Our Framework Facelift

EPISODE #235 TRANSCRIPT

Momentum is really picking up for Your CEO Mentor in 2023 so I want to share our plans for the evolution of No Bullsh!t Leadership this year.

Don't worry, of course the fundamentals will remain the same. Our purpose keeps us focused on delivering incredibly practical, high-quality content every week to cut through the spin, the noise, and the political correctness that dominate today's world of leadership development.

We're here for one reason and one reason only: to improve the quality of leaders globally. That's why I get out of bed in the morning and it's why Em and the team at Your CEO Mentor Global HQ, as we like to call it, are constantly innovating to increase our market reach, so that we can influence as many leaders as humanly possible.

So, we'll make sure we don't mess with our staples, the meat and potatoes of Your CEO Mentor. The weekly podcast and our bi-annual open enrollment cohorts of Leadership Beyond the Theory aren't going anywhere. We're constantly thinking of ways to keep them as relevant and fresh today as they were when we started the business over four years ago.

But, having said that, living in the US has been a bit of an eye-opener for me, and my focus is shifting ever-so-slightly as we look to leverage my presence in the world's premier market in the coming years.

Today we will cover:

• How we're improving the podcast.

• Some of the innovations we've made to Leadership Beyond the Theory and our other content offerings.

• The No Bullsh!t Leadership framework that we're evolving for the US speaking market.

WHAT’S IN STORE FOR THE PODCAST

We continue to see steady growth. We still get emails every week from people who've only just discovered the podcast, and they go back at the very beginning to come through sequentially and listen to all 235 episodes. Now, that's real commitment! We've had over 3.5 million lifetime downloads, and we realize that this is the best tool we have to drive our purpose of really changing how leaders lead… so No Bullsh!t Leadership isn't going anywhere.

Every Tuesday afternoon (US time), Wednesday morning Australian time, we're publishing an episode of this podcast for as long as our leadership community finds it useful. If the truth be known, I reckon I'll be recording an episode on my deathbed (which is hopefully several decades away).

Having said that, knowing how much reach the podcast gives us, we're innovating to make it more accessible to all leaders. For example, we've been producing transcripts for each episode for years, because we know a lot of people who'd simply prefer to read than to listen. Last year, we also started to use the content from each episode to compose a LinkedIn newsletter, which gives our community of leaders yet another opportunity to absorb the content.

MOMENTS WITH MARTY

One of our big podcast innovations for 2023 is to release more episodes, something in between the weeklies, to double the number of learning opportunities that you're offered. Enter, Moments With Marty. You've probably already found these, so let me give you a little bit of background. We serve a huge array of leaders, from aspiring leaders who are yet to lead their own team, to 30-year plus, battle hardened, veteran CEOs… from Dunedin in the south of New Zealand to Nome, Alaska… from Tech Unicorns and Fortune 100 companies to startups and not-for-profits.

Now, obviously it's hard for a single episode to meet everyone's individual needs and circumstances so, if the main weekly episode isn't that relevant to you, chances are that the mini-episode, Moments With Marty, is. If you listen to Spotify or other similar streaming apps, you'll notice we have a different tile for the Moments episodes to make them easier to differentiate. They're designed to be short and sharp, three to four minutes only, just to give you a core concept to consider or focus on.

I love doing these, so I'm looking forward to getting a few hundred Moments With Marty episodes out to you in the coming years. I'm also going to be filming these and putting a video version on our YouTube channel so, if you haven't done so already, pop over to YouTube and subscribe to @YourCEOMentor.

We know that of the hundreds of thousands of listeners who stream the podcast each year, very few of you actually subscribe. So, this is just a shout-out to say if you haven't done so already, please follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player. If you get any value at all from our extensive free content library, please pay it forward because this is how we reach even more leaders. It would help us enormously. And if you really like the podcast, perhaps think about rating and reviewing it on your Google or Apple Player.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE FRAMEWORK

Okay, for those of you who've read my book, No Bullsh!t Leadership or graduated as alumni of Leadership Beyond the Theory, you'll be familiar with the No Bullsh!t Leadership Framework. Leadership Beyond the Theory (or LBT, as we call it), is for those leaders who are ready to commit to real change, doing the difficult work required to become a better leader.

The No Bullsh!t Leadership Framework is our foundational model. It's a codified system that links all of the related concepts from the podcast into an executable framework: the tools and strategies you need to really change the way you lead and get the results that may have been eluding you. The No Bullsh!t Leadership Framework is grounded in leading edge management theory ,but I devised it based on my real world experience as a corporate executive and CEO. It's the stuff I learned over my 30-plus year career that enabled me to drive extraordinary performance in a number of different industries and job functions.

As I like to say, when you get really serious about making changes you need to make LBT's sort-of a no-brainer.

the 7 core elements

When I put the framework together, there were seven core elements, and I described these as imperative statements because I wanted to imply the need to take action, rather than to passively learn and adapt. You may already be familiar with these seven imperatives; Deliver Value; Handle Conflict; Build Resilience; Work at Level; Master Ambiguity; Make Great Decisions; and Drive Accountability.

After putting over a thousand leaders through our LBT program, and seeing where the gaps in learning appeared to be, Em and I decided to do two things:

1. The first was to completely re-develop the content to make sure we filled the common gaps that became apparent in the first version.

2. The second was to add an eighth module to help bring everything together so, of course, with another imperative statement: Connect the Dots.

LBT went from a seven-week program to an eight-week program. 2022 was truly the year for revitalizing our core content to keep it on the leading edge of leadership performance

But here I am in the US. And the only reason I moved here and left my daughters, family, friends, and wine cellar behind, was to further our reach in the US market. Hey, let's face it, anything else I could do from the side of my pool in sunny Brisbane. I'm here to make a dent in the US, predominantly through the speaker market. In the coming years, I'll be on progressively bigger and bigger stages, having more and more impact on the leaders in the USA.

I’M MOST ALIVE WHEN I’M ON STAGE!

I'm starting off 2023 with a bang, and I'm really focusing on my speaking business this year, so I've been doing some work with a group called ImpactEleven. Big shout out to Josh Linkner and all the partners there. These guys are at the top of their game, with years of experience, absolutely crushing it in the US speaking market. This is the community I'm going to be hanging out with in 2023.

Em and I had an incredibly insightful session with Ivy Gustafson, who's the Director of Client Services and Coaching at ImpactEleven. Ivy helped us to review our speaker brand messaging and she gave us some brilliant insights. The speaker market in the US is huge but, as you might expect, it's massively competitive and crowded… and in the US, everyone talks a good game. They learn at a really young age how to pump up their own tyres: it's not like Australia and it's really difficult to differentiate yourself in a sea of options.

When I came over in 2022 I made one critical mistake, I dialed back my ‘edge’. Now, of course, the podcast and book very clearly demonstrate my differentiation in No Bullsh!t terms but, because the US is a little more conservative with naughty language, I decided to dial back the positioning of No Bullsh!t Leadership for the US corporate market… and the US corporate market is, of course, my target audience.

Ivy's insight was that, by doing this we actually lost a lot of my differentiation and ended up being a ‘me too’ leadership speaker. I had played down the very thing that makes me, me. Now, of course, as soon as Ivy said this it hit me like a pie in the face. I've just got to lean into the fact that I'm the No Bullsh!t Leader for whoever's listening. I say what many of you think, but maybe don't feel as though it's okay to say it yourself.

And part of the value I feel that we bring is the confidence to find your own voice in whatever leadership context you happen to be in. This is where the power of the content comes from: practical cut through insight that it took me decades to acquire. There's a really good lesson here for me, not just in terms of brand strategy but in terms of authenticity. Instead of dialing back my keynotes to say “BS” instead of “bullsh!t”, it's time to go hard or go home… literally.

Leaning into the No Bullsh!t brand may turn some corporate buyers off, that's true. But let's face it, the political correctness league has all but consumed the soul of American business. It's going to bounce back for sure to a more rational footing and, when it does, I'll be there spearheading that charge.

THE PILLARS, RENAMED

Now, the other piece of great advice that Ivy gave us was that we need to make our seven content pillars more uniquely ‘Marty’. Well, of course we do. I know you guys love the odd Marty-ism, so Em and I have been working on re-casting the No Bullsh!t Leadership descriptors. I launched this at a keynote I did for a client in Singapore a couple of weeks ago and I could not be happier with the outcomes.

I'd love to hear comments from you about how these new framework imperatives land, especially from our LBT alumni who are so familiar with it, so please feel free to message us or email at hello@yourceomentor.com.

Em and I asked ourselves the questions: which expressions are uniquely me? What's the common language that leaders in our community pick up on and integrate into their day-to-day? What brings life and color to the No Bullsh!t Leadership framework? Here's what we came up with.

Instead of Deliver Value, imperative one becomes Value Over Activity. This is a subtle but important change that we think will help to anchor the concept in everyday communication.

Instead of Handle Conflict, imperative two becomes Respect Before Popularity, the mantra for every leader who's ever overcome that built-in urge to avoid conflict.

Instead of Build Resilience, imperative three becomes Grace Under Pressure. This is the ultimate state of personal awareness and control that enables you to lead strongly through any challenge or crisis, no matter how significant.

Instead of Work at Level, imperative four becomes Don't Dip Down. Dipping down is doing work that should be done by your team and the mantra, don't dip down, keeps this front of mind for you and for your leaders. It's an incredibly useful visualization.

Instead of Master Ambiguity, imperative five becomes No Regrets Moves. Although the principle of no regrets moves is only one aspect of being able to master the ambiguity in your environment, it reminds us that, wherever there's great uncertainty there's also great opportunity.

Instead of Make Great Decisions, imperative six becomes Speed Over Accuracy. Again, only a small facet of making great decisions, but this puts a focus on execution excellence and creating organizational momentum using the principle of excellence over perfection.

And finally, instead of Drive Accountability, imperative seven becomes One Head to Pat. Of course, you should all know how to finish that sentence: one head to pat, one ass to kick, and they both belong to the same person.

As I said, please feel free to give me feedback on our revised imperative names. I hope they make it easy for you to remember them and to relate them to others as you build that common language of leadership excellence.

CLARIFYING WHO I AM, AND WHAT I DO

But I'd also like some other feedback from you as well, particularly from our long-term listeners who know who I am and what I do week-in, week-out. At the moment, we're going through the process of redeveloping my US speaking website, martingmoore.com. And a big shout out to Ryan James, the best website developer in the business.

We need a clear statement of what makes No Bullsh!t Leadership different from other leadership content and, the way I figure it, there's no one better to judge that than our leadership community (that's you guys). So look, I just want to throw this out there. Please drop me a DM or an email to let me know if it accurately captures what No Bullsh!t Leadership is all about. Okay, here we go:

DOES THIS SOUND LIKE ME?

“It feels like leadership is in crisis and it's getting harder all the time. Employees are more dissatisfied than ever and, let's face it, they don't believe you when you tell them that they're your “greatest asset”. But despite all of this, companies continue to blindly spend $400 billion every year on leadership development just in the hope that something, somehow will change.

“I know what it really takes to get results. As CEO of a multi-billion-dollar energy company in Australia, I grew earnings from $17 million to $441 million in just five years. That's how I created No Bullsh!t Leadership, which is one of the top leadership podcasts on the planet, and now a Wall Street Journal bestselling book.

“I strip away the bullsh!t and challenge leaders to think differently about the fundamental nature of what they do. I equip them with practical tools and strategies that aren't taught in business school. This is the blueprint for building a winning business.”

I can't wait to help many more leaders as I get better at what I do over the next few years so please, let me know if I've hit the spot with that one.

If you've got anything that you'd like us to cover on the No Bullsh!t Leadership Podcast, shoot us an email hello@yourceomentor.com and we'll add your question to the list.

RESOURCES AND RELATED TOPICS:

• Buy the NO BULLSH!T LEADERSHIP BOOK - Here

• Explore other podcast episodes - Here

• Take our FREE Level Up Leadership Masterclass - Start Now

• Check out our 8-week online leadership program, Leadership Beyond the Theory - Learn More

• Link to our awesome web designer Ryan James

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