite worse.
Michael Tipper 20:05
It's a really good question. And we're now starting to get into a different concept of productivity. So, so far my answers have been based around personal productivity, individual productivity, how can I be maximise my energy, increase my efficiency, top out my effectiveness so I can operate elite level? How can I do that as an individual, when you start getting involved with other people, you're getting now into the realms of leadership. And so we're talking now about if you've got a group you're working together, it's the creation of the environment where as a group, productivity can be achieved, because the component parts the sum of them is greater than the individual parts added together, whatever that phrase is. And this is about leadership, and this is about aligning people in the right direction. This is about creating the standard understanding the behaviours that are required to achieve the outcome that is necessary, positively reinforcing those behaviours once you've made them clear. Because often, one of my favourite quotes by Chip and Dan Heath is resistance is often the lack of clarity. And perhaps the biggest challenge I saw when I was developing teams and working with leadership groups, is that the clarity of what was the right behaviour was never there, the clarity of what the direction was never really clear. And even if people said, well, oh, yes, we're going to do X, Y, and Z, this X, Y and Z might be written in capital letters X, Y, Zmobility written in this lower case, and the X Y Z might actually be different X Y Z. So that clarity of communication is key, getting the relationships between peoples who have a harmonious environment, aligning the strengths of the people getting. So one of the things, for example, is that if there are 10 of us sitting in a room, and we have to work together, and we've got to put in an hour solid work of just solid work. But we keep talking to each other, we might spend a whole day in a room, but never actually accumulate an hour solid work because we're sorry, what? Sorry, what? So we never focus. So creating the environment where you can have that sort of window opportunity where I can do my hours work, such that we can then benefit from that is key. So you've got that positive reinforcements, behaviours, clarity and behaviours, accountability for your own contribution, and when people don't quite meet the behaviours, which they should do now because they're clear. And for me, the probably the most powerful part of that is the positive reinforcement. Now, I believe there is a chemical formula to productive success in a team environment. That's two parts oxytocin, one part serotonin, and one part dopamine. And the two parts oxytocin is this building of the team environment such that I trust you, you trust me, I know that you've got my back because I've got your back. And this comes from when we're on the savanna. So back, then we have to work together would we like each other or not, is the only way we survived. And so I would go to sleep, knowing that you would look after me, because you knew that when you're asleep, I would look after you. And so when you've got that, and Simon Sinek describes his brilliantly in his circle of safety, which you may have seen, but when the internal relationships are so powerful, that we trust each other, we've got that strong bond that's a two parts oxytocin. And it's in that proportion because it's that important. The one part serotonin is this feeling of pride of contribution of the accountability of the feeling of positive reinforcement ofI love the way you shut that zebra and that was an amazing portal. And this is like, oh, did you really I'll do that again. So you've got this feeling. And then when you've got that relationship between the people, the two parts, oxytocin, when you've got the positive reinforcement, when you've got the accountability when things aren't quite right, but you've got that relationship, we can do that. And the behaviours are there. The dopamine comes when the results are there, and that's the key. And so out of that, you'll get people who will be inspired then to go and read the one thing to go and look at how they can be more efficient to go look at how they can build on their energy levels. So go and look at how they can take things to a higher level because you've got this entity that feeds off itself. And that's where you start looking at different types of productivity for a team environment.
Robert Craven 24:29
Okay, so let me just unpick this because I'm a bear with a very simple brain. When we deal when we talk about productivity in ourselves, we got a triangle 1, 2, 3, 4 energy at the bottom leadership at the top. Effectiveness, sorry, efficiency, effectiveness, admittedly. But when we're talking about productivity in our team in our workplace, It's the same word. But it's almost got a different meaning because now we're talking about how we create the environment and how we get the team to work and how we create clarity of purpose and direction and focus. And then presumably, those individuals in the team also have their own individual productivity triangle so to speak. You've got someone running a business, you know, I want to do as many $1,000 an hour, hours as I can, and I want to do as few $10 An hour hours, not many $100 An hour hours. So that's kind of what I want to do. I had a great quote the other day, actually, not wrong, the role of the CEO is to make decisions. So I want to be making great decisions. But also, I want to make sure that my team delivers on the offer, and I want to make sure that they do that well. And they do that happily. And they do that consistently. And it's a sustaining thing. So is this purely a role of leadership? As the leader, I need to go in and set all this up. Or can they set it up themselves? Can you create a self sustaining productive team? Can you leave the team to figure it out themselves itself?
Michael Tipper 26:45
That's a really good question. And it depends on the scale of your enterprise. So when you start your business, some may start a digital agency, they may be the only person doing the work. They're the CEO, the Chief Operating Officer, they're the finance ops, they do everything, then they start to then build a team around them that can do the team element of their business. And then there comes a point when they extract themselves from that team. And then their role then is to either maybe feed the team with the work, and then maybe manage the team. So the work is done in the most effective possible way. Then as the business grows, it might suddenly start actually, when you've got another team willing to replicate wait on the first team got the next team. But then as you start building those, you may now need to find someone who like you, is able to set up a team and nurture a team. So then your role. So you've got leader of your craft, leader of people who are doing your craft, leading people who can then lead people who can do your craft. And so you move up the levels, depending on the scale of your business. So you move from if you're in the band, and I think the E Myth revisited book by Gerber talks about this really well. This is about the creation of systems such that anyone can come and do the work and you're not reliant on the individual concerned that the wizard, the particular Facebook ads, or the the wizard, the particular admin process, actually, you just got someone who can come in and run a really good system. So I tend towards creating great systems because that's my background. The other end of spectrum is being able to empower great people to do great roles and then working up the level so that the role then becomes the management and leadership of people who were then managing leaders leading the smallest subset. So it depends on how big your organisation is and how far you go up. But ultimately, the role of the leader should be making sure that the team who is working for you is working at their optimum. And when you come to this concept of actually categorising the work that you do, is it $100,000 hour or is it a 10,000, whatever your $100,000 hour might actually be the time you go in, sit in with your team for an hour, where what you do is you reflect back to the future, or reflect back the great stuff that's happened because of their positive reinforcement, maybe hold them to account over something, given the future direction, make them feel good about the work that they do. That injection of dopamine and serotonin in the oxytocin might be the thing that will cost you 100,000 or make you 100,000. But you may not see the benefit of that until five, six months time. And this is the dichotomy that leadership and productivity has. Because there is this thing about I need the result I need the KPI now, what actually what you need is to get the behaviours going and the results will then appear down the line. It's this disconnect. That is the challenge when it comes to productivity and leadership.
Robert Craven 29:51
Okay, so well, we'll talk we'll go back to personal productivity in a moment to first stay with team productivity. If I wanted to make my team more productive How would I go about doing it?
Michael Tipper 30:16
Okay, so the first point would be, what does done look like? So the definition of what productivity is, now productivity can be defined. Okay, so we're in a digital agency, we want to earn over 1.5 million by the end of the year. That's one way of defining what that is. And you can set that as an aspiration. So understanding what done looks like so then it comes back to an ironic all I'm doing, I'm just parroting what you told me in our interview recently. This is about working back what the stages are. So when it comes to productivity, then it comes down to you've got the targets. So 1.5 million in 12 months time might be 1 million in nine months time might be 750, in four months time. So you've got those targets, and then it's a case of okay, well, what are the behaviours that need to go in place to meet those targets. So if we take the view that you are providing a service that charges a certain amount of money, in order to get a client, what you have to do is you have to have three face to face interviews, to get three face to face interviews, you've got to have 15 contacts, you have 15 contacts, you might have to have 45 leads. So what is the behaviour to get you 45 leads? What specifically does that look like? And then it's the creation of those behaviours and aligning those behaviours. Can you do it so that people need to have the energy to come in to be able to do them? That's the first thing. So what's the most efficient way of getting those 45 leads? And then once you've got that efficiency in there, okay, can we do it more effectively? can we leverage this? Could we outsource some of that? Is there an offset there? And then we get to the elite performance level, it could be okay, well, you just got someone who's just got a natural way of doing it. And that's how you start introducing the productivity. And the key there is getting clear on the behaviours, because the targets can often be so firm, a guy called Steve match was great iceberg model where if you've got this, the iceberg at the top above the water is the 1/10 of the iceberg that's there. And that's normally the results. That could be the achievement of the 1.5 million in 12 months, okay, that's a target. And too often the focus is on that as the reward. But underneath, there's a nine tenths of effort that goes there that goes there that goes there to get that up there. And what often people miss is that the encouragement and the positive reinforcement and the accountability happens underneath the waterline. At the behavioural level, it's working out what are the behaviours I need, and that behaviour might be? Well, our receptionist is really positive, when she takes a call, that could be a behaviour, okay? It could be telesales guide, the behaviours that they make 50 calls a day, that could be the behaviour. And then when you get into well, in the call, their aim is to follow the script, or however it is done. And that's the key when you define the behaviours, and then is having the key once you've got that is working the system and then feeding back and saying, is this working? Are we where we expect to be? If yes, fantastic. If not, what do we need to change it? And sometimes that feedback mechanism is lost.
Robert Craven 33:29
Okay, so then the $6 million question I can see how you do that. So how as an individual Do I become more effective? So is that about courses, books? That's no training. What's the way of becoming more productive as a CEO?
Michael Tipper 34:03
Or as a CEO? Okay, so I think we then come down to, I think it's more about soft skills with the CEO. The ability to be able to sit on your porch with your feet up with a pattern pen, and think, right, okay, where are we going? Where are we going now what we're going to do? and your timeout, not actually affecting the turnover or the running of the business. So if you're a delivering the business, you're working in the business, and you've got divided loyalties, I've got to do my delivery, and I've got to manage and all of a sudden, you've got this divided responsibility, which adds extra pressure. But if you could just sit back and strategize, and just sit back and coach your team and just sit back and be able to get a feel and support when necessary. Hold those to account when necessary. Change direction when so because you're the captain the ship, is it Oh, hang on, we're heading over Some rocks there, that them in the dream can't see because they haven't got sight of that, then that's the role of a leader in terms of an enterprise. If you're talking at the top level, but then if you take that from a, at any level, it's almost like it's fractal. And so someone running a team, they're in there, the captain of that little ship, and though they need to do the same thing at that level, and it might be that as the leader, the managers, the MD of the organisation is empowering those people to be able to do that. And I think probably the best leaders I've come across have been those who have been humble enough to know that they don't know enough, and being humble enough to be able to ask, and I think there's this misguided belief, maybe driven by certain personality types that I'm the leader, I've got to know. And if I show any vulnerability, then I'm weak. And I think I've in developing the leadership, I've seen some organisations where their leadership decided their leaders need training. But actually, they didn't. They themselves needed training. And I think I would suggest anyone who is sort of 40, plus, running a business, who has done leadership training in the past, and things will tick, I've done that one now and I'm in the fire and I'm fighting the fire, I would suggest it's probably time you went back to school, because a lot has changed in the last 10 years, the last 5 years about understanding, neuroscience understanding, so my chemical formula, village success, for example. So I can strongly recommend the work of Simon Sinek as a starting point to go and explore what true leadership actually is. And that's what I would recommend to a leader of a business is to go and look at those things, the productivity will come stuff, I talk about the personal stuff that will come when you empower a team, and you give them direction, you make them feel safe, and you make them feel rewarded, and you challenge them when necessary. They themselves are gonna look for how can I contribute better and it might be they'll be the one thing it might be the The Checklist Manifesto, whatever it might be, they will go and find those things because they'll want to be better for you.
Robert Craven 37:12
But there's no shortage of productivity gurus. I mean, I did my research for this thing I was talking about last week, I read one book, which is called the 15 time management secrets and booty beauty gurus. And then I read another book, which is 370 creative people. And book number one says, I interviewed 65 people, and they all had in common that they got up at four o'clock in the morning and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, they all went to the gym. And I read the other book, which is an old, slightly older book, and it says that, you know, he used to drink absence with his breakfast and not start painting until four in the afternoon, you know, move on. And then the next one will be He. She used to get up at four o'clock in the morning and do 2000 words before breakfast. I mean, there was no, in the second book, there's no consistency of what effective, productive people do. So, George W. Smith, I mean, there is no shortage of productivity gurus. So who do you rate?
Michael Tipper 38:28
So in terms of people themselves, I think that the godfather of productivity would be David Allen, who wrote the Getting Things Done GTD books, that's like PhD level, systematic process driven productivity at its finest. I love what he did. The challenge is trying to teach those type of things is a challenge. Because it's just to a step too far for many people. There's no doubt about it and stuff works. You have to have a systematic disciplined approach. And everything he says is absolutely bound in science and research. It all works. But it is quite complex. And so I would certainly, and I use many of his stuff, I've tried implementing these things, and I've got a variation of his stuff. So he's probably the godfather. If I still got other people, I think, if we go the other end of the spectrum, Tony Robbins, for example, his system, he's got a great way of encapsulating the human behaviour elements of just about any scenario you can imagine. And if you look at his results planning method, he has a single Opah, which is outcome, purpose and massive action, know what you're trying to achieve. Because often you can achieve what you want to achieve quicker or faster and more efficiently than you may have thought of. But if you've got clarity of what that is, then you can make that decision. And then the purpose is knowing why you're doing something that gives you the motivation and can also help you make the right decision what actions you take. And then I think the other if there was a godfather than the grandfather One of these things is Brian Tracy, is that Brian Tracy is a very successful person. He has studied this to the nth degree he's applied it's his use it. So not only is he someone who can talk about it. So I think those are people who I rate in terms of productivity. Now some of those are a little bit old school. And they appeal to my process and systematic orientation. So rather than maybe saying, let me recommend you at an individual, I would recommend you pieces of work that people have done. So for example, if there was just one book that you had to read, if there was just one thing I would tell you to do, it will be to read The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. Because I've read that book a number of times, I recently reread it and I'm thinking I should give up now, because the best book on this subject is already been written. Because it can't encapsulate everything encapsulates all you would need. If all you did was just follow that book and understand that book, understand why multitasking is a myth understanding by doing the one thing and just do that your productivity would go through the roof. So I'd recommend that. Another book that I would recommend, aside from that is The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. This is simply about taking a list of things and checking things off. Now, that sounds a bit primitive. But it works. And he tells a great story about how it has saved lives in the healthcare system. And if you talk to any pilots, the first thing they will do when they walk into their plane is check their checklist. When I was a shift control officer, the watch on HMS SpartanNash was courageous. I add my checklists. When things went wrong. One of the first things I did to want to do my initial actions was to pick up my checklist and work through them. Captain Sully Sullenberger who landed the plane on the Hudson, the first thing that they did when they hit the birds at the engines was they went to their checklist. And so little things like that. Other books. So my mantra for work is do more important work in a more focused way more often and for longer. And I came about that. So I realised that the intensity and the depth of the work that you do creates the better results. And Deep Work by Cal Newport was an excellent book that led me to that. And then we started going to things like so recently, Chip and Dan Heath wrote a book called Upstream. So we talked early on about the system, one system to a default mechanism is the easy thing, the easy thing. And often the easy thing is the thing that's in front of us, and we'll dive and deal with that. But often, that isn't the problem, that is symptomatic of another problem. And so often, the source of that is something further upstream, hence the name of the book. And so the ability to be able to stand back and go, now, I could get my dopamine hit by dealing with this. Or I could just think for a little while and actually work out that ah, that's the problem. Fix that. And that never happens again. So just those are the four works that immediately springs to mind. I've got a pile of books here. I think there's everything there. Well, everything that and then maybe I mean, the theme of this is habits and the atomic habits by James clear, or the this one, which is The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Those understanding habits, because really, it's just a habit. That's what productivity is.
Robert Craven 43:21
There are plenty of people out there promoting and encouraging people to become more productive. How do you differ from the other people who might come across?
Michael Tipper 43:37
Well, I'm on my own petri dish. So my first career was as a memory expert. And that came because I had a bad memory. I'm doing the productivity stuff, because I got to a point in my life where I was struggling to do things now. So I got back on the horse by becoming more productive. So I've been doing a daily podcast over last few years, roughly every day, a day or so. But 320 episodes where I've gone in and thought, right, this is what I've encountered today. This worked this did I feel low today, this is the impact and I've been reflecting on my own progress. So I have been treading the path trying to understand what it is to do to be productive. I enjoy the concept because I'm a Systems person by nature, I love organising things. And so it just really appeals to me and to be able to, to me, creating a system that works is like an art form to get something that so I talked about Amazon earlier on. So I have gone through that process of taking things too extreme and working, working out what works. So I've tried this stuff out. I've worked out what works for me and worked out what might not work for me. But what I've identified is a way of working that I think everyone can use to find their way. Coupled with that. I think I've spent 20 years in front of audiences. And I've developed a skill and the ability to be able to deal with challenge and to challenge because often some of these things are going to sort of hit up against people's beliefs. And the other thing I do is about making it engaging. So just from a perspective, I'm passionate about teaching this stuff I'm passionate getting across, there's a closet performer in me that wants to make people laugh, and I want to make it engaging. But I want to make the lessons as well. And so all that put together, I suppose, is what I've got to have. So I've got nothing new, I might have a different, just different stories. But I just want to point people to principles. So formation of a habit is a straightforward thing to do. Understanding that if you do something one way, there's probably a better way that you could do it, understanding that if you feel crap about yourself, or if you feel no, because you're not had enough sleep, then get some more sleep. So discovering those things I'm able to put across in a way that people can get, I suppose that's where my strength lies. But I don't bring anything new to the table other than maybe I'm very well read very well versed in this, I've tried a lot of it, and I'm just passionate about it. So that's really where my strengths come from.
Robert Craven 46:21
Okay, so adventurous. Do you write what I call the get up at four and have a cold shower brigade?
Michael Tipper 46:26
I stand before you as one of those. Okay, so my morning routine, I get up at five, okay, if I'm staying with a partner, and then I'll get up at four to come home. So I can start at five because she lives an hour away. So I get up at five I meditate for an hour. I then do 20 minutes of yoga, I will then do Wim Hof breathing, which takes about 15-20 minutes, I'll then do 100 Press UPS over a number of sets, I will then go have a shower which ends in a 62nd Cold Shower. Now, that's not something I'd say go and do that. Okay, because I think a morning routine routine is something that you evolve into that meets your needs. I didn't start doing that. When I was at my lowest point of productivity, get out of bed was a bit of a. So it was first of all is getting out of bed. And then maybe getting out of bed at half seven. And then slowly getting out of bed at seven. I thought I might as well do a bit of meditation, I'll do five minutes meditation, and then out of that, and I'd start to 10 minutes meditation. So I'll probably do I might get back to some yoga again. So I might do so 5 minutes a yoga, which became 10 minutes of yoga, which came 20 minutes yoga. So okay, well, let's just do five press ups. And that became 10. That became a one point I did 100 and was doing 160, before I realised the quality of my press UPS wasn't what it should be. And that's not really one go, by the way that's sort of building up. And so what's happened is that has evolved over the last 18 months to the point now where having the cold shower, doing the breathing has affected my immune system such that I feel fantastic. My physique is in the best possible shape is everything. This is like the working on the energy level, the meditation has allowed me to work through stuff the yoga is just makes me feel. I feel good by it. And so that's evolved for me. Now, at some point, I maybe want to include journaling on top of that, and maybe want to include do some more reading, because I'm not doing at that moment. So I believe that routine works if it works for you. I'm not suggesting everyone do that. But I do believe that the morning is probably the best part of the day. Now I know there are morning people and night people. But when you sleep you are get all sorts of good stuff that goes on in the brain to refresh your brain and then you wake up with a certain amount of thought energy. And I've heard you say not to do this. If you check your email first thing, that's not good because all of a sudden, you're wasting energy or suddenly you're diluting your focus. So if the first thing you did in the morning was something that's positive to your productivity, remember prior to the beginning, is your outcome, your ideal outcome, what is the outcome you want? And when you want it, when you got that clarity, what can you use that time for that might be reading that might be having a cold shower, and there's all sorts of health benefits. I won't bore you with me, but I bought into those and that's why I do it. I didn't like it. I still don't like it. But I'm buying into the short term pain, knowing there's long term gain and doing that and that's the shift. I've taken the red pill when it comes to cold showers when it comes to my morning routine. I'm in that small percent to do that. And my day starts really really well because of that. So I stand before you guilty as charged, my lord. So productivity for me is a means to an end. I love teaching, I love sharing, I love finding out I love exploring, I love learning. And I love sharing those lessons. So this is part of me is about sharing that. So I have my daily podcast, which I've currently parked for this time of year. And that will continue to be my reflection. I'm just about to launch an interview podcast where I've interviewed people who are productive by nature, or have skills and knowledge about productivity, so I can learn from them. And the next year is going to be about me learning more from people like yourself. We had a great conversation, and taking those ideas and then applying them and using my daily podcast to reflect on that. But really, it's about me developing my skills. And so I can then use my productive skills to go and do something with it. Because I don't want to just teach it, I mean, those who can do those who can't teach, I want to be one of those people who does, and then shares what I've done. And so it's about finding what that means. And I'm not quite sure why that is what that is yet but certainly for now, I'm just sharing these messages with as many people as I possibly can, in as fun and enthusiastic a way as I possibly can.
Robert Craven 51:17
So okay, so final question. You're familiar with a splendid meal come out of the restaurant. And it turn around to you and say, Michael, because I've had a few glasses of wine possibly. I said, Michael, what are your recommendations? What are your pearls of wisdom? What are your gold nuggets about productivity that I need to know? So what might be one or two of your kind of things for you to leave our audience with before we say goodbye to each other?
Michael Tipper 51:57
I would say the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. That's the main thing. Okay. Which is essentially it's so Stephen Covey said, the main thing is get the main thing, the main thing I've added, that's the main thing. So I've made it my own now. So, but the main. That's the focus. And so working on what you'll know what your main thing this comes down to the one thing, question. So that's the first thing is getting clear on what your priorities are. And being able to focus on those until that's done and work out what the next thing is. So that's the starting point. Now in order to be able to do that, you have got to have clarity on what that is. So the resistance, often lack of clarity. So dealing with that. So again, the clarity on what that is. But I suppose what I would recommend is that, in order to get to that you've got to because if you haven't already got it, it means you're not the person yet to is able to do that. And so you've got to develop new skills, new behaviours now. And new habits know what a habit is, is the behaviour that's become automatic over time. So first thing is get very, very clear on what a behaviour might be. That could be a cold shower, that could be planning your day the night before, that could be working on your main thing. As soon as you get up for the first three hours. It could be any checking email twice a day, okay, it could be variety of potential techniques, but know what that one thing is, start small. So take a small gain one habit at a time and just get that until it is done. Develop a growth mindset, which is about recognising that you do these things until they're done. The one thing in question is a great question. We feel good when read it, but you just try implementing it, it doesn't come easily. Okay, you've got to work at it. So keep doing it until recognise you're gonna make mistakes recognise you're gonna feel stupid about it. recognise that somebody's going to criticise you for just focusing on the one thing, but work on that. The fourth thing I'd recommend people do is then develop some form of awareness about what's going on. Journaling is a great thing to do. Tracking your time, every time you shift tasks is another great thing to do. And also comparing where you arrive at, have games where you hoped you would have arrived at. So what are your plans and your goals? Do you actually meet them on time if not adjust and finally, just continually improve, just continually improve, just continually improve and recognise it's small nudges forward. Rome wasn't built in a day. You don't get these overnight successes, you'll find that when you do hear about them. They've been working on it for a long time. And just keep pushing it forward and keep pushing it forward and keep pushing forward. And that's probably what I would recommend people do.
Robert Craven 54:36
Brilliant, Mr. Michael Tipper, even a gentleman and a scholar. I've been taking notes, everyone will be taking notes. And it's been an absolute pleasure to listen and absorb and reflect so that I can go on and become more productive. Thank you very much indeed.
Michael Tipper 54:59
It's been a joy. Thank inspire me