Interview Question: Have You Worked In A Service Job?
One of my go-to interview questions is have you ever worked in a service job?
I worked weekends at KFC and Wendy’s, when going through my A-Levels I used to sneak off and work 3-4 hour shifts to make money and move away from education which I was ultimately done with.
I actually really enjoyed the job and met some of my closest friends 25 years later, why?
You learn a lot skills, interpersonal skills, the importance of teamwork and comradery, how to read people’s body language & micro expressions, you learnt multi-tasking, how to handle busy periods and how to deal with “mistakes” (yours or the customers - they aren’t always right!), I learnt how to cook, prep and importantly clean and follow the high standards set by successful chains.
I went on to work in and run bars and put on club nights and all this has set me up in my career and is important muscle memory for me.
In almost every management role I have held, those who can handle pressure and excel in the quiet periods/poor performance periods and asked to step up are those from backgrounds in cafes, baristas, fast food (QSR) and bars.
Thinking about it, some of the best Brand & Product Marketers and Product leads I have had the pleasure of working with have also had strong backgrounds in QSR’s.
I was recommended this video this morning (thanks YouTube) and it reminded me of why so many great employees worked service jobs and if I had the choice I would always look to hire the right candidate with this style of background.
Watch out for how the English gentleman calls out that it is an experience from Arnaldo & at Grumpy Coffee and he leaves happy, although most do it organically the best Marketing team members provide brilliant experiences and are deliberate in doing so as they know it sticks in peoples mind and creates a long-standing relationship.
Practise With The Best
Talent density is massively underrated. It is something we don’t hear enough about within businesses.
If you ever see two high performing colleagues there can be healthy competition, I have a strong belief where possible you should ensure there are more practise periods and projects where you can manufacture practise time and collaborative projects.
In my career there have been a handful of colleagues and team members who positively pushed me, they instantly increased the talent density and would increase the quality of the project or campaign by raising the status quo, having higher standards and having fun sparring with each other and pushing the projects forward.
This Instagram reel of two of the best tennis players on the planet reminded me that you rarely get chance to practise or test yourself against with a world class competitor/colleague/industry rival/foe.
This reminded me of a Simon Sinek and Adam Grant podcast and quote that rings true with me often.
Whenever I heard the name “Adam Grant”, it made me uncomfortable. If I heard someone sing his praises, a wave of envy washed over me. I knew him to be a good person and a nice guy. I respected his work a great deal, and he was always nice to me when we’ve met. We do the same kind of work — write books and give talks about our views of the world.
Although there are many others who do similar work, for some reason I was obsessed with him. I wanted to outdo him. I’d regularly check the online rankings to see how my books were selling and compare them to his. Not anyone else’s rankings — just his. If mine were ranked higher, I would smile a gloaty smile and feel superior. If his were higher, I would scowl and feel annoyed. He was my main competitor and I wanted to win.
Then something happened. We were invited to share a stage at the same event, and the interviewer thought it would be “fun” if we introduced each other. I went first. I looked at Adam, looked at the audience, and said, “You make me unbelievably insecure because all of your strengths are all my weaknesses. You can do so well the things that I really struggle to do.” The audience laughed.
Adam looked at me and responded, “The insecurity is mutual.” He went on to identify some of my strengths as areas in which he wished he could improve.
The question might be do you have a rival that will help you improve? And if yes - you do, do you practise or challenge each other enough?
Does Your Business Need A Refresh, Reset, Reboot or Restart
Throughout my career I have found most businesses get to the point where they are in need of external help and cannot decide what their companies requires, I have broken them down into 4 areas:
1. A Refresh - this is what most businesses want but not what most need, a refresh can include a hiring (or a firing) or a change in a way they work cross-functionally. A refresh often works best within teams or departments where there has been no change or mass change. Many teams work best after a refresh as this creates more focus and less distractions.
2. A Reset - this is what most companies need, they require a fresh set of eyes and a driving force behind resetting the way the teams work together, how they approach their department plan or reset their company strategy. Resets help cross-functional teams to understand each other and the way they work differently.
3. A Reboot - a more deliberate look at the business and departments often leads to difficult conversations and assessing how the teams and their department leads perform and operate. A detailed audit will be needed to identify issues and then guide the internal leadership in improving and rebooting the business performance.
4. A Restart - the view seen as the most harsh but often is needed and needs to be driven by an independent consultant and advisor. What a restart takes a 6-8 week period of investigation, observation and honest feedback. Restarts take a number of bed in and then a quarter to two quarters to influence wider change. Restarts need to be fully brought in by the exec team, by department leads and senior members of the team to create a better, higher-performing environment.
The question to ask yourself now: What does your team, department and business need?
In H2 it is the time to take action and set yourselves up for success in late Q3 into Q4.
My 6 Must Watch And Listens From The Last Week
Here are six incredible listens and watches to help you understand how decisions are made in large business and with elite professionals.
>> Etsy Scale & Ensuring Human+ (So human have to be behind AI product creations Creativity.
My main takeaway is being deliberate in your choices and ensuring you can build your marketplace with long term thinking in mind and adapt to tech changes.
>> Masters Of Scale - Kat Cole’s approach to leadership and why she joined AG1.
My main takeaway is Kat is very personable and extremely thoughtful and driven, if you want to be leading from the front you have to get deep under the skin and understand the true operating model.
>> YouTube creator sensation Cleo Abram on what made Nike almost ban record-breaking sneakers (hint there’s a flow chart and must be on general sale to be included in the Olympics
My main takeaway is tech is always going to help improve times of athletes but unless they are the elite level athletes its likely not going to win too many races and Olympic and governing bodies will review tech and innovation quickly (for safety and fair use).
>> Rory Sutherland delivers one of his best talks about making time to rethink the question and apply behaviour sciences to make better decisions .
My main takeaway is thinking about the question and what humans want will place us in front of creating better solutions, it’s then a choice (as I said in brand is in 2024/2025) not just optimising to the financial leader’s spreadsheet.
>> How 7-Eleven is repositioned itself and building a better shopping experience
My main takeaway is many can learn from building an experience from international stores and building more relevant shopping experiences.
>> Acquired’s long form interview with Howard Schultz on Starbucks history, strategic moves & why being wrong made Starbucks right
My main takeaway is even when you are a listed company with millions in sales even larger brands will treat you badly (Coca Cola in this instance) and their competitors will leap at the chance to collaborate. I have experienced this a number of times and it rarely ends badly…
The DNA Of Engagement
Entertaining. Engaging. Challenging. What More Do You Want From A Book On Storytelling & Engagement
I was lucky to receive an early copy of the book that will be released on October 17th, written by the super smart and engaging David Pullan and Sarah Jane McKechnie.
Here is my review I sent for the book promo and hopefully will sway you into considering purchasing The DNA of Engagement book
“The DNA of engagement is packed full of stories and frameworks that will entertain you, engage you and challenge you to want to improve your storytelling and connections whether that’s with friends, family or colleagues.
Grab a notepad and I hope you enjoy it as much I did”
If you are in the C-Suite, in Marketing or Growth leadership roles or in a role where storytelling and engaging an audience is key and want frameworks to use and stories to retell this is the book for you.
Congrats to David and Sarah Jane!
If you would like to check out more about David and the free masterclass he gave on my culture and strategy consultancy site check out leaders letters.
My Top 7 Google Workspace Hacks
Improve Your Productivity In Google Workspace
Many people especially leaders struggle when it comes to working more smartly with tools, they don’t learn the tools, they are never taught them and when it comes to time many just won’t invest a few minutes to save themselves hours.
So I wanted to share my favourite Google Suite/Workspace hacks to make your life easier and more effective in and around the suite.
Quick URL → Get Creating: Writing into the browser to create brand new docs straight away
slides.new - for Google Slides
sheets.new - for Google Sheets
docs.new - for Google Docs
cal.new - for new calendar event
Quicker Actions: Use the search feature in the left-right side to take the action / command you would like to from styling to adding a table in docs, a pivot table in sheets, to adding a diagram in slides
Preview > Edit: Link into a Google Slides rather than send to edit interface - With your Google Slides URL, look at the URL string and replace /edit with /preview and this link sends the viewer into that slideshow directly without the default edit view (shown below)
Mute: Use the Mute feature to slience noisy email chains or where you are CC-ed in for no real reason - tick email, go to the three dots and select mute
Hide Guestlists: Hide guest list (often this can be helpful with management meetings, big meetings and external meetings) - go into your calendar invite, edit event and untick "See guest list."
Better speaker than writer? In Google Docs - Go to ‘Tools’ and then select ‘Voice typing’.
Get Ahead With Your Daily Agenda: Have your daily schedule emailed to you In Google Calendar settings > Other notifications > Daily agenda
Pepsico’s Price Conscious Consumers
Why The Price Versus Value Debate Won’t Go Away For Any Brand Big Or Small.
I recently read a powerful quote about Pepsico (the owners of Pepsi, lays, Tropicana, Quaker, and Gatorade) about consumers buying fewer snacks (to this point it’s referring to fewer snacks being purchased from Pepsico’s brands) and the performance from their CFO.
Below is a quote from their earnings call:
“There is a cohort of consumers that have become more price conscious,” — Jamie Caulfield, CFO @ PepsiCo.
“They’re looking for more deals to get more for their money.”
“PepsiCo is offering products and package sizes that offer greater value, such as a new 10-item variety pack of snacks that is selling well”
”Shoppers are now less interested in buy-one-get-one-free promotions and want lower price points for single items”.
It is safe to say over the last couple of years consumers have become more price-conscious, we have seen it in spending across the US and the UK and will continue to see consumer spending become more value-based. FWIW Election year always sees a dip in spending.
A topic I raise with almost all of my clients is price vs value, price is part of the debate, however, what most people are looking for value.
Value is an exchange, the value exchange is - what is the feeling I get from a product or service and whether it is giving me value or an experience to connect to a value rather than a price.
If the value exchange is not there is a product or the price has been increased massively (or in recent times shrinkflation) then people will stop buying or look for actively seek out cheaper alternatives. We live in an endless world of competitors and “good enough” competitors.
(Importantly we now live in a consumer world where we don’t just have good, better, best, we have good enough, good, better, best, greatest)
The question to ask in exec meetings now should be:
Are we adding value and are we removing the price from the equation and adding constant value?
If the answer is no, a competitor will be considered or a lower price item will be tried.
In future earning calls I predict we are going to see many companies and CFOs blame:
GLP-1 drugs (Ozempic etc) and their impact on eating and drinking
The price of food and the effect of reducing the size of a product while staying at the same price (aka shrinkification)
Continued extreme weather (hottest summers in the US, wettest summers in the UK)
Poor performance marketing results (constant algorithmic shifts are impacting both organic marketing and paid media results and typically negatively)
The election results (whatever your leaning or who you voted for, elections shake things up)
and the continued blame of price-conscious consumers
If there is a takeaway here I would recommend reviewing how you price your items, how you connect your products (even if it is snacks or drinks) to experiences (I bet you remember your first Coke or your first great experience with food) and consider how you are marketing your product vs the endless competitors who will cheaper or go for discounting to win the battle on the wallet and purse.
The 5 Books Helping You To Improve Your Leadership
Here are my 5 go-to (recent) book recommendations to improve your leadership, whether that’s improving listening, improving the questions you ask, understanding what optimises performance and why mental models and frameworks are key to the most successful people.
1/ Supercommunicators - Charles Duhigg (book link)
Why Read?
Help you to improve your listening
Help you to understand how to ask better questions
Learn how some people are built to ask the right questions, while others just don’t and likely won’t - and why this means there is an opportunity for leaders
Below is another teaser in form of a vodcast with Mr Why Simon Sinek
2/ Clear Thinking - Shane Parrish (book link)
Why Read?
How to craft your own fate (and not rely on every situation around you
Improve your decision-making, step by step
How to place yourself into areas/zones of success
With many mental models (frameworks) to guide you through your journey
If you would like the cheat sheet, here is the 8-minute breakdown
3/ Hidden Genius - Polina Marinova Pompliano (book link)
Why Read?
Polina breaks down how successful people have high resilience and don’t break easily
Learn how the high performers don’t use hacks but leverage and optimise their mental framework
How the best of the best improve their content consumption (better content diet)
Below is Polina being interviewed by her husband (well-known entrepreneur and business personality) Andrew Pomp Pompliano and breaking down her book. Lastly, Polina’s newsletter The Profile is brilliant and a must-subscribe.
4/ Scaling People - Claire Hughes Johnson (book link)
Why Read?
Learn how to scale operations, people management and C-suite leadership by knowing your strengths
and knowing not to improve your weaknessesWhy do the hard but right conversations have to happen especially around poor performers - for their good, your good, for the company
Why managers should have their operating cadence and work with their teams on their preferred ways of working
If you want a deeper look inside the book, grab a coffee and enjoy Tim Ferriss interviewing Claire and actively learning throughout the podcast. Claire has had quite the book tour so definitely search your podcast players of choice for more brilliant insights.
5/ Tiny Habits - Professor BJ Fogg (book link)
Why Read?
If you have heard or read James Clear, you’ll love his actual teacher/Professor BJ Fogg, BJ breaks down how to form habits slowly but surely
The secret to forming any habit
make it tiny,
find where it fits naturally in your life
and nurture its growth.
Why it applies to work, training and self-development
This is a brilliant podcast with BJ Fogg talking to Nike’s audio team on habits, transforming performance and getting out of your own way.