Last updated on December 2, 2025
How Two Titans Built $50 Billion in Commerce and Why They Say AI Will Not Replace Your Job
I recently had the immense privilege of sitting down with two true business titans: Richard Morris and Steven J. Manning. Combined, these leaders have generated over $50 billion in global commerce, and in this episode of Influential Visions, we dive deep into how they achieved such extraordinary, sustained success.
Richard, who co-founded a tech business that floated for $2.6 billion, and Steven, a veteran responsible for tens of billions over five decades, share the most critical lessons they learned—often the hard way. We discuss everything from the harsh reality of leadership at the highest echelons and the importance of servant leadership to why most current digital transformation and AI implementations are doomed to fail. Crucially, we explore why fostering a culture where people feel they belong is the ultimate driver of performance.
Get More Classic Interviews Like This, 100% Ad-Free.
This is a classic interview from our public archive. If you loved it, MONDAY INFLUENCER insiders get new, curated, ad-free classiccs just like this one delivered to their inbox every single week.
When you join, you unlock:
- 2x New, Ad-Free Classics from the 500+ episode archive every week.
- All New Episodes (full, uncut, and ad-free).
- Exclusive Members-Only Workshops and live Q&A sessions.
- A library of downloadable audios, templates and cheat sheets.
Key Insights & Timestamps
(00:00) – Introduction: Generating $50 billion in global commerce and what comes next. (01:50) – Richard Morris on founding a business that floated for over $2.3 billion and the lessons learned about accountability and culture. (04:45) – Steven J. Manning’s unconventional start: Why cleaning rat cages at a massive medical center was his best (and worst) life-changing job, teaching him about honest work and honest pay. (06:20) – The pillar of success: Why you must say “yes” when everyone else says “no”. (09:30) – Steven’s cornerstone belief: Life is not a dress rehearsal. (10:40) – Richard’s biggest misconception about high-level leadership: The disappointment of meeting the “heavy hitters” and realizing not everyone at the top has their s* together**. (14:30) – The dangerous MBA mentality: Why professional managers prioritize “I cannot fail” over true business growth and innovation. (19:40) – Servant leadership: Why people need to belong, contribute, and thrive (like pack animals), and the incredible performance results of valuing your employees. (29:20) – Why most AI implementations fail: The mistake of automating processes without understanding the un-codified human nuance (“Steve over there”). (34:15) – The ‘overconfident assistant’: Viewing AI as highly autistic but needing human assessment because the content could be “crap,” even if it looks beautiful. (49:50) – Future prediction: Steven on how companies like Walmart are training their 2.1 million employees in AI, turning fear into opportunity. (59:10) – Richard’s practical advice for entrepreneurs: Profit should be an outcome of doing the right things with the right people. (01:03:00) – Leadership and authenticity: The power of admitting your vulnerability and having the courage to laugh at yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. What is the MBA mentality Steven J. Manning discusses regarding senior executives? The MBA mentality is characterized by the focus on not failing (e.g., generating 2% after-tax profit next year, 2.1%, 2.2%, etc.). This approach prioritizes stability and minimal failure over driving creative growth or taking risks, leading to running the business by inertia and overlooking the rate of change in the market.
2. According to Richard Morris, what are the two essential ingredients for great leadership? Richard Morris, drawing on the EOS philosophy, states that the two essential ingredients are that you have to want to be a great leader and you have to love your people or at least care for them.
3. What did Richard Morris and Steven J. Manning identify as the biggest mistake executives make in AI implementation? They agree that the biggest mistake is the over-reliance on nascent AI and automating things the business does not fully understand. Richard noted that processes often have un-codified manual things that humans do, and when systems are built, things break because those human nuances are forgotten. Steven warned that if you feed the system “garbage in,” you get phenomenal but entirely wrong paradigms (“hallucinations”) out.
4. How can leaders encourage belonging and contribution in the workplace? Leaders must create a place where people feel like they belong and have an opportunity to contribute. This can be achieved by creating a cause people love, treating people with respect (as Steven did by providing a living wage and 50 weeks of employment), and recognizing effort. Richard shared a practical tip: use team meetings to give small rewards (like Starbucks vouchers) to staff in other teams who have done a great job, ending meetings on a high note and improving cross-functional culture.
Full Episode Transcript
Speaker: I am very privileged. Today we are talking about future unlocked and how two business titans generated over 50 billion in global commerce and what is next. So yeah, it’s a pretty pretty in-depth conversation we’re going to have today. We’re going to dig into how they managed to achieve such extraordinary success and they will share some of the most relevant lessons that they have both learned along the way. I’m joined by Richard Morris who built a technology business that floated for $2.6 billion and regular guest Steven J. Manning who has been responsible for tens of billions in uh of dollars in commerce over the last five decades. So welcome to you both. It’s uh lovely to see you.
Richard Morris: Hi, thank you. Thank you. Lovely to meet you.
Speaker: So yeah, I mean I think fir first question really walk us through your journey to generating uh billions in impact uh Richard first, please.
Richard Morris: I when I hear you say that I I part of me I think I’m on the wrong show. Right. Anyway, but but in terms of it was I first of all I co-founded a business so I’m a co-founder in the in the states and and it floated for just over 2.3 billion and that was one of the largest floats. But you know I was thinking okay how did that come to be? And I I part of me will say I was in the right place at the right time with the right skills around the right team. Um, and because it all did come together. But of course, if you trace that back, I was very fortunate. I had a love of technology. I had a love of how do I create impact in whatever team I’m in? How do I make a difference? And um, and that I suppose saw me good to actually h why would someone bother to invite me to be in a founding team? And ultimately it was because I had a love of technology and I have a a love of hopefully good good leadership although at that time it was more theory than practice um if you like and um yeah and obviously I was hope fairly good at something um and I was fortunate that about 2 years before that um I hadn’t been quite so good I was not taking responsibility for things and I’d read a good book of wisdom by Steven Cvy that was effectively a good slap around the face to say be accountable be a leader get on with it and stop moaning so that was really good and then um the team, you know, eight of us started it, it grew, it was of its time. It was building out broadband. I looking back on it, I found what I loved the most was being part of something that had a purpose and actually contributing towards building a great culture to get results. That’s what I loved. And I was very fortunate that I had such great people around me that attracted even more great people around me. So, that was that. And then when I came back to the UK to do it again, you um didn’t work out. And I actually I suppose I might even consider wilderness way wilderness times. I was a bit lost. Um I didn’t find my my way. It was really troubling. And I volunteered and I did bits and pieces stuff. But I enjoyed being dad and I enjoyed being husband but I struggled to really find a place work-wise that to fulfill that. And in the end I thought actually why don’t I build a a a charity to give money away? And I teamed up with other people cuz I like be part of teams. So, you could almost say selfishly I created a a thing that would suit me and I still run that. It’s a passion project, but it has had reasonable impact. We’ve given away um just over 2.5 million pounds, which although in some ways doesn’t seem a lot, but it’s to thousands of smaller organizations around the UK to help them with their impact. And now uh and then I discovered this thing called EOS, which I loved as a methodology, wish I’d known about it, and put that into place in my own charity. Helped others adopt it and uh sort of almost like an advert said actually I love it so much I met someone who said you should really come and teach and mentor and coach companies to do this. So I joined the the team to do that. So ultimately that was a little bit of my journey is u in a in a nutshell and uh and for all of those times um you know especially in the US one I did start that journey with a fair bit of hair um but the startup experience I swapped finance for follicles and it was a good swap.
Speaker: So how about you then Steve? Um walk us through a bit of your journey on on generating billions in commerce.
Steven J. Manning: Well uh let me just go backwards because uh recently in a talk uh somebody asked me just how did you get from uh where you started to later on in in your career and you know because I had started at you know I uh in my teens I had the privilege of being penniles refugee you on two continents uh US being the second one and so you know it’s like uh so and and then the man followed up this was a 150 suits downtown business suits uh and the man said and okay so what was the best job you’ve ever had uh he was for some reason upset maybe he didn’t like the chicken for lunch. But so I said, uh, actually, uh, the best and worst job were the same that I’ve had. Uh, when I was 16, I was hustling people on tennis courts and I was a righteous player. And then one day, I needed more money because my parents didn’t have any money to give me. Then I was saying the fact that my dad was a world-class scientist, but that was in the old country, not in the brave new world of the United States.
Steven J. Manning: So I got myself a job uh, uh at Cedar Sinai Medical Center which is a massive enterprise and I got a job cleaning rat cages in the research labs explain well you know go to beautiful building everything shiny antiseptic lights are on and then you go down four floors and lights are on antiseptic it’s all fine and then you walk through the double doors and then you find out why God created trash can scans because the you get the scent and then you you you throw up and you throw up for eight hours So, it’s a great job for two reason, three reasons. One, fantastic for diet. Two, it paid 24 cents an hour more than anything else I could get. And nobody else wanted it. And three, I learned a very, very interesting lesson about life, business, about righteous work, honest work, honest pay, and all of that. That was life-changing for me as a kid. Uh, so I said, “So that’s that’s my less than apicious beginning, and I want to I I needed like a real full-time job. I somehow got through college.
Steven J. Manning: It’s a mystery, but she remains a mystery to me. Uh and uh I went to work for this little marketing business here, which two years later was insolvent, going bankrupt. And fortunately um uh I was about to get fired when boss walked in and says, “You know how to do that?” Which was the marketing plan going forward. And I had exactly two options. to be honest say I have no clue and get fired then or to lie and say sure you get fired a couple weeks later when he figured I didn’t know how to do it. Uh that’s one of the precepts of my uh talk on success on pillar success which is you say yes when everyone else says no. Uh and then when I retired from that business I was in my 30s and by then we had few million square feet and many thousands of employees.
Steven J. Manning: and the company became probably the most financially successful privately owned business in an industry I had something to do with it I humbly state and then I decided to see the world which I didn’t get much of that because of course 3 weeks into my retirement I was going to commit suicide out of boredom um then for all the wrong reasons zero plan zero idea what I was going to do I started the business in the former uh iron I important countries Hungary uh it was uh you know quoting a great lyric uh Goodman Brown how can love so bad go so good and and I write about this it’s just my mom called me one day say honey can you put these people to work turned out I had to hire ethnics and I had to prove that uh in a matter of 3 months we went from my mom calling to big buildings uh uh I ultimately gave that business to the employees because going public was just I couldn’t do that that time in the world and then I discovered the internet uh well actually Al Gore created it.
Steven J. Manning: I just discovered it later. We were very early on probably in the first 10 or so people on the backbone and we blew that opportunity in a very big way because we thought of it as a business rather than an equity play. So we did create a couple of interesting things. Uh, and then I said, why don’t I just buy the media for us? Instead of that agency, there’s 100 people who we feed. So, by myself with an assistant, we bought the media instead of 50 people and then an agency happens and they end up doing business with 75 world global brands. Uh, and you learn a great deal from them and they learn so from you and then and uh keeping keeping on the same track with interest people you meet and so on and I’m glad to share the stuff and then you then you sell stuff because that’s a good opportunity.
Steven J. Manning: So you sell holy water from the holy land really well 50 attorneys journals thought it was okay and then you sell horse manure in in South America I’m happy to to share I was a horsemanure king of South America America for a little while. That business was born on an airplane on a night flight from LA to Santiago. Uh and so just make a list. Uh you know, it’s it’s a terrible moniker that you can sell ice to the Eskimo in the winter, which is nonsense. Uh well, holiday colored specific ice perhaps. So, you know, you grow you grow into that world and you grow and you you say yes when everyone else says know and you never consider failure an option. It’s a way of life. Also, one of the other precepts that drives this for me is life is not a dress rehearsal for me. You know, uh I was penniles teenager in Rome. Had no money, zero. We ate pasta and bread three times a day for a year, courtesy of some agency, Red Cross. And I woke up one day with an idea that life is not dress rehearsal.
Steven J. Manning: Happens to be I was sneaking into dress rehearsal at the Italian opera, which I did every day. And you know, I said, “No, we’re only doing this today. We may never do it again.” And all this stuff, and that’s I think a cornerstone of a lot of successful people. Uh the cornerstone is all that stuff. There’s something I’m going to do. I want to do that. I want to see that someday. I will go there. I can’t tell how many times I went there with zero expectation of paying for it. But I said, “What am I going to do it when I’m this old and decrepit? No, I’m going to do it when I’m young. I can’t enjoy it.” Life is not a dress rehearsal. That takes you to things that come your way. I have spent more hours on airplanes unnecessarily, it seems, than you’d believe. Cuz I happen to sit next to a guy like you uh and we’re chatting and oh gee, the flight’s landing in Paris. and I’m going to Vienna and you’re going to Istanbul. Hold that.
Steven J. Manning: Buy a ticket for $1,800 and sit next to Richard for another four hours because you may never get that opportunity again. I think that’s a key to pursuing success. And yeah, I’ve ended up in various parts of the world didn’t intend to because they didn’t meet some interesting people on the way and and even discounting the guys this kind of guys was selling stolen uranium from Cheschia. But it makes a whole story.
Speaker: We’re going to dig in. to that Steve in in another uh another conversation. We have plenty of these in our archives. So if you want to hear that story then drop us a drop us a message. But on to the next uh the next question. Uh Richard, what what’s the biggest misconception people have about operating uh at your scale sort of when you were building that big business that you guys floated?
Richard Morris: Oh, that’s an interesting question. Uh I think I would perhaps talk about my own misconception. I remember before we um were going to do the IPO, the uh there was a a a major swap out of the founders to bring in known names to increase the the value of the offering and it so happened um that you know I was looking to go home to the UK because my wife was uh pregnant and we wanted to start a family. So and so a number of new people started coming in and we had a new um CEO And uh and I thought, “Wow, I’m going to get a chance to see how these really impressive heavy hitters do things, right?” Because, you know, we’ve been, you know, we were, you know, we were amateurs, but we made good, if you like. We we created this this business. And um it was really um disappointing, really disappointing because I, you know, I I remember um and I I’ll keep the story short, but I met my the new CEO O that took over for the first time on Halloween. And I know it was Halloween because I was the only one of the management team that decided to dress up with the rest of the staff. So I met my new CEO dressed as Austin Powers. So not sure whether I made the best impression, but anyway, and I did have a wig on. Yes. So anyway, so I’m dressed in this blue velour sort of thing. And um anyway, she said, “What what’s your view of the you know, what feedback do you have for me in the management meeting?” And um and I was used to who I used to help run the management meetings from a coordination perspective and I but I wasn’t once they got new people in and um I said well you know when you talk and actions are taken I said no one’s making any notes I said uh how do you know these actions are getting done and I’m bear in mind running a pretty big business now you know thousand odd people and I’m how do you know s***’s getting done I I don’t see it and this is at the leadership team so next meeting we go to What was so funny is um she then said um right I want to see everyone else with pens and pencils out. I want to see people writing stuff down so we know stuff’s going to get done. And I suppose just part part of me was I was very disillusioned. I was very disappointed because I thought once you get into these upper echelons people just really have their s*** together and and they don’t. And I think that so what have I learned? I thought actually do you know what anyone can be really good at this stuff and if you believe you can’t be um you’re probably thinking other people are better than they are. And you know, I was just so disappointed with what I thought were going to be the highest caliber people I was going to be around. Some of them were, don’t get me wrong, but actually the people I’d already grown up around and we developed leaders around us were far higher caliber than some of the ones I met that were brought in just for being faces on the the on the prospectus. So perhaps that’s probably one of the biggest lessons that I had. Interesting. Yeah, I think you it makes a lot of sense that I mean I think it’s like if you think you can do something, you can do it, right? And the confidence you build you you have abilities to do anything that you want, right? I mean that’s the that’s the
Richard Morris: other thing about leadership and I this is why I do quite like the the the EOS philosophy is there’s two ingredients, right? Is you got to want to be a great leader and you got to love your people or at least care for them, you know, and And you know, so because then you’ve got this Darwinian evolution of it’s it’s not fixed. You evolve and you want to be great and you you spot when you’ve not been the best you could have been and you get better. And that’s that comes with experience. You can get a lot from theory and reading, but ultimately with the human being, it’s a human experience. You said we get it’s not a dress rehearsal. So over time, you pick up the experience. You you realize how things work and don’t work. And I said to you before, I didn’t was enjoyed certain aspects of my childhood moving around all over the place. But actually it taught me a lot of how to get on with people and um different types of people and actually that’s where it really started to help is you know how can you relate to people or at least try to to um help lead them well.
Speaker: 100% 100%. So how about you Steve? What’s what’s the biggest misconception people have about operating at at your scale?
Steven J. Manning: You know know um if I may Richard share Richard’s wisdom here um I grew up in a baby company that was bankrupt but we did I did have the privilege of going through all the various plateaus of this business you know entrepreneurial where the founders who are ultimately the best people to lead the company which is a very specific notion which I learned That’s the dissolutionment part. Uh uh the founders count the paper clips because every paperclip is theirs. And then you have hire some managers because you can’t do that. And then you feel all the stuff that goes along with losing control. And then you digress and then you now you hire professional management people who begin to make some decisions. The founders, the entrepreneurs freak. Uh they’re losing control of their business. Maybe somebody else is not counting the paper clips properly. Then you digress. Move on. Eventually the business outgrows them from a moving parts perspective. And then you have that moment where you’re going to hire that CEO or the CF this and the C to see that because that is now your self-image and the business demands it.
Steven J. Manning: And now you hire the CEO whose job is not to drive the truck. whose job is to make sure the wheels don’t fall off the truck. So by definition, the whole notion of uh of creativity driving the business forward disappears. The singly most effective senior exec is a founder or a founder type who finds regain interest in doing this. Now the thing that is the most dangerous about or whatever the the adjective is is that you and now have a big business that functions well and you hire the big gatekeeper gatekeepers and then you realize that you’re hiring the MBA mentality. The NBA mentality is I have to do what I’ve got to do but I cannot fail. And that’s a very specific mentality. And what happens then is that that’s the head the totem f*** who drives the thing with a very specific purpose. If I generate 2% after tax next year 2.1 2.2 2.4 I’m performing admirably.
Richard Morris: Meanwhile the father I have to say and just to inter one of the things I did notice that a couple of people uh after the business floated you know nine months down the line they weren’t with the business anymore. So to some degree there were a placement just to get the uh the thing. But it was just but some people were brilliant and it was just interesting of seeing the fact that I had that assumption that when you get to a certain level by definition, you know, I thought, “Wow, I’m going to learn a lot.”
Richard Morris: And I I didn’t learn as much as I thought I would.
Steven J. Manning: You may have learned something about ordinary processes running that business that way, but the reality is that uh this the the the executive manager person not manager executive leader person forgets the part where he also has to be a elite manager otherwise the business business won’t need him or fail him that’s okay and two a lot of these people run businesses by inertia uh it’s working okay let’s not break the mold and you know uh another man is to newborn every joke is new I don’t care there that this we’ve done this this way for 20 years. Uh the world moves around us very quickly. Things are changing. The rate of change in every aspect of that big business is vertigenous. Uh starting with technology, starting with oh human resources. Uh well, we done it this way. We did 2%. I could do it this way. We’ll do. No, no, no, no, no. That will cascade into oblivion. And those people who have this edict work id room for them.
Steven J. Manning: As a CEO, I want that guy working for me with a clear mandate. I drive the truck so hard that you’ll get dizzy. Your job is to make sure the wheels don’t fall off. So, put the processes and systems in place that I can’t they’re transparent to me that I can monitor. I can sit there and say, “Wait a second. I don’t want to do that.” Okay. So, the the the thing that running a big business I have found is beyond the comprehension of most people who talk about running a big business. I have been in a company of wonderful theoreticians. There’s certainly need for that uh and a lot of talking heads certainly and some of the best purveyors of work salads. And at some point you sit in that big room and say, “Excuse me, you work here. You’re a sea sweetite guy, woman. Have you ever made payroll?” What do you mean? Have you ever been in a place where you had to make payroll? Well, we have people for that. No, no, no, no.
Steven J. Manning: Ultimately, when you pull into that parking lot on on Saturday going to the show and you have a person with a yellow thing direct in charge say, “Oh, Mr. Morris, please park here. You can get out easily.” He said, “Well, thank you.” He said, “By the way, who are you?” “Oh, I work for you. I work in that building over there. I got news for you. If that person is worried about the paycheck clearing, you’re going to park nine blocks away and as you walk by, this person’s going to make a very unpopular gesture at you about you said something about leadership, about your people. You know, first of all, but for people, business would be a snap. Uh but have you tried to run your business by yourself with all your brilliance, everything you bring to that picnic without all people. So, how do who do you recruit and why? And what did you do with that? The highlights without a doubt of my little career are people.
Steven J. Manning: And there are kids, the young people who would who were in enterprise where we recognized what the potential might be. And when you drag people by their hair to take that managerial job, they say, “I don’t know how to do this.” Yeah. But you know what? You had an idea. I now have five miles of conveyor belts going the wrong direction because of you, but it’s working better. How about you’re on the you’re on that thing. And the kid looks at you, are you kidding? I barely speak English. Happens to be a real example. That kid runs distribution for biggest parts company in the country today. But the people and it’s the thing that is astounding to me. You live in a big house. You drive this big enterprise. When was the last time you walked through all those buildings, meet those people? Okay. I was privileged to have a mentor when I was young.
Steven J. Manning: He happened to be he ran operations for the little company I I grew up in, retired, and then when the whole thing was forced on me, he was my consultant. And every morning at 6:00, we would walk through three big buildings. Say hello. Shake. chance to meet people. Took me a year to get them to call me Steve instead of sir or he and I did that at 2:00 in the afternoon. I did that at 2:00 in the morning cuz we ran three shifts. And I shook hands with a lot of people. And pretty soon I began to understand the families, kids and all that. And pretty soon I walk in and I I would take our analysts for little walks. Introduce this for anybody. Introduce some people. You know these people. I got to know them. And when you walk up to the kid, the guy say, “Listen, congratulations. I heard your wife had a baby.” He how do you know this? Well, we had spies. I know this now. The people, those people, we paid a living wage.
Steven J. Manning: We employed everybody 50 weeks out of the year, which was absolutely unusual in our world. Nobody went hungry. Nobody went without a doctor. That’s just what we did. And the manifestation of that, your people Those are your people. You know, is when the word goes out that we need some people to volunteer to work a midnight graveyard shift on Christmas Eve, you have 98% volunteers.
Speaker: Yeah. It’s funny, isn’t it, cuz you you say that and and I know one of the the you know, how would you convince someone? And he said because the facts are there. And I one of the things that was interesting about what you was saying is in it. I was um a trustee of a local YMCA for a number of years and one of the things I like about the the the core core call to action is to enable young people to belong, contribute, thrive, right? But if you take the young people out, you know, and we were talking before the show went live is human beings, we’re we’re kind of pack animals, right? So we need to belong and we and when we can belong, we can have an opportunity to contribute and by definition then we feel we’re thriving right and one of the biggest human conditions is we are disconnected. So and given that we’re going to spend so much time in a work environment if we create a place where people feel like they belong. Yeah, you got to have metrics you got to do all this sort of stuff but the belonging piece then we give them the job function and support to to to to actually contribute they the mental health goes up the sick days go down the performance goes up even if you only look at the spreadsheet and the outcome. It makes sense. It’s almost dumb to consider anything else. So, it’s sort of and it’s so obvious that you kind of think why doesn’t everyone do this? But I wanted to just highlight one other thing that was quite interesting is, you know, people behave differently in those kind of environments. And you you spoke about the fact you were in a rat environment. You know, you were talking about the rats and some interesting studies showing that actually when you did did the people did the experiments on the rats, especially for drug addiction and habit forming uh uh substance abuse. When you put them rats on their own, they perform very differently than when you put them in a family group because rats are community-based organiz organisms and beings as well. So they behave differently in supportive groups. They didn’t ex exhibit some of those same tendencies because they were in a stressed environment on their own. So it just very interesting again we come back to a systemic level of we operate better in groups. And if you look at it, most of the charities and stuff we talk about are creating places for people to belong. So why wouldn’t you want to create a workspace where people feel like they belong? You’re going to get far more productivity out of them. They’re going to enjoy it. It’s kind of a win-win, right? And it’s so intrinsically obvious. You think, why do so many people not get that? I just The evidence is there, the numeric are there, and you’ve just spoken about it. It’s so bloody obvious. I just don’t understand. Why? It’s not.
Speaker: I’m going to have to I’m going to have to censor that now. Seriously, I’m going to have to put an X rating on this show now. I don’t know what to do to be
Richard Morris: Why was it X-rated?
Speaker: Because you said bloody. I’m going to have to
Richard Morris: I thought I was thinking I didn’t go full I I could have done it’s not me.
Steven J. Manning: Uh you know, Richard, something you said
Steven J. Manning: and I heard this uh again, I was a young guy way too much uh influence and and and ability to change lives of our people to be sure and I’ve heard this from other people like man you guys are really mercenary I said I’m confused I had happened to be at dinner with some folks I had to relate story that in our in our buildings we had employee counselors otherwise known as spies and uh you know they kind of knew that everybody and they knew that that guy and that woman Oo, they knew that was a family. They didn’t want to They knew that stuff. And two stories that happened pretty much simultaneously. Uh, one of the employee council walked up to this woman. She was a warehouse worker and she was pregnant. And uh, he walked up to her and said, “Uh, I’m going to take you to the doctor.” She said, “No, No, no, no, no. I’m okay. I’m okay. And he says, “You’re not okay. You need to see.” We had a clinic on a retainer in some valley, Poya, California. They were very happy to get our money anyway. And no, I’m taking the doctor. He dragged to the doctor. Now, the way that came up is that somebody who related to her said, mentioned to John the employee counselor that uh that woman is not doing well, bad pregnancy. She’s not she’s not healthy. She’s working a a factory environment, a production environment floor. So he dragged her to a clinic because clearly there was an issue. Two things happened. One, next morning this woman showed some woman showed up who claimed to be her. No, no, it’s my social security card, my license. Okay. She was a cousin. They She did not want to lose the job and she didn’t want to create a hole in her little line of what she was doing. So, the cousin worked two months until she gave birth. And it was it was kind of funny to say, “Hey, how you doing? I’m good. How you doing? Okay. Uh it took better part of one hour for thousands of employees in buildings scattered to know that we took her to a doctor. Okay. Uh what does it you know to belong is one of the basic human needs you know food need for food and shelter to belong recog all of that. Uh two, three or four days later, uh one of these guys comes, he says, “Our head electrician, uh got paid, went to Vegas, blew the paycheck. He’s got five kids.” I said, “Okay.” He said, “Okay, well, you know, we don’t want to lose him. He’s a jerk. He drinks too much, but he’s great. We We don’t want to lose him.” I said, “You think about losing him. I can hire electricians, but he’s been working for eight years. He’s got four or five kids. Oh, I don’t care about him. I care about the kids. Doesn’t he don’t have a savings account. So, John took uh the guy to our local McDonald’s. Well, he ordered 400 hamburgers, 400 orders of French fries. Now, think about how much that costs. I said, “Okay, for until your next paycheck, the kids are to eat McDonald’s. Oh, happy days. And the guy was sitting in a car crying. And I said, “Okay, now understand this is not for you. It’s for the kids cuz ultimately I had to talk to him.” And I said, “Two things. First of all, the kids will leave McDonald’s. They’ll be happy. Two, next time you drink the paycheck, you and your wife who also works here, your cousins work here, are unemployed. Don’t drink the paycheck away. That took about an hour until I got some phone calls from management in that building, that building says, “What you do and all these people talking about the hamburgers,”
Steven J. Manning: you know, the guy’s a drunk. What you do?” I said, “It’s the kids. I care about him, but not that much. We care about the kids. That’s what we do.” Which again takes me back to the part where uh at the toughest part of our year, which is Christmas season, January 1, first, we need some volunteers to work uh on New Year’s Eve. 98% said, “I’m there not for the extra hours cuz they began to understand they were the only people in this kind of factory environment in the San Franada Valley that worked 50 weeks a year. You know what? If you don’t respect your people and particularly certain ethnic groups, you’re not going to get the respect. You respect them what get back is invaluable.
Speaker: 100%
Steven J. Manning: and I%
Richard Morris: but it but that’s very it’s it’s almost like the you know fundamentally it’s it’s servant leadership you ultimately you know yeah of course you want to drive results but you have to trust and serve your people to do that and there is a lot of trust um uh in that the other thing that struck me as well I hope you don’t mind me uh riffing off that another thing that was very interesting about the YMCA experience I had. It was about 9 years I was doing that was um sometimes you saw young people in a very that cuz this particular place I was a trustee of was a hostel for young people that were going through quite they needed significant they had significant support needs. But you see people at an instant in time in their lives and we form judgments about that. But and especially say say so some of the young people we might might have seen later on they might reaffend in some of the stuff they did. Sometimes they might um you know actually uh be able to climb out of the hole they’re in and sometimes they’re the people that are going back into school years later talking and and educating people to avoid drugs or do whatever. And so you never know what the range of futures holds for an individual see at that moment in time, the pain they’re in or whatever. So when you see someone that’s doing some of those behaviors, sometimes, you know, it doesn’t necessarily mean you go soft but you actually say I’m only seeing them at this moment in time through this experience who not and are you able to play a part in creating a better future for them but accepting the fact that sometimes this is out of your control they’re going to have to bounce back and sadly you know sometimes these same people they may not be around in 5 years time you can’t control that but you can control how you behave how you respond at that moment in time and remain professional supportive as best the best version of yourself you can be and but ultimately they’ve got to make th those decisions and those journey pieces and that sounds like what you were doing. Um and of course you can always look back but at the moment in in time when you make decisions based like that to me I look back and I think I don’t really have any regrets about some of the things I’ve done because actually at that moment of choice if you’re led by what you feel is what’s the right thing to do at this moment in time generally speaking it never lets you down. Um You might get new information later that you didn’t have but you but if you look back you think well I wouldn’t have made a different choice at that moment in time anyway that is the right thing to do whatever that makes sense and that to some degree then hopefully sets an example for the other leaders around you to say you know you sometimes you just need to think a little bit bigger because that’s unfortunately that goes part and pass that’s the deal with leadership it’s a parental type role and the wrap stops with you um to some degree if if things don’t work out as you’re full and if things do work out, you generally have to praise your kids, the people that work work for you, right? That’s that’s the deal.
Speaker: Really, just one question for both of you on on AI transformation because that’s just like a ma it’s a it’s a massively important topic right now and it fits into the leadership and it fits into the people management side of things which is kind of what we’ve what we’ve been talking about, right? So, I think
Speaker: the most important question at the moment is where do most executives get AI implementation wrong because it so many of these cases of uh of digital transformation at the moment are absolutely failing and I think that the the the actual fact I think it’s either 85 or 98% it’s one or the other I forget there’s so many stats out there but they’re basically that’s the sort of figures that we’re talking about so where where do you think uh on this Richard they’re failing these exam
Richard Morris: obviously so I’m going to share an opinion And as we said before, my opinion is about as good as anyone else’s. But from my perspective, right, one of the things I think is, you know, AI is new. It’s it’s new and although it isn’t new, but it is new in a way in the scale it is. And of course, like anything that’s new, uh, lots of people have opinions and lots of people tell you it’s going to do this and it’s going to do that and and actually the reality we know is going to be different, but we don’t know where it’s going to be different because actually it’s an experiential uh thing. that’s evolving. The thing that is different is evolving very quickly. So I think what do where do I think some of the mistakes are?
Richard Morris: Well, first of all, a lot of it will be looking at where can we replace people and one of the things that I think with a lot of this is that um it reminds me of the early days of of um enterprise management systems, you know, where you could actually codify processes and it you Yeah, it worked. But what you forget is most people who run processes never codified precisely what that process was. There were a lot of little manual things. There were a lot of little things that humans did in those processes. So as soon as you codified them into a big system, a machine, things broke because we forgot that Steve over there, oh yeah, yeah, we run that process, but Steve often tells, you know, Bob over here something that that was never codified. So I think with this you can automate something when you really understand it. But often with human stuff, we don’t always really understand it.
Richard Morris: So I think the the the the misconception perhaps is maybe we can’t automate everything we thought we could. Um and we will have to learn from that and the experiential knowledge you have is in people is still valuable. What I think is then the the other query then or the issue is but I think AI has a huge part to play in how do we become better versions of ourselves to manage data to manage to see the bigger picture to actually have good advice and knowledge, but I often think it’s um probably not a very politically correct thing to say, but I’d say AI to me is a very highly autistic and I mean that in a very positive way. It’s very focused thing, but overconfident assistant because it’ll give you results that it thinks with 100% accuracy is right and you will need to assess that.
Richard Morris: So, I think part of it is really playing with it and educating yourself what is this thing what can it do what it can’t do so I think there’s an education piece and the fact that it will enable us to automate so many things and see the data and see and analyze things on a much bigger scale which then hopefully we could humanize where we really need to humanize because I think we there’s still a massive place for humanization of making sure we’re still human beings and going back to what we said before is Ultimately, the human condition is one about belonging. So, even if you’ve got companies that fully run on automation and create all this kind of stuff, brilliant, right? Fantastic. But we’re still going to have a bunch of human beings to deal with, right? Unless we kill them all and we’re not going to do that. So, the point is is we’re still going to have to work on the human level as well.
Richard Morris: So, what do I think some of the biggest challenges for some of the leaders is a you’re going to have to learn what this stuff is, what it can’t. You’re going to have to play with it to begin with and not just listen to other people’s opinions. You’re going to have to figure it out. You have to look at your business model and maybe get some great advice on where could it play, where could it add value to what we do and how we serve our customers, how we manage stuff and people and accept, yeah, we’ll change people’s job descriptions and maybe change things, but maybe it won’t do it quite the way everybody’s been telling us that it will. And and you know, Darwinian evolution in is in play here. The strong the the strongest propositions will survive. So, we got to roll with the changes. We know what we don’t know. It’s too big and it so surely part of it is be curious, be open, be childlike, fascinated of this is really cool, but we don’t really know yet what impact it’s going to have.
Speaker: Yeah, that’s uh that’s that’s a good explanation very much. We’ve been doing a lot of talking.
Speaker: Yeah, but we’ve been doing a lot of talking around this and uh and and I know Steve’s got some some insights because he he was involved with AI and data like back in the 80s. So, he’s got he’s got a different maybe different opinion. May may maybe he agrees. I don’t know. What do you think, Steve?
Steven J. Manning: Well, I can’t argue with anything uh our esteemed friend said because this insight is is so spot on. Uh I look at it from moving through through history for decades decades now. Uh I think the biggest issue is the over reliance what I think is a nent fantastic AI is phenomenal. AI is beyond comprehensive of most people, but it is still nassent. And uh the over reliance, the CEO says, uh well, I’ve got this got this issue. Uh we need to fix it and why just throw it at AI. We’ll get our answers. Uh and then at some point in time when things start to fall apart, break down, mo often at the human level, the humans is not not doing what they’re supposed to do, you find a really cool term called hallucinations. AI is hallucinating.
Richard Morris: Yeah.
Steven J. Manning: Uh it’s, you know, talk about you talk about early enterprise systems, early computer systems, if you will. Oh, the old story, you know, garbage in, garbage out.
Steven J. Manning: You feed this thing garbage. It creates the most phenomenal paradigms of things to be done. Here’s the reasoning for it. This is what should happen. And you find out that it’s entirely wrong because in is the first and most important thing is the question is not well thought out. So you end up with incredible biases for the data you put in it in a matter of three or four or five hours I can go and create a phenomenal quote and attribute it to you.
Richard Morris: Yeah.
Steven J. Manning: And of course
Richard Morris: come I want to come in on a very small thing and it reminds me is so I’m not I’m I’m I’m level 58 59. So that’s I don’t talk ages because it’s the game of life, right? So and every year feels like an achievement. But I remember when when but when we first had Microsoft um word as a as when it first came out and you could produce documents, right? And it was all it was textbased stuff and it was and then Lotus Amy Pro came out and suddenly we had Wizzywig, right? And you could create reports and you could do stuff. The content of the report was the same or it could even be worse, but it looked beautiful. So we could create reports that look lovely now, but the content could be crap. So, so what I do think is it’s like we can get really nice structured responses and and it looks all beautifully laid out, but do we know the content’s any good?
Richard Morris: and is and sometimes and sometimes it won’t be, but it’ll still look beautiful all the same.
Steven J. Manning: It is even more critical in that uh You’re training your AI. Okay. So, every time I ask Elon Musk a question, sorry, I prefer to call it Elon Musk rather than Grock, right?
Steven J. Manning: Or or or Chad GB. Any and by the way, I’m I’m I’m blown away by the capacity of this.
Steven J. Manning: You are training your AI. The lickety split the thing will know my biases. Therefore, by definition, what I get back has biases. And I introduced the training data.
Richard Morris: Yeah.
Steven J. Manning: And then when I ask an ordinary question, it recognizes that I’m overgeneralizing topics, patterns, and so on. And that’s what I get back. What I get back, as you said, is phenomenal. Wonderful. It’s terrific. Unfortunately, also messed up. You know, uh how phenomenal is it that I can create a fictional character just by interrogating AI going down two or three levels. And what I’m going to get back is a biography of Nathaniel uh uh Nathaniel Richard with a with a bio that’s absolutely phenomenal. So the question is this and we talk about this a great deal. So it’s use misuse and abuse. We’re not quite yeah where abuse because already massive schemes using
Speaker: they’re usually the first to to emerge, aren’t they? Really,
Steven J. Manning: without a doubt. My point here is this,
Steven J. Manning: and it’s funny, we talked about this at length in another round table is, okay, so you I gone through a company and they have this incredible issue and I tell you what, they have more resolutions to the issue than I can count. And they are, they go from sterile to more sterile to absolutely mechanical, for lack of better a better Trump and then I said to this I’m a little bit confused by this. So uh have we asked uh the guys in Koala Lumpur who run that assembly line why wait look at this data it’s phenomenal says the CEO I say well consider me limited you know and I go back to saying hey the newborn every joke is new I don’t know why that’s going that way and should maybe should not I don’t know Well, the AI and look at the investment we made in this technology and then I venture forth uh gingerly rather than uh tremendous for may we have a meeting. What do you mean? Let’s bring together all the people distinct touches because I have found out that the dude running the assembly line knows a lot more than a lady’s telling me what how I messed up and the seal bought into this thing. You know, and it’s possible the guy sweeping the factory floor knows even more. But that Okay, so now all of a sudden you have a meeting of 20 people and the seauite is confused. Why are these people here? Well, I don’t know how to tell you this, but somebody’s got to figure out how to put the thing in the box and this is the guy, you know, that that woman, you know, and then
Steven J. Manning: then you get into the most most elegant part of this, which is when you sit there and you design the high hierarchy of where these people sit in the big conference room because they want to fade into the wall. It’s my boss and his boss is sitting there. I’m not going to be a contrarian to which then you get people like me who say I put place cards down. So the most junior person happens sitting in the middle seat across from the window right behind right at the window the power seat in the room. Boy, it confuses a lot of people. cuz they learned that in grad school. And then you put those people and explain to them this is an open forum. We’re going to do this like Steve Jobs used to do. Everybody has the same voice and privately you reach out to these people at a time and say if you don’t speak up you’re never going to get invited again.
Steven J. Manning: Okay. And then at the end of two hours
Steven J. Manning: you know exactly what to ask the AI to do.
Richard Morris: Well, I was going to say the thing is though is even if you the point I think with with AI that is very good is it could take a huge amount of disparate data and see the some of the connections or at least give some highlight.
Steven J. Manning: That’s the that’s the usage
Richard Morris: which which is where that’s where the benefit is. And you were saying earlier about you know if you want to know what’s going on in a company to me you either speak to people on the front door who manage the door or you speak to the assistants. They always the people on the front door and people on the the assistance always know what’s going on in the business. The the
Steven J. Manning: amazing thing Richard to me
Steven J. Manning: the amazing thing to me more than anything else uh and that’s what I for courageously and mightily that 3 hours into this meeting you find out that that woman should really be running that show not that guy. That is the value proposition from having that guy over that woman over here. And then you say Either way, the issue you’re solving is actually downline for much bigger problem because those people enlighten you to the real world. There’s nothing theoretical about what they do. They have engine parts, nothing. And then you get the deer in the headlights look from senior manager who’s trying to fix that when that is really the emerging that is the triage point in a company. And then Uh the next of course then you have to deal with the human part with the people who spoke up fear for their livelihoods of course
Steven J. Manning: because everybody has an empire to protect and that’s when you make a deal with a CEO to say if you punish these people you lose your workforce. Simple.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.
Steven J. Manning: Make it known. Make it known.
Richard Morris: Well, it’s just it’s so again we go back to something that’s so obvious which is the collective knowledge. intelligence that you have in any organization. Uh it’s how do you unlock that and you know enable it to to the whole organization to it uh to uh evolve as an organism, right? Cuz that’s ultimately what you’re building. You’re building a a a temporary organism that comes together, a system. And uh you know, everyone’s got a part to play. And how can you make sure that knowledge flows freely because then we can act on it? We can do stuff. We can make changes. We can evolve. is when you stop those lines of communication, we can’t evolve because we get stuck. Um,
Richard Morris: absolutely.
Richard Morris: You know, and I say it’s such systems thinking. It’s just like, you know, if you looked at an organism, the cells have to communicate with each other some way for the health of the organism. It’s no different to to a company, right? So, pretty obvious when you look at it, but pretty hard to do in practice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, like most company
Steven J. Manning: uh publish something companywide that says there’s a new initiative that we’re pursuing as a company and uh here’s a list of the people involved in it and you list all these people the company stops by the way you just insured their jobs that would be the purpose so they they they’re not going to get fired because they spoke up and then you think that everyone else oh I didn’t get invited in fact the opposite is true if I work hard enough and contribute. I’ll be invited next time, which is does not really follow human nature, but that’s really what happens. And it’s it’s people come to you say, “Did you have to put my name in the thing?” Yeah. Yeah. Why? Because you contribute as much as the CEO does. Go home and tell your wife this is a big deal.
Speaker: There’s nothing like a bit of motivation, isn’t there? Motivation and encouragement and a bit of praise goes a long long way, you know, massively. It’s interesting actually. So on that point, so just before I came on this this call, I was talking to a company about how how they might consider, you know, how do you live core values? You know, how do you make them real? And um and of course you can do call outs and you can do that and you can give, you know, monetary rewards periodically if you’re calling people out. But one of the suggestions that I had that seems to go down well is if you are going to reward an employee with something like vouchers or something like that, partner it with a gift of a donation to any cause they choose because of course if you publish it to all the other employees initially there’s going to be it’s natural they got a reward and I didn’t right it’s a natural human response whereas actually if you said well they got a reward but what’s more important is they chose to donate to this thing that matters to them
Steven J. Manning: that’s nice
Richard Morris: there’s a little story because you know if I said to the two of you what matters to you there’ll be a personal connection
Richard Morris: and it’s hard to feel feel jealous of someone when they’re making a difference to something that matters to them. So again,
Richard Morris: it’s just a simple way of how do you live these things? Just use a little bit of humanity in these things and you know, it’s peanuts for the company,
Richard Morris: but actually it means something to the individual. It means something.
Steven J. Manning: That’s gold. That’s just beautiful.
Speaker: That’s good. I like that. Yeah, I like that. So So, so on to the next onto I’ve got I’ve got one question for both of you before I go into the closing kind of questions that you that you uh that I want to ask you personally, Richard. So, um one future prediction that would surprise most people like it could be any it can be anything. So, for the next sort of three, four years, is there something that you would that you think is happening or going to happen or might happen? That that’s the sort of question that I’m I’m looking for.
Richard Morris: So, I I I was wondering about that and I think for me it’s the um the converging of research and understanding in consciousness AI um and quantum mechanics because again it’s about systems thinking and there’s a lot of really interesting articles about the nature of consciousness how potentially it relates to certain interesting aspects of quantum mechanics and of course then we’re also going to the debate of at what point would we call an AI conscious and do we have levels of consciousness rather than it’s just it’s a binary conscious or not. I I the convergence of some of those areas of science and theory and philosophy I find quite fascinating interesting. I I find all of that very interesting. Certainly the consciousness and mass consciousness and how more and more people are understanding what’s really going on in the world that I find quite
Richard Morris: even our own consciousness that we’re here.
Richard Morris: There’s still no real definition of what consciousness is beyond the sort of cellular monocular level that we understand we are as a as a as a sort of carbon life form and then you know understanding how does that relate to quantum mechanics and entanglement states which then starts to say okay at what point do we create artificial life with AI cuz yeah Passing the cheuring test is one small bar, but going beyond that, I just think it’s a fascinating to me as a child in wonder just saying this is kind of cool. It’s interesting. It is cool. It is very cool. It’s quite excit I’m excited about the whole about the whole world at the moment and what’s going on. I think there’s going to be there going to be lots of really good things that come out of this decade to be honest. I think by the end of by by the beginning of 2030 we’re we’re going to be in a very different place than we are now. I think a lot of these a lot of these AI implementations will have failed. I think a lot of the hype will have died down. I think personally that uh the things that are working will be exceptionally good because there’s no room there’s no room to actually have anything that isn’t amazing.
Richard Morris: Mediocrity is just going to be there.
Speaker: It’s not there. It’s Yeah. It’s not it’s not it’s not there’s no there’s no money to fund mediocre attempts at anything uh these days. to be honest in in this decade. That’s that’s what I’m I’m excited about is just cutting through all of the hype, getting rid of all the kind of just
Speaker: pointless pointless stuff that’s been going on, you know. So, what do you think, Steve? What’s your prediction?
Steven J. Manning: A couple things, if you forgive me, on mediocrity, uh mediocrity, uh done exceptionally well is what’s real possible as a nonsequittor. Uh oh, good. Let’s fail spectacularly. uh that as a concept doesn’t work for me. Um you know so it’s to your fundamental question I once again early this morning I called no straus on the phone uh and he took my call that that guy spoke to me and I asked him the question he said to 100% certainty in the next couple years I will not grow more hair and then beyond that he beyond that you’re on your own it’s moving too fast uh it’s not not vertical, it’s horizontal in every way for me to make any predictions that are worthwhile. Uh that said, I think that probably the biggest thing look undeniably uh I don’t want my radiologist to read the MRI film. I want AI to do it. Uh my next piece of surgery, my knees after two years of discussion adjacent to the surgeon will use a striker rope. OT to do it cuz she says I’m the best. I got the best hands, but the robot’s better. Okay, so that’s that’s just a side of this. Uh that said, uh the biggest topic to me is what would singularity. What happens to the million people think they’re going to lose their jobs and what’s the lifely and of course we talked at nauseium about basic universal income, which I reject as a totally regressive concept, but singularity and I have certainly have some thoughts on that that actually uh uh creates an opportunity for if you wish quantum intellectual growth that’s never happened before. And I have to go to what uh uh what’s his name? Uh McMillan, the guy who’s the uh uh CEO of Walmart said a couple days ago. I love quoting this because it’s like settles people down. Uh he has 2.1 million employees. Walmart does. And of course, the answer to the series of questions was uh in the next three years, he will still have 2.1 million employees. And by the way, uh it’s not that’s not mere math. It’s just it’s the same people. It’s not like we’re going to get different people or it’s going to be different construct going to hire more, fire more. As we grow, we’ll as we grow, it’s adjusted for all that. In his mind, his point is is that there are he just made a deal with Alman uh where he’s going to offer half a million million people the opportunity to learn AI. Okay, you’re an employee, you’re a greeter, you’re a Walmart store, you’re a package packer, truck driver, whatever the heck you are, sign up, you learn about AI. So within the next one year, two years, which is spellbinding, he’s going to have a workforce that is not going to get fired, that’s going to be equipped to use AI. So, the guy driving the truck on the highway will understand the benefits of that. Uh the packager person there is going to say, you know, uh if I get this this picking list differently, I can be more efficient. Now, that to me is the rosy colored glasses picture looking forward. So, when people tell I’m going to lose my job. Oh my god. I said, “Well, let’s think about what Walmart’s doing in context. So, you own a company with 10 employees. You’re going to replace five of them with with with with these processes. How about we teach all 10 the use of this incredible new fangle thing? And instead of letting go those five, maybe two or three of those will come up with some much better ideas how to run our little liquor store, how to run our little shoe store.”
Steven J. Manning: It’s just quantly forward in life and business and so on. That’s a prayer I’d like to make.
Speaker: That’s a great idea. Yeah, I was think you you said that the other day, but I think it’s really come to light now thinking about it again. I think uh that’s uh that’s really phenomenal because they might invent new business models. There’s all sorts of things that these people if we’re governed by fear,
Speaker: it doesn’t really work. We should be governed by opportunity and we got to, you know,
Speaker: it’s figure it out.
Steven J. Manning: Exactly. That is where good leaders come in like you to to to teach those people about opportunity rather than fear. And then that’s that’s a a a great leader, you know, it’s a really really good thing to uh to tell people what to think. Okay. But the most elegant precept to me in leadership is to teach people how to think. Okay. So that is where you you tra take that person from the rope business, a rope function, put that in their mind and train them and then motivate them to do that. And now you have a powerful resource and there’s no the most awful to manage resource on earth is people. The most powerful resource on earth is people.
Richard Morris: Well, I suppose this just goes back to, you know, what’s the one of the definitions of a great leader hopefully is when you’ve actually created other great leaders.
Steven J. Manning: Absolutely. Thank you. And until
Richard Morris: you couldn’t call yourself great.
Steven J. Manning: Thank you.
Richard Morris: Completely. That’s why I’m working with Steve because I’m getting I’m getting leadership training.
Steven J. Manning: You see, I fold another one.
Speaker: Yeah. Good job. Well done. That’s it.
Steven J. Manning: It’s a pyramid scheme.
Speaker: Yeah. I’m looking to put you on top of the darn.
Speaker: Ask myself the next question. What am I working on right now that really excites me? I’m working on Monday influencer with Steve and I’m working on this podcast show and I basically shelved everything else that I was doing and I’m really excited about what we’re building here and I I’m I’m going to I would ask you the same question Steve but you’re going to say that hopefully the same answer. I don’t know. Go on Steve tell me what are you excited about working on right now?
Steven J. Manning: You mean you mean not the private stuff? Okay. No, without a doubt uh when we started Monday influencer I thought that had uh uh a number of things. A genuine purpose, you know, resident that there’s a reason for it. It’s just another business, man. I can always sell phony uranium. Uh I can sell I can sell traffic uh satellites. There’s still 10 functioning Russian spy satellites over Western Europe that I can sell. Would you like to buy one? The price is going down as they’re dying. I You can always do that. So, let’s create something that actually delivers powerful insights, powerful tools. You know, hey, last last week we did something on I think we call full stop. The brakes just went on. You lost your motivation. Happens to all of us frequently, more frequently admit to. And I I go on to talk about I have had the privilege of knowing many of the top tennis players in history. It’s phenomenal to sit and have coffee or sit around with five five guys, uh, six, seven guys, they’re all made top 20 in the world. I mean, that’s the presence of greatness. And what derails the career? I lost my motivation. And never mind the health part, but I kind of lost my motivation. I couldn’t find it until I hired Bob over there who kicked my butt. Okay. So, I I was invited to sit in a group of people. You know, I I used to be addicted to skiing, if you will, in my little spirit. time 15 World Cup winners game starting back to fronts Clber and Weber and Serban and these guys I happen to be there because the guy who they’re all invited by this very large investment bank and they have an event for them every year and so happens I met the guy in an elevator on 6th Avenue in New York and we got to chat and two weeks later he called me and said can you make to New York for lunch tomorrow. You look at these guys, it’s the top of the top. Why did you quit? I don’t know. France Climber, the greatest downhiller of all time. I said, France, you were the best downhill in the whole world when you quit. He said, “Now I know the last race you ran, you came in 14th. Before that, you won 20 in a row. What happened?” He said, “You know, I was the best in the world on top of the mountain. 2 minutes and 5 seconds later, I was retired. Why? I just No more. Then I have it. What happened? I just ran out of motivation. And the other guy said, “Yeah, it’s exactly what happened.” Uh yeah, I also broke my leg. But you know, uh it’s it’s
Speaker: you know, that should be a separate topic, I think, for you.
Steven J. Manning: But but the point being for me Yeah,
Steven J. Manning: Monday influencer for me is a way to dispense strategies on for success in life and business because whatever anybody else thinks it’s all 8020 or 9010, 90% of people have 10% of the issues solving whatever the hell it is. So whether you’re you’re a multiple gold medal winner in skiing or a guy that that was top six in seven in the world, his brother was six, you know, and and They all interesting what they react to and not everything we write every week and we do this every week. People want to know how the hell do you do it every week because the topic is that big.
Steven J. Manning: I have no problem coming back with next one next one you know and just in the middle of night that we should write about this
Steven J. Manning: and we are dispensing the type of information advice that everyone says. Yeah. Okay. By the way, just to crow a little bit out out there since January. We have yet to have a cancellation, which is a good thing. We must be doing something right. Oh, by the way, as I said before, one of the reasons for this was to create a vehicle to find money to donate to kids causes. So, but so what am I involved in? Uh, if I had to choose one, I’d be doing Monday influencer. Uh, I’m excited to write uh for McGra Hill for many thousands of college professors fool them too because they all have stuff I don’t have but you know I’m very excited to write the next two books which I will if school just gets out of my email box long enough
Steven J. Manning: you know but but the bottom line is it’s cool to be at a stage certainly my life uh where I profess shamelessly to have value uh to to dispense. More importantly, uh I’m a shameless researcher. Uh just absolutely shameless. Uh put in perspective, I once called the pope to ask a theologic question, which is possible to do. So it’s an amazing thing for me and I talk about this all the time. The best of the best, the top of the top, the most relevant among the people are relevant, the greatest people who achieve greatness, you are amazingly accessible once you get the meaning. They are so glad to share, so glad to talk to you. And when you reach the top of the pinnacle and I, you know, I was talking to a friend, I said, “You’re not going to believe it. I just talked to this guy. Why the hell would he talk to me? I’m an immigrant boy from little town in Romania.” Yeah. Well, you know, I did go to law school a couple times and all of that, but still. Why? Because I asked some questions that truly intrigued them and that filters right through what we write on the Monday influencer. You know, we’re not sitting at I think what I think but what I think is born out of knowledge that I may have we may have and the this guy interviewed 500 darn people. They’re worldrenown. So, you learn a few things. Monday influence is a big deal for me. It’s bigger than writing for uh all you know a million college professors. and the next book and all that because it has value. And yes, January, February 2nd, we will write the two first two checks will write to charities.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Cool. I’m excited about that.
Steven J. Manning: How’s that for a
Speaker: Yeah, that’s a good goal. So, so Richard, on to you. What What are you I know you I know a couple of things you’re working on, but what are you working on right now that really excites you?
Richard Morris: Well, I’ve been One of the things I have a number of desperate things, but Actually, I have a mentor that’s helped me bring them all together. And what really excites me is I and I’m going to use this phrase and it’s not mine, but I it’s it defines me. It’s on the back of my business card. It’s I get to do what I love with people I love to make a huge difference. And whether that’s in the business uh areas I’m working in, whether it’s a nonprofit, whether it’s some of the one-to-one mentoring I do, ultimately it’s kind of trying to stay true to with the time that I have on this planet uh and the skill sets that I’ve developed or whatever, where do I play my best game and constantly evaluate that to make sure that I’m playing my best game. And that could be with friends, it could be family, could whatever, but how do I cuz you know when you’re in the zone, you know when you’re just that’s where you’re meant to be, where you’re playing your best game, sweet spot. So, it’s trying to really tune into that in everything and saying play in my sweet spot and make sure that I I’m courageous enough to say no when actually it’s not my sweet spot. It’s not where I best play and what I’m working on in terms of that for if I had to pick one I’d say uh I love all the stuff I do but I want to build some engines to get a million pound or more uh hopefully much more back into community organizations to build a by almost like a heart bypass so the money because the money doesn’t flow the way it should into community So, how do I build a bypass to get it in so that actually by the time I’m not on this planet anymore or I’m moved into a different form, I’ve contributed something that lives well beyond to hopefully keep that funding uh funding going. So, that’s kind of perhaps what I’m working on. How can I come up with innovative business models, team up with great people, and actually part of that is just trusting, do you know what, it’ll happen. You just put it out there, you talk about it enough, and magic happens. So, and you but you got to spot the opportunity community, but I know it will happen. I just don’t know how.
Steven J. Manning: Well, allow me.
Speaker: 100%.
Steven J. Manning: Uh, love to contribute if you can figure out how.
Speaker: Yeah,
Steven J. Manning: because you never know. You know, interesting things come out of the mouths of apes.
Steven J. Manning: And it’s the last guy or woman you expect to come up with a brilliant idea.
Steven J. Manning: You just never know. So, the point is you just stay open. Childlike. It’ll happen. I just don’t know how.
Steven J. Manning: Uh, in my words,
Richard Morris: childlike. Childlike. enthusiasm is uh is what makes me makes me tick really to be honest. But but when it
Steven J. Manning: in my world one comment what you just said in my world and I see this all the time when thankfully we beat people like you who do have genuine relevance and do have a great deal to to contribute. I I I’m hasten to say listen Matt the dumbest idea The fleetingest idea just going to comes and goes in a big brain is worth a one line email. It’s going to take you 47 seconds to send me an email. Send him an email. Yo, I think that we should uh be collecting dog extra on college campuses for a living. That’s exactly 40 seconds from scratch to write that email or a text message with 17 seconds. The dumbest idea, the most fleetingest thought coming out of a of a truly high level functioning brain is worth a one line email. The response might be have you sustained brain damage or whoa Eureka wow never thought of that what’s the next step and some of the greatest accomplishments as you know started out what was a germ of a silly kind of idea and it’s childish a lot of the creative work that we’ve done starts out with 157 uses of the word green in advertising Really? Okay. Now, the stupid part is what sometimes sparks the greatest idea. Yeah. Just never know.
Steven J. Manning: Never know. Amazing things come out of knowledge of age.
Speaker: So, I I absolutely agree. So, I’ve got these three three questions uh for you Richard. First one is you have said that profit should be an outcome of doing the right things with the right people. How can entrepreneurs practically shift from a profit first mindset to purpose-driven one without losing commercial success?
Richard Morris: Well, I think they’re two separate things because one is an outcome and one is the other one is a how. And I think you know, yeah, of course, if you take short-term profit, um that will I get the fact you might do stuff, but if you’re looking sustained profit, sustained success, then the how becomes important because you’re look talking about longevity. And so that’s where understanding how human beings work, how they like to work, how to get the most out of them. That’s when the sort of principle centered. And I think also, you know, if you look at some of the the stats that are coming out from the younger generations, I hate that phrase, but you know what I mean, that they they they really are interested in the why. Why, you know, what is it about you? What’s you know, we they realize that the the world’s on fire. What are we doing as business people to make it slightly different? So, I think it just makes sense. So, one is about the how. And but I also think you know profit on its own is a measure that is that was given to us by an accounting set of practices. Um and I get that but actually we also need to look at some other measures as well especially for long-term strategy. Um so it’s one metric but it might not be the only metric because what if you maximize profit and then you crash the next year? So is that important? So it’s one measure, but it’s not the only measure.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So, from your experience coaching leaders and building the giving machine,
Speaker: what have you learned about creating companies where people truly love to work and why does that matter for long-term success?
Richard Morris: I think what I’ve learned is pe going back to the people love to belong. They want a a cause. People love a cause. And you can have a cause in a commercial organization. It could be just to delight your customers, but you got to people want to be belong to something that matters. So you got to as a leader, you got to create that. And if your business doesn’t quite do it, then you as a leader, you can do that within your own team. Think of it like your own company. It doesn’t have to be odds with the company, but you are responsible for the culture within your own team. So lead, make it happen, make it so your team is amazing. People want to work in your team and your team is contributing to helping other people feel great. One of the things we did in one of my teams was um uh going back to the gift thing is yeah, it’s easy in a team meeting to start moaning about other people. Why don’t you put into your team meeting who’s somebody in another team that’s done a great job? And I used to buy $5 Starbucks vouchers and say, okay, who’s going to walk that over and give that to a person to sell them? We think came up you name came up and our team meeting, we think you did a great job for $5. What a difference that makes in a culture. And it also means that the team meeting ends on a high rather than a moaning and a winch. So the point is if you want a different culture, create it. It’s it really isn’t that hard if you accept responsibility and do it. So what have I learned? I’ve just learned actually treat people like treat people. Create the motivation, right? And magic just happens.
Speaker: That’s very profound. Very profound. And so you you often talk about being childishly curious and using humor and humanity in leadership. How can leaders today use curiosity and authenticity to spark innovation and make a bigger impact?
Richard Morris: Well, I think authenticity first of all is admitting your vulnerability. You don’t know it all and that’s okay. That’s not your job is to know it all. Your job is to manage people effectively. Leverage the intelligence and capabilities they have. Yeah, the buck stops with you to make a decision, but you can listen to everyone else’s opinions first and you can canvas them. So, I think part of that is the authenticity is just be it’s okay. You don’t need to know everything. Um, and show that vulnerability in front of your people. Be open. Be honest, right? And I think have the courage to do that. And it’s amazing, you know, when you can actually when you mess up, you screw things up and you say, Yeah, screwed that up. Sorry. What a difference that makes is when you try and cover up and do stupid stuff makes you look like a complete fool. So, I think with that, humor is difficult because um it depends on you as an individual and how you relate to humor. For me, it’s a weapon of choice because once you can get people laughing, even if they’re just laughing at you, actually, it completely removes a lot of tension in the room. But it’s not something You can you when you watch politicians try and use humor and it bombs because it’s not natur it’s not authentically them. Someone else has written the script. So I think it’s a difficult one to use. You have to use it in in whatever may make sense. But the benefit of using humor and being able to laugh at yourself first at the stupidity that we are as individuals sometimes. How you know import I mean in my own family how how important it is to me to sit in the one chair I like to sit in. in the living room and how irritated I get if if if someone else sits in it and just laugh at myself about how stupid I’m really being and and you know that sort of stuff. So if we can laugh at ourselves first and understand some of the stupid things we do then at least hopefully other people can see we don’t take ourselves too seriously and therefore really we shouldn’t take everything else quite so seriously um from that perspective. So that’s where I I would say be open, be vulnerable, be honest. That’s the authenticity is just don’t don’t hide behind stuff because you think you should. And you said earlier, you know, about challenges and stuff. Every single person you speak to and I would speak to has got their own bucket of crap. It’s just some people some people are better at hiding it than others.
Speaker: Yeah. 100%. We all do. It’s uh it’s interesting that, you know, just just and and some people are that close to just snapping whereas other people are, you know, have a Bit of a bigger gap there, right? And you don’t know you don’t know what’s going on in someone else’s life because you only see this much. You see,
Speaker: you only see what they’re willing to share.
Speaker: Exactly right. Exactly right. So, I know you
Steven J. Manning: go on, Steve. Sorry. You had
Steven J. Manning: Everybody has two agendas. The one you see and then the ulterior motive. Everybody has two. You know, you need to figure out how to manage.
Richard Morris: But then I think part of that then is having the courage to try and make that into one. that what make you an elite leader?
Speaker: Completely. Completely. And I think we’re always trying to improve, aren’t we? I mean, that’s the that’s the whole beauty of of life, you know, and continual learning. And the people that are not continual learners are the ones that are really going to struggle. And they and I think they probably have always struggled, but the problem is now is that the rate of change is so fast in most industries that those people are actually going to struggle. quicker than they would have maybe five years ago because the change the pace of change wasn’t so fast, you know.
Richard Morris: No, you’re right. But then I think it’s incumbent upon those of us who are leaders to create an environment where it’s okay to be vulnerable and say, you know, I’m struggling.
Richard Morris: Yeah.
Richard Morris: You know, and to to create that environment where it’s okay to be honest and open and then we can deal with stuff. It’s when you hide stuff and you pretend it’s not there, that’s when all the problems come. So, I think, you know, for those of us hope who are thinking like that. It’s up to us to create the the right environments to help everyone else along. You can’t you can’t force someone and you can only invite them and maybe some people won’t pick up the baton, but at least you gave them the opportunity.
Speaker: Well, you can try and inspire as many people as possible. I mean, that’s what that’s what we try and do. We try and inspire people because we are passionate about about ongoing learning and continued professional development. And hopefully that passion will uh will be delivered to other people through our enthusiasm. I mean that’s that’s kind of that’s my goal and Steve’s goal uh with with what we’re doing here. But you’ve you’ve given a challenge to the listeners. And what Richard says is he says ask yourself what is the positive impact of your business, your team or just you could make if you really lived your core values and please share and inspire others is basically what he’s what he’s saying. Have you did you is there anything you wanted to add to that?
Richard Morris: One thing I would add on that is if that feels a bit too nebulous then think of the key people you uh are connected to right now and in 20 years time there’s a big birthday and they’re all going to say a few words about you about the impact you’ve had on them and how you’ve made them feel whether that’s your family, your friends, the people that work for you, with you, your customers, people you’ve sort of, I don’t know, been around, co-workers, whatever. What would you want them to say about the impact you’ve had and how you made them feel? And then make that happen because it doesn’t happen by accident.
Speaker: That’s very profound. That’s very profound.
Richard Morris: Well, you’re writing your living eulogy, you know.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Completely.
Richard Morris: That’s why I said birthday. I said that’s birthday cuz I don’t like the idea of this You’re dead, right? That
Speaker: Yeah. Well, hopefully I’m not going to be in 20 years, but
Speaker: you know, Steve thinks I probably will. The the speeds I go on my motorcycle, but that but that that’s just him thinking that. He’s just trying to tell me to be to be careful. And that’s
Steven J. Manning: I’m trying to tell you riding a motorcycle at 170 mph may not be the smartest thing to do.
Speaker: But my tires are rated at 169. Mind you, in a few years time though, we’ll be able to bottle your consciousness, right? So, it’ll be fine.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, I hope so. Hey, it was on it was on it was on a um uh a landing strip, right? So, you know.
Speaker: So, yeah, it is what it is.
Speaker: But yeah, you weren’t doing that down Highway 101 or something like that. No,
Speaker: no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker: Well, thank you. Thoroughly enjoyed speaking with you and thanks so much, Steve. Thanks to everyone for listening and watch
Steven J. Manning: to learn from you.
Speaker: Yeah, we do masses of stuff and we like to uh to talk more because we got so many questions here that we have not answered.
Speaker: Thanks very much for listening to Influential Visions. Please make sure you share this episode with your friends and business connections and don’t forget to drop us a review wherever you listen. Thanks.
Unlock a Curated, Ad-Free Archive
Unlock a Curated, Ad-Free Archive
You’ve just read the insights from this classic interview. Get a 2x new, curated, ad-free classic from our 500+ episode archive delivered to you every week (plus all new episodes uncut) by joining the MONDAY INFLUENCER community today.
Join MONDAY INFLUENCER Now