David Pullan: We can often limit the definition of self. We sort of think, I am this and we put ourselves in a box. There is no such thing as David Pullin.

There is a coach load of David Pullin. There is the father, there is the coach, there is the sports fan, there is the music fan. There are all these people, which David Pullin needs to get out of the bus at which particular stop. And I think that that is a thing that leaders can really think about.

Lawrie Philpott: Today’s episode of Leadership Listening addresses a very important subject and it’s the subject of communication, and I’m delighted to welcome to this morning’s episode, David Pullin, whom I’ve known from more than 20 years i’m pretty sure. When I was running a general coaching leadership coaching practice and it occurred to me that the specialism that is coaching beyond what a general coach can do, needed some extra levels of skill. And in contemplating that issue, I came across the idea of using people with an acting background. To actually get to grips with people who were chief executives, sometimes board members or members of the C-Suite, and to get inside this bedeviled subject of communication. But before we get into the meat and veg of that, I’d like to introduce David to you and to tell us a little bit, David, about how you started on the stage, I think is the the important place to start, 

David Pullan: Lawrie. Absolutely. I’m glad we both got the memo about Blue shirts as well.That’s a very good start to the podcast.

 Yeah. I mean, blimey, I’ll tell you what it was. When I was a kid, I wanted to do many different jobs. I think the first job I wanted to do was astronaut and I wrote to Richard Nixon saying, how could I become a member of NASA? He’d been impeached by the time I got from the White House.

Anyway, I’ve moved on to wanting to be a dentist. By that stage, I then may move through Naval Officer. And I think the thing that joined all of these things together is I basically like dressing up in costumes. And so the answer was to get on the stage and that’s for reasons that my bank manager still doesn’t a hundred percent understand. I spent about sort of 25 years on the stage with things like the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, did the odd film here and there, did a year in the Woman in Black in the West End. And so that was my journey into the theatre, which was a strange sort of move into the corporate world after that, of which you were definitely a part.

Lawrie Philpott: Great there I was running a coaching practice very new in 1996 when I started it almost no coaching about at that stage and into the room came chief executives and C-suite people who once we got past the point of having a conversation of confidence disclosed to me, I don’t know, something that sounded like absolute bedazzling fear of public presentation on a stage, in a radio studio, and sometimes, worst of all, to your own people. And so that’s when we went out to find what was eventually David and Sarah Jane McKechnie, who’s the other half of your operation to tackle these people, and I learned a lot myself from the conversations with you about that whole process, but I guess we ought to just talk about what it is you see in people that makes them a feared of this thing called public presentation. It’s almost up there with fear of spiders, I think.

David Pullan: Oh, indeed. So, I mean, was it Jerry Seinfeld famously said that it’s worse than the fear of death. And so most people at a funeral would  rather funeral, would rather be in the box than delivering the eulogy.

So it is a fear and I think it’s a very primal fear of being judged. And we say that that people fear three things. Basically. They fear financial failure, physical harm, or being separated from the pack. And as human beings, we are pack seeking animals. We are collaborative animals, and so we don’t want to be separated from the pack by public speaking, by being a leader you automatically, by definition, separate yourself from the pack because you have to. You are standing there and our little ancient brain is going, oh my goodness me, the wolves are about to eat me. Which of course they aren’t, but that’s what the ancient brain is saying. So I think the fear is born outta something quite primal and something quite evolutionary that makes us not want to separate ourselves.

The trick is how do you turn that round in the moment so that you realize there are no wolves and you can actually make the most of that moment.

Lawrie Philpott: So what’s actually happening in the fear sense? What are the sort of physical and emotional and mind games that are going on, which come under the heading of fear? Some of the things I see are people who are frozen to the spot. Their mouth goes dry, they want to go and have a pee 30 seconds before the off. What are the things you see? 

David Pullan: Well, I mean, there’s all of the above, Lawrie. I mean, absolutely. I’ve seen all of those as well, and they are masked in different ways and I think that’s an interesting point is that we don’t want to demonstrate that, and so we mask them in different ways and the sweaty palms, the sweaty old body, the frozen to the spot gets masked by sometimes over presentation in some way, sort of being too big that, you know, sort of let you push people away. It could be masked by actually losing your humanity and just presenting like a document, you know, presenting like the email they could have read in the privacy of their own room rather than actually having to be there and listened to you.

I mean, all of these things happened and it’s all because of, I think, of the way that we frame communication and the way that we connect to our audience. I use the word audience, advisedly, I mean anyone we are speaking to, because I think the thing we need to realize, and something I’ve certainly noticed over time is, is that people’s fear happens in different arenas.

Some people are great on the one-to-one. Some people love the big stage and hate being in the one-to-one. We all have that moment. We all have that spot where we think, oh. Yeah. Don’t want to be here. What do you do then? That’s the secret. And yeah, I think that’s something that Sarah Jane and I have helped a lot with, and thanks to you, we’ve helped a lot of people with it.

Lawrie Philpott:

Yeah, let’s just think it sounds to me in my language, like trigger moments, a certain set of circumstances triggers a certain set of emotion or reaction or behavior. And I think there’s a heading for me, which is we are very often our own worst enemy because we sort of know it’s coming and we are dreading it and against that background, David, one of the things before I send people to you is to talk to them about distraction techniques. In other words, when you are sitting there on the stage and there are 400 people there and your previous speaker has been marvelous, got a standing ovation, and then you get an enormously wonderful introduction from the person who’s chairing the event.

And you’re thinking, my God, you know, is that really all about me? And the distraction techniques, I think is an interesting thing. In other words, to learn how to apply those distraction techniques, smiling gently, somebody I know does it by counting down in threes and up in ones serially and so on.

Anything to say about this whole thing about managing that set of emotions. 

David Pullan: Absolutely. And I think everything you mentioned there is completely valid. I mean, you know, the breathing techniques, which actually sort of like lower the blood pressure and bring us back into the moment. There’s another one, which is what happens is our energy tends to get very high in the body and sort of the breathing shallows and it’s sort of cuts off oxygen to the brain and that becomes a vicious cycle of fear.

So anything you can do, belly breathing, slow breathing, square breathing. In for three, hold for three, out for three. All of those things are very powerful. Grounding yourself as well. So actually just remembering you’ve got feet. As you sit there on the chair, just wriggle your toes and remember, you are connected to the earth.

Because your body is lifting your, metaphorically lifting yourself up and taking you into, oh, I’m not really here, but Lawrie, I think actually one of the things that I’ve realized over the years as much as anything, is reframing why you are there. And I think that we get into problems with any form of presentation and let’s call it any form of communication.

The big problem is that when we get into the situation where we judge the other person or the audience as someone who is there to judge us. And that puts us into that fear space of thinking that, you know, I’ve got to impress them in some shape or form. And that’s always a deadly place to get to.

What I prefer to think of it is like, is whereas actors of course have an audience. Your job within a scene is to connect to your scene partner and change what they think, feel, and or do you know it’s actually changing what they’re thinking. All communication is change communication.

So if as leaders you can think this isn’t an audience. They are my scene partner and I need to connect with them, and I need to change them in some shape or form, then I think that reframes the purpose of why you are there. A mutual friend of ours, Angela Brav, when we worked with her, I still quote her now, one of her things, she said that as a leader, her job was to read the temperature of the room and change the temperature of the room.

And I just, I said Angela, I’m nicking that one immediately. because that, that’s brilliant. It’s actually connecting to how people are at the moment and thinking, right, I need to take you on a journey. I’m not here to impress you in any shape or form. I’m here to change you. 

Lawrie Philpott: Is there a distinction then, David, between the actor.

And I may get this wrong, but it’s pretending to be somebody else. And when I’m on a stage at a corporate event on behalf of my employer or organization, then I am nothing else but me. 

David Pullan: No, no, no. Well, Lawrie, I mean, that’s the absolute thing. I mean, it’s interesting you mention that Sarah Jane and my acting background, and in actual fact we don’t, we obviously let people into the tricks of that sort of thing, but nobody we work with wants to be a performer.

And we would lose a massive credibility if we said you’ve got to sort of be something other than yourself. But I think that there’s an interesting thing here is that we can often limit. The definition of self. We sort of think I am this, and we put ourselves in a box. And I remember a psychotherapist friend of mine saying to me years and years ago, he said, there is no such thing as David Pullan.

There is a coach load of David Pullan. There is the father, there is the coach, there is the sports fan, there is the music fan. There are all these people. All your job to do you have to do is think which David Pullan needs to get out of the bus at which particular stop. And I think that that is the thing that leaders can really think about.

We throw a stick at LinkedIn and people are talking about authenticity left and center, but our definition of authenticity can get quite narrowed. I mean, what are the different authentic selfs that you bring and which one needs to be in this situation at this time, and it will be different if you are pitching.

It’ll be different if you are giving feedback. It’ll be different if you are giving an an all hands fireside chat or a webinar or something like that. There will be different versions of you that you can bring to the moment. 

Lawrie Philpott: And just looking then at how one and presents on stage, for example, there are all sorts of other sets of circumstances. But the whole thing I think about whether one uses PowerPoint, whether one uses pictures, whether you do or you don’t stand behind the podium, which is a sort of shield between you and the audience, very natural thing to do, and some of the things that i’ve seen along the way mean that the very best presentation is done without slides, without pictures.

David Pullan: Oh, yeah. Yeah. 

Lawrie Philpott: On the other hand, I’ve seen wonderful presentations done with gloriously fabulous pictures of a female climber on a 5,000 foot rock face with an overhang, with no great array of support and the message being made on that particular presentation to the audience, to leaders ‘you don’t trust this person in the week but look what she does at the weekend.’ And so the message was around trust in that case. So what about the various kind of things that you would say about the different kinds of way of being on a platform if you are going to present. 

David Pullan: It’s a really good question, and if we start with that one. I love that the image of the woman hanging onto the clear, I can see it in my head, which in itself is a good sign because that’s a story in itself and I’ve been working a lot with, with leaders recently about what is called their star moment.

I mean, it’s sort of, it’s a Nancy Duate concept of something they’ll always remember. I personally, Sarah Jane, and I personally think that should be something they’ll always repeat because that is the true metric of of good communication is do people talk about it afterwards and going back to your point about, about, about using pictures within presentations.

The power of those is the metaphor, is the analogy. As you show with that picture of the woman and clinging onto the side of the mountain. I mean, what we need to remember is that people’s brains or all of our brains. It’s not so much as they’re, they’re lazy as that they are trying to conserve energy.

They’re trying to take shortcuts to understand what it is. And so a shortcut is, an analogy is a shortcut. Oh, it’s like this. Or she’s like this, or he’s like that. Which is great for the listener because it is saving their energy. It might not necessarily be useful for you as a presenter and as a leader because it might not be the metaphor or analogy that you want people to take.

I was working last week with a group of people from the National Association of Credit Managers in the United States on a webinar. And they like a lot of finance function, people are seen as the money police. That is the picture that people dismiss them as in their mind. And we were talking about different metaphors and analogies that they can use. And there was analogies like with a Money master Chefs. We bring all these ingredients together to cook up a really great recipe for our clients. Or what somebody I’m the captain of credit and the wrangler of risk, I think somebody came up with.

So I think pictures can be powerful because they create that snapshot image that intrigues and lodges in people’s minds. I just wanna add one thing about slides, Lawrie is, because I, like you, one of my big jobs is saying, do you really need that slide? But I think that slides are important sometimes.

And the way I would describe this is that there’s a very great friend of mine from my acting days, who he’s recently retired actually, but he was a big Broadway star, did a lot of musicals. And I said to him, Phil, tell me what’s, what’s it all about? Why do people break into song? Why do people sing?

And he said, David, you’ve gotta remember that. In musicals, when somebody breaks into a song, it’s the only way they can express what it is they’re saying at that moment. I mean, Curly in Oklahoma doesn’t come out and say, oh, there’s a cow over there, some blue skies, there’s some corn over there because Oh, oh, what a beautiful morning!

He has to sing about it. And I think that slides, we should see slides as like the song moment in our musical. It’s like. Guys, we’ve got these, we’ve had these results. The only way I can explain it to you is to show you this fantastic graph that shows exactly what Q2 looked like. I mean, sometimes the slide becomes like the show, show tune.

Lawrie Philpott: For leaders in today’s world, the world of media is getting faster, more aggressive, more powerful. And you and I have done a lot of work with people. Very privately in private recording studios with a green room, with a studio, with full kit and wiring and everything else. And if I may say so, a pretty forbidding environment and there are one-to-one interviews, there are studio debates and so on. But, what do we say to leaders about that particular medium? They’ve gotta be ready for everything, haven’t they these days? It’s not just. Platform presentations. 

David Pullan: I think you’re so right and it’s, I mean, since the days when we started, Lawrie, it’s, it’s 24/7 now isn’t it, that news cycle? I mean, there is, there is nowhere to hide. So you do have to, and you know there are whole teams of course, involved in, in organizations and that. That unity between the leader and their communications team about how they actually sort of meet those moments are incredibly important.

And I think it’s about knowing what you are stepping into, what is the Dragon’s Den, or the Colosseum like thing that you are stepping into. When the journalist says, oh no, it’s be fine. We’re just having a bit chat and then suddenly skews you with, you know, something from that’s happened in the last week.

I mean it’s being prepared for that. So it’s really doing some worst case scenario planning. I think it’s also about, in terms of short form. And media is short form now. Our attention spans are going so quickly. It’s about sort of thinking to yourself, what are the soundbite moments that you want to get in there?

Because you don’t have full control over the output in media. So you need to provide the journalist, the editor, with those sound bite moments that that they can use afterwards. And I think actually doing some prep around those is incredibly important. And I think having some models you can use around the ever present crisis management are really important as well. And there there are two I remember from years ago, and it might’ve been when I was working with you, is regret, reason and remedy. And concern, commitment and control. The one is when you first one, when you have to hold your hands up and something actually has gone wrong, it’s like regret. Say you’re sorry. This is the reason why it went wrong. Not an excuse, it’s the reason, and this is the remedy. How we’re gonna make sure it never happens again. And the concern, commitment control is more about opinion rather than fact. If somebody thinks that something’s going wrong, you have to show that you actually connect how they’re feeling. I’m concerned about this. My commitment is that actually that doesn’t happen for you again. This is how I’m gonna control that and it’s how I take control of it. So I think within media, those sorts of things are, are vital.

Lawrie Philpott: I think, David, to help leaders via Leadership Listening. For me, there’s a golden rule relative to the media, whether that’s the print media, newspapers, or television, radio, whatever. It’s their job it seems to me to get a headline possibly at your expense, and I dunno whether I’m being fair there, but what do you reckon? 

David Pullan: Oh, that’s all they’re looking for. I mean, they are looking for the headline. I have done in the last week and I am doing later in next month actually, an exercise where I’m working with teams of people who are talking about the future of their organization and in this world that we live in, I am using AI for this. So I sort of give them very clean guidelines. I said, listen, everything you’ve heard, let’s write a 250 word article about what the future of your organization looks like. What’s the headline? What’s the byline? What’s the splash opening paragraph? And they come up with some great things.

And then I say, stick that into Copilot, whatever it is you’re using with this prompt acting as an expert sub-editor give a splash headline to this and a compelling byline. And it’s amazing what AI comes up with. This is, I think an interesting thing is if you think about your messaging that you need to get out there, I think that one of the ways that we can use AI to be a, a more powerful human being, if you like, is feed your messaging in there and say, what sort of headlines are likely to come outta this? And then you can take a bit more control back over, over the output. 

Lawrie Philpott: And, and while we’re on this question of media and television. There’s a simple point as well.

If you’re going to be making some kind of television film, which I’ve certainly done television programs, be very clear at the outset what the mandate is because I certainly have encountered circumstances where the mandate has been quite a long way, a very long way, arguably from what was originally written down and agreed to.

So once again, they’re trying to make their program better from their point of view. But at your expense. So mandate first. 

David Pullan: Yeah. Okay. No, absolutely right. 

Lawrie Philpott: Sorry to be suspicious about these things, but, um, hey, this is business David. Communication is business these days. 

David Pullan: Give the people what they want, but make sure it’s on your terms. 

Lawrie Philpott: Coming back to then getting communication, right? There’s this whole subject of preparation, and as with almost anything, preparation is really key. And so how does one prepare for the act? And let’s stick first of all with, you know, a platform presentation, straightforward.

What are the sort of key thoughts that you’ve got from your perspective and what you’ve seen as to how preparation should most properly and most supportively happen?

David Pullan: I think it varies from situation to situation. I mean every situation has a different context than how you prepare will be, will will be different.

But I mean, I think that if we stick to a large group of people, if you are having to give an all hands presentation, I think what you have to realize is that there will be people in that room with different points of view and different levels of attention and different care factors really as well.

I mean, your primary job at the beginning of every presentation is to bring people together, is to herd the cats essentially, you know, there are are so many people in that room. How do you bring them all together into one place. So they are all thinking in parallel and they all know why they need to be there. And interestingly, this comes back to the book that Sarah Jane and I wrote last October, which is a pack shot coming (David holds up a copy of his book) The DNA of engagement, a story-based approach to building trust and influencing change.

Lawrie Philpott: I’d like to hear more about that shortly. I really want to go into that.

David Pullan: If I give you an overview, I think this answers this question as well, Lawrie, because it doesn’t stand for deoxyribonucleic acid, it stands for Dream Nightmare Action. So what you need to do is, and by that I mean, it’s something that we all do as human beings all the time, and we have goals, we have dreams.

We understand what the nightmares are, the obstacles that get in the way of those dreams. We take actions to overcome those nightmares to achieve what it is we’re aiming for. That’s what the DNA sequence is, and I think the preparation for a presentation is about getting everyone right at the beginning on the same page about what is it we’re trying to achieve here? Why are we in this room right now? What are we trying to achieve and what will that mean to us in the future? And if you get people imagining that and thinking parallel about that, which means understanding your audience, understanding your goal, understanding the journey you want to take them on, get them on that same page first, because without that, it just becomes you know, chucking spaghetti at the wall and hoping some of it sticks.

Lawrie Philpott: In the preparation. I also think that, you know, think very simply, this piece that I’m going to deliver has got a beginning, a middle, and an end. There’s the notion of tell ’em what you’re gonna tell them. Tell them. And tell ’em what you told them.

And I think one other thought, which I’d welcome your views on, David, is actually getting a person to present in private at home, six o’clock in the morning, seven o’clock in the morning when there’s nobody about maybe to a mirror. I dunno, techniques like that. 

David Pullan: No, I would never, ever recommend a mirror. I wouldn’t recommend a mirror because in the moment you are judging yourself.

I mean, that’s a nightmare. Never do a mirror, do your phone. Certainly. Because  then you can review it afterwards. I mean, film yourself and review it back. I’d never do that. Do it to your kid if you can keep your kid engaged, especially if they’re under the age of 10.

Then actually this is an interesting exercise as well, I was working with somebody, I was on a call yesterday about some work I’m going to be doing with a team in Ireland, and they reminded me of an exercise that I do, which is they were doing a massive pitch, very technical pitch, and I said, the day before the pitch, I said to them, okay, I’m really sorry to tell you this, but the person who’s meant to be on the other side can’t show up tomorrow, his 7-year-old son will be there instead. And he’s been told to report back to his dad on what he found interesting and what his dad should do about it. And I said, said, so would you take 10 minutes now as if I am that 7-year-old boy to do your pitch?

And they all did it very well I have to say, they completely simplified what it was they were talking about. And actually at the end they said. Why aren’t we doing the actual pitch like this? So actually any of those techniques to, I can’t remember which artist it was. I think it was Picasso actually.

It was about the whole point of creation isn’t about what you add, it’s about what you take away, so the simplicity factor is absolutely vital. 

Lawrie Philpott: Is there something also, David, about hearing your own voice in public for the first time, so if you practiced it beforehand, privately, you are kind of hearing your own voice in the presentation, communication mode and hearing yourself even worse amplified if you are in a big hall or auditorium. 

David Pullan: Yeah, I mean, get there early. Apart from anything, the tech crew will love you forever. I mean, if you say, listen can I just do my three opening paragraphs, do you need a sound level for that? I mean, show that you understand what they need as well, and I think that’s important.

This amplification thing is an interesting one, Lawrie, because. Even in the West stent now people are micd up, which is horrifying for an old performer like me who had to use their diaphragm and actually sort of shout at the nighttime. But I mean, I think the danger of amplification is that we can think, oh well, the amps and the mic are doing all the work for me, so I don’t need to bring as much of me to the stage. Actually one of the exercises I do with people is getting them into the auditorium early on and sort of standing at different parts of the auditorium and realizing what it looks like from there and you know, thinking to yourself, so yeah, my voice may be amplified, but what size do I need to be in order to own that stage? Because, you know, if you are in an audience of 2000 people and you’re doing the a AGM presentation or whatever it is, and you are like this (behaves in a small manner), your voice might be booming out over the mics, but what’s that the ant doing over there? You’ve got to own the size of the space.

Lawrie Philpott: Which is a beautiful segue David.

There you are, an acting term, a beautiful segue into performance energy. And when I first met you guys. The idea of performance energy and what it is and how important it is and how you get people to understand that. Was a fascination for me. Do you wanna say a bit more about performance energy?

David Pullan: Yeah. Well, basically it’s what we’re talking about now, isn’t it? It’s about what do you bring to the space? I mean, how do you own that space and make it your own? And how do you look and sound as if the other person should be paying attention to nothing else except what you are talking about right here, right now.

Which is partially down to the content. In fact, the content is very, very important. It’s hugely important. But it can also be supported or undermined by how you come over physically or vocally. I mean, like I just said, you might have great content on the stage, but if you look like a little ant wandering around up there, then forget that. People will just ignore you, which is a big problem in communication. It’s not disagreement, It’s being ignored. So it’s about getting people to realize that different arenas need different size of energy. Pushing them, basically, pushing them out of their comfort zone and sort of seeing what that looks like and what that feels like so that when they finally have to do it it doesn’t come as a major shock. There’s an analogy I use with people, which is a concept of having a barrel around you. Imagine that you sort of like are surrounded by a barrel. Now, on a screen like this, my barrel, when I’m talking to you, my barrel might be here (moves hands in front of his body at mid chest height). The idea is that you reach, you touch the sides of the barrel.

So for me, I might do this because if I was going (Exclaims the word and puts arms above his head) ‘Lawrie!’ You’d think, what the hell is that man doing on screen? I mean, if my barrel was that big, everyone watching and you would be going, has David gone completely insane. But if I was on stage, I’m that much further away. So I need to sort of get bigger and the barrel needs to expand. So that I can become bigger. Our company’s called The Story Spotters, Sarah Jane and my company’s called The Story Spotters and we need to remember that we are triggering stories through our behaviors. People are making a judgment about us.

They’re thinking, oh, that person’s like this. You can have control over that story by the performance energy that you bring to every single arena.

Lawrie Philpott: And is that also about a whole combination of things which are in the skillset of acting and in a sense, a corporate leader is delivering an act on stage.

And by performance energy, I’m thinking about eye contact, your degree of an emotion, the phrasing, it’s a bit like what they say about Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan’s music. Is okay. But it’s brilliant genius stuff. Because his great thing is the phrasing. And the use of silences and so on. And I’m reminded that when we’ve been doing some training of people, you get people to present in a whisper so that the whole idea of performance energy, and phrasing and animation are brought more to the front because artificially you’re whispering it. 

David Pullan: Well, exactly right. I mean, the interesting thing is that, you know, performance energy is not necessarily about waving your arms around and speaking loudly. I mean, it’s actually all of the things that you mentioned there, and I think that In fact, you can go to any theatre in the West End and you can see actors whispering on stage and you absolutely hear them at the back because, well, nowadays, as I say, because  they’re micd up. But even back in the old days, you, you could do, because of their intention, their intention to connect, that was why they were there.

It was like they didn’t see their communication as something that stays here. It had to reach the landing point. One of the things that I love getting people to think about is almost seeing themselves as their own subeditor. So if you think about, you know, a newspaper or indeed when people write documents get written up within the workplace, there are headlines, there are bylines, there is paragraphs, there’s white space on the page that draws you to where you’re meant to be looking.

There are pictures that tell a story. And within our spoken communication, we can do all of those. What are the headlines that you absolutely need to land? And pause. And then the byline that backs that up. And then your content. What’s the paragraphing on that? So that there are pauses between those that you actually go to.

And then what are the stories you’re telling? What are the pictures that you need to tell? How do you signpost it with the little, you know, the bits between the paragraphs, I mean. I think getting people into subedit mode is is as a presenter is, is quite powerful actually, when people think of it in that way.

Lawrie Philpott: Yeah. Two more big rules seem to me to be very important and to have under control in the communications presentation. Sense one is starting slowly. And the other is to think about breathing beforehand because it strikes me that people who can get past the first minute, maybe two minutes of a presentation and do that first two minutes right, then get into their stride.

And from then on enjoy the whole process and almost in a sense, need to be dragged off the stage, which they didn’t want to be on in the first instance. So starting slowly and pausing before you start those kind of things I think. 

David Pullan: Lawrie, I think that’s absolutely vi, I mean, if I come back to that point there about the people who start off well, enjoy it and have a good time and hard to drag them off the stage. What you remind me there of is a great friend of Sarah Janes called Sarah Winkles, who rode in the double skulls, I think it was in the Athens Olympics. I think won of bronze, sorry, Sarah, it might be a silver. But anyway, she won an Olympic medal. She’s one of those people.

And I remember talking to her about the double skulls and, and her saying, you know, when you are stint on the starting blocks, you know that in however many minutes time it is, you are going to be. Blind with agony, you’re going to be hanging over the side of the boat throwing up bile.

You can’t think about that. All you’ve gotta think about is your first three strokes. Get the rhythm, get the momentum, get the direction going. If you get the first three strokes right, the race sort of looks after itself. And I think what you are talking about here is for all of us. What are your first three strokes when you get on stage?

And it might be, it probably should be, breathe, pause, connect to the audience, decide you’re gonna tell a story that brings everyone into the same space and tell that story slowly and make people feel, here’s somebody who feels comfortable on stage because there’s an interesting thing here, I mean, it makes them feel good and it makes you feel good.

The way we hold ourselves and comport ourselves actually not only helps the audience, but it helps our brain sort of think, oh, I’m safe here. I don’t really need to worry about this. So I think your point is very well made. It’s about what are the first three strokes you are gonna use? As you get on stage or as you get on camera or you get in front of the journalist, whatever it is.

Lawrie Philpott: And I think for the most part, David, just before we move into the DNA of engagement is to say that for the most part, the audience wants you to succeed.

David Pullan:I think that’s absolutely true. I think that’s absolutely true. Yeah, they do. They want you to look after them.

There will always be the odd one out there who doesn’t, who is there to snipe? I mean, we’ve just been doing these global programs for a very big organization on internal storytelling, and we got the Excel spreadsheet with the feedback. And I’ll tell you what, Lawrie, we could have written it ourselves.

I mean, it’s the sort of thing if you wanted feedback, you’d write that for yourself, but there was one in there. Strongly disagree. Absolutely nothing new. And you think, actually, do you know what my attitude is? There’s always one. 

Lawrie Philpott: Yeah, absolutely. There’s always one. Absolutely. Absolutely. 

David Pullan: and actually if you try to please everyone.

You know, you get a big mark on your bum from sitting on the fence. 

Lawrie Philpott: Yeah, absolutely. All of those great things that we did, and that’s marvelous advice about communications on the stage and so on and so forth. Is the precursor then to the DNA of engagement, what on earth brought that on? 

David Pullan: Oh, Blimey. I’ve gotta say we were the people who never, ever wanted to write a business book. I mean, it was one of those things, I mean, does the world really need another business book? Most of which are a blog that got outta hand. And it was three things that brought it together really. Somebody on LinkedIn got in touch with me just because of my writing on LinkedIn had said, you’ve got a great tone of voice. You know, I mean, I think you should think about writing something, which was easy to dismiss and then the major thing was we were doing a very big piece of work with the insurer, Aviva because  Dame Amanda Blanc has been a massive supporter of me and Sarah Jane for many years now.

We were doing that with her, and it was around the change program internally when she slimmed the business down to the UK island in Canada, and she stood in front of her top 200 leaders and said, listen, this is the vision. I can’t do it myself. It’s up to you to have the conversations within the organizations.

So the other 22,000 people, as it was at the time, want to come on that journey. So Accenture got involved in the thinking space of that change program. We were brought on board to do the communications thing, and the DNA came out of that because it was about sort of painting the dream, connecting to other people’s goals, their dreams, pointing out the nightmares it got in the way about and agreeing on the actions that would go forward.

So that piece of work led to the actual framework. Then I met a wonderful woman called Debbie Jenkins, who’s a book coach in Spain and has her own publishing house. And she said, David, the thing you need to forget about is intellectual property. Start thinking about intellectual perspective.got, I She said, look at you, look at you. You’ve been around a few years now. You’ve experienced a number of things. It’s about bringing all of those things. Little like what you’ve always said, Lawrie, all of the things that you’ve experienced over the years together, what is your intellectual perspective on all that? So it was the marriage together on being told I had a tone of voice, being told that doing the work with Aviva and being told to think about intellectual perspective, that led to me writing the book Debbie Jenkins at Intellectual prospective.com publishing it this coming out and it being nominated for business book of the year this year.

Lawrie Philpott: which is marvelous. And, well done you guys.  

David Pullan: Thank you.

Lawrie Philpott: Because the discipline of writing a book is, and writing a good book, not the ones, whereas one that is good and people will read is really tough, so well done. 

It’s an interesting, it’s actually, it’s an interesting process though, Lawrie, especially when you have been around the block. Because  it makes you, it makes you really narrow down onto what you believe, what do you stand for?

And when you put it in writing. You do. You sort of think, oh no, this is where I am at the moment. This is what, this is what, how all of this comes together into my belief system. Interesting process. 

Lawrie Philpott: Yeah. And having been through the book and I really enjoyed it. That’s genuine. And I really did enjoy it.

David Pullan:Thank You.

Lawrie Philpott: There’s a lot in there about trust, isn’t there? I think in a sense we’re now going into a world where trust is under enormous pressure, truth is under enormous pressure. Arguably, we’re in a post-truth world. Regrettably, from my point of view, where are you coming from on the subject of trust?

David Pullan: Oh, blimey. Can I just say that I agree with all of that and we could do a whole other podcast on that. Trust is an interesting one. I mean, I know there are different models on this. I mean, I, as you know from the book, really love the, the, uh, the trust equation from the trusted advisor that Maister and Green came up with, which is credibility plus reliability plus intimacy divided by self-orientation.

And if we go through that, credibility and reliability are – Can you do your job? Yes, you can. You’ve got the degrees to prove it. And you’ve got – Do you do your job? Yes, you’ve got the track record. If you don’t tick those two, most leaders will tick those two because  they’re credible and reliable.

It’s why they’re leaders in the first place. The other two elements of intimacy and self-orientation are things that I think that we have an opportunity to control in the room or in the interaction because they are totally in the eye of the beholder and intimacy is about creating the space where people feel understood and they understand you.

It’s about creating this word psychological safety, which is used a lot at the moment. It’s the space where, where people do feel connected to. That’s what the intimacy is about. You want a big number on the top line there, and the bottom line with self-orientation is do you look and sound as if you’re doing this purely for yourself, or do you look and sound as if you’re doing this for the greater good or for a bigger goal?

Your orientation is to serve. There’s too much stuff about this, and it sort of can become a bit of a cliche, but I genuinely do believe in the concept of servant leadership. And I think that one of the things that law leaders need to think about is that they are holding the ladder up, which others can climb, and that is about the orientation out towards the other. So that’s where I come to with trust is get a big number on the top, reliability, credibility, and create that intimacy and a low number at the bottom on self-orientation. Make sure your orientation is out towards the others. Not self-orientation, it’s other orientation. 

The whole other area, the area of truth though is, yeah, I have literally no idea. I mean, these tools that we’re talking about today, Lawrie, are powerful. They’re really powerful and they can be used for good and they can be used for evil. And we’ve seen that. In the world today, it’s about taking an ethical stance and sort of thinking, why am I doing this?

Would I, would I want my granny to do what I’m suggesting here?

Lawrie Philpott: Yeah. And I always think that trust between two people, in the workplace trust that says, I trust you professionally, technically, administratively to do your job properly. Yeah. I also trust you interpersonally. I know bit exactly a bit about you, the inner you, the you outside of work, maybe a bit about your family or whatever.

And I also trust that you will do what you say. You are going to do and you’ll do it well.

David Pullan: You’re talking about reliability and intimacy right there, aren’t you? I mean, it’s interesting and you just reminded me actually. I often think about the stories that leaders can tell as sort of being public, personal and private and the public are the stories that they will tell every day. And they’re usually stories about the business. The personal are the ones where they might let it a little bit out about themselves or you know, about their family or something like that. And then there are the private ones, which they sort of hardly ever tell anyone.

And it might’ve been about big things that they’ve overcome that they’ve had to work on themselves. It hasn’t always been easy about them. And, and I think one of the roles as a story spotter for me is getting leaders to think about how can you elevate some of these private stories up to the personal so that you actually do let some of those out.

Because if you do let those, I call it about speaking from the scar, not from the wound and saying, you know, I went through this and it was tough. This is how I achieved it, or this is how I overcame that. Some of those really. Private stories become the ladders up, which others can climb.

Lawrie Philpott: Trust is pretty important. And storytelling, David, I am really intrigued with the new name, you know, the Story Spotters and I think getting stories from other people is a kind of interesting thing as well as understanding the power of your own stories? 

David Pullan: Oh, I think it’s absolutely vital. I mean, it is the bridge. I think in the book we refer to it as the API of humanity, the application planning interface, which is what makes things like Sky Scanner, get the airlines in the hotels talking together to actually create a great holiday for you. I mean, I think that stories are, are like that because they get humans with different agendas talking to each other and creating solutions and creating things that they would never have been able to. It’s arguably the sort of ancient technology that has allowed us to collaborate and combine into groups of people and rise way further up the food chain than we probably ever should have done.

If you just look at what we are made up of, I mean it’s, you know, it’s that ability to tell stories and collaborate. That has been the success of our species.

Lawrie Philpott: And I think it’s true just as we speak now, that whenever one of my clients was coming to see you, that the way in which you and I communicated was for me to tell you the story of the client.

David Pullan: For sure.

Lawrie Philpott: Literally their chronological story, but also the story of what they’re going through, which leads them to need the kind of advice and training that you give. 

David Pullan: I think that’s absolutely right, Lawrie. And I mean, I think the, one of the reasons why it was always a joy working with the people who you sent my way, is that I had a very clear picture, which they filled in as we worked together. I wanna talk about time and space a bit here. And this is a concept from my friend Charlotte Otter, who has just published a wonderful book called We Need New Leaders, and she did her masters in Change Management at Oxford Saïd and it was about this whole concept about creating the time and the space in order to build the trust and create that, that connection between people. And I think that that’s what I do is, that’s what. I appreciate about the people that were sent to me is I get the feeling that you created the time and space for people to be able to tell their story, which you could then pass on to me, which meant we had a really good grounding to work with these people. 

Lawrie Philpott: And final point there is that,I don’t wanna over blow it, but there is real joy when people realize the things that they need to do differently, more of, in order to communicate properly, and when they come back to see me, they’re just real joy because they’ve turned a number of corners, which are so important to this thing, which has frightened them at worse before. 

David Pullan: Oh, absolutely. That is sort of what gets me outta bed is watching people have those light bulb moments. I mean, I remember one guy actually who was, he was so good, but there was just something holding him back. And I remember we went for lunch and I started talking about, ah, you know, I’m trying to lose a bit of weight at the moment doctor says I should drop a few pounds. And he went. Oh yeah, me too. I mean, it’s hard, isn’t it? So we started talking about that over lunch. It pretty quickly became clear that one of the main things that was holding him back in presentation is he was trying to hold his tummy in. He was sort of like really masking behind the tummy.

And and I said to him afterwards, okay mate, what we’re gonna do first time back, I mean, when you do that thing you did before lunch, let’s do it now. The only thought I want you to have in your head is this – Look at my magnificent tummy, and he did the presentation again with his jacket open and full tummy, clothed I hasten to add, but full, full tummy display. Boy oh boy did it take the brakes off. I mean, he just completely shone when he realized the thing that was holding him back. 

Lawrie Philpott: One last thing on the DNA of engagement and to prove that I’ve read the book is there’s something in there called The only way is ethics. Which I think is a wonderful, wonderful line.

Do you want to just tell us what that is before we draw to a close? 

David Pullan: It is the last chapter. In fact, I’ll open it here. I mean, it is the last chapter and full disclosure, Lawrie, I couldn’t help myself. We just had to do it, which is terrible pun. The only way of ethics, and it comes back to our point about truth actually, and, and we talk about a few things here.

There’s a friend of ours in America called David Hutchins, who wrote a manifesto for ethical communication, which we absolutely believe in, and that’s in the book here. There’s also something called the Tears Test, which Sheri Baker and David Martinson developed and Tears stands for Truthfulness, Authenticity, Respect, Equity and Social Responsibility. And underneath those four, five subjects, indeed, there are about four bullet points in questions. That you can ask yourself before you even start to deliver your message. So I mean, if we just sort of very briefly, truthfulness the questions you ask yourself of, have I left out any important information?

If so, did I do it deliberately in order to misdirect the other party? Would I feel the message was complete if I heard it? So there are questions like that. It’s almost like an audit you can do on your messaging. If indeed, and I trust that all of your listeners will answer yes to this you care about truth.

Lawrie Philpott: David, four things to close off. First of all. A headline or two, maybe what you are sensing in the world of work at the moment. 

David Pullan: Don’t be  afraid of AI. AI can make you a better human being used well. And, and the best AI can do that, the best use of it. It isn’t a replacement for human beings. It can turn you into a better human being, and that’s what will make us successful. 

Lawrie Philpott: I think there’s a lot of anxiety out there about the pace of things. The pace of change. The effect of change, you know?  The old, old question, which I learned 40 years ago, you know, how does this affect me personally? It’s there for everybody. Because we’re all human. Your pet hate David?

David Pullan: People who take a long time to pay. 

Lawrie Philpott: And some of the biggest organizations are the biggest miscreants.

David Pullan: And actually, I’ll tell you an interesting one as well, Lawrie, on that point, people who want something for nothing.so this happened very recently to me. I told a friend of mine, oh, we got an old call from a very big organization wanting to say, would you like to collaborate on a storytelling project?

He said, be careful of that word collaboration. It sounds like they want it from nothing. And I said, they’re huge. They’re not gonna do that. Lo and behold, they wanted it for nothing. And he said to me, it’s a bit like that situation when you’re a kid. When the kid next to you says, do you wanna share my lunchbox?

And you look in their lunchbox, it’s absolutely rubbish. He said, whatever you do, don’t get lunchboxed. 

Lawrie Philpott: Got it. Then your secret passion, David, the thing that you just always look forward to and enjoy, marvelously. 

David Pullan: I absolutely adore travel and I particularly adore travel with Sarah Jane. We’ve got this, we’ve got this project that one day we might kick off if we can, called toga travel too old gits abroad, which is, where we, always try to go to somewhere different and what we’ll do is we’ll go to a restaurant that we find, and then when we are in there, we’ll say to the people who are serving us, said, listen, where would you go next? Where would you eat next? Or where do you think we should see? And so it’s actually about sort of uncovering the stories within a situation. So you don’t plan everything out, just sort of listen to people. Yeah. A a a bit of, bit of traveling. Traveling, not blindly, traveling with curiosity. That’s my passion, I love that. 

Lawrie Philpott: Great stuff. And finally. Your advice to your 20-year-old self, 

David Pullan: It’s all gonna be okay in the end. But you have no idea what the end might be.

Lawrie Philpott: What a fabulous thought. I love it. David. David, as usual, and we’ve had lots of conversations before, but as usual, this has been a wonderful conversation. I think massively helpful to the Leadership Listening subscribers and very, very good to see you this morning.