Business Problems Solved Podcast

Lee chats to the multitalented Ray Newland. With a very successful goalkeeping career under his belt, Ray setup Just 4 Keepers training schools to prepare young talented goalkeepers for work in the football industry. He also brought to market his own goalkeeper sports brand J4K. Alongside all of this, Ray has become a business coach and published six books on mental resilience and self help.  

Lee and Ray talk about how he started out, his entrepreneurial career, his international sports training and clothing brands, his writing, and his plans for the future.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

•  Ray became a professional goalkeeper at 18 years of age and was coached by Neville Southall, Peter Shilton, Gordon Banks and Joe Corrigan.
• After his goalkeeping career ended Ray became financially independent by property development and ownership.
• Ray is not so much concerned with financial success but with more worldly and down to earth goals.
• Writing self help books was something Ray accomplished while travelling all around the world and being unable to sleep in transit.. 
• Ray plans to become a personal coach and business mentor when he is less busy running Just 4 keepers. 

BEST MOMENTS

‘I’ll try and keep my intro down to about two hours.’ – Ray

‘I basically had no choice. I had a young family to support and I basically knew that I had to have my own business.’ – Ray

‘There is no other goalkeeper coach in history that has done what I’ve done and has ended up taking the concept around the world.’ – Ray

‘I got frustrated with other authors who would just go on too long and again I always planned to do personal coaching and I’ve done it over the years, helping people personally and in business.’ – Ray

‘I never wanna sell Just 4 Keepers, Lee. I always said I’d do it till I’m 55 and I know it looks like I’ve got 15 years left, I’ve got four years left. I’m 51 next week.’ - Ray 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

In this episode Lee talks to David Holmes who has worked in Contact Centres and Customer Operations across Sales, Customer Service and Digital for some of the biggest companies in the UK, currently Operations Director at Cigna Healthcare. Lee and David chat about success and its definition, “harmonious friction”, the team leader role and how open mindedness can make the difference.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Find the job that generates enthusiasm in you.
• Learn to enjoy challenges to your methods and thinking. Having an open mind and being willing to listen is important. 
• There is only negative feedback or constructive negative feedback. Generally it is about something that needs improvement. Positive feedback is affirmation. 
• Being a team leader is about being able to look forward to a destination and then planning on how to get there. 
• It's ok to bring people outside of the business to be critical and challenging in a way that those inside are too invested to achieve.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Just when you think you’ve seen it all, someone comes along and shows you something new.’ – David

‘What is it that excites you about what you do and why? I love working with people, Lee.’ – David

‘That “harmonious friction” generates my passion and I hope I never lose it’ – David

‘Let’s talk about your past actually. What is it that people saw in you to allow you to create this history?’ – Lee 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Lee's guest in this episode is Phillip Holt, author, operational excellence guru and senior Vice President at GKN Aerospace and a Board Member of the Operational Excellence Society. He studied Engineering at Manchester Metropolitan University and Management at the Wharton School of Pennsylvania and the University of Warwick, was an engineer at Gillette and led the Lean Deployment worldwide at Philips for over twelve years. He achieved Lean Master status and has now authored three books, Leading With Lean, The Simplicity of Lean and his latest Leading Lean By Living Lean.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Lean Leader means someone who is focused on making their organisation have the biggest positive impact on its workers and customers.
• A lean business model focuses on improving processes across the value stream in order to eliminate waste and deliver optimised value to the customer.
• To change an organisation to a lean model you have to concentrate on change in the culture and behaviour within the value stream.
• The pandemic has helped destroy the myth that if someone sits at a desk for 50 hours a week they are productive.
• A lean model allows all employees involved to feel positive about the impact they are having.

BEST MOMENTS

‘We talk about work life balance a lot but for me I don’t like that term. For me it’s about having a life in balance.’ – Phillip

‘I started to realise that as I was there for those two weeks that we were changing some parameters, we were changing a process, characteristics. We weren’t changing the value stream behaviour.’ – Phillip

‘I think that people don’t look in the mirror first, they look out the window at other people’ – Lee

‘We want to make GKN aerospace and this industry far better from an operational excellence perspective.’ - Phillip

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Once again, inspiration has struck, this time while cooking the kids tea. Lee, in tasting a single piece of pasta, assumed all the other pasta were cooked. Let's face it, he was probably right. But not when it comes to people….people are most definitely not like pasta.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

•  There are some people and places that try to treat everybody the same. When we try to effect change we give the business reason for that change but that does not enthuse everyone. We need to create personal motivation.
• People's way of thinking is created by the experiences that they have had, creating different approaches and motivations.
• We should be increasing the connection between us and other people so we can understand their thoughts and motives. 

BEST MOMENTS

‘They try to put everybody into a single bucket and expect everybody to have the same outcome, the same thoughts, the same feelings.’

‘If like me you believe that everything stems from thought or belief, that everybody thinks differently then what we’ve really got to do is we’ve got to challenge the thinking of people.’

‘Pasta doesn’t think but people do.’ 

‘We need to feel belonging. The more we understand people the more we belong and together achieve amazing things.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

When we celebrate success are we considering what we are celebrating enough? Do we congratulate our successes enough? In this episode Lee tackles how we should be celebrating success not just more often but changing its focus to good skills and habits.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

•  We typically celebrate end results, above and beyond, things that exceed expectations. However, we see it as instant failure when they fail to meet our expectations or standards when things are not going as planned. 
• There is as much learning to be done about success as there is about failure. 
• Celebrate success more often. Become familiar with success and the circumstances that cause it, just as you do with failure.
• Do we celebrate the skills and positive habits of our people, or just targets, benchmarks and deadlines? 

BEST MOMENTS

‘I think we find it harder to celebrate stuff than we do to find fault in things. I think we need to redress the balance a little bit.’ 

‘By asking “what are we celebrating” then we become more familiar with celebrating stuff.’

‘If we can truly celebrate the habits and behaviours that we want in our people as opposed to the results that we’re getting, or trust in the behaviours of the right ones to get the results then the results will just come.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Lee has recently suffered a bereavement with the loss of his best friend. Upon his passing Lee asked about life lessons and Lee has shared these lessons with many people including via this podcast. After using these lessons to bring extra value to those he helps and supports he has added real value to his coaching. However, one 4th, hidden lesson has been revealed to help you stay true to these three principles.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The three lessons were be yourself, make good friends and time is limited.  
• Truly understand your motivations and reasoning. In the space between an occurrence and our reaction there is an opportunity to understand our thoughts and change what we do.
• We have an opportunity everyday with everyone to make good friends. All your interactions are an opportunity to make new friends and connections at different levels.
• Make solid use of your time. Recognise you need to act.
• ‘Always make time’ is how we apply these three lessons. Take time to consider our thinking. Take time make good friends and build connection. Take time for the priorities.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I think, fundamentally, to be a better leader, to be a better change person and to be a better person, understanding what these three lessons mean to you could be the difference.’

‘Always being yourself, for me now, is about understanding whether the voice in my head is helping or hindering. Its about I’m in control of that voice in my head and I can share and try to create more positive outcomes as opposed to negative and challenging outcomes.’

‘When you start a video call, when you start a meeting do you just dive into the process or do you create a space for asking different questions.’

‘If time was not limited there would be no real need to do anything, we’d just get round to it. We’d always just do it tomorrow, day after tomorrow.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Lee talks with Lisa Moody, a Senior Change Manager in the Land Registry. She has been in change management for ten years, previously working in local government in service improvement and customer service. People focused skills have led her to her current role.

Lee and Lisa discuss her move into change management, ambition, her civil service role, and how to create a change team with the concept of ‘The Invisible Change Manager.’

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Ambition doesn’t mean striving for the next opportunity, it can just be to do a really good job of what you do day to day. 
• The civil service has currently a focus on digitisation and automation, allowing customers to self-serve and speed up service operation. 
• Improvement is about a better experience for the user of the process whether it be a customer or an internal employee.
• Co-design wherever you can. Work with your stakeholders and the people affected by the change to help craft the solutions. 
• The ‘Invisible Change Manager’ is the concept of the leadership figure of the department being the visible focus of change while actual change management remain background facilitators.  
• Change Management is a natural career step from a process management  perspective, but we are now seeing change managers that are more people focused, relying on the operational knowledge of the team they cooperate with and guiding the change process from a more psychological angle.

BEST MOMENTS

‘The beauty of the civil service is you can move departments, you can move within one department, you can do a whole multitude of different jobs so you tend to find people that do stick around quite a long time.’ – Lisa 

‘It's about making the experience better for whoever is using that process. Ultimately, I guess, everything we do from an improvement perspective should be about that end user, whether it’s the customer, whether it is for us in the civil service, case workers or internal people.’ – Lisa  

‘In those cases be super honest. Be really clear on what’s negotiable. I go back to FNC in these cases. What’s fundamental, what aren’t you going to influence at all. Be really clear about that. Be open and honest.’ – Lisa 

‘A lot of people change that I know, some of them have got egos and they’re in position because they’re the ones that like to have the answer. Have you had any challenges with that?’ - Lee

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Lee chats to Mark Drager, marketing expert and Canadian fine-haired business consultancy owner. He has worked on thousands of projects for hundreds of different companies ranging from international brands and airlines to small pre start ups. He is also a podcast host of “We Do Hard Things”, brand strategist and speaker.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Mark originally went to film school and left to work in television and eventually a corporate environment producing training materials and marketing.
• To build a company takes time, experience compounds, connections build and skills improve. Overnight success can be perceived, but in the background all the past experience helps support the version of the person people see.
• Be specific. Vagueness achieves very little. Be precise about your goals and they will be easier to aim for.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I started “Phantom Media” in 2006. I was 23, my oldest daughter was only a week old when I decided to do this. My wife had no income and within two months I quit my job, had no money, no income, new born baby, my wife was at home and I was like ‘ Im gonna start this company” - Mark

‘You can show up like an overnight success because people won’t see the work you’ve done in the background. The work you’ve done in the background doesn’t have to be a slog or even linear.’ – Mark

‘If we are vague, if we’re fuzzy, if we’re not quite sure. I’m struggling with this right now. I have a podcast that we are a year and a half into, eighty episodes into and I’ve still not really defines enough who my audience is.’ - Mark

GUEST RESOURCES

Website

https://www.markdrager.com/

Podcast

https://youtube.com/c/MarkDragerYT

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Lee’s job is to get organisations to adopt continuous improvement and problem solving cultures for the long term. There are three high level categories within this process and Rob explains them in this episode.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Finding Problems. You may know your problems or survey your employees or customers to find problems. Find them when they are small by increasing discussion and communication between everyone involved in processes and asking better questions.
• Solving Problems. These are the tools and methodology that you employ to solve problems. Invest in training problem solving staff.
• Sustaining Solutions. Keep those solutions running and involve everyone so they engage with the new way of working.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Typically when people engage us and engage other companies to help them create a problem solving culture or to create an army of problem solvers they want people to be trained in tools and techniques that actually solve problems.’

‘Problem finding is not randomly or through annual data or monthly meetings but through daily conversations, through visuals, through challenging thinking including everybody that's involved in the process.’

‘We treat problem solving like a special event for these big problems. We need to treat it like a Monday, a Tuesday, a Wednesday, a Thursday…like everyday.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Lee chats to Jared, speaker at the Virtual Lean Summit, an online event bringing together experts and leaders from all over the business industry to educate and share their methods on customer care and service, team building and efficient business problem solving. Jared works for the Port of Seattle as the Continuous Process and Improvement Program Manager. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• ‘Lean thinking’ is a transformational framework that aims to provide a new way to think about how to organise human activities to deliver more benefits to society and value to individuals while eliminating waste.
• Jared's day job is creating operational improvements in the busy and varied environment within the Port of Seattle, which is a government agency, during its numerous activities involving both private industry and the general public.
• Jared started work when he was 12! His first job was picking strawberries and selling them to his neighbours.
• While working for Daimler, Jared saved them millions of dollars using simple solutions by asking the right, simple questions. 
• This year's Lean Summit Theme is about going out and achieving a successful and continuous improvement culture within your organisation. It is more efficient to convince people of the advantage of lean thinking than forcing them to do it.

BEST MOMENTS

‘We shortened it on a business card because that’s too long, to the CPI Program Manager. What we do is we help the organisation to really embrace lean thinking and go ahead and think differently.’ - Jared

‘Being able to go ahead and identify the problem, that root cause, is important. I think even more important than that is being able to have a critical eye and asking questions.’ – Jared

‘Construction has always been part of my blood. My Dad, my Uncles, they all started construction businesses. I even worked for my Uncle who had a Finnish cabinetry business.’ - Jared

‘The first day is about embarking on your lean journey. The second day is about establishing a lean culture change. The final day is about embracing lean thinking.’ – Jared 

‘Whether we use the ‘L’ word or whatever improvement methodology we navigate towards is fundamentally about increasing the number of thoughts in our people and reducing the time from thought to conversation to action.’ – Lee 

GUEST RESOURCES

https://www.virtualleansummit.com/

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

There are certain words that people believe are negative which can, in fact, in the correct context, be considered very positive. Language itself is a challenge due to the understanding and definitions of words changing depending on personal experience and how they are used. 

Lee discusses how important it is to consider this when communicating effectively.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

•  To understand what has been heard by the person listening to you communicate, one must understand the experience of that person. 
• Failure happens. Mistakes happen. Things go wrong. It is a waste of time to mourn mistakes and failure and not just fix it and move on.
• If failure incurs punishment or ridicule it is more likely that problems will be covered up or ignored rather than dealt with. 

BEST MOMENTS

‘The goalkeeper coach said “part of the goalkeepers job is to let goals in”. Which surprised me at first when I heard it but he was making it acceptable.’ 

‘It would make that process far better because you wouldn’t have people hiding and covering stuff up, manipulating things to make it look better.’ 

‘You want all of those things to be exposed so you can understand when all of those things have happened so you can put them right. If you can’t see it, you can’t fix it.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Asking the right questions can be a great and essential method of becoming an efficient and effective leader. Often we fall into habits of asking the same questions but what approach should we be taking to affect change and motivate?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The secret of problem solving is are we finding enough problems? 
• Listening is the best way to formulate our questions. If you are attentive then your team will know you value their time and opinion.
• If we want to develop our people and encourage their self development then we’ve got to be asking more than just repeated set questions. 
• Ask questions that keep the other person thinking. You can affect their problem solving by the nature of the questions you present.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I genuinely believe that the secret of asking better questions is by being a better listener because if we are listening more than the person that we’re asking the questions of knows that we are interested in the answers.’ 

‘The first time that we start to listen to the answers that are given we will think about those things that are being said.’

‘The measure of success is all about the thoughts of our people and if we are creating good thoughts in our people we will get more ideas and more suggestions and we will make more improvements.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Lee, through his work with teams, has been asked for feedback on how he would assess the teams performance. When reducing the time from thought to conversation to action there are three biases that characterise different groups' approach to actioning ideas. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

•  The Silent Bias. This is when we don’t feel comfortable or confident enough to share what we think 
• The Conversation Bias. We are happy to share ideas but tend to stick at the discussion stage, reluctant to commit and action the idea.
• The Action Bias. We would rather get straight to the action rather than spend time discussing it. 
• The ideal situation is to find a balance between all three.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I think what we have to try to find is a balance for this. We have to try to find a way to navigate through this on an individual and a team level.’

‘You’ve got to create more thoughts in your people. You’ve got to get them thinking differently. You’ve got to inspire and motivate them and challenge the heads of our people.’

‘need to create a place where people can do things and try things themselves and this is a challenge in finding a balance between all three.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

The Golden Circle is a model applied by influential speaker and author Simon Sinek to explain the success of leaders in fields ranging from invention to politics. In this episode Lee explains and contextualises The Golden Circle so you can apply it to your business role.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Simon Sinek is critical of businesses who apply the following in the wrong order. We should start with ‘why’, move to ‘how’ and then to ‘what’.
• Why is it important for the senior leadership team or the change team, HR, team leader, operators? By asking these questions you allow people to buy into what you require from them.
• The how is the differentiator. This is the performance. This is the area that will make you stand out. How you do what you do will define your change. How do you do things differently?
• The what is the result and if you begin with the ‘what’ you fail to establish the structure and motivation to achieve it.

BEST MOMENTS

‘ There’s different purposes for each of these different statements. So, the why. The why do we do it is for people to build connection to whatever it is.’

‘When you’re delivering change the outcome is the ‘what’.’

‘So someone’s bias was towards problem solving, another ones bias was towards a daily meeting structure. Ultimately, those are just tools to help create leaders to ask about questions and all of that stuff.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Lee chats with Josh Gain, founder of The 10x Manager Community, an organised skill sharing group dedicated to helping managers be the best in their current leadership role and preparing them for the next. One of 10x leaderships philosophies is “Management is a title given to you by a company. Leadership is when somebody decides that they are going to create change and impact their team, their business, their industry and beyond. Leadership has nothing to do with job titles, it's all to do with people and their actions.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• After studying history at The London School of Economics, Josh began a sales career but always with a mind to starting his own business.
• One of the real challenges in the scaling of high growth business is attracting the best people and retaining them.
• 10x Management is a community driven learning platform where managers come together and share knowledge and insights to ultimately improve in their positions.
• 10x has developed a whole training platform that helps people train in the 12 key areas of management.
• We need new ideas that are implemented or perhaps even fail, to learn. We need to analyse the results and 10x allows you to share these insights with the community.
• Have clarity on your destination. Set clear goals with timelines and measurable results.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I graduated with a history degree and then tried to work out ‘what do I do now with a history with a history degree?’ and I Kind of fell into sales’ – Josh

‘The real problem was, managers need better training. They need to become better leaders. Companies are aware of it and managers are aware of it but no one really does much about it’ – Josh

‘When you talk about those twelve things, how did you identify those twelve?’ – Lee

‘Through all the conversations we’ve been having. Each week we do a Management Masterclass. We bring someone in to speak about what they are great at and how people can actually replicate that.’ - Josh

‘We prompt everybody to reflect into the community. Based on the experience that you’ve had and the insights that you’ve taken in we prompt them to say something or ask a question into the community that can help have a discussion and prompt more ideas from other people to really develop that thought and that learning.’ – Josh

‘I can always get better and I can always improve and there’s always people to learn from.’ - Josh

GUEST RESOURCES

Website ;

https://www.linkedin.com/redir/redirect?url=https%3A%2F%2Fvisit%2E10xmanagers%2Ecom%2F-home&urlhash=821F&trk=about_website

10x on LinkedIn ;

https://www.linkedin.com/company/10x-managers

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

In this episode Lee details two key factors that are essential to driving your improvement project forward. Creating change can be achieved much more quickly by applying these two methods.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• We need to be more aware and understanding of the process of forming ideas, expression of ideas and actualisation. 
• The length of time from thought to actualisation, the lead time from idea to action, should be discovered. We should do what we can to reduce that time span.
• Increase the number of constructive thoughts that people have. Engage them so they want to produce results towards your business. Ask them questions more frequently, create structured conversations for them to have ideas and express them.
• Put in place a safe environment. Do not criticise ideas pejoratively that will make your people reticent to express themselves. Understand how comfortable your people are with group or one to one meetings. 

BEST MOMENTS

‘We need to be like magicians and make the invisible visible.’

‘If this is done in a way that is creating the right thoughts in people then you are going to create more positive actions in the goal or destination that you are trying to achieve.’

‘Is it easy for people to see what should be happening now and whether it is or isn’t happening the way that it should be happening?’

‘They’re giving a month for the action because that’s when the next meeting is going to take place. But the action might only be an hour or two hours.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Lee outlines the 3 factors that can lead to the success of any change team within an organisation. He strongly suggests you apply the PIE ; Performance, Image and Exposure. If resistance is something you face, these three factors can positively affect the efficiency of your team.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• This is the main body of what you do, done excellently. It is the fundamental of career success and effectiveness, be good at what you do.
• Do people think of you positively and accept you as a change maker? Do they understand your role and your abilities?
• How many people know the change team? How many can see the impact the change team is having? Are your senior leaders aware of your value and effectiveness?
• These three factors can reduce resistance to any change you effect.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Performance is 10% of this overall pie. Doing what you say you’re going to do and your level of performance.’  

‘What can you do to try to build a stronger image? Do you have a brand? Do you have a logo? Do people understand what it is that you do?’

‘As a leader of a change team it is arguably your role to maximise the level of exposure that the team get with the senior leaders and other departments.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Lee chats internationally! This episodes guest is Nicholas Faribeau, originally from France but currently resident in Canada, who helps people discover their voice by matching their mindset so the two are in sync, clear and understandable. Often peoples voice, the way they present themselves, is confused because we don’t understand how we say things rather than what we say. Nicholas aims to put this right to improve engagement and communication.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• How you speak as opposed to the words you say is important to psychologically engage with our audience.
• When we communicate we tend to speak quickly to transfer information. However, when you bear in mind that we only hear about 10% of what is said to us, the importance of how we speak and making our speech memorable becomes prevalent.
• Now we work from home and with modern telecommunications, voice only is often adopted, so clarity, tone and impression are even more important.
• The first word you speak, the first tone you take determines who you are. The initial ten seconds of communication is key.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I’ve been on two stand up comedy courses. Not because I wanted to be a stand up comedian but I believe that comedians help people feel something emotionally far quicker than most other professions.’ – Lee

‘For example for me it’s more difficult for me to understand an English song because I’m French, buts it’s easy to remember the melody of the music and the tone of the voice of the musician.’ – Nicholas

‘They call me a voice designer because it’s like design your voice, your communication, design your image. Voice designer, it’s a nice word to express myself.’ - Nicholas

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

There is so much conflicting or contradictory advice on this subject. Lee brainstorms to get to the bottom of this primary dilemma.  

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• If you consider marketing, people recommend that you start small and target your messaging to a niche target, but you need to start big with your target vision.
• When starting with the end goal in mind the start may seem big, but can be broken down into smaller challenges, but most problems seem huge at the beginning.
• If you're leading change, think about the tiny actions you and the people you are helping need to take to get to their goal. 
• If you do go small quickly it is easier to learn from the actions you have taken because you are experimenting as you go. It is more difficult to unpick a complex, large, detailed task.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Is it best to be a mile wide and an inch deep or is it best to be an inch wide and a mile deep?’

‘I think there is something about starting big and starting small because you need to start big on where you're trying to get to, what it is that you’re trying to overcome.’

‘When we think about leaders and leadership, we train people on the fundamentals of the process of being a leader, the back to work interviews, the personal development plans, setting appraisals, but what about the small actions that are required for being a leader?’

‘If you wanted to start flossing your teeth you should make sure that the floss is next to your toothbrush because then you’re stacking it on top of a pre existing habit.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194

Lee@leehoughton.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/

Today Lee has the immense pleasure of interviewing much lauded author of ‘The Balance of Excellence’ Carl Klemm. The former head of Toyota plants shares his story and wisdom on manufacturing management culture, success and failure, leadership, coaching, writing, team structure, training good habits and learning. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Carl started off as a young apprentice with Vauxhall Motors and continued with them for 23 years ending up as a general manager in charge of plant quality. He then took up a post as General Manager for Quality Assurance with Toyota. 
• He started his own management consultancy sharing his wealth of knowledge he has gathered over so many years in the motor manufacturing industry. 
• The shift between GM and Toyota was a culture shock. GM was a competitive, non cooperative command and control structure. Toyota, however, was a collaborative, planning, teamwork structure.
• A real issue for organisations effecting change is if the upper management or CEO does not want to accept the changes to their own job. There has to be a steady flow throughout the power structure. 
• Top management is busy. They don’t have any spare time so are trained for fast decisions. Persuading them to consider the problem at the point of problem is difficult so get them to do it at least 12 times and they will adopt it as a habit.
• Learning is forever changing and evolving due to the nature of the journey. 

BEST MOMENTS

‘And the President only asked one question, he asked “Why do you want to join Toyota” and I said “I spent four years studying Toyota for GM, including the plant in Fremont in California. Then I came back and tried to implement it and I failed miserably. But I want to succeed so I want to join and I want to learn how its done and then I want to share it.”’ - Carl

‘Coming from being a very successful General Manager in GM to a General Manager in Toyota but realising very quickly that I was an apprentice was really hard to swallow.’ -Carl

‘There is no other way, actually, than doing it. That’s why my first sentence is “I swore never to write this book.” - Carl 

‘I’m working with a national organisation at the minute and I had no influence on where they started and the pilot location, and we are at a point now where we’ve created a rhythm and a communication flow within a single location. What it has highlighted is that before I work with them they’ll have a monthly meeting structure, but then when you introduce a daily meeting structure and its feeding into a monthly meeting structure there’s a huge disconnect there.’ – Lee

‘I’ve written it from a selfish point of view to help me to explain to people, especially top management people, what it is we are talking about and how it all fits together and which bit of it we are working on now.’ - Carl

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Business Problems Solved Podcast         

ABOUT THE HOST

For the last 15 years, I have been a multi-sector internal or external business improvement consultant, building the improved capability of individuals, teams and businesses.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my two young children Jack & India. I also enjoy listening to and reading business & personal development material.

Lee Houghton is “THE Business Problem Solver”, a Management Consultant, CX Specialist and Keynote Speaker.

CONTACT METHOD

You can contact Lee Houghton on 07813342194
Lee@leehoughton.com 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhoughton/