PP 112: Becoming a Purpose-Driven Leader with Dave Clare

Grab a pen and paper! Dave provides multiple “Aha!” moments, including his thoughts about why we make our decisions and productive thinking vs. positive thinking.

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Episode Transcription: Dave Clare

KIM: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. This is your host Kim Sutton and today I am thrilled to have Dave Clare, the self-proclaimed prophet for purpose – Hey listeners, if you haven’t already listened, there’s a blooper reel somewhere – who is on a mission to create an inspire 90 million purpose driven leaders. Welcome Dave and sorry it took so long to get to that that welcome for you.

DAVE CLARE: Oh absolutely my pleasure to be here, and you know what, if I want to be on any reel, it’s a blooper reel.

KIM: Oh – I had such a great time putting together the first blooper reel. I am looking forward to putting together the next because, I mean as podcast hosts, we just, you know, we try to make things look perfect, but as I’ve said in numerous episodes so far this is a positive productivity podcast not the perfection podcast.

DAVE CLARE: It’s a great idea to focus on productivity, not perfection.

KIM: Oh yeah. And just hearing the catfights and everything when I was going through the raw files – it was incredible. Enough about me, let’s talk about you!

DAVE CLARE: Sure.

KIM: Would you mind sharing more about you and what you are doing with the listeners?

DAVE CLARE: How much time do we have?

KIM: Oh as much time as you would like. And listeners, I need to share really fast, and I am sorry I keep on taking the light away from you, but Dave and I met – what a few months ago?

DAVE CLARE: Yeah.

KIM:  – through LinkedIn.

DAVE CLARE: LinkedIn. It was LinkedIn.

KIM:  And we had a virtual coffee call – morning my time, late, late evening your time Dave. If memory serves, we both were approaching the call – I think you were trying to get to bed and I was trying to get to work and we both we chatted about it during our call that we were not going to be terribly disappointed if the other one cancelled, and neither of us did cancel so we got on the call. And what was supposed to be half hour ended up being about an hour and a half or two hours. And it was just so amazing. So I’m going to give the light back to you and shut up.

DAVE CLARE: Okay. Thank you. Yeah it was amazing. It was one of those calls – and like for the listeners out there, if you ever think: “Oh we should have recorded that” – that’s all fine in hindsight, but it was one of those calls that we probably should have recorded right at the beginning, which would’ve been great, but nonetheless we’re here now. So we’ve cleared the self proclaimed profit for purpose. I’ve said it numerous times, and I’ll get tongue twisted. And you know I see myself as a leader of a new generation and my background is long and varied, but took me a lot of work – banking and finance, private public sector, not for profits. Work a lot of organizations under some amazing leaders. I was a business coach of my own for about five years. I was a licensee of an international leadership and organizational development company for about five years. I’m award winning coach and my clients  very excited that I’ve had so many award winning clients, which has been fantastic.

So I’ve spent a lot of time working with organizations and people on becoming purpose driven and creating invincible cultures that thrive on innovation. So that’s pretty much all the work I do with people. And you know I believe that if you – leadership is simple, you lead people. And that’s the space that I tend to work in and with that of course there’s a lot of work within productivity which facilitate entrepreneurial development program, which we were just doing a session tonight on productivity for entrepreneurs.

So, it’s one of the key things is getting, you know, how to do more with less – to achieve your goals and achieve the different you want to make in the world. And with me like I have a mission to create and inspire 90 million purpose driven leaders, I need to darn well be as productive as possible to make that happen in the window of my life I have left to do it in.

KIM: Oh yeah.

DAVE CLARE: So give me that-

KIM: -Let’s talk about that. What do you do to maximize productivity?

DAVE CLARE: So a couple of pearls of wisdom – so if your listeners have pen and paper ready because I’m going to espouse a bunch of stuff and it might be worth writing down – certainly from productivity point of view, to listen and think and act all at the same time, especially as a man. Not easy, so I always encourage people to have a piece of paper and pen or pencil or type in your phone, whichever way you want to do it in the digital age today.

But how do I be productive: The very first thing that I get clear on is, certainly for my mission, is breaking it down into my goals, or what it is that I want to accomplish. You know if 90 million leaders is who I need to reach out to, if I broke that down and reverse engineered that to: what do I need to do in the next 12 months; what do I need to do in the next six, next three, next one month? For example: what do I do right now? You know, so first thing I do is I reverse engineer my goals. Then take a look at it and say: “What is the best use of my time?” And much of what I was sharing with those entrepreneurs tonight is, it is one of the things that I must do that will move me forward in getting a very clear sense of definition of what it means for me to be productive within that mission.

DAVE CLARE: So first thing to do is you gotta get a very clear sense of what are the outputs that I need to be working on in the next 3, 6, 12 months, and then what would be the best use of my time or inputs that I would have to maximize those outputs? Because to me, productivity is simply defined as outputs over inputs. So I look at that for myself and say: “Well then the inputs are my high payoff activities,” as I’ve learnt in my days.

DAVE CLARE: So I work at one of the highest pay off activities for me. You know the big rocks in the jar analogy? I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but the old story about the big rocks in the jar.  So I look at what my big rocks are from a productivity point of view, and then I what I call paint those into my time picture. And using simple things like the Pareto principle of 80:20 rules – so 20 percent of the things that I do will produce 80 percent of the results.

So if I get very clear on what those 20 percent things are which are my big rocks.  If I identify those, block those times out to make sure I do those on my calendar by putting them in first, and stay focused on those things because it’s all built towards the end goal. So it’s kind of a system or a process about it. And then I still allow myself – creativity and innovation in my own schedule and freedom to think with what I call planned spontaneity as a separate issue. So that makes sense.

KIM: Oh yeah absolutely makes sense. And I really appreciate how you say what you’re going to do and that’s something that has drastically changed for me since we spoke last. I have drastically reduced the ‘I tries’, or ‘I will try’ from my vocabulary.

DAVE CLARE: Awesome.

KIM: And I didn’t realize how much I said it until we were chatting, and then I’ve caught myself a few times: “I’ll try”. And it really is Yoda: “Do or do not, there is no try”. So I’m not trying anymore, I’m doing!

DAVE CLARE: That’s good, you know, this thing is people can argue with Kim that it’s semantics and it’s just words. Okay, but to me: “Try” gives you a mental loophole to say, you know: “I gave it a fair go but it didn’t work out and it’s ok”. Whereas, I’m going to do this is a different level of commitment, that’s all. You know to me, it’s like it’s: “I’m going to do this and I’m not going to face obstacles. I know I’m going to face problems and all this sort of thing is going to happen and challenges along the way but I’m going to hell or high water I’m going to make this happen.” And it’s just a different level of commitment. I think to yourself when you try something versus doing something.

KIM: What is the timeline that you have decided – see I’m not saying trying – that you are going to create and inspire 90 million purpose driven leaders in?

DAVE CLARE: Great question. I myself, look I’m probably don’t sound it, but I’m – actually next week, I’m 51 years old. And I think now that I probably have about a third of the way through my life. So you do the math, I expect to live to about 150 I think the millennials will find a way for me to live longer and longer and longer.

So you know what could be 20 years, 30 years – I probably have at least a good solid 20 or 30 years to reach that 90 million. Now having said that, if you look at some examples in the world there’s people in their businesses that have reached numbers like 90 million in 12 months.

KIM: Oh absolutely.

DAVE CLARE: Yeah. So I’m familiar as I set my goals. I mean they’re certainly what I want to do when I work back from that and thinking what is the, you know, the minimalists – you know if I can achieve more with less, so how could I get to 90 million or more within a shorter period of time. I’m always challenging myself in that space to think of new ways to do that.

And I’m sure we’ll talk about my book, because you know that’s certainly one thing for me is like look I can go one to one, I can do one to many, or I can do one to exponential – in the sense of how I could reach out to people. And with that, I also want to be very mindful within this timeline of reaching out to 90 million people that I’m not doing in a very diluted way. I want to really make sure that I’m creating and inspiring, or creating or inspiring, the 90 million people not just you know a little spark or a little buzz for somebody for a little period of time. I want to shift the thinking so that that could take 20 years.

DAVE CLARE: I can probably reach 90 million people if I want to do it with really smart marketing tactics and strategies in 12 months, if I wanted to. But to do it at the deepest level that I want to accomplish it at – that may take longer. And so I don’t put that unnecessary pressure on myself to say: “Well I’ve gotta reach 90 million people within two years.”

KIM: Yeah I don’t think there needs to be a pressure like that to any part of our life.

DAVE CLARE: No, this is my life mission, this is my life’s work. This is my, you know, if I said that: “What am I here to do?” This is what I’m here to do. I’ve worked it out. I’m fortunate enough to be where I am in life now to work it out. You know some people like – I’m still not sure what I want to be when I grow up but I know what I want to do. I want to create and inspire these purpose driven leaders because that’s what the world needs most right now, and just as a quick sidebar that- this is if anyone is out there searching for their purpose or to understand what they’re here to do, is if you look at all of those things that you do well, or that you’re jazzed about or get excited about, you know, I say turns you on or whatever way you want to describe it – what you love doing the most and what you would do for nothing.

DAVE CLARE: And then you look at what does the world need most, or when I say the world it can be your part of it. Where those two things cross over somewhere in that intersection will be where your purpose lies. And that’s what I found for me because I really got jazz when the business owner got a real clear sense of why their business – or got back in touch with why their business existed. And I saw the changes in them and their teams.

And then when I looked at what’s happening in the world now with all the money that’s being spent on leadership development, and we have disengagement rates going through the roof, I think there’s a distinct lack of purpose driven leaders. I get excited when people find their purpose, bang, I am now the prophet for purpose.

KIM: Do you remember when you had that” “Aha” moment?

DAVE CLARE: When I came up with the official title, if you like, the self-proclaimed title, was probably only about two years ago. But I’ve always – purpose was always my thing. I remember a couple of years I sat down and thought: “I really need to crystallize this for myself,” because you know I love working with people and their business purposes and getting back in, as I said: “In touch,” with why they started beyond money, because you know businesses need money but that’s not why they were started. We need oxygen but we weren’t born to breathe.

DAVE CLARE: So I thought okay, I really understood that, but I sat down and someone was talking about it to me about, you know, I just want to do what I love and get paid to do what I love. And I was working for a not for profit at the time. I say that one of our things is to raise money as a not for profit doing what we love doing and putting that money back into the community so we have like a profit for purpose. And I’m like oh hang on a second. And then I research the word prophet in the sense with a ph not  fit, and a sort of prophet as an inspired teacher or leader of a cause recalling your movement. Well if I become that about a purpose then I’ll profit from my purpose and then that’s how it all came about.

KIM: Oh I love that. And I hadn’t even thought about profit. F-I-T vs – so I mean I knew how you spelled yours but I wasn’t even thinking about the other word. I’m finding it interesting though that my businesses got started because of the need for money. And it’s transformed into a new business – the Kim Sutton brand Positive Productivity, where it is about purpose and now that the shift has gone from wanting to make income to wanting to make impact – and listeners no, it’s probably not what the bank or the, you know, my credit score I would want to see right now. But it’s so much more fulfilling and I found that when it’s fulfilling, everything works out.

DAVE CLARE: Yeah. If you look at, and I would challenge your thinking in that space to say that you know it may have been about your forefront of your mind might have been about making money first, but you could have done anything you wanted to make money. You chose to do whatever it was you started with as the vehicle to make money. So why did you choose that vehicle as the one to make money?

KIM: Wow that’s an interesting thought because at the time I thought my two options were: working third shift at a gas station or starting my business. I mean I’m college educated but I needed a second job because I wasn’t doing what I’m educated in. And just due to where I’m living it really wasn’t an option. But that is a very interesting way to look at it. So thank you. And we can’t use that: “Hey I wish I was recording that now, because hey I am recording.” So it really was exciting the possibility and the option and the. Realization that I could work from home with my husband right by my side and see him all day and not just have to wait for lunch hour or a couple of hours in the evening to see him.

DAVE CLARE: Yeah. So that’s just to any listeners out there, a lot of people will tell you that they’ve started this because I need to make money. That’s great, and I’m not denying that. But why did you choose that to make money? That’s the question we want to start asking ourselves, because you could have done anything to make money – if you’re really desperate to make money and you just wanted to make money, you could have got another job somewhere else or done something.

You know, I’m very careful when people go out there and want to talk about positive or productive thinking, is if you just want to make money, be very careful you’ll end up making money. Right. But then you’ll end up with a hollow victory because you feel unfulfilled and all that. And that money will go away just as quick as it came. Because it was out of need and then when you’re challenged by that as well because.

DAVE CLARE: I don’t know if you find this yourself, but a lot of people I work with who have that mindset at the moment – well when you go out to try and make a sale, because they’re trying to make a sale, they’re not actually doing it. Because what they’re doing is they’re actually trying to make their money instead of actually helping a customer. Go help a customer, go do that. That is where I help people shift from trying to doing – if you actually go and make it about the customer and not about you. Because when you’re going there because you need money, you’re making it about you.

If you’re going to help that person because you want to see them achieve their success and you know you can help them do that – you’ll make money doing that. Okay – so this is shifting the mindset from trying to doing is also looking at: “am I doing this for the customer or am I trying to make money”.

KIM: Oh absolutely. I want to circle back around to something that you just said, because in our virtual copy that we had you said the same thing and it blew my mind then – you just brought up productive thinking versus positive thinking. Can you discuss that further.

DAVE CLARE: Sure. Absolutely. So. You know I don’t mind positive thinking. You know, it would be lovely if the world was all positive but to me positive thinking is much like going: “Don’t worry, it’ll all be okay. We’ll put on our rose-colored glasses, because things will be better – tomorrow will be a nicer day, the sun will shine.” Which is all lovely stuff. But what that does is that it almost denies what’s happened and we mask what’s happened, and just hope that tomorrow is going to be better. Or we’ll put on a new smile, we’ll start all over again tomorrow which is great. And that’s better than negative thinking, so don’t get me wrong.

DAVE CLARE: But what I work with people on is productive thinking. Because in life, and I’ll try not to cuss too much here – So like crap happens. Right. So stuffs happened, and you can try to mask it all you like, or productive thinking goes, hey this has happened – what I need to do is: “How do we interpret that?” and then ‘how do I choose to deal with that to move forward from it?’ I’m not going to deny that has happened but I’m going to make sure I interpret it the right way and learn from it. So it doesn’t happen again. Or find the lesson that I was supposed to learn from that happening anyway and then deal with it. So productive thinking goes: “Craps happened, how do I interpret it? How will I deal with it move forward?” Positive thinking goes: “Don’t worry it will be okay tomorrow, we’ll forget about it. We’ll hope that tomorrow is a better day.”

KIM: Absolutely. And I have been implementing that as well. I’ve been getting rid of the trials and implementing productive thinking along with positive thinking. I won’t deny that.

DAVE CLARE: Don’t deny the lesson or deny the thing that, you know, we’re all products of our mistakes and we all made a mistake in our life, Kim.

KIM: Oh I’ve made plenty and I’ve learned from them all..

DAVE CLARE: Right and some took me a little longer to learn than others. But that made me who I am today. So I put a positive mindset on trying to deny all that, or hide it, or mask it, going forward is saying: “Well hang on, that learning process had made me who I am today, I’m not going to utilize that anymore.” And I’m like: “Hang on, why would you want to do that? Like the whole point is to acknowledge what’s happened, and interpret why it happened, and then you can make better decisions dealing with it moving forward.” And I don’t know if we talked about this when we didn’t record, but there is, you know, there is reacting to something or responding to something.

KIM: Oh. Can you discuss that further but before you do listeners, I know Dave said: “Get your pen and paper, but if you are driving or if you weren’t able to get your pen and paper out, you can get the show notes and a full transcription at TheKimSutton.com/PP112.

DAVE CLARE: Okay, please if you’re driving right now, do not get your pen and paper.

KIM: Right.

DAVE CLARE: Please pay attention to your driving but keep your ears open. Yes, so reacting and responding, so once, Kim, this is about choice. Reaction is without thought. If someone does something or says something or something happens and we instantly the automatic pilot in us, responds to , certainly reacts to it. Right. Whereas response goes: “Hang on, something just happened, something transpired. I’m going to think about a second, interpret it, and then I’m going to make the calculator the right response to it.” Okay, so whereas like I said people react to stuff and they just without thought, they just react to it. I’m not saying that, you know, we’re human beings, we’re emotional creatures. I understand how people react, but sometimes if you just take a breath. Think about it for a minute and say: “Hand on, what’s the best way to respond to this?” You know, someone say something when they really got your back up and you want to just go bad back at them.

KIM: Oh more than a few times.

DAVE CLARE: Right. So that’s reacting to what someone says to me if someone pushes you you want to push back, instead of saying: “Hang on a second. Why are they pushing me? What’s going on here? What am I missing or what am I seeing?” Interpret then and choose the right response. Now, I’m not that the right response might not be – might actually be just a pushback but at least, don’t just react to everything that happens to you in life — responding is different.

KIM: Yeah. One thing that I found to be extremely helpful is when there – and it doesn’t always work so well when you’re speaking to somebody. I mean you want to step your fingers and just come back right away like you were just discussing, it can be a little bit harder to hold your breath for a moment and think. But with e-mails I found that it works really well to – click reply, write my response, and then save as draft, and then come back to it in a couple of hours or the next day, and then decide if that’s really what I wanted to say. And that has saved my butt more than a few times just by responding immediately.

DAVE CLARE: Absolutely, and sometimes it pays to get a non-biased person to read your , what’s in your email before you send it to someone who’s not emotionally attached to it.

KIM: Oh yeah.

DAVE CLARE: As well, somebody to content of the email of course. And it’s very funny you bring this up because I had this exact situation happened with one of our strategic partners at the organization that I’m with, and I’m well crafted out. We had some problems I spoke to them verbally about it, go back to the office there was nothing that transpired here. Is this enough? So I put some very simple points down and you know there was a little bit of emotion which is fine but, I send it there, was a little bit frustrated and I didn’t know. You know I’ve got a couple jokes as well light hearted because they are still valued strategic partners of the organization. So, this– isn’t right, this needs to change. And I said that there and then within like five minutes I got a response back and it was very reactionary, like that it just didn’t take time to say “Hang on”. Let’s take a look at this information. I’m not saying I was right and he was wrong but I just was interested to see full time thought and energy. I already had conversations. I’ve gathered my thoughts together and I sent it off. And then, when I got back with him five minutes was reactionary responses to everything. Not well thought, not anything like that. It was just you know push – push back.

KIM: I remember, when I left my ex-husband, I actually downloaded an app for my cell phone that would send an automatic response: “Thank you. I’ve received your message and I will get back to you.” Because I wanted to be very careful about the responses that I sent.

DAVE CLARE: Absolutely.

KIM: It saved me a few times.

DAVE: Yeah. We can get ourselves in trouble when we react.

KIM:  I would love to talk about your book a bit.

DAVE CLARE: Sure.

KIM: Yeah. Would you mind sharing. Please.

DAVE CLARE: Yeah. All right. So my book you see, is one of the key vehicles that I have or where I can get my message or my beliefs about leadership out to those 90 million to help create inspire those 90 million – purpose driven leaders. It’s pretty much me  spilling my blood, sweat and tears of learning in my leadership journey through life and taking that and bottling it all up and be able to pass that on to other people to help them look at things differently.

DAVE CLARE: So the reason – I’ve been asked to read a book by a lot of my clients for a long time about leadership but I didn’t. I resisted for a long time because I didn’t want to just be another me to author on leadership. There’s so many great books already out there on leadership. Until I could find my voice and my message within all the leadership stuff that’s out there I did not want to put pen to paper and just become part of all of that. And you know, what’s good timing is everything. As I mentioned earlier I truly believe that leadership is broken right now. Leadership is in crisis mode. Well we spend 50 billion dollars annually on leadership development around the world. Fifteen billion dollars alone in the United States and at some university, books, training programs, you name it. Anything designed to develop better leaders. And then when other organizations do the studies on the global human capital and trends and things like that and it’s- it shows that the disengagement rate in employees has gone up to 87% of people working in different organizations. You know, like how can we be spending 50 billion in one spot to make it better. And it’s getting worse. So to me it was like: “Okay”. And what’s missing is what’s good purpose driven leaders cause purpose is what engages people in the business.

DAVE CLARE: So the premise of my book is that leadership is simple, you lead people. What’s wrong right now, is I think what we call leadership in many organizations is actually management, because leadership is about leading people. It’s an art. Management is a science. It’s about taking care of resources. Problem is we treat our people like resources and we wonder why they are disengaged. So the leadership that we’re training people on I think is to teach them how to lead people or treat people like a resource. So my book is about getting back in touch with – as a leader our job is to create more leaders not more followers. If you want workers and followers will they’ll be replaced in time with technology and automation. If you want creativity and innovation, the stuff that comes from human beings and creating a cultural environment where they’re free to think.

DAVE CLARE: So my book is called Simplified. Because I think leadership is simply you lead people. So I’ve simplified leadership as much as I can. And take people a bit of a journey to first things first as understand human behavior. Because if you gonna lead people, then you need to understand how people become who they are. So you can help them become who they want to be or need to be in the future. So if your job is to create more leaders this will mean more organizational leaders. What I’m talking about is helping people become better leaders of themselves in their own lives. So I want to help people to do more, be more, have more in life. That means I want to create more leaders. Therefore, them – why my definition makes you a leader, if you’re helping other people become more leaders in themselves.

DAVE CLARE: So take through that and then show them how to take all those individuals and put them together in a group of people and call it a culture of an organization. And the three key things that people want in life. And listeners in yourself can tell me whether right or wrong. I think that people are looking for three things in life or in business. And that is, first thing is something to believe in. And that’s a purpose, right? So you know, why am I going to work? Why am I doing this. You know and that is what engages people. If I understand why I’m doing something I’m engaged. And you know I’m a firm believer. Everybody wants their lives to be more meaningful. So our job at work is to give them work that is meaningful. So that it’s about creating purpose and helping people understand why their job matters. And then the second thing people want is, something to believe, sorry, someone to believe in. So we got something to believe in and now they want someone to believe them. And that is, a leader who has an inspiring vision of the future. As you know, I want to believe in somebody who’s going somewhere, has a bigger picture of the world than what we currently have today. So they’re looking for that and that is having the vision which inspires people.

DAVE CLARE: Okay, so know I’ve got a purpose that’s engaging people. I’ve got a vision that’s bigger than ourselves that is inspiring people. And the last thing that people want is someone to believe in me. Right? So I want someone who believes in me and that is by creating a set of values the organization can have, that you can truly empower your people to make better decisions from. And that they can be trusted and have responsibility to be accountable for the work they do. Because they’re making the same decisions through – decisions through the same filters that you would as the leader. So I have a purpose that engages me. I have a values now that empower me to make better decisions and a vision that inspires me. By having something to leave in, someone to believe in, and someone to believe in me. And that’s the premise of the whole thing in my book, is that I’m taking each of those things breaking it down and then wrapping it all up in what I call the circle of organizational leadership. Which is my radically cool new organizational structure because what’s wrong in organizations today also, is we’re still working on those hierarchical silo driven you know, top down pyramids – pyramid schemes – schemes. But you know, 90% of some people were actually worked for one. It’s called a company. And we could turn it upside down, we could do whatever you like. But we lose and we squish creativity and innovation out of that but we also dilute the vision purpose and values of the organization down through the layers.

DAVE CLARE: So my circle of organizational leadership would be pretty hard to articulate it for people listening is, if you imagine everybody like the Knights of the Round table sitting around the roundtable and in the very middle of that table is the customer centric purpose of the organization. And then as you work out from that to everybody is all the values of the business. And there we are all sitting around this table and every single person in that team now has a direct line of sight to the customer centric purpose of the organization, through the values of the business. And that’s everybody. So you know, the organization that I lead, I’m just as –  you know, held to account to the purpose of the values of our business as our trainee receptionist is. I get paid differently and I have different responsibilities. But we all have a direct line of sight to the customer centric purpose through our values. And we’re all of the same level. So there’s no dilution of that anymore.

DAVE CLARE: So sort of take them on their journey wrapping up it up of structure and then show them how to create a greater customer experience because in the end if your purpose doesn’t serve your customers then it’s not really your purpose. So like you said: “In a long story short that’s the purpose of simplified”. I take it and break it down to these really simple steps and take on that journey to become a purpose driven leader.

KIM: I wish I had your book in hand. Back when I was working in more than one of my past employers offices. Because –

DAVE CLARE: I wish I had it too.

KIM: Yeah. Because I can think of several who were not leaders, they were managers and they’re – I mean you had to leave for a doctor’s appointment for a day or a half day or an hour. Well, okay let’s dock you, right? That half day of pay or a day of pay even for an hour. And because that’s just the way it’s done. And I don’t care about you as a person. But I know you’re going to work your butt off, but I don’t care I’m still gonna dock you. I mean –

DAVE CLARE: Yeah. You need to care about the organization but we don’t have to care about you.

KIM: Right. Right.

DAVE CLARE: You should be thankful we’ve given you a job right.

KIM: Right. And they just- I had never until just now thought about the difference between a leader and a manager. And that was mind blowing and then I was also sitting here thinking about how – I – don’t know what I’ve really thought about leaders in the past. I think my mind has expanded greatly in the last year. Because I have seen a lot of that leadership development that- I’ve seen it going around and it’s made me think a lot more about it. And also I’ve watched Simon cynics Ted talk more than a few times.

DAVE CLARE: Yep. Yep

KIM: And, but I’ve never really thought about even, how you can take this whole model even down to elementary schools. And the way that a principal or a teacher is impacting students is the same way.

DAVE CLARE: Absolutely.

KIM: And I was going to ask you before you gave your awesome explanation about, you know in this day and age of where so many companies are taking their offices out of an office and having so many remote workers. But you summed it up so well. It doesn’t matter where your team is.

DAVE CLARE: No.

KIM: You can leave it and your team can be in a different galaxy as long as you have those three.

DAVE CLARE: Yeah. That’s right. And with the circle of organizational leadership – I guess if you listen to Psilocybe. He’s got his gold circle which he talks about, you know leaders start with why and how and what. It’s pretty much the organizational structure is pretty much laid out the same way that is we start with: “Why, why does a business exist? How do we go about doing that in the sense of, how do we think around here, which is our values and then what is it that we do there’s a role all tied to the goals of the organization?” Because it’s really important for listeners to remember that the goals dictate structure not the other way around.

So with the goals of your organization that is say: “What roles would we need so the circle organization leadership allows for agility and flexibility and not only the ability to move and turn with a change of goals and things like that without compromising purpose or values or the vision but also allows for mobilization of the workforce.” So it doesn’t matter where you are, without diluting those three things.

DAVE CLARE: And you know whether it’s a philosophical model or an actual physical structured, the organization that I lead – we have a set up is a physical structure it is set up that way. And then you know, this team that has a cell that breaks off of that – that hatches to that – you know what it is it just makes for leading the organization so much easier if we can get our egos out of the way. Because for me, once again, as a leader, my job is to help those people become the best versions of themselves through the work that we’re doing while they’re with us. So I actually care and  give a crap about them as human beings, not just as a means to the end for us to achieve our profitability goals.

KIM: I cannot remember the statistic number, but I know there’s a certain percentage of businesses that fail I believe within the first five years. And it’s not a small number, I think it’s like 8%.

DAVE CLARE: No.

KIM: I could be very wrong. Please don’t quote me listeners.

DAVE CLARE: There’s a massive number of the first year and then second year and then by the fifth year, yeah. It – will be over 50% of quantacy that – I think a whole chunk of them achieve fall away in the first year to be honest. But know is that  because could be, you know, wrong products, wrong market, wrong time, or just poor leadership –

KIM: Yeah. That’s what I’m wondering.

DAVE CLARE: – or a combination of all of the above.

KIM: I love to see somebody conduct a study on that. And what did they have a purpose? What was their purpose? Was it impact or income? And how right. Yes. That would be a fabulous survey and study –

DAVE CLARE: All I can tell you right now –

KIM: – please link back and again it’s – TheKimSutton.com/PP112. I would love to see the results of a survey –

DAVE CLARE: I would too.

KIM: – or something like that.

DAVE CLARE: If anybody has put it out there I’d love to see it. Because, you know, but if you look at a lot of the researches done these days. Companies that has start with a purpose – other ones are becoming more profitable these days than the ones that are just focused on shareholder value. You know, if you could go to a whole slew of this sort of stuff. You know, for me I’m more interested in customer value first, because that will drive shareholder value. If you focus just on shareholder value, you’ll cut, you’ll chop, you’ll do whatever you do with it you did in the 90’s and early 2000’s to improve shareholder value but ended up diminishing customer value. And all those great businesses perceivably have all been gone by the wayside while new one have started up with – just focused on delivering customer value. To me my first customers are my employees, my team. Because for them if we want to provide a storage service to our customers then I need to provide extraordinary service to them. So they experientially know what that feels like that mean so they can deliver to that.

KIM: Oh absolutely.

DAVE CLARE: Yeah.

KIM: I was just thinking, there needs to be a – altered definition I think of ROI Return On Investment.

DAVE CLARE: Yeah

KIM: Because I think a lot of people look at it purely as profit? And with the F-I-T spelling not the P-H-E-T.

DAVE CLARE: Yeah.

KIM:  Right? What income, what’s the revenue as a result of what they put in? But if-

DAVE CLARE: The turn on inspiration or  something or –

KIM: Yeah. If we look at it- that’s awesome. I think you just coined it. You know –

DAVE CLARE: I actually have –

KIM: – because you see, like you know what you’re – what you want your ROI to be. It’s 90 million.

DAVE CLARE: Yeah. So I have a big profit loss statements.

KIM: Yeah.

DAVE CLARE: Right? So I say: “That going forward I will call them purpose or lost statements.”

KIM: Purpose or?

DAVE CLARE: Lost.

KIM: Lost.

DAVE CLARE: Yeah.

KIM: Wow.

DAVE CLARE: Statement.  You know – it’s – poor financial performance of your organization doesn’t cause a loss of purpose. A loss of purpose will cause poor performance or financial performance in your organization. So your own purpose or your lost.

KIM: Hey Dave, what’s your Twitter username. Because you hear a whole bunch of listeners wanting to tweet that out right now.

DAVE CLARE: Okay. It’s Prophet4Purpose.

KIM: This would have been one of those moments and I’m so glad we’re recording. And I have already checked four times to make sure that the recorder is working. Listeners, it happens my recorder doesn’t work sometimes. But –

DAVE CLARE: But this is real life.

KIM:  for those like: “Oh I wish I was recording right now.”

DAVE CLARE: Yes.

KIM: I know it all the time, so.

DAVE CLARE: I say it myself there’s so many great conversations – you know, to just segue back to when we first had our very first conversation as, we both said: “We don’t know where this is going to go but we’re you know willing to learn about each other and what each other is doing.” And hence – the purpose I would imagine of a virtual cup of coffee. You know, so listeners out there, don’t be afraid to go on have dialogues or learn about people. Because you’ll be amazed at what you learn. But have your phone ready to record.

KIM: Agreed. Definitely agreed. I would like to ask one more question about your book.

DAVE CLARE: Yep.

KIM:  What has your writing practice look like? Have you done it when it feels right for you? Have you set a timeline for when you try to reach certain milestones? What does that journey look like?

DAVE CLARE: A great question, I say – because I’m not a writer per se. If you hadn’t pick up now, I’m probably more a speaker. I do a lot of speaking engagements. And so I started out writing and found it very difficult. Then I started recording stuff and having it transcribed. So I did a bit of that – and you know, I my map hold up a bit of chapters out of it like that and I feel like I can show you on my wall of my office here. I’ve put it all over my wall of my office. But I’m – so I’ve been writing, forcing myself to write in certain parts but then I don’t know what I’m in that zone. I go back and review it. So – to make it really seeing some of the parts of you. So I’ve just, block out time to do the writing, there’s this one on being productive. So I’ve got time blocked out when I do writing and I write. Whether it’s good or bad. I don’t question it. Like you say: “I’m not focused on perfection on that stage.” But when I’m in really, in a really you know, inspired mood about something I’ll go back to that chapter and I’ll go reread that chapter or highlight it because I print it out. Make notes and then I go back and rewrite it.

So I’m kind of editing it as I go. Some allow inspiration to come back to it. But using a plan to structure and write it as I move forward. So I’m sure that makes more sense but that’s what I’ve been doing it. Because I have no clue on how to write a book. I’ve done some reading on how people write – but the way- and this is interesting, best practice writing a book would say: “Do this” The best practices for that person and that scenario and that thing about that stuff. And that works for them. So I can look and learn from that but it doesn’t mean it will be best practice for me. So all I can do is say: “This is me. This is how I am. This is how I write this. How my brain works and how – what I know about myself my self-awareness is very strong. And I know that if I just delete all my bits and pieces down and come back when I’m in the zone I can enhance that chapter afterwards or that paragraph for that page or that.” So I start with a framework. Fill in that stuff and then come back and fancy it up afterwards.

And it’s just I’ve probably about two chapters to tweak and  adjust and yeah. It’s been interesting process for me. It’s probably going to 12 months in the making if not more. Because I actually did have a type of something else than I hired a book coach. And he help me to see things I didn’t see. And maybe change the title of the book. And what make me suggest that I should. And it made really much sense as soon as I made that change of the title and got back to that. It was like is – the progress since then has been amazing.

Something just didn’t feel right. I don’t know if you ever work Kim, were your working, your piling through it but just doesn’t feel right?

KIM: Oh yeah absolutely.

DAVE CLARE: Right. So my productivity I was – doing the right things at the right time. We can quickly talk about next week, you know, my – circles of productivity there as well. The what I –  myself, you know, I was being productive to an extent but I just didn’t. Something just didn’t feel right as I was plowing through it. And that’s what I’ve book come to me top – just to ask me questions. It was quite funny because when I go present and do my speaking engagements. My speaking engagement is always been called Leadership simplified. And my book is titled something else and it was more like a gimmicky title and all that sort of stuff to it. Is quite quick. I’m happy to share it was leadership. So I stripping down how to lead people on purpose. And all the cover was a picture of me on the strippers pole.

KIM: Oh. That’s so hilarious.

DAVE CLARE: Yeah. It is quite funny. It was fully dressed. Actually we had to do a photo shoot and went to person pole dancing instructor. And the whole thing was all of a story for another time. But I say we go to the photographer and to the lab and we got to cover. But I didn’t want this book to be a fad. I didn’t want it to be seen as a fad. You know, where one of those you know, who move my geez, not the, not fables or great books all these really cool things. I wanted,- this is a legacy book to me. This book is, you know it’s about reaching up to 90 million people. It needs to be a legacy it needs to have something that can stand the test of time. And so he said: “Well, why do you present like that but then you call it this.” You know, and then we try to plan on time and just come out with one word for the book. And I said: “Well, simplified” And it goes bang. That’s it.

KIM: Wow. I’m looking –

DAVE CLARE: Yeah so –

KIM: – at my bookshelf right now. Yeah. There’s a space right there, I see it. But I’m actually looking at, a num – all – any of the books and they are, they’re not simplified obviously because that’s your book. But one word titles that aren’t putting them into a certain – and now you’re making – I’m somewhat thinking about my book, right now. And what I found though is that it doesn’t work for me to schedule my usual my writing time. Because I find that if I’m not inspired to write right then, I can find 50 zillion other things to do.

DAVE CLARE: Absolutely.

KIM: Which are a – sure waste of time. Well and I only say that because I’ll be scrolling news channels that I never even go to, just looking to be inspired. But when I do find the inspiration then I can sit down and go write  that it. But I’ve found that for my blog and for my book, it needs to be just like you said. Oh how you’re talking about when you’re when your moment is there and can come back.

DAVE CLARE: Yeah.

KIM: Yeah that’s been great. I would look – you just mention – what did you say circles of productivity?

DAVE CLARE: Yeah. So I just want to share with just the maybe the one last gold nuggets believe people or the might drop moment – is it – I ask a lot of people you know, I’m a firm believer that time management is BS. Right? And I have been a pontificator of you know, we need to stop the glorification of busy. Much like the word try. I hate when people say: “Hey I’m going to be really busy.” Anybody can be busy. Right? Busyness isn’t good for business. That’s a clear as a me, you can put that in the news, you can tweet that, if you like to: ‘Busyness isn’t good for business’. Right. And so when you look at that you know, you come home the other day listeners and your partner goes: “Oh how was your day dear?” And your like: “Oh, so busy today”  “Well what did you do?” “Oh, I don’t know the days gone by, I was – Oh! Just psss” You know, you can’t even think about all the things that you did today. Instead of saying: “Hey, was a really productive today. Here’s what I accomplished.” You know, I’d rather people go home knowing whether they won or lost or play the game today. What did you accomplish today? You were supposed to accomplish.

So people ask: “Well, you know, how can you describe the difference between being productive and being busy?” And I like making it back to effectiveness and efficiency. Okay. So to me, efficiency is about doing things right. So efficient people want to make sure they get everything done right. So they don’t have to do it again. Without any necessary thought to: ‘Am I doing the right things?’ So all these things done perfectly but work done all the wrong things that day.

Okay. So to me. Busy people go from efficient then to effective. Whereas productive people go effective first, then efficient second. So if you mentioned like the MasterCard symbol. Right. So you know, with the two circles overlap, in the middle is things. So effective is on the left and it goes: “Effective is doing the right things at the right time for the right length of time, then, doing them right.” And that’s productive left or right. When we go right to left, which is busy which says: “I’m going to do all these things right, then I’ll worry about whether I did the right things or not. For the right time for the right length of time.”

KIM: Wow.

DAVE CLARE: So that is to me is how I work here. Do you go from left to right from productive. So in a sense of effective to efficient or do you go efficient then worry about being effective. And I would challenge all the listeners out there right now focus on doing the right thing at the right time for the right length of time. Then make sure you do those things right. You’ll be far more productive with that. And you know if you picked up all Kim if not yet. But when I’ve talked to people and I’ve shared things to people, I share what I’ve called Thought patterns. Here’s how you should think. Or here’s how, you know, I think you should think. Where here’s how I think because I know from human behavior that how I think determines how I act. So we can always address people’s behavior. And we do that performance, you know, you think with performance reviews or performance things that we do in organizations of people. We attack the behavior. We never worry about going to the deep underlying thought that drove that behavior.

So when I work with people on this, here’s some ways to think differently that will cause different actions or different behaviors. So if you think left to right off I think effective first efficient second. You know, I can say: “Stop being busy. Become more productive.” That’s me addressing behavior or saying: “Hey, if you think effective first, efficient second. All of a sudden I get that thought pattern. Then I will start behaving in that way anyway.” So that’s how I work with people in that space. But that’s my overlapping circles of effective and efficient.

KIM: Yeah. Mike, you can drop your mike now. Yeah. You actually have me reevaluating some things I went through in the last week. But I’m not even going to go there. Let’s just think about your last week. Dave where can people find you online because I know listeners want to know.

DAVE CLARE: Okay. So certainly as my Twitter handle which we’ve shared is Prophet4Purpose. But my Instagram is the same but it’s ProphetForPurpose on Twitter. So I have prophet for purpose on Instagram and also my Facebook page which is Facebook.com/ProphetForPurpose. So it’s only the number 4 in Twitter and the – rest is just for.

So, there main easiest way to get hold of me or you can go to daveclare.com.  And to get my website, there I do a lot of blogs and you’ll see links to everything. I ’m on Youtube as well, which will go to them and you can get that from my website and have all of that I post a lot of content, a lot of live streams, share. I will say I want to give as much value as I can to people. It’s part of my mission to create, inspire. So please take a look at the content say: “Hello” say: “Average” on Kim’s amazing positive productivity podcast and I’ll give you a shout out back and I’m happy to answer any questions anybody has about what you heard on today’s show. Just shoot me a message and all respond and every response you get is actually from me. I don’t believe on these automated responders. So that’s not a productive way to go about it. But it’s personal to me and that’s that’s important.

KIM: Right. And as you already said you want to you really want to touch them. So now you are.

DAVE CLARE: Yes.

KIM: Again listeners you can find the show notes in full transcription at TheKimSutton.com/PP112. Thank you so much Dave for being here. This has been just as enlightening this conversation as it was for our first conversation. And I look forward to very many more.

DAVE CLARE: Thank you for the opportunity to share with the listeners. You know what I love, you know, educate to engage, please engage with me, message me, question me, challenge me. If anyone has any other ideas, I’d love to hear them too. I am not, I’m not immune from learning because I do this for a living. I would love to hear other people’s take and insight. I’m sure you have a vast audience that people tell us some ideas help let’s share the love share the learnings.