Leadership Detectives
Leadership Detectives
Leading in the New World of Work: Outstanding Interview with Clyde Fernandez
Welcome to Episode 4 of The Leadership Detectives.
In this episode, we share a wonderful interview with an incredible guest, Clyde Fernandez. Clyde is the Regional Vice President at Salesforce and is based in Melbourne, Australia.
Clyde talks openly about his own brand of leadership - one based on humanity and creating a safe space for true creativity to flourish.
He guides us through some of his own leadership inspirations and how they've influenced his own style; the importance of having to 'Learn, Unlearn and Relearn'; and why the autocratic style we grew up with must be adapted in order to survive.
Find Neil online at: https://neilthubron.com
Find Albert on LinkedIn at: www.linkedin.com/in/albert-e-joseph
Find Clyde Fernandez on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clfernan/
Welcome to the Leadership Detectives with Albert Joseph and Neil Fabron. This is the go-to podcast uncovering clues about great leadership. If you are a leader today or an aspiring leader, this podcast is a must for you. Albert, good to see you. How are you today?
SPEAKER_02:I'm really good. I'm really good to be here, actually. Good to see you. We've got a busy day ahead of us because we're here bright and early, right? We're here bright and early in the uh in the UK because our guest today is over in Australia. So really glad to welcome our guest for today, Clyde Fernandes. Clyde is currently the regional vice president in Salesforce in Australia. Really good to welcome. He's a friend of ours as well. Clyde, welcome, welcome to the session.
SPEAKER_00:Good to see you. Oh thanks. Thanks, Albert and Neil, and good to uh see you again, Albert. Good to get reconnected. And Neil, good to get connected with you as well.
SPEAKER_02:Just for clarity, Clyde, that's not a false picture in the back, right? That's reality, right?
SPEAKER_00:That is that is reality. However, I took a snapshot because that's my view from the lounge. However, I'm currently, just for you know, all of us in digital land, I'm currently operating out of my cupboard in my bedroom. Okay. Okay, so so just to because I I believe in all I believe I believe in being authentic, right? And being very vulnerable. That's the truth of it. So that is a digital backdrop of my actual view from the window, which you two both saw live the other day.
SPEAKER_01:So for those, for those listening, not seeing uh the video here, Clyde is overlooking Sydney Harbour with a fab view of boats and fab buildings and uh great, great view across the harbor.
SPEAKER_02:And real sunshine. Although we're getting some in the UK at the moment, but real sunshine.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Fantastic. Clyde, really good to see you here. Looking forward to spending. Hang on to your seats, guys. It's going to be a great interview.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so the challenge we've got is getting all of the content we want to get into this week's episode. And we we wanted to focus on how leaders need to adapt for the future of work. That's where we want to focus today because Clyde's got some really good insight into that. But before we do that, let's find a little bit more out about you, Clyde. So, opening question for you. You're about to go onto stage at a conference, okay, to be the guest speaker. I got two questions for you. Firstly, who would you like to introduce you onto stage? And secondly, what would they say about Clyde Fernandez when they were introducing you on stage?
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Well, one of my heroes is he's no longer around. His name is Mahatma Gandhi. So I think we're gonna we're gonna time travel, right? So I think Gandhi would be someone I would love to have intro me. And the things which I would like him to, I guess, include as part of the introduction is the idea of longevity and staying on purpose. If I think about you know what he stood for and what he did, it was very actually a long, you know, long-suffered, purpose-driven life he had. And not that I'm long-suffering, but certainly I'm very focused on certain things, and I've learned to to focus on less things, but stick to it.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, wow. Okay, that's a brilliant introduction into you and your purpose. And just a brief intro into a bit about your background as well, just so people got a concept of of that as well.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. So I I think you know, you've heard the term digital nomad. I'm I'm a literal nomad. I mean, I've I've lived all over the world. I've um origins in India, schooling in England, latter education in Australia, started my career in Australia, and then I've worked all over the world, including being back in the UK and London, working for you know, your co-host, uh, Mr. Joseph, um at IBM. So been really fortunate to have stumbled, Neil, into this thing called technology many years ago. And my first job was in 1980, and just have been on the most incredible journey of um literally learning off, obviously, the the industry and learning the technology, but also laterally over the last 40 years, really delving into the universe and learning about myself and learn how I can be more effective as a leader.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's that's really useful, right? Because the main topic we wanted to discuss with Clyde today was looking at how leaders need to adapt as they look at the future of work, right? So there's lots that we need to think about. And Neil and I have been learning some great lessons, even in the prep session with you, Clyde. We learned some great lessons about how leadership is today, how it used to be. But you're here now, and and I've known you for a number of years. And in the prep session, you were a different Clyde from the Clyde I knew. I you know, just the way that you presented yourself and the things you talked about. I'm keen to hear about the key milestones that have happened. You and I haven't met each other face to face for what, six years, seven years, maybe more. There's been a few milestones and turning points along the way. Did you want to share some of those with us so people can know a bit more about that and you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I think, you know, as as you go through life, we we've and and we've we shared the conversation about how we we all operated and successfully operated in the in the in the noughties, the early noughties, and how we were quite successful, and what I'd call traditional success. Traditional successes being three successful sales, either either individual contributors or sales leaders. And that with it was a particular persona, and it was a literally damn the torpedoes, full steamer head, you know, forget about collateral damage, get the goal. The goal was the sale. So it was success at all costs. Yeah. And then I mentioned to you that I've had two coaches in my life, uh, two ladies uh in my life. One's coached me for the first 15 years of my life, and the the latter one's been coaching me for over 40 years so far. And the latter one said to me, um, hey, listen, we're just recognizing in you that you know you're sort of a couple of different personas almost, right? Like you're you're Clyde that we know at home and we love, and you know, you're the father of our sons, and you're my partner. Um, you're also Clyde, the soccer coach captain, which is a mad version of Clyde, and your Clyde at work, which is a pretty ruthless, I think that was probably the word to probably use, but pretty much didn't think too much about others other than the goal. And the truth was, the organization I work for, guess what? They they appreciated that focus, they appreciated that tenacity, and they turned a blind eye to any of the collateral damage. And what my wife said to me, which is my coach, why don't you just here's a here's a clue, Clyde. The version that we see is a pretty good version. Why don't you just apply that version across all of the different groups that you you know engage with in? And for me, at an intellectual level, I went, wow, it really you know irritates me that she's so clever, number one. But wow, in terms of, wow, in terms of sort of way I went into cognitive load thinking. Wow, imagine what extra I can do with those extra cycles I get back from just being authentic, being vulnerable, being the full version of Clyde. And there was a level of fear, I guess, of concern, because you think about, oh, maybe, you know, obviously the people love you, care for you, will always be there for you. But maybe the others out there may not see the value that they see. And the truth is, is that uh when you are truly authentic, when you show true drive driven by purpose and values, man, as a leader, people just get on board. People just want to be part of your train. People want to be part of your team because they see something beyond profit, they see purpose, um, and they see a leader who is living living the values that he espouses and actually walks the talk, right? So doesn't just talk about it.
SPEAKER_01:And I think this is a great topic to start this conversation with about being authentic. But just to help people understand it a little bit more, what did you do differently? What did you notice yourself doing differently that you uh out in a work environment?
SPEAKER_00:Put it simply, I I went from being focused on lagging indicators, i.e. the scoreboard, to leading indicators. So if you think about it, uh it's the old characteristic, and we were all parents, right? We're all we've all got other teams that we lead. We're all leaders. That's that's my that's my definition, just different uh forms of it. So when you move from focusing on the scoreboard only, you you become quite punitive in your leadership style because you're talking about the results all the time and you're talking about why aren't you achieving those results? Let's talk about it. When you focus on the leading indicators, hey, let's talk about your activities, let's talk about your capabilities, let's talk about your posture, let's talk about your clarity and your focus, those things you can actually coach. Actually, you can't coach the scoreboard. The scoreboard is a consequence of the things that you put in place to achieve an outcome. So that was a big pivot for me. And it took a little bit of work on my behalf, honestly, because you because you've got a lot of built-in, I guess, confirmation bias built into you. So you tend to go backward, especially under stress, you tend to go back to the way you've always done it. And because I declared an approach change to everybody that mattered to me, and I asked them to create a circle of success around me, and that meant giving them a referee's whistle to blow it whenever they see Clyde not behaving aligned to what he wants to behave like. And then as soon as that started happening, it's just like Pavlov's dog after a while, right? You start getting back on track and you focus. And the other key thing is you start seeing the results take care of themselves. And we've had an amazing, I mean, last year is an example, Neil. Last year was the biggest lab experiment that we've all been part of, right? And and and I honestly believe that there are some leaders, I don't believe leaders are made, but I leave, I believe some leaders come to the fruition during certain times. And there are leaders that are born of or are uh ignited during crisis. And um, last year it was almost like a perfect timing, right? You know, there's a couple of different things that came together. There was that theory I was working on, I was practicing it and doing that. And then last year it was almost like a lab, an experiment. And you know, I'm a big believer in behaving like a scientist, having hypotheses and testing it. And last year we did it. Last year it was all remote, we spent mostly last year remote, but we put in a couple of key things which were really focused on people's leading indicators. And all I did was measure those, you know, activities, attitude is one of them, because our big believer in the thing that we have as leaders is our gift, if you like, is to enable all of our teams to be the best version of themselves, whatever that is. And the and the prize is we get an unfair share of their discretionary effort. And the way you do that is through energy and belief and not evangelism, but in literally showing people that you genuinely believe what it is you're trying to go after. That flag on that hill, I am going after it. I would like you to be part of this team. Come with me, let me, and that's a let's enjoy the journey, no matter where we get to up that hill. You know, this is great stuff, but I tell you what I'm hearing.
SPEAKER_02:The difference is you've always gone after the task, as you said, right? That's what we did when we were doing those jobs. But what I'm hearing now, and you've always been great on relationship, right? You taught me a lot about relationship as well. But what I'm hearing now is a real human side. And it sounds like your whole focus is about the people and the team and the task happens. Tell me a bit more about that, because you said about authenticity, that was one word. Yeah, the other one here is humility, vulnerability, humility. Tell me your feelings around that stuff.
SPEAKER_00:I will. Can I just do one thing first? Because when we're thinking about the future of work, I want to frame what the future of work looks like, right? Because otherwise, if we want to think about being a leader within the future of work, then if we don't know what that might look like, then we we we won't work out what to do. So one of the things that we think about a lot is, you know, as as I think Klaus Schwab said back in 2016, we're in the this what's called the fourth industrial revolution, right? We've all heard that term before. Yes. And and what is it? Fundamentally, stuff's happening fast. Not just happening fast, but it's happening in a hyper more complex way. And there's a term that we use to describe the world right now, and it's called VUCA. And VUCA, which is V U C A, it stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. It's a term come out of the military, US military, and it's used to describe basically, you know, a field environment. And the whole idea was to explain it to people so they can survive in that in that world. We don't want to survive. I want my people not just to survive, but to thrive. So in order to thrive, you've got to think about what that future world is gonna look like. So not only is it gonna be complex, not only is it gonna be ambiguous, uncertain, um, and volatile, but we're gonna have this inundation, and we're seeing it right now of technology changes, right? Think about all the technology changes happen right now. So lots of things happening, and there's a whole heap of crises happening at the same time. So our people are living through this fourth industrial revolution change, which is all about AI, machine learning, robots, uh, all that. We're going through a crisis manifestation like we've never seen before, around health, economic, social justice, climate, and leadership. If you remember, for you and me, Albert and Neil, when we think about leaders, we might, we may have in the past gone to leaders like a president or a prime minister for cues on how to be a good leader. These days, I don't go there anymore because some of them aren't behaving the way that we want to behave, because they're not seeing all of those crises. And so these crises are amplifying employees' pain. Yeah, these are all human factors. And what we're what we're thinking about is that if I think about the changes that are happening, the five, we call it five shifts that are happening in the future of work. One of them is the notion of moving from apathy to action. So go from a profit-first leadership to an inclusive, ethical, equitable culture where employees are holding employers accountable for things like equality, sustainability, and social causes, right? So plenty of uh um reports on that. We got we're going from always on to finding flow. And what I mean by that is I I'm sure you guys have got the same sort of problem as I do. I am inundated by information through every different different channel. I think it was Warren Buffett who said, busy is the new stupid, right? Everyone's freaking busy, get away from busy. So I want to go into flow state. And Neil, you mentioned yoga before, and we mentioned meditation before. You know that feeling you've got when you're exercising or you're meditating and you're in flow state, yeah, it's almost effortless. And we've got to move from this always-on maniacal, manic focus to this flow state focus, and we've got to help our people do it as well. We've got to move from this notion of credentialing to skills, because today, when a person's doing a technical degree, the knowledge they get in that first year, by the fourth year, it is redundant, yeah, obsolete. So we need to move as, again, as leaders, we've got to help our people to be lifelong learners in context. A LinkedIn report found that 94% of people would happily stay at their company longer if that company helped them learn new skills, right? So think about that from a bottom line, top line uh retention conversation. The fourth shift is from the notion of bureaucracy, hierarchical structures and controls and all that to humanocracy. And you use the word human stuff, right? Humanocracy is a term we're using now to actually provide, I guess, human agency at every level. Allow people to be people because they are the most creative entities within our organ organization, right? And we need to move from organizations as machines to organizations as organisms, self self-contained. And the last one is from what I call from robots to cobots. Stop being afraid of robots. They're then they're here now, but use them. Go learn how to leverage them and that don't be worried about them. So with all this increasing stuff, the thing that becomes super important is we've got to become better human leaders. Because actually, the way to protect the future of work for your workers is to help them be more human. For you to help them be more human, you've got to be the role model. You've got to be a more human leader. And you've got to, as you talked about, you've got to be more humble because humility is a really strong skill to have, and you've got to practice it because some of us have developed practices to lead us away from being humble, because we've had these great careers and successes in other ways. We've got to be empathetic, right? So really meet people where they are, don't fall, don't drag them to where you are. And the last thing is be resilient. Now, I don't know if you've just worked that out, but that's an acronym there, H E R, and it spells her. And funnily enough, funnily enough, females have these attributes in spades. So let me just do a quick, you know, intersectionality pivot, right? And think about if we if we recognize that diversity is a fact, but inclusion is still a still a choice. One of the best ways to drive diversity and inclusion is up your, and I'm gonna say the Q word, up your quota, get your get your representation of females in your teams, in your leadership at the right level.
SPEAKER_01:I like I love that term. Diversity is a fact and inclusion is a choice. And and I actually I'd love to do a podcast on that, to be to be honest. I really would. But you've said a hell you've you've said a hell of a lot about the future of the workplace, which is which I get, and I think it Albert and I are learning all the time on this, and it's it's starting to sink in to us that this is this is where it's going. And and focusing on humanity and being more humble, being more uh authentic is going to be key for leaders. But how do they do that? It's scary, it's really scary being authentic, it's really scary dropping the ego and dropping that facard, it's really scary bringing the home kneel to the workplace, you know. And I was talking to someone this about this the other day after you and I spoke. What do you think about this concept of bringing the whole of you, you know, the way you play with your kids and that person into the workplace? So, how does a leader find the courage to become more authentic and become more humble?
SPEAKER_00:I think one thing we do recognize, Neil, and this is nothing new, is that we need teamwork, right? You know, teamwork is the dream work, and we know that in order to do teamwork in the past, if you remember, knowledge was weaponized, right? Knowledge, I had knowledge, you didn't have it, you're either a subordinate or a peer. I don't want to give you knowledge because if you have knowledge, you've got the you've got you've got my secrets and you can get ahead of me, right? So it's all a bit of BS, right? So we understand teamwork is absolutely mandatory for doing any complex work, right? So complex work, you need you need a team to do it, and you need multidisciplinary skills to do it. But if you do it, if you do it in a command and conquer way, all you can do is you can only do teamwork which is well regulated and well patterned, i.e., you've you've locked down the process, you don't know exactly what it is. Now here's a clue. As soon as you do that, guess what you can replace people with? Machines. You know, actually what you want, actually, what you want is the work which is complex and messy. Because humans do that really well. But you need humans to work together. In fact, my belief, Neil, I don't know where I read it, was our number one design point as a human is to actually reach out and help somebody else lift, right? Because it's actually self-serving. If I help you by lifting you, by equipping you with more knowledge, you actually improve the corpus of humanity, which helps me because I'm part of that, right? So one of the natural design points is we've got to help each other because we're we're better off together, right? So teamwork is dream work. The other thing is as leaders, is we have a contract with our people, and it's it's got to be a fair and equitable contract. I will do something for you in order for you to do something for the the better good of yourself, the team, the organization. Yeah, and for me, the exchange is is I because I like I like tautologies and I like dumbing things down. For me, as a leader, as leaders, we need to bring through the three C's, right? Culture, clarity, and coaching. What I mean by that, you need to have when all this stuff's happening, all this volatility and all that, you've got to create a culture where people feel safe. Safety is really important. I'm gonna talk about safety a bit more in a second. Clarity is there's so much stuff to go after. As a leader, you've got to narrow the aperture and say, yes, there's lots out there, but here are the three things I want you to do this week, this day, this period, right? And then the coaching piece is super important. I'm a big believer in what I call precision coaching, not broad brace coaching, which is basically here's a book on coaching, go and do it. But no, Neil, when you did that in this moment, I think you could do it better by applying this technique. Think about coaching in sports, sporting parlance. It's literally walking up to the golfer just after she's swung and say, Can I, do you mind if I just adjust your grip by five degrees or one degree? What I don't I don't know golf. Albert probably knows more about it than that. But having that I could do with your help. I could do with your help, actually. Having that in the moment, what I call precision coaching.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Precision coaching is real-time coaching, and there's there's there's real value in that. And machine learning, AI, and all that's going to help that as well, right? So that's the three things that as leaders we should do. That's what we can do, and we can talk about how to do that. But in in return for that, what we want from our teams, because things are really difficult and complex and all that, is we want them to be courageous. Right? We want them to be courageous, we want them to, we want them to show up with all of their competencies, right? So we want them to be courageous, we want them to bring their competence. If they don't have the competence for the job, guess what we want them to do? To build that competence, and we'll help them do it. And then we want their commitment to get after that flag, whatever that flag is. But we agree on what that flag is, we agree on how we're gonna get to it, we agree on what those leading indicators are, and we do it together. And we are all in it together. I pivot from being a strategist to a formative role, to a coach, to a doer, all in all in within the day. And I'm okay with that. And I'm okay to also say to my people, this is where this authenticity comes in and transparency. I I don't know. Albert, if you great question. If you were going to fix it, how would you fix it? Where would you go? And they and you know, come in the chick, they say, well, I'd come to my boss and ask them. I said, okay, when the boss doesn't know the answer, what would you do next? You've got to encourage people to be self-reliant, you know, not not so they're totally independent, but they're interdependent and they can get after, they can self-learn. I deliberately lag responsiveness to certain certain members of my team because I know if I lag my responsiveness, they'll go and find the answer without asking me for the answer. And we've all know those techniques, right? Yeah. We need highly adaptable people to strive and to survive and to perform at a highest level in that VUCA world, because in that VUCA world, adaptability is the key. And the key to adaptability is learning. And then we can go down the whole rabbit hole about you know, how do we engender a learning organization? And I can talk to you about some of my you know top authors that I love to talk about as well.
SPEAKER_02:There's some great stuff here, Clyde. But in that, you mentioned something you called psychological safety. Tell us a bit about that. What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00:So psychological safety, I mean, think about your family. I mean, what do you want? I mean, Albert, you and I, uh Neil, maybe Neil, you're a lot younger than us, maybe, right? So you maybe you didn't have the same thing.
SPEAKER_01:We maybe. It's the makeup and the lights. I love it.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, it's working. It's working. You know, we grew up in a in an era where um if we uh uh were disrespectful to our dad, disagree with our dad, you know, a few other things, what would happen? It's not acceptable. He would he would sit us down and talk us very nicely, wouldn't he? No, he would give us a whack across the back of the head and say, that's not good enough, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So that's that's that in that creates conformity. It absolutely does. But it doesn't create creativity, doesn't create innovation, doesn't create out-of-box thinking, it creates consensus thinking. Um now we get why it happened, we do. The reason we are different now is we've got one big advantage they didn't have. We've got it, we've got the internet, we've got YouTube, we've got knowledge on tap. So you know, having knowledge is one thing you've got to put into action then. And so psychological safety is about creating an atmospheric for your people to feel safe to be their full self, to feel safe to actually be included. And I'll talk to you about um actually the first thing I'll talk about is my my thinking about psychological safety is rather than asking individuals to step up and be be you know bold and brave, like Renee Brown would say, or or lean in, like Cheryl Sandberg would say, I'm a big proponent of Amy Edmondson, right, who wrote a book, great book called The Fearless Organization. It is a, you know, one of the takeaways for today, please go and read some books, because that's that's one of the key things I talk about all the time, is keep learning. And she talks about psychological safety as the key to organizational learning. If you're not learning, you're standing still. If you're standing still, you know what's happening, right? Everybody is going past you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So organizations need to be agile through continuous learning and cultivating a fearless environment that encourages people to speak up and contribute ideas. And the trouble is, psychological safety is not a set and forget. Psychological safety is a fragile capability. It needs continual renewal. So as a leader, driving fear out of an organization is your number one task and will be a cut be a constant journey for you. And you you do it in all sorts of different ways, right? It's not a big, grandiose thing. It's actually in the little things. When you see somebody who wants to say something but moves back, it's in that moment you've got to say you've got to give them safety to say, hey, Jessica, I just saw, I think you might have something to say. Do you feel okay to share it with us right now? You've got to come up with a way to meet them where they are, recognize that feeling probably a bit whatever they're feeling, but how that's where empathy comes in. Meet them where they are and just invite them to share. Not demand it, invite them. And then you need to stamp out anything which is going to generate fear. Because what you want to do is create this lovely virtuous cycle of, oh, I put my head up, it didn't get knocked off. Oh, I put my head up, no one laughed at my question. That's what you want. And so Amy talks about that, and she talks about it from a systemic organizational perspective, which I think is where the focus should be. And as leaders, we are the proponents of the organization, right? We should be, we should be the north stars of the organization. We should be the ones being exemplars of great psychological safety. And then we can talk about another book by a guy called Dr. Timothy R. Clarke, who talks about the four stages of psychological safety. And that's a lovely roadmap that you could use to actually, almost like a rubric, you can use it in your organization, in your teams, in your family, wherever, to look at these four stages. And they talk about, he talks about inclusion safety. Do we include everybody without caveats? You know, uh, learner safety, do we encourage learning so that we we take the risks out of learning and we exchange encouragement for engagement? We disconnect fear from mistakes, right? So all those sort of things. Next level is what's called contributor safety, where we, with all the learning, you want to now encourage your people to contribute. And this is on the threshold now between contribution and what what we call innovation. And then with the last level is called challenger safety, where you're actually crossing that innovation threshold. And what you want to do now is is is not not hold sacred sacred sacred cows, right? You want to challenge status quo. And and all of us guys, we're part of status quo. We're part of the so we've got to be comfortable being challenged, and we've got to, in fact, react, we've got to react very positively about dissent and reduce the risk of ridicule. We've got to become, we've got to be examples of being agnostic to title, position, and and and and authority, right? So that people can just feel like this is the playground, everyone's safe.
SPEAKER_01:So how so uh and I love the concept of the the this new leader with the culture, clarity, coaching, creating psychological safety. What about when things aren't going well? What about when the shareholders are demanding that the board do something different, the the numbers are, you know, I work with lots of different businesses, and when things are going well, they'll try all these things, they'll let leaders be courageous and try new stuff, or they'll create uh, you know, that but when things aren't going well, it goes back to the old authoritarian style.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So when things aren't going well, what what happens then?
SPEAKER_00:So it it it all comes back to how we set up for success, isn't it, Neil? I mean, if we if we are, we can't be half pregnant, right? We're we're gonna be in. And the best way to test if an organization is purpose-oriented, values-driven, is not during the good times, is actually during the bad times.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm going to I'm going to say, I mean, and we've all done it, we've all stayed with organizations longer than we probably should have at different times. Because we, you know, we are the we are probably the um the world's largest addicts, right? And that addict, the addiction we're addicted to is what's called a monthly pay cycle, right? So because we because we're addicted to that, it becomes very easy. Everything's built around the month, and we get that pay slip in again, we go, okay, I can tolerate for another month, right? The test is not done in the moment, it's done before. And we've got to set it up that way. Last year I saw our leadership. As soon as the COVID hit, they went out to market immediately and sent out an adjustment to their advice to the market around our revenue numbers, because we project revenue every year. Yeah. And they, I think they took a billion dollars off our revenues. But what that did was what it sent a couple of signals, both obviously to the market, but also to every individual, every one of those 54,000 people working for Salesforce. It was like, wow, okay, so they are not not taking your foot off the accelerator, not that at all, but but they're recognizing there's going to be a potential impact to this crisis. And they're allowing us to try, we actually accelerated our innovation during that period. We tried more things. So I think this is where culture becomes so important, but culture needs to be tested at your right during the during the tough times. And if you've got, and we've all been there, if you've got your leaders screaming at you saying, I'll use it, I'll use a word right now because I've been described this way, Clyde, you're too fluffy, you know, all this stuff is is BS. Get on with it, get your friggin' numbers right. I go, cool. I said, but I've got a track record of delivering numbers. And the way we deliver the numbers is using these leading indicators. So if we want to change hypotheses, this is where we've got to move from the kind of leaders we are, and we could talk about later on, you know, not being a preacher, not being a prosecutor, not being a politician, but be more like a scientist where you have a hypothesis and you know you test out your hypotheses with an experiment, with a method, you come up with the data. They're never facts, they're just results. And you test them. And if the if the if the environmentals change, you've got to change your hypotheses and your your method. I think it's a tough one, Neil. I'm not answering it directly because my response now is guess what? I'm I'm more likely to say, I hear you, boss. Let me explain to you why, as a lead, I've got to stand there protecting my team. Let me explain to you why this is the right thing to do right now.
SPEAKER_01:Courage is the word that I hear. Absolutely courageous to be able to do this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It's interesting actually, because you've just said there that you were challenged about whether you're too fluffy. So are you different inside the team of the business you work in, or are there other leaders like you?
SPEAKER_00:Albert, you know, you and I, mate, there aren't too many made like us, right?
SPEAKER_02:That's a fact, you know. The mold is gone, I know.
SPEAKER_00:But you know, the good the beauty about, and and and you and I are very similar. The beauty about us is we are we have developed very good chameleon skills, right? We learned how to be included, and early that meant assimilating, right? And moving to a level of consensus, right? Yeah, yeah. When you get a bit older, you you start wanting to be yourself. So I think we've got a healthy mix of personalities, healthy mix of leadership style. But but if if the theory that I laid out, and this is not a theory that I've come up possibly myself, I'm talking about those five shifts happening within the future at work. This is a this is a a point of view that Salesforce has got. If that is true, then the one thing I do know which is true categorically, is that the future leader has to be more human.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so actually, I embrace my fluffiness. So now I say, yeah, okay, I get it. I get I I never want to be, I never want to be binary. I don't want to be a binary uh influence anybody. I'd rather be a conciliatory force. So so my my empathy then kicks in and goes, Oh, tell me more about why you think I'm fluffy. Oh, yeah, I get that. I get it. I understand why you're saying that. Let me explain to you my science behind this definition called fluffiness. Let me explain it to you. Let me use data to support some of my approaches. Um and but if you've got a better theory, I'd love to hear it. Always be open, right? Always better, better best, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So I'm I'm I'm conscious of time and and I the time just flies when we're having conversations with you, Clyde. And there's so much more we could ask and drill into. But why I uh if it's okay with you, I'd like to kind of think about wrapping this up with a few closing questions. Is that okay, Albert?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I think I think you're right, otherwise, we would be here a longer time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so we've got some quickfire questions we ask at the end, just to help get some perspective for you to some of the the leaders listening to this call. So the first one is which you're going to ask, Albert. I'll let you ask the first question.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you may have you may have actually said it up front when you did your introduction piece, but uh quickfire, who would be a role model in leadership for you and why?
SPEAKER_00:Oh I like Obama, right? Because he he to me he demonstrates what I think it is to be a good leader, which is almost self-affusing, never arrogant, all the things which I think I wasn't described probably in the first 30 years of my life, right? Not somebody who is is is softly spoken, slow to speak, good listener, great brain to actually grab multiple um data data sets and combine them and really focused on the most vulnerable. That's what I that's what I get when I see him, right? That's the kind of person I'd love to emulate when I when I do my job.
SPEAKER_01:So second quick far question is if you were going to gift the book to someone, a leader, which which would be the first book you would give to them?
SPEAKER_00:I mentioned Amy Edinson's book. That's that's a really good one. And I I mentioned um and they're both on psychological safety. So Amy, Amy is probably the key one. Um absolutely get after that one. And I think you've heard all the other business books like Seven Habits and all that. But the ones that I'm I'm I'm reading um recently is you know, Simon Sinek's Infinite Gains, that infinite mindset. I love that construct and the and the plasticity of your mind and the fact that, you know, what does he say? You know, I think he's five, he's got five thoughts, I think, throughout this whole book. Advance a just cause. I love that idea. So have a cause which is just though. Build trusting teams. I love that concept, right? That's what it's about. Respect worthy rivals, don't bag your competitors, but respect the worthy ones, right? Learn from them. Practice existential flexibility, i.e., we're all gonna die somewhere, even a business model. So practice flexibility around all that, and then have the courage to lead. Amy is good. The other one, I guess, would be who am I thinking about? Adam Grant. I think just think differently. He he talks about the preacher, prosecutor, and um politician concept.
SPEAKER_02:So so we we've covered a lot of material. If you wanted to leave just one quote, one leadership quote or one leadership saying about that came from Clyde Fernandes to the audience here, what would it be?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I won't I won't do it from Clyde Fernandez because I'm I'm I'm just a mouthpiece for lots of people I read, right? The person I love refer um referencing a lot is a guy called Alvin Toffler. Now he talked about, he's a philosopher, the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. As leaders, we've got to become really literate. So therefore, we've got to become really good individuals who can unlearn and relearn. And demonstrating, as you said, mate, humility, empathy, and resilience. You know, saying we do not know the answer, it's okay, that's okay. And hold and stand in your ground, stand in that discomfort, knowing it's not what you normally do, um, but lead with that. And recognize that uh, you know, you're you're infallible and recognize that failure, this is this is one of my ones I love, failure is not fatal and success is not forever.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, like it. Okay, and in fact, in fact, I think we'll we'll leave it there because the last question was gonna be and and and well, maybe answer this question. So if you were gonna put in one sentence a must do for any leaders listening to this podcast, if you were gonna put a must-do from everything we've talked about in one sentence, what would it be?
SPEAKER_00:Become more human, become more human, listen deeply. And and the I don't know if you know about the different different listening techniques. Deeply is a particular type of listening, so I'm gonna just leave it at that. Listen deeply, respond productively, okay. Um, and recognize and thank everybody regularly. This goes back to this whole gratitude stuff as well.
SPEAKER_03:That's great, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So I I would like to recognize and thank you. Yeah, this has been a fantastic interview, Clive. We we know what we normally do on the clock, and you've gone well beyond it. And I hope our listeners have stayed with us. If not, they've gone off and come back even better still. So, Clive, thank you very much for your time. I know we're between you and a really nice Curry. So we're gonna let you go. Thank you for your time. Really good to have you here. Maybe we'll get you back again. So really appreciate it. Neil, can I give it back to you and we close off?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, Clive, a big thank you from me as well. And to all our listeners out there, please leave us your comments, please subscribe, please leave us um feedback so we we know what we do well and what you want us to do more of. So thank you from Australia. And we're we're gonna sign off from the UK here. Good to see you guys. Take care. All the best. All the best.
SPEAKER_02:Take care, guys. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Detectives with Neil Thabron and Albert Joseph. Please remember to subscribe, give us your comments and your feedback. Please also visit leadershipdetectives.com for all the episodes and more resources and support.