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Intro to Amphora• Niche software company focusing on Record
Keeping software for R&D Scientists • Privately held, bootstrapped • Over 10 years old, profitable, no debt • Customers all over the world, mostly in North
America and Europe • One of the few (the only?) surviving early vendors
in this space
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Sales Challenges• Sorting out sales is the key to growth and profitability • Typically a complex sale • Selling something the prospect hasn’t bought before (we’re solving a latent
problem) • Sales needs to guide prospects, rather than convince • Help them understand their problem and company
• “Soft” sales approach • We manage the business for the long term • If we do the right thing by prospects and our customers they’ll reward
us • This is a hard skill set and attitude to hire • But it is paying off now, huge amount of referral activity
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Technical Challenges• Staring at a computer screen all your life isn’t normal • The desire to do this is seldom correlated with high
communication skills • The issues which need to be discussed are complex
and often involve subtleties which are easily missed • Left to their own devices technical teams can be a
hotbed of politics and resentment • And that’s without considering relations with other
departments
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“Apprenticeship Patterns” by Dave Hoover and Adewale Oshineye
“Software development is composed of two primary activities: learning and
communication.”
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Organisational Challenges• Quality of internal relationships is key to
productivity and innovation • Particularly between different groups, and those
groups have little in common • This is often the first time our employees have
direct, intimate exposure to other disciplines • Then throw travel and remote work into the mix… • Keeping everyone aligned is crucial, and that
means communication
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3 Pronged Strategy
• Everyone is trained in Clean Questioning • Everyone is Neuroprofiled, results shared openly • Monthly Life Coaching
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• All of these are in the culture
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The Story
• Many years ago Caitlin Walker came and taught Clean Questioning and Metaphor at New Information Paradigms
• This directly led to the ELN product • Helped us work in a new developing area
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Book Plug (I’m almost famous!)
• The initial metaphor development is written up in Caitlin’s upcoming book
• Really helped us identify the adoption and architectural issues inherent in this new market
• Useful both internally and also for external discussions
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“Systemic Modelling - Adventures in Living, Learning and Working Collaboratively”
Fast Forward• As is the way, I was doing most of the sales effort • We had sales people, but were struggling to scale
• Sales people were managing the sales • But I was doing all the meetings • Didn’t work if someone else did it
• Something was missing • My time was becoming a real bottleneck and it was
starting to be a barrier to growth
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Caitlin Returns
• Nearly a decade later, I find Caitlin again • This time we did two important things for the sales
process • A metaphor for what I do in sales meetings so I
could pass it on • Taught all of the sales people Clean Questioning
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Clean and Sales• Clean Questioning in sales is awesome • Completely changes the dynamic • Allows you to go into situations you wouldn’t have
done before • Suits our “Soft” sales approach extremely well • Our sales approach is a major competitive
differentiation, we often win deals because we’re not “Like the other guys”
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Clean Everywhere Else• We then taught everyone else Clean and Systemic
Modelling • New recruits get it as part of internal training • Helpful for
• Understanding how people look at the world • How they work at their best • How to communicate respectfully • How to resolve issues
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Neuroprofiling• Then we started to get interested in how people’s
brains work • Turns out this is fascinating • Working with Caitlin and colleagues we
• Gave everyone an IQ test and produced a profile • Used that to explore how individuals can work at
their best • And how the rest of us can help
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Neuroprofiling• Turns out that everyone is different, especially
when you have different professions • Hugely helpful for everyone • Raises awareness when talking with external
parties as well • Significant impact in software design,
documentation etc. • Helps us be more productive, and more
harmonious
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Life Coaching
• Regular Monthly thing for everyone • “Compassionate Coaching” • Sessions are completely confidential and can be
on any subject (personal or work) • Everyone nervous at first but greatly valued • Making it a general thing is important, no stigma
involved
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Corporate Summary• Clean helped us clarify the product • Clean helped us sell the product • Clean helps us work together • Neurodiversity helps us understand each other • Neurodiversity helps us get the best from ourselves
and each other • Regular Coaching settles everyone and helps
resolve issues before they become issues
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Unexpected Stuff• Helped our family relationships
• e.g. your wife isn’t being obstinate, that’s how her brain works (and vice versa!)
• Helped us be better parents • More insight into how people learn • More openness in allowing children to explore
how their brains work • Clean questioning is excellent for talking with
Children
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Unexpected Stuff• When you are using your brain in the way that is most natural
you have a lot more fun • Asking someone to do something in their “Neuro sweet spot”
is like asking them to be paid to do their hobby • It’s no burden to swap activities between people • e.g.
• Some people love organising stuff, get real pleasure out of bringing order to chaos
• Some people really enjoy reading and summarising • Some people love finding the one number that’s out of
whack in a spreadsheet of financial detail
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Recommendations• Clean is part of the basic skill set everyone should have • Neuroprofiling is awesome for individuals and teams • Life Coaching is hugely hugely helpful • Problems
• You need the culture right to pull it off, some of this might backfire without a lot of trust
• In my experience Caitlin’s skill set and approach is unique - I’ve tried other people/programmes without success
• Fortunately she’s very keen on self-sustaining work
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Recommendations• Life Coaching can/should be done ASAP
• It is expensive but well worth it • Start with the senior team - lead from the front
• Find a coach you are comfortable with • There are many different styles, don’t be afraid to
experiment • Then roll it out to everyone, without exception
• 1 session a month • Everyone is expected to have a session • Completely confidential (and make sure people feel this)
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Recommendations• Then roll out Clean Questioning • Start with a small group, probably senior managers • You can train internally but would recommend
someone like Caitlin for • Group training • Difficult situations e.g. people who aren’t that
used to talking or where there is discord • Note that Clean is a multi-faceted tool and will bring
a myriad of benefits
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Recommendations
• Life Coaching and Clean are probably a good basis for any company
• You can stop there if you want • Once those are embedded, you could look at
Neuroprofiling if you feel your culture can handle it
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Neuroprofiling• Really insightful for individuals and groups • Needs to be handled with sensitivity but also a firm hand • Don’t start it if there’s any hint of insecurity or politics in
the organisation • Be careful how you position and implement it, be aware
of the HR issues • You will almost certainly need external assistance • As far as I know Training Attention are the only ones
providing this
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Questions(After the presentation there were questions. These
additional slides cover a bit of what was asked)
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Q: Risk of people being typecast
• When we Neuroprofiled people, was there a risk of them then being defined by their profile, and restricted in what roles/tasks they perform?
• Answer: Not really • Everyone is in the right jobs, they are all well qualified and
performing well • This is about understanding ourselves and each other better • The Neuroprofile doesn’t really tell you what someone’s real-world
capability is, more how they use their brain to get it • With this knowledge, we can easily help them be more effective and
happy with small little changes • If you want to know what someone is capable of… look at what they
do in the real world!
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Q: Example outcomes of Neuroprofiling
• Don’t give X big spreadsheets of lots of numbers • Can easily understand the concepts, it is the presentation which
makes it hard • Split into 3 less dense spreadsheets is much more digestible
• Don’t expect X to research and summarise large blocks of text. Y is much better at that (and enjoys it).
• X’s Verbal is so high he really can talk, think 3 steps ahead, and resolve the technical issue - at the same time. But don’t ask him to read notes while doing it.
• Y really needs to pre-plan things because they can’t think on their feet so well, but that means they are very insightful about strategy etc.
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Q: Example of Clean Interactions
• Sales issue being discussed, a techie joins in the conversation with a clean question which leads to a new product resolving the sales issue • Techies are excellent debuggers! • Clean gives them a voice
• Manager makes an “opaque” decision which no one understands • Instead of allowing the confusion to continue, Clean Questions
deployed to challenge/clarify in a non-threatening way • Turns out manager was unconsciously using a variety of
additional considerations in the decision
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Summary
• If you want a miserable workplace, avoid Clean • If you want a happy, empowered, joyful workplace -
give everyone the gift of Clean Questioning • If your company’s success is based on Knowledge
Worker productivity • You’ll have a lot more fun • You’ll probably make more money as well
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Pointers• Caitlin’s TED talk which is a good intro to Clean • Caitlin’s book (when it comes out) • Clean Coaching book • Sort your culture out… :-)
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• Happy to be contacted if you would like to discuss further
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