Paul Edginton: 0:00

If you're going to constantly iterate a business and constantly reinvent it, but not lose its core competence, you have to be able to manage pain. Culture change, and strategy is a contact sport. It's not any it's absolutely. belly to belly Ottawa. So any, any CEO or person purporting to be a leader who goes away, designs a strategy or a plan, sends an email or creates a glossy brochure, or puts it on the website and expects all staff to read it and then go along with it is diluted. Clarity is not certainty. Yeah, there's a big difference between it's always been clear, as always communicating and always communicating what you're seeing and adjusting and adjusting and adjusting, right. It's not certainty The only certainty is, things will go wrong, and we will fight about it.

Daniel Franco: 1:04

Hey there, my name is Daniel Franco. And this is the creating synergy podcast your business and leadership podcast where we speak to high profile leaders and thinkers about their careers and dig deep by asking the questions we all want the answers to uncovering their stories, strategies, leadership lessons, and their secrets to success. Today on the show, we have the great man Paul Edginton, CEO of Vinomofo, and also well known for his 18 and a half year stint as CEO of s yc. Limited. So Paul's a great thinker, a strategist and a business leader, and he talks to us about his journey and his learning experiences as CEO and how he led SYC to become one of the largest and most innovative for purpose organisations in Australia. So he is an advocate for change and evolution in business. And today we discussed the importance of communication as a leader, the art of accountability. And we also discussed the growth of the E commerce sensation vinomofo, which I must say, is the only place that I will buy my wine. Last but not least, we also touched on some real life scenarios that have played out in many organisations and Paul shared his thoughts on how he would deal with them if he was a leader that was involved. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Paul Edgington. So welcome back to the creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco. today. We've got the great man Paul Edginton on the show CEO of vinomofo, previously CEO of SYC. For 18 plus years and a former entrepreneur of the year as well. Yep. Excellent. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Pretty, pretty pretty. There's a lot of experience in your, in your career, there's and everything that I know about you and everything, every conversation we've had to date, I've almost written every word that's come out of your mouth down. I'd love to just hear and the listeners might want to learn a little bit more about your your growth to where you were and how you started. And you know, started off with a few little startups and in early in your career, and then and then you found your way into CC being a CEO. It'd be interesting to learn a little bit more about your your growth and your journey through your career.

Paul Edginton: 3:29

Sure. I started off when I left school wanting to be a journalist. So I studied really hard to get into journalism school at McGill, which back in those days was the only bachelor of journalism you could get into. So it was people from around the country fought to get in there. So I worked really hard to get in there and within, and that's because I liked writing and I liked listening to people and I like people's stories. But I didn't like journalism when I got in it, which is be careful. Yeah, no, say that. But I, I then I transferred to communications at McGill, which, again, back then, at this a long time ago. But back back then. Communications is what the people who didn't get into journalism did. So it was kind of like this. What are you doing going backwards? Yeah. But it wasn't backwards at all. My dad had said to me, in the future communications and having good communication skills will be more important than it's ever been before. And this was he was saying this in the 80s before the internet, well, podcasts and all those sort of things. But he he thought it was really important. So I did communications. And then while I was studying, of course I worked like lots of students do.

Daniel Franco: 4:56

I want Can I just pick on the communications thing? What was it What were some of the things that really stood out for you in that, you know, in your communications?

Paul Edginton: 5:05

Study, the one that still sticks with me all this time later is critical thinking, and professional writing. So I see so many people that cannot structure their thoughts and communication in a way that they often do it either chronologically forward or reverse, as opposed to what is the impact that I'm trying to have, or the Insight I'm trying to convey? And then structuring it that way. And also using poorly constructed language, so lots of cliche or, or terms like that. So not communicating properly? Yeah. So they were but critical thinking and Professional Writing, were the two things that really struck out for me, because I was, I have a higher capacity for abstract reasoning. So for me, it was a a challenge that have this racing mind and all these ideas, and then not being able to communicate them or translate them was had been something that if I hadn't have done communications would have frustrated me to tears. Yeah,

Daniel Franco: 6:26

I reckon you're right. I think it's a big gap, you see, especially in leadership, that they have brilliant minds, right. They've ended up where they are, but the inability to take what's in their brain and put it in a way that people can understand. I think those who can do that, well generally succeed more so don't they?

Paul Edginton: 6:43

Yeah, this even the discipline of slowing down that what you're thinking and pacing itself, type one thinking so fast thinking reactive thinking and then matching it with slow thinking to go. So how do the two match is just is really important. And also then being able to help others do that to slow them down or, you know, the, in some, some people have a really strong fairness gene. So you see them soon as something that they think is not right. Or not correct. Or insults them. Up comes the media are nice, like, I'm going to do this anything. Okay. That's good. Is that the outcome you're looking for? No, but okay. So after about something nonsensical come out here, right. It doesn't make any sense to what, what are you actually looking to achieve? And they don't they're thinking in terms of, yeah, but I'm insulted by that. Yeah, big deal for you.

Daniel Franco: 7:47

And I need that righteousness coming out of me. I need to, they need to know what

Paul Edginton: 7:52

I need to understand. I need to understand I do though. Yeah, exactly. It that might be a great aspiration might be a good thing along the way. But what's the outcome you're trying to achieve? And, and it's that slowing down and reconstructing and going what's actually the outcome you're trying to achieve? As opposed to the What are you feeling right now? And what are you reacting to?

Daniel Franco: 8:12

What's going on inside you?

Paul Edginton: 8:14

So it doesn't mean don't react? Yeah, sometimes you programme today said

Daniel Franco: 8:17

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking Fast and Slow. Yeah, I love that. All right. So sorry, we digress back into your right.

Paul Edginton: 8:25

Yeah, when I got into from uni I I worked in pizza shops. dialer, Dino's back in those days, and I started, you know, when I was 16. Got my driver's licence, delivered pizzas. Brilliant. And as a 16 year old, I was like, I think I can I can run this place. Yeah. So

Daniel Franco: 8:48

was that just was that the arrogance from a 16 year old?

Paul Edginton: 8:51

Of course it was. Maybe go to school anyway, you already knew everything. So, but I, you know, I liked I liked working and I liked it. So then I became, I watched the the owner of the store manager. And like, just watch everything you did. Like I can do that. And then increasingly, he let me do that. And then I found that I was managing people older than me as a 16 and 17 year old and found that equally, like super interesting. The craft of doing that super interesting. I wasn't very good at it. Because I was 16 everything Yeah, realise that people don't just do as you tell them just because you're the boss. Yeah, in fact some people go the other way if you don't get that right so but I yeah, I I did that and then I worked in a Photoshop as well. And then I started doing some photography for car yards that like along Main North Road Back in those days, for we had car sales and all Well that you had car ads in newspapers. Yeah, yeah. And the photos are pretty crummy. They weren't good. And so I started taking photos of cars for the car yards. And I love cars. And B, I was like, this is this side hustle, which wasn't called side hustle back. And it's just taught me a lot about a people would pay a lot if you were able to do something better. And they could do it for themselves. Yeah. And so you offered value for doing. And if that value meant that they could sell cars, either more quickly, or at a better price, because you made them look better. So again, oh, by this stage, I was maybe 21. Yeah. I, I'd spent a year, I'd spent a year trying to sell cinema advertising and doing the really hard going through the Yellow Pages, calling businesses trying to sell cinema. So

Daniel Franco: 11:00

you learn a little bit of your sales craft very early in

Paul Edginton: 11:03

really early. Yeah. And that hustle, and you have to get a thicker skin and be ready to put yourself out there and all of those sorts of things. So that was my first business was doing photography.

Daniel Franco: 11:16

And it's brilliant. It's brilliant that you saw that idea, though, like I think or is it did. I mean, was it something's like,

Paul Edginton: 11:22

it feels like it was more opportunistic than that. It was like, yeah, these guys. And it was it's a trait that I guess I still have. That both amuses and terrifies. My wife is just sort of being fairly frank. Not in a rude way, I hope but these guys were coming in and bringing their photos in. And I was like, Is this for the newspaper? Is it? Yeah, and they go, why is not very good. No, no. And, and, you know, some people would rather say, Get lost, or other people go when one guy said we could you do better? Course I could. Yeah, I had no idea. Yeah. No, I wish I could. But I was like, it couldn't be worse than what you think a slightly better camera than what you've got. Yeah. Yeah. So with some different perspectives. Yeah. So and I read some photography books, and I got a camera and when you did it better. So it was more opportunistic.

Daniel Franco: 12:20

Were you interested in photography at all? Is this like this?

Paul Edginton: 12:22

I work in a photoshop. Yeah, yeah. I was had sort of

Daniel Franco: 12:26

you had that interest there. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Just a quick note, this episode is brought to you by Synergy. IQ leaders in enabling change. Synergy IQ are the ones you call when the change or challenge seems so complex, and you don't know where to start. But more importantly, were the ones you call when you want to make a change that will actually last if you want to check them out. It's at Synergy. iq.com. Today, you. So tell me that that thing grew and then you've you've then gone on to starting another company after that?

Paul Edginton: 12:57

Well, again, I went to I went to Sydney with photography, not with my photography, business, but still it was doing. Back in those days a pixie photo and portrait place. It was like, you know, and I was managing stores there. And then I became an area manager, and they asked me to come to Sydney. And I moved to Sydney, having never visited there. landed there just said Yes. Yep. And again, that probably been a theme throughout my career is sort of like starting with Yes. And then figuring after that, yeah, the Richard Branson model, isn't it? Yeah, well, I didn't know what at the time was just like, but also, my, my Scottish grandmother would say things like, don't ask poor people how to make money. So I went over to Sydney, I work with those guys. Then in that there was that period in the 90s, where every middle manager in the world was made redundant through TQM and all of that flat management structure stuff. So I'd moved to Sydney and nine months later, I found myself redundant and going home. I can't even afford to go home, let alone leave here. But I went to a an interview, to work in a company called US UK called Australian Border ventures, but it had it was backed by a guy called Peter Ritchie who was the guy who was the chairman at the time of McDonald's. Bob Mansfield, who was the CEO of Fairfax and Bob Joss, who was the CEO of Westpac. We're all investors in this business. So your grandma's words were coming into your head. Yeah. And I was like, I'll do anything. Yeah, to just work around these people. Yeah, yep. So I worked with them and learned a bit about the business didn't go all to plan and so that was something that I learned was like, even the big guys Don't get it right first time. By that stage, I was 24. And I foolishly sort of said, Here's what I think you should have done. I gotta look at it guy is 24 year old. Yeah. Well, here's what you should have done. Yeah,

Daniel Franco: 15:15

yeah. But 16 year old self was coming back. Yeah.

Paul Edginton: 15:18

But fortunately, Pete Ritchie said, Alright, will you do it, then? And so I set up a thing called Edge marketing propriety, my first proper company. And I did the domestic side of the water filtration business that he and the guys still own. While they still did the commercial side, and got that up and going, he used to always say to me, make sure you've got an exit strategy. And I never understood what that meant, at the time. Why would I want to get out, I'm trying to build an empire that my kids can use. In the Sydney water crisis happened, and our sales went through the roof. And you could see every man and his dog then wanted to sell water filters. So there's all this competition now piling into the marketplace. And I was like, This is what exit strategy means. Because now, instead of selling water filters, I should be in the business of selling water filtration businesses. Yeah. And so I was like, and my daughter came along, as well. So I sold the business back into the main business and came back here and in South Australia and moved home. Yeah, brilliant. So got out. But that was an amazing experience for a really, at a young age to work around those guys and understand what he invested in my business. So managing investors in your business. Even understood, like I just hadn't hadn't had no previous exposure to any of that stuff. What did it what did it grow to, like from a people perspective or not? We only we only really grew from me to 20 people. Yeah, so it wasn't massive. Yeah. And was still a reasonable size. Yeah, we grew from like zero to a couple of million dollars in a couple of years from scratch. So it wasn't like it wasn't a conglomeration, but for somebody in his 20s moved somewhere. Where did he'd never visited before? It was, for me, it was really empowering. Really good. I got ripped off. Like I remember when we were, gosh, as the business started taking off. We put out built all our margins on floating these things from America to Australia. Then we needed them overnight, so we started flying them. And it costs more to fly. Yeah. I had my own plumbers doing the installations. But then when the water crisis happened, we needed to go from two plumbers to 20 plumbers. So we started employing plumbing companies, and having pallets of filters delivered to their plumbing warehouse. And then that half of them disappeared. And the guys that we had employed to do it were like, well, we don't, I never arrived. So I learned about picking, packing, fulfilment, tracking all that stuff. It was so naive. I was just like, Yeah, but you'll be good guys deliver. They will. They will flaunt one free for themselves before they install

Daniel Franco: 18:23

You learned those lessons in the E commerce world it. So now. Well, world now wouldn't you.

Paul Edginton: 18:28

exactly back then you are, of course its just like learning that same thing. And myself. You know, this is why my dad never wanted me to be a tradesman. Because I'd have no fingers left. That was one off and go, I don't know how that happened. But another one, I've got a suspicion, it's that by the third want to be like, and now I'm only got one left.

Daniel Franco: 18:47

Brilliant. So then so from from the filtration, you come back to Adelaide, what happened then?

Paul Edginton: 18:52

So then I did some work with two people called Kate Costello and Peter Harris in a small consulting firm called Profilers. And they were amazing. I learned so much from them, and they, working with them. Again, when you think about this in 1999, their aspiration was to build a customer survey tool and a staff survey tool for to do online surveys. Now 99 Lots of people didn't even have email addresses. So and we're on dial up speed. So online surveys that we do now much survey monkeys, whatever, no big deal. And I remember speaking to the in 2000, speaking to the founder of Survey Monkey going, so how are you charging and how are you? You know, building your surveys and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. And pretty much every decision that we made was different from this. Even the name right back again this is SARS now is is everybody knows SARS is Coronavirus, and all of that sort of stuff. So, but in 2000, nobody heard of SARS. So ours was called the survey and Reporting System, or SARS for short. This was a stupid name called Survey Monkey. Anyway, it started from the like, everything was not right. Yeah. The idea, though, was amazing and visionary. Just not executed. Well, yeah. But we did that. And so after we did that for a couple of years, and it didn't work out. And then I joined SYC for a year. And Mike, it was one of those things of like, joining a not for profit was the antithesis of everything I thought I was going to do in my career.

Daniel Franco: 20:52

Yeah. So what drew you to go there?

Paul Edginton: 20:59

It was, for personal reasons. My my, I went through a relationship breakdown, and thought I just need to do something nice for the world for a year and work out. Yeah. Work out. Yeah, and work, work myself out. So but my job then was they just merged with another entity. And my job was to pretty much come in, sell the assets of the bit that they acquired to get the money back, and then shut down part of it, and then grow in another part of it or leave. So that part was called, it was a training business. And they had the previous owners of that business had bought these massive machines that nobody needed, or use. So I sold them off, and then started building the training business, sacked all of the customers, he was funny. Going through and sacking most of the customers. And the people in the business at the time. Were like, you can't sack all the customers where revenue comes from. So yeah, there's lots of revenue, there's no profit. They're all like we spend more serving them than we make. Yeah. So we will be more profitable if we sack everybody. And you stay home. Yeah. And that was this crazy. not for profits. Don't talk like that. No. And then what's the point? And so i think

Daniel Franco: 22:25

what that impact, right? That's what

Paul Edginton: 22:27

But I wasn't. My language, then was still this sharp commercial language that was like, you idiots don't really know what you're doing because you don't make any money. It was just such a, it was. I really thought that that was clever. And it was just such an ass. Yeah, I really was an ass, then I was thought that. Being commercially savvy and talking tough and doing these tough things meant you're good at business. And that was one of those things were like a funny, I've got this sharp tongue and a broken down relationship but might be me. Yeah. Where's the mirror? Yeah, it might be me. And SYC taught me gave me the opportunity to learn a lot about the way I thought about running businesses and enterprise, the way I thought about the world around me thought about growth and all of those different things and gave me the opportunity to do that. And I was there for my one year contract was turned over 18 times after that. I need more time.

Daniel Franco: 23:35

So did you move in as a CEO in your first you know, you

Paul Edginton: 23:38

just came in as a, I came in as a general manager of this ancillary business? Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 23:44

So when was it when you became the CEO? How long until about two years,

Paul Edginton: 23:47

just under two years. And the then CEO, resigned, and the chairman rang and asked me to if I would do it. And I said, No, yeah, that's not what I do. Yeah. But I said, I would care take while I found somebody else. And then once I got into it, and I found, we just had so much to do, there was just so much to do. And I remember saying to the Chairman, I know I'll stay and he said, No, no, you don't get to do that. Like you now have to go through the interview process with everybody else. Which was really good. For me in the sense of, again, it was another one of those cool your jets you are not as good as you think you are. Prove it. So I went through the interview process. Obviously, I got the job. It wasn't till much later that I found out from the chairman, as he retired to say there were two experienced CEOs and I was 33 at that stage, and these were experienced CEOs who applied for the job but they. I got it.

Daniel Franco: 24:58

What was it about you that they saw

Paul Edginton: 24:59

I buy that, like I really cared about it. And I really had a very clear picture of what they needed to do if they wanted to do the kind of things that they wanted to. So that's why SYC at its heart was about homelessness in young people and helping young people experiencing homelessness. And I had a very clear view, which at that start at that time and not for profit world was less fashionable than it is now. But I had a very clear view that if you could not help, you can't help disadvantaged people, if you're disadvantaged yourself, as an organiser, if you're struggling to make payroll, and you can't pay the best people, then you can't do the best job. So you should stop saying you can do the best job or do a better job. And I had a very clear view. And fortunately, our Chairman and the board had that view as well. And we were very aligned for a long period of time. And we were very successful, which was, which his great.

Daniel Franco: 26:08

did, right, I think, from what I have read and understood it took it from a half million turnover to 30 odd

Eloise Hall: 26:13

Yeah. million in your in your time, is that correct?

Paul Edginton: 26:17

No? Well, it was our, our balance sheet value was 427 members assets value was 429,000. And we were facing a deficit of 600,000 in the budget. So that's kind of numbers that didn't stack up. But

Daniel Franco: 26:36

so it's really non for profit.

Paul Edginton: 26:38

Taking that a bit too seriously at that stage. But, but really, I mean, this was an organisation that had a really strong sense of identity and a really strong sense of purpose. And a really good purpose. Yeah, um, but had gone earnestly broke every decade of its existence. Because it was so passionate about its cause. But was, so we grew it. And not just me, but it was I was fortunate that I was the CEO at the time with good board and good people around me. We grew that to nearly $80 million in ad revenue, and the balance sheet of the industry. Okay. And by the time I finished Yeah, that took a took a while. But that was I mean, I was very fortunate to both be in that role and have a fantastic board. And

Daniel Franco: 27:29

no doubt. I mean, that's what we'll go into a bit later on. It's all about building the right quality team. But what what I think, for me, even just from my own experiences, growing pains are always, always happening. And this is constant iteration. And you and I have spoken before us the terminology. You know, how do you update the plane when it's flying? Right. And I just, I found that so profound it just because I'm a visual person, so that just hit me it is correct. How do you how do you constantly iterate? How do you grow? How do you take? How do you create a bigger plane while it's in mid flight, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts of how you took s yc. What was some of the areas in which you, you concentrated on most early on, and then then as it grew, stabilised that out and focused on, you know, really honing in on those areas and making him world class.

Paul Edginton: 28:23

The, the key to that story, if I start with a word that you just use, which is which was pain, and there's a there's a, if you're going to constantly iterate a business and constantly reinvent it, but not lose its core competence. You have to be able to manage pain. Because what I mean by that is cognitive dissonance. So having an idea in your head of one way of being, while at the same time, not disrupting your current way of being is often opposing thoughts. Yeah. And in psychology, that's called cognitive dissonance. Yeah. Another way of expressing cognitive dissonance is mental anguish. Yeah. So if, in situations of mental anguish, most people have an amygdala hijack over that, and they want to move away from the pain, yeah, because pain equals bad. But if you can tolerate it, and support other people to tolerate ambiguity, and that mental anguish, you can actually have the move and redesign all the reason why people don't and wouldn't redesign a plane mid flight is because most of the people on the plane would tell you that's crazy. And it's dangerous. And here's all the reasons you want. Yeah. Why. And so you get caught in inertia. So the first thing to notice as the leader of the businesses, it's your job, to, to coax, coerce whatever it is to, to not destroy inertia, because there's a reason why those people are wanting you, but at the same time not to make it safe for them to move away from inertia. And first of all, you've got to recognise who it is that's causing it. A lot of the time. People think that inertia or stubbornness or or not changing is by the ignorant and the indolent. And the people that don't are afraid sign. Yeah. Only one of those statements is correct. And that's the afraid they're generally the longest serving smartest, most articulate loyal people. Yeah, they're the ones that genuinely cause inertia. You go, why would they do that? So because if you change the business, or you change the organisation, with experienced people who've got their jobs and their way of working, and you want to change it, you're moving their power base. Correct. And people will do almost anything for that not to happen. Yeah. So they, they will hold

Daniel Franco: 31:17

because they have all their plans. And now out in the open, and they're really Yep.

Paul Edginton: 31:21

And they're open for criticism. Yeah. And, and criticism hurts. So if you really want to change things change the organisation, if you can, you know, was it Tony Abbott that use the phrase of crash, you know, crash through or whatever? Yeah, you can. Yeah, you can crash through things. But when you crash through things, you'll leave a steaming pile of mess. Yes. Right. Yeah. That's, that's, that's tough. But stupid. Yeah. If you're, if you're, if you want to build something that's iteratively, sustainably growing and large and built to built to last. So the at SYC, I realised very quickly, because I, I listened to them that the social science professionals there kept saying you cannot use the language that you use was because I kept, you know, I kept talking about, you know, we've got to make money. And we've got to do this. And we've got to be efficient and all this. Yeah, that's not all that there is.

Daniel Franco: 32:29

so that was outside of the realms of what a nonprofit should be speaking about, wasn't it? At the

Paul Edginton: 32:33

time? Yeah. And it was right. And I just kept saying, Yeah, but you can't go broke either. Yeah. And they're like, Well, you're the CEO, if you sought that out. And I, yeah, that is, that's actually my job to figure out what's the ambidextrous challenge of, of on one hand, being reliable, and the same, and at the same time, being innovative and different. At exactly the same time, and making those two things coexist. Yeah. And making people hard nosed commercial people work with hard nosed social science, people who, most times don't coexist. But if you can make that coexist by building a holding, and maintaining and encouraging relationships and ways of thinking, and always challenging those ways of thinking to be to say, You're not wrong, you don't have to be sick to get better. You're not wrong. You're just not right. Yeah. And having the answer is a futile exercise. Having an answer for now. is good enough. Yeah. Keep moving. Yeah,

Daniel Franco: 33:49

I've always had this idea, though, like, it's a typical sales analogy, but it's also commercial from a commercial point of view, like if you if you're not willing to grow and invest and, and, you know, and make money, right? Or if you're not willing to sell, then you forfeit the right to make an impact. Yeah, like that's, it's kind of like you cannot have an impact, you know, how to start a non for profit, or social enterprise business and want to change the world. But just in the hope that people buy into the cause, there has to be some revenue that sort of turns this over.

Paul Edginton: 34:25

Also, hope is a is an interesting word, it particularly it gets thrown around and not for profit, as well hope and there's that famous line of hope is not a strategy. So there's lots of and I the thing that I was really good at is is I really cared about the aspiration for helping homelessness and people experiencing homelessness or unemployment. But the bit that I think I brought was saying, okay, so rather than hope this is going to happen Let's back solve how is going to happen? Let's imagine, imagine it working. If you could wave a magic wand, what do you want to do? And how and what do you want to achieve? And let's back solve from there. And then go. So what's your, what's your programme logic? What's your? What's your? What if you've got a pro, if you've got an outcome in mind, and a programme logic, then in mind, then what are the core competencies that needs to be true to make that work? And we'd backs solve from that all the time, like so. It's great that you've got this soaring language and the soaring idea and all that sort of stuff. Let's tell me when do you think how long would it take you to do that? Yeah, let's back solve and just being able to break break it down into its component pieces, but not then not breaking it down into so what is the work people dive straight into? So what is the work? As if problem solving, create something? Very rarely? I would wager, very rarely will you meet someone who's really successfully built some thing? Who says that problem solving is how they got their problem solving. Just renovate? Yeah, a shitty idea makes it look better. Yeah. Solution creation, is when you sit in, sit in problems. And rather than just try and solve each one that happens to go to look for patterns in all of those problems. And this is the ambidextrous challenge, right? If there are problems that are dangerous, better employ people to solve them. Solve them real quick. Yeah, you don't have to solve all of them. And you don't have to have everyone in the business jump in the hole every time they see it. It's like, like, yeah, just send Daniel for that one. Yeah, the rest of us stay here and stay calm, correct? Yeah. You see that chaotic, kind of, like management all the time. But it just lacks leadership lacks vision, it lacks communication, and it lacks care.

Daniel Franco: 36:59

So I want to I'm super curious about your role as a CEO and the journey that you went on, you know, you've come from a 16 year old that believes he can run, you know,

Paul Edginton: 37:11

I have a piece of paper that actually they said, I'm gonna be 16

Daniel Franco: 37:16

million. I love it. So you have this issue on that? How did it feel when you finally became a CEO?

Paul Edginton: 37:28

When I first when I first had the title, CEO, I thought it was fantastic.

Daniel Franco: 37:34

Yeah. So because like, did you still have the piece of paper? Or? Yeah, yeah, would you carry it around in your wallet or something?

Paul Edginton: 37:41

I carry it, I had it. I added in a wooden box with some toy cars that I'd kept from when I was a kid and some wheat picks

Daniel Franco: 37:50

that they used to have. We expect we can edit that out if

Paul Edginton: 37:54

I still had it in a box. Brilliant.

Daniel Franco: 37:57

That's so good. You set yourself we go I love that. And that's vision areas finest so

Paul Edginton: 38:02

So I became a CEO. And and I thought it's funny, I thought at that stage. A couple of things. One was, this is the start. Not like, this is the start for me. And it was and it was a big responsibility. Yeah. I also thought, what I noticed, because I'm a short guy wears glasses, though, you know. So people started paying attention that otherwise weren't paying attention before. I was suspicious. Yeah. And I but I took the responsibility really, really seriously. But I remember another thing thinking of like, but this isn't a proper CEO. And that plague that sort of doubt plagued me for the first few years of doing a particular when I was a CEO of when I was CEO of SYC going? Yeah, but I'm not this is not what I had this narrative. This is what I do. So this isn't really being a CEO. And

Daniel Franco: 39:11

where does that harsh criticism come from? I have the same thing. We've got this beautiful new office people walking in the first thing I say it's not finished yet. Like why? Why is it that we have that continuous criticism that just carries off in our head?

Paul Edginton: 39:27

Interesting. I used to ask that question along as well. And the same person that told me the same person that told me just stop being a proper CEO then was the same person who said Stop Don't do why Yeah. Like this is constant. Why am I doing that? Why don't stop doing why what does it matter? It's just you just be a bit sapping a prophecy. Yeah. And

Daniel Franco: 39:58

but what's the why question When you say,

Paul Edginton: 40:00

so don't do why as in, so why am I like that? Why? Why am I not satisfied with that? You're gonna Yeah, your brain will answer that question, you will come up with stupid answers. Yeah. And it's irrelevant is irrelevant. Yeah. It's not irrelevant if you are constantly like when I was constantly having challenges when I was a young leader, sort of having challenges with people not following me sort of gonna be like, Look, this is very clear path, it's really obvious What's matter with you. Yeah. Maybe the matter with me is I didn't collaborate with them at all, or bring them along, or they didn't, I didn't care about their why, they coming along all of that sort of stuff. But I think the the, the thing that I became really clear on as I was asking, I would constantly asked myself, Why was I doing that? Why was and you do this thing? And I still do it. Now. Why did you say that? Why did you do that?

Daniel Franco: 41:02

It's like going off in my head every day,

Paul Edginton: 41:04

beating yourself to death. It's like, Stop doing that. Like, it doesn't mean don't interrogate reality, don't hindsight review. Don't all that. But don't do this thing where you're like, Oh, I'm such an idiot. Why do I say this? Like, I just get that sometimes I'll go, I might have been a bit Frank there. Or, you know, I also learned through SYC, that I glare at people when I'm listening really intently to handle him. But the the thing, the thing, when I got the advice of stop doing this, I'm not a proper CEO, and just be a proper CEO. The moral of that, for me was to a two words that stick in my mind all the time, refuse and decide. And so what he was saying was, if you always wanted to be a CEO, and now you're one, but now you're undermining it by saying I'm not a proper one, just decide that you are and then decide to be a better one. And I thought, you know, you're hiding this self doubt. Yeah. Where you you're saying, Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm doing this sort of worthy thing by questioning and not being too arrogant and not being the No, you're not you're really hiding, just decide that you weren't in

Daniel Franco: 42:23

it. i It's a lightbulb moment. Is this guy gone off in my head? It's an excuse in case things go wrong, isn't it? I was never a proper CEO anyway, like, yeah,

Paul Edginton: 42:33

I was learning I was just, and, and then as as people, then start saying, well, then you're not see you're not really properly a CEO. Because experienced CEOs do X, Y, and Z. You go, Well, of course, I can't make experience happen any faster. You tell me. Yeah. Most of the time. People are telling you don't know. Yeah, it is.

Daniel Franco: 42:59

It's so funny. Like yesterday, we had a board meeting, right. And for synergy IQ, the business that I run, and I sat in the room, and it's the first time like, I've been CEO, me MD, whatever my title is in that space. And I I remember thinking I was like, you know, every time every extra dollar this business makes, it's the biggest business I've ever run every time we hire a new person. It's the biggest business I've ever run. I've never, I'm learning and I'm iterating. I'm trying to figure this out as I go along. You know, is the board pack? Right? Is everything like is what you know, and there's so much I put so much pressure on myself. And it was the two people on our advisory board yesterday. That said, then, like, you're doing well, like, have you ever walked into a boardroom and everything's been so smooth and so perfect? You guys like so there was just this? Oh, okay. Because yeah, real frantic. You want to do everything perfect. You want to impress people, your ego comes into play. What are people thinking about me? Am I doing this? Right? And there's so many internal emotions.

Paul Edginton: 44:10

You know, when you get you get someone say I'm deeply suspicious when people says it's because I'm a perfectionist. Yeah. Are you? Are you that's a really good way to hide. Yeah, because being a perfectionist means you can't really criticise me for getting something wrong. Because I know it was young, but I was working on Okay, so relax. Yeah, being a perfectionist means that you have this really big challenge of perfection being the enemy of progress, and you're really liable to get stuck all the time. Yeah. As opposed to going that's I like excellence like that. Excellent. That's as good as I can do. My job now is to find somebody who's more excellent than me at that. And I'll just keep moving rather I'm getting bored because I used to get stuck.

Daniel Franco: 45:02

Did you ever when you got stuck? Did you ever think to yourself like, I'm not cut out for this? Like all the time? Yeah, I still do you still do. Yeah. Is that something that ever goes? Not? And why is that? Is it that in turn is Yeah. Yeah. Why? Because there are some people who don't have that, or am I just in belief that they don't have that?

Paul Edginton: 45:21

I? I don't know the answer to that. Yeah. I, I see lots of people that don't want to? I don't know, for sure. They just have different priorities. For me, though. It's, it's like that worked. That could work better. Yeah. And then, if that worked better than what other people do, am I doing is that is what I'm doing better than anybody else? And so it's just that, whether it's a bit of competitiveness, or or Yeah, it's all of those different things, or it's the you wanting to do well, like, for because you know, from what in your upbringing, you you've been told you need to do better, or it's a combination of all of those sort of things. Yeah, you get to a point where you are at peace with the fact that it's not that I'm unhappy. It's just that I'm not satisfied with that. But it used to be that you get lots of people saying, I just want to be happy, which sets his polarity that unhappiness is a bad thing. Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 46:34

Or how to bad happiness is a fleeting thing, isn't it? Like you can,

Paul Edginton: 46:39

I'm happy every day. And I'm glad for that. But again, that's that's the thing you decide when you wake up in the morning. Yeah, it's not something you sort of go hope today makes me happy, right? Seriously? Yes, decided. And you'll be surprised at the end of the day that you are,

Daniel Franco: 46:56

I mean, being a CEO, is different, difficult role, right. And there's, there's a lot of moving parts. And it creates a lot of anxieties. And it can create a lot of, you know, self focus, like internal sort of focus. And

Paul Edginton: 47:13

if you've decided to be a CEO, you've also decided you can soak up more stress than just about anybody know, right.

Daniel Franco: 47:20

It's pretty tough on nearly enchanting, yeah, does take take over. What I'm really interested in is, like, out of those anxieties metrics are one thing that I find myself getting attached to, whether it's revenue, whether it's the constant trend of app, and I really attached myself and to those metrics, and when they're not going the way that I that I would like them to, then I start, I start feeling that in my myself, right? And is there a is there a metric outside of revenue that you sort of concentrated in and honed in on like, was it culture? Was it? I don't know. It's something that you did outside of work, was there something that you honed in on to help you level out that playing field in there in regards to I need to deliver and consistently deliver, and every time I get a win, I'm not going to celebrate it because we can still do this and we can still get better. And there's still more to do. And the finish line never is just keeps not getting further and further away. But every sort of increment, it just keeps stretching out? So how did you manage that thought process in your

Paul Edginton: 48:33

there's so much in that, that the, the whether there's a whole bunch of measures that you use and use interchangeably, whether it's whether it's your p&l, whether it's your sales performance, whether it's your leading indicators, your lagging indicators, with your balance sheet, your cash flow whether it's culture and we'll come back to measuring culture, this idea of measuring culture, whether it's risk, whether it's health and safety, whether it's you've got all of these different measures. And often people say but what's the most important one? Okay, so there's a phenomena here that you're looking for and that is what you what you're looking for is certainty. Something to grab something to hold on to that is certain because you're you're not managing ambiguity anymore you're uncomfortable you feeling pain, so you want certainty? Yeah, uncertainty is a false idol. So you can you know, you can get your p&l right and whatever you kill half your customers yet but your prospective customers getting your product right so it's a false is a false god. You've got to have all of all of them and you're looking at them all the time and you're balancing them all the time. So I'm I'm very driven by metrics and how they're Feeding and how they're feeding into the strategy, how they're feeding into tactics. But I'm also a big believer in changing your mind if they're not working. So lots of people get really fixated on Yeah, but that's, that's the targets. What's that target serving? Is it serving our purpose? Yeah. Well, you can't change it halfway through. And so you can there's things called Rolling budgets, where you redesign the budget every quarter based on Smarter information to make better decisions along the way. If you're like, Yeah, but you've got to have a 12 month budget otherwise, why? Because because everybody else has got one and they told you to and you're insecure about whether everybody knows what they're doing? If you don't have it? You know, you're getting into a territory of what do you mean? You don't have a quality of talk in your team that can constantly iterate and have people looking at the rear guard today and forward at the same time, and you don't have trust that that communication is working? Well. That's why you need some benchmarks to hold on to, because there's not that they can't do it is because you don't trust them to do it. Or you don't communicate with them well enough, or have a relationship well enough that you can trust them to all work together. Yeah. All the time. And that is hard work. Like that's often people think the CEO is the is, is the shepherd, CEO is not the shepherd, the CEO is the Sheepdog. To the chairman's, the chairman's a shepherd, you're the sheep, though you're constantly running around the sheep run off, and you gotta go back. And sometimes you just got to glare at them. We don't watch what a sheep dog does. I don't chase sheep all the time. Half the time they're lying down staring at the sheep. Don't I dare you. You know, there's all sorts of different tactics. Yeah. And that's, that's the quality of talk, quality of relationship, quality of thinking. Communicate, and often your job is just to assure is to assure people, you're on the right path. Yeah. My big weakness, though, in that often is that I can see what, where we're going like, it's like a movie in my head. You're three steps

Daniel Franco: 52:22

ahead. And yeah, you've got to let other people make the mistake. If you're just

Paul Edginton: 52:25

if you're, if you're over the curb, shouting back at everybody, Hey, hurry up, but they can't see you. And they can't see what you see. And it's been a while since you came back together. You shouldn't be surprised that they're all in a huddle standing still wait going? Well, we'll just wait for you to come back. Well, if you come back, if you're the one coming back on what's the matter with your bail? Or it's like, it might be you.

Daniel Franco: 52:49

That's so real. i Yeah, it's funny, because you, when you start noticing the little fractures or cracks within a business or within your own business, you the first thing that really always comes to my mind is when's the last time that I've had a conversation like a proper conversation? Or when's the last time that I've been really clear, or I've held accountability in place. And it's you it might have been that I've lacked things have come up, you move office, or whatever it might be that he's so busy, you know, the world's a crazy place. And you're actually, there's been a month here, or there's been a couple of weeks here, and I haven't had a proper conversation, which is what's creating the ambiguity, which is what's creating the frustrations, which is what's correct. So I'm over the hill, right? I've got to come back. And I think, I think you're right, you got to be the sheep, though. You gotta walk side by side.

Paul Edginton: 53:44

And when you come back and having a proper conversation, so dysfunction happens politely. And it usually happens and teams start falling apart when they like each other a lot. And so we get this sense of you know, I don't want to upset Daniel, I know he made a mistake. And in order, we're on upsetting by saying that, because I noticed a bit sensitive about, I don't know how to talk about it. So we just politely ignore it, and hope it goes away when we all know it doesn't go away. Yeah. But what's in evidence now is polite dysfunction. And being able to call out polite dysfunction is is an amazingly important skill that, you know, is evolved over time and, and it's risky. But it's really important to

Daniel Franco: 54:34

build these relationships, but it shouldn't be a trusting relationship that should be easy to have that or does it get too far over the hill that you are now it's a mess.

Paul Edginton: 54:44

It's not set and forget like changes depending on you know, what their partner said, you know, yeah, for example, or or their friend said Is that Yeah, about that they changed so you've got to constantly calibrate, recalibrate, calibrate recalibrate so so

Daniel Franco: 54:59

in the Those conversations right there is absolute. Like, if you're talking about that dysfunction, there is absolute chance that you're going to upset a few people. Right, and you're not going to be the most liked person within the company. And, and I think that's something that we see in the work that we do. I am definitely fallen in this trap a few times myself that you want to be the most liked person in the business, you want everyone to agree with you, and you want everyone to share the vision that you share and understand the path that you're trying or the strategy that you've put in place, or the business is put in place. And so there is that nicety that comes in, it's like, I don't want to piss people off, because I want to make sure that they are coming along the ride with me, and they're doing what we need them to do. And all the above How do you? How did you manage that accountability piece? And the conversation piece was always about what's best for business? Or was it? What was your blend? Or did you have a model that you used?

Paul Edginton: 56:09

So it's not binary like that. First of all, first of all, having a combined purpose is is super important. But as I was, I was thinking about it, then, as you're talking about being light. I think I think a really unfashionable word in a word that makes people really squeamish in corporate sense, is love, we talk about in terms of passion for, like, I love what I do, and I, you know, I'm really I love doing this and doing that. But as terms of if you think about running your enterprise, and you want people to like you, and if you're seeking like, all the time, it's going to be dysfunctional. If if, for example, as a as a parent, I spent, and I see this a lot, right. And I'm not trying to say that be paternalistic about being a CEO, like being a parent, or that sort of stuff. There's, there's lessons there, right? If you see these, you see these parents who run around after their kids, wanting their kids to terrify their kids might not like them. So you raise pretty bratty kids, when you want them to like you all the time, when that's what you're obsessed with. You want your kids to love you and know that you love them. So really what that is, is they they want to be secure in the status of the relationship. So you can push the bounds of like, because some, have you ever worked with people that are really talented, but they're a bit afraid they're a bit nervous, they're a bit insecure, you've given them a push, and they haven't really liked it, but then they've been successful. And then they Yeah, like you for that they thank you for that. But at the time, they didn't thank you for Yeah, you'll never do that. If you're pursuing like, you'll never push people to do better be there, you'll also never push people to the point of their incompetence, which is often, you know, to the to the limit of their skills. If you're pursuing lie, so you're always going to have your business stuck at the limit of the weaker skills that the person you don't push. And so sometimes when you're pushing, they're now saying I can't do it, and you've pushed, you've got to make a decision. And these are decisions that nice people don't like, which is what I liked Daniel, and I like him and people around here like him. Yeah. But he can't. He's not he got us here. He's part of the February business. And he's come all the way with us. And I don't want to be the person to tell him but he's not part of what got us here won't get us there. And we have to deal. So you do this thing. And I've done it so many times, where you hang on to people who've reached their limit. Two years ago, yeah, you like him, and they're good people and so dedicated. And then something it either becomes dysfunctional or breaks or, you know, becomes heartbreaking. The minute your heart doesn't break for people who you really like in the business, but have reached their level of incompetence and need to either move on or be reskilled or do a different or realise this is as far as it goes for you. This is your role in the business and this is what we need. All those conversations are genuinely caring conversations, and they're difficult. Lots of people, so many people avoid that. So they're stuck.

Daniel Franco: 59:58

What happens in the scenario where You believe the person's hit their boundary, but that person believes they have it?

Paul Edginton: 1:00:07

Well, then you have to have a conversation about that with them. And if you don't agree, then one of you needs to leave. So if they're going to stay and the business is going to stay where it is, and you're not interested in working in a business that's going to stay where it is, then maybe you should leave. Yeah. If, however, you're in charge of it, and you want to see that business continue to develop, and that person is saying, Well, this is I'm I can do it, you know, they can't, right.

Daniel Franco: 1:00:49

So give them the chance to still do you say, right, okay, so I need I need 20% more from you. Right? Then they deliver 5%? Where do you sit? Are you in an awkward position? Again, they have improved, but it's not what I need. What do you do in that space?

Paul Edginton: 1:01:05

So again, if I'm pretty patient, yeah, I'm pretty patient, in the sense of helped me understand how our expectations don't match. So I'm expecting this, you're delivering there. So I want you to just help me understand whether I need to lower my expectations. Because there are conditions, there are staff I met, I had dinner with a guy a couple of weeks ago, who was saying, he said, some anachronistic sort of views on human resources, right? We don't need you don't need HR team or people. If you've got managers who can manage. Okay, well, that's technically correct. However, if you don't invest in any training for your managers, and you're running on pretty thin margins, and you can't afford to pay really highly qualified managers, and all of that sort of stuff, then you need

Daniel Franco: 1:02:05

a backstop, and you expect them to deliver on the technical element of the work as well, yes, I've managed,

Paul Edginton: 1:02:10

if you're not going to invest in them, and you're not going to develop them, you're not going to pay them properly, then you're going to have these compromises. So what you're really doing is you're having to manage your own expectations. And so if they delivered 5%, and you're looking for 20. You can assume that just because you want 20 That's what you're gonna get. Yeah. Or maybe it could be a timing variance. Yeah, maybe they're gonna get 20. They'll go 510 1520. And it's the now it's an impatience issue for you like, just understanding what the root cause analysis into the but if 5% is as good as it's going to get, and you can, and you're hearing all of this excuses, and you know, the difference between commentary on people's failure to deliver and actual reasons. If that's persistent, and they can't, or they can't see that they're constantly bringing you reasons why it can't be achieved, as opposed to, here's how I can do it. Or here's how I can do what I'm trying to while and you'd have to have a conversation about is this really for you? Yeah. 100%? And they're hard. People don't like those, particularly if you're not, if you have made so yeah, well,

Daniel Franco: 1:03:21

especially Yeah, the one thing that is also so within this is, you know, you're holding people to account and you're trying to create clarity, we've talked about communication being a critical piece, you're obviously very well experienced in the communication aspect. How do you communicate with a team or when you as a CEO, when you put out a message and account for all the different sort of brain thinking styles that are in the team? Do you you know, when you said just go and be the best CEO? Do you write the email? Or do you write the strategy? Or is it just to the best how I think or is do you take in all the all the different thinking styles, I don't want to put too many metrics in there because people won't think about or I don't want to put too many, you know, fluffy stuff because people want out there I've got more engineers, my time whatever it might be do, how do you manage your communication with an organisation and hope to have the most throughput and delivering what you're actually trying to?

Paul Edginton: 1:04:30

So culture change and strategy is a contact sport. It's not it it's absolutely it is belly to belly Ottawa. So any any CEO or person purporting to be a leader who goes away, designs a strategy or a plan, sends an email or creates a glossy brochure, or puts it on the website and expects all staff to read it and then go along with it is done. eluded, like it, is it people? Do you know why no country has ever won a war just with an Air Force? Base because you need boots on the ground to occupy space to win over hearts and minds to genuinely changed things you cannot win by leaflet dropping, you cannot win ever, by flying over the top and hounding people into submission. Yeah, they will just regenerate because they're on the ground, belly to belly having conversations, you have to do that. All that's the hope thing that's coming in. It's hope. Yeah. And it's it's arrogance. And it's its superiority. It's this superior thinking of like, I've got this really great thinking, because, look, I wrote it in a book. And I'll put on a website and you should read it. It's deluded. It's egotistical, the sitting down with everybody, guy. So here's, here's what I think the strategy is. Here's what I think that the goals and the outcomes we can achieve our here's why I think we're doing it. What do you think? And having the patience to go? Everybody has different views of that thing? They can. Some people have such low abstract reasoning that they can't, they need you to spell it out for them. Other people can imagine it. But everybody's got a different way of looking at it. And if you're so impatient, that you can't do it yourself and sit with them and take them, find people who do within their departments and manage it. But your your leadership team, if they are then saying, we were in a meeting with Daniel and wait, did this strategy work? And we've all decided this is what it is? Read the brochure. Guess. Don't be surprised if it doesn't happen. Yeah, because they're not doing they're not showing leadership, it's really got to be in their hearts and minds and on the ground. And that's a constantly iterative thing. The thing then, is, people go, so you've got this strategy, you've got these tactics, you've got the outcomes. And then it still doesn't get done because you didn't do the work on what's called sticking the landing. So you took your plane off, you designed it, you drew it. You said, here's the destination. So you've got your plane, your takeoff, and the bit difficult failed to do was go. Landing gear. Yeah, she got to do landing gear. Yeah. So how do you land? Where do you land all of that all of that communication happens when people then feel that part of it and they feel included? And that they've got landings, landing gear, that will take off in nearly anything with you. Because they know you're going to land them safely. Yeah, a lot of people get caught up when you think about airline trip, travelling on airlines, that it's got to be on time and airport and getting through security and what food did I get? And what were the seats like? And all of those different things, you know, the most important thing, anything safely getting there alive, that's where we land most of the time. Yeah, not okay.

Daniel Franco: 1:08:19

That is so true. So true. Do you? Again, do you? How do you manage that process of you know, you talked about culture, and you talk to being a contact sport? And I love that. Was it then? Is that what you're saying? I mean, this is what we do from our from our world is we educate some, I understand that. Creating an awareness through input, right, like you said, having people speak because you don't actually need to, you don't actually need to really always listen, or sorry, do not listen, you don't need to actually do what they say or the inputs that are coming your way. But it's the simple fact that you've listened. And you've taken on board their voice is the most critical and demonstrated that you have and demonstrate it and tell me about demonstrating what is your

Paul Edginton: 1:09:15

so I get nerdy about models? Yeah. So yeah, I talked about if you've got a if you've got a vision or something, an impact you're trying to have, then is a logic model, the Harvard impact logic model where you've got to find your impact. And then you say what the outcomes are that need to be achieved to have that impact or outputs that lead to that outcome. And then there's activities that lead to those out puts which lead to those outcomes which help you achieve and then there are inputs which have to fund the activity. So there's a logic to it right? And then you apply a programme logic to that, which is simply you're sticking the landing, flight plan and all that. So your programme logic, you've got Got your impact model. And then you can design all those brilliant things, step by step Gantt charts, all of those different things, then the only thing standing between you and achieving that is people who will screw it up. That's your only job. Yeah. So your only job then? And so then what are the things and those people want certainty, I want to make sure that if they get it wrong, or they fall out of pace, or fall out of speed, or don't understand it, or all that sort of stuff, that they're going to be safe, or included. And now they want certainty around that. You can't offer certainty around that, because they might not. That's right. So why would you not be upfront with that and say, Look, not everybody is going to be able to do this, but I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you are whether it's through training, through support through listening through adjusting all those sort of things. But in the event that you there, there are three sort of aspects if you can do it. If you can't help me notice that so I can teach you Yeah, if you can, but you won't. And you're going to start now holding us back, you need to leave. Because won't is a choice. That's, you're now out of step with that. Yeah. So that that conversation is going to happen all the time. But the other thing, as well as around making sure that that people are coming along, and not screwing it up with you is you've got to understand like, what, what's going on for them. And that changes dynamically all the time. And if you don't know you don't listen for it.

Daniel Franco: 1:11:45

They'll be surprised if if they jump off the bus,

Paul Edginton: 1:11:48

they jump off or they hold you back, or they do all those different things. But we get so caught up in strategic plans, business plans, projections, and all that sort of stuff. Because your funders, whether they're bankers or investors, or that sort of thing, tell you that that's what they've got to see. And they're telling you that that's what they want to see. Because they want certainty. What do they want certainty of? That you're a happy camper, that your staff wants certainty that you're not going to lose their money? Yeah, they want certainty that they dividend or they want certainty that their investment is, so they want all of those certain things. So we get obsessed with delivering those things, because we've got to report them to a board and but I can promise you nearly none of that is what makes you successful or your people successful. It is them believing in what they're doing and understanding what competence they've got to demonstrate to make that happen. So doing the work is not enough. Up at Daniel, I got a look at the I did the work. You told me and I got 5% better, that's the best you can expect. Now it's not what is the competence that I'm asking you to demonstrate, to get 20% growth? I asked for 20% growth, you got 5% What are you thinking is the gap between the five and the 20? Because this is the competence that I want you to be thinking about how you spell it out to me, you tell me how you're gonna get there. And you or you tell me what you need from me to help you get Yeah, we often miss those conversations and you don't have them by flying past. Just looking at metrics, you have them talking to people really well.

Daniel Franco: 1:13:32

How do you how do you go about in that scenario, you're talking to those people. And within that you've got some underperformers, you've got some over performers, you've got some aspirational people, you've got people who are just happy to come in and do a role. Like there's all different types of personalities that come into a business and make it happen. You know, the, the one thing that's always in the, in my mind is like one of my core values is growth and constantly have this idea of improving myself and always moving myself up a ladder if that's what you want to call it. I don't know it's make believe ladder. The and so that internal growth and desire to improve and seek seek enjoyment out of out of the work that I do is something that I always think about when I'm talking with at the team members or when we're even when you talk with other CEOs and other customers and clients our client base is there. Is there is there a rulebook or a playbook I should say around any manage the different expectations of all the different people that you work with and particularly the C suite or the executive team, the leadership team. There are some that are so aspirated is no newer. And like when I, you know, even my own personality trait I hear people are aspirational. I gravitate towards them. But then there are some that are, you know what, I'm just really happy delivering what I'm delivering, and I'm happy in this world or in my bubble or whatever it might be. And and I find myself going well, no, there's more. Right? There's more. And how do you manage that thought process, when you're working with your executive team and the different personalities that are within there and the different aspirations that are in there?

Paul Edginton: 1:15:31

There's, you know, when you hear people say, I treat people the way I want to be treated myself.

Daniel Franco: 1:15:37

Yeah, it's a it's a fallacy. I

Paul Edginton: 1:15:39

know that I love this man. Like, don't treat me like you treat yourself. Yeah. Me how I want you don't want you don't want me to treat you like I treat myself. Yeah. Because I'm really hard on myself. You don't want me to do that to you. Yeah. So this, this notion of this. And also people like people like them. So they do gravitate to people who, you know, that's why social media has become such a dangerous echo chamber, right? Because it's just like flops people who sound like them. And, and it and it's a roading discourse, and curiosity. And so from a leadership point of view, it's that curiosity, that's got to drive how do I align expectations. And so when you think about expectations, they're not binary, that expectations live within what I would refer to as a zone of tolerance. Some people have a really high tolerance for expectations being variable. Other people have a really narrow band of almost binary, like you either did it or you didn't, yeah. And so you've got to be even, you've got to be able to map how, where everybody's zone of tolerance is for expectation deviation. Because if you've got a powerful but otherwise invisible person with a narrow zone of tolerance, who's decided they're going to make the business work the way they want to work. For example, you can have super salespeople, super business development, people, super operations, people, and all of that sort of thing. You can have super logistics people, super CX people. You've got people, you've got somebody who sits in an office in the dark. Who is the policy and audit person? Who's decided how they think things should work? Yeah, they can pretty much mess up everybody else. Yeah, ya, and they'll do it quietly. And you know, all these different things. If on the other hand, you've got salespeople, you've got people out the front saying, All you people behind how many have jobs because I make you money. They need to leave, like seriously that it's damaging the, because you're your zone of tolerance is being disrespected the whole time as the CEO, your job is to look at that map of all those individuals or all those individual groups. And you've got to understand what that zone of tolerance is for each group, because your job is to bring them all along.

Daniel Franco: 1:18:23

How did you learn that? How did you learn to do that and look at that way

Paul Edginton: 1:18:28

I went to I pushed myself to be educated. Both whenever I interestingly, we got to you mentioning earlier about every iteration of your business is a bigger operation than you've ever run before. I got to a point in 2015, at SAIC, where we had grown it to a point where it's a fairly large organisation, it was the biggest organisation I've ever run. And we were working really hard on a strategy to double that again. And it was already the biggest thing I've ever run. And it was really clear as well, we were implementing quality systems and putting all that governance in place. But we'll get into a size where there was stuff that I didn't understand things like really complex risks, like risk management, I knew at a basic level, we were getting into proper multi dimensional risk management and consequences and all of those sort of things. We were moving to be a company limited by guarantee. So for all intents and purposes, a public company just not listed. Yeah. And all of the compliance and I was like, I don't know any of that stuff. Yeah. And I got obsessed with how gosh, I need to know all that stuff. Just be like why people do MBAs. I don't want to be a manager will do an MBA didn't solve your problem, though. Because it wasn't the actual problem though. So I remember going to the board and saying we're at a point now where you either need to sat me in the exec do you get people who know what they're doing? In terms of running a bigger business? Yeah. Well, we need to go and learn how to be these big, like elite managers. Yeah. And I've always wanted to be like, that competitive streak I want, I don't want to just go and I want the Elite version of it. And I want to be with the elite guys doing it and see where I stack up here loud and clear. So we, I went to the board with a proposal to take my leadership team to Stanford Business School. As a not for profit. And at the time, you can you imagine that a lot. What what I mean, in America, all of you. Yeah, yeah. As a group, yeah. Yeah. Because that's, that's the elite. That's the elite group. elcor leading change in organisational renewal is the elite programme for change in organisation, people from Boeing, Apple F, like the leap, go there for that programme. So that's what I want to do. But I wanted, not just me, because I've done and all of us as CEOs have done the professional development where you go learn, and then you come back and you're so excited. You tell everybody about it. So you flypast to a leaflet drop of what you've learned, and then you go, you know, none of them listened. Yeah. One of the funny that, yeah. So I took them. And interestingly, the, it was a lot of money. And I just wanted to go for 10 days. And so we I just did a simple equation of if we don't change, and we lose, how much would you pay the tender for a $500 million contract? Over five or six years? So you'd spend $2 million just tendering for it? Okay, well, we're talking about less than 10% of that. Investing, just in case, imagine if we won. Imagine if we tended for it, and then we won. And then we lost it, because we couldn't didn't know how to run it. Yeah. Then imagine if all the recruitment you're going to have to do to replace the idiots that won it, but then screwed it up. And the auditors you're going to have to get to this is there's a big cost. It's a big cost to them. Right? And it's one of those things of what if you don't invest in their, their skills, and they stay? Yeah. So we, the board, and as well, I've been very fortunate to have one always have wonderful chairman and or chair people and wonderful support from the board. They said, Yes, yeah. And we went to this elite school. And we found out that only three organisations in 20 years, had come as a team. You know, most of the time they sent the CEO or the CEO or one executive at a time, we were one of only three that had ever gone as a group. And they said, That was wonderful, and expensive, and brave, and also brave. And for the next 10 days, when you're a CEO, just getting your strategy and your change journey and all of your skills and your culture pulled apart in front of your team. It's like one of the toughest experiences ever. Like I would bring my wife every night? She goes, Are you enjoying it? No. I really am not enjoying it at all. But it's brilliant. And so you're really

Daniel Franco: 1:23:39

what was the like, what was what?

Paul Edginton: 1:23:42

Oh Man. So they would they would really, for example, they would really struggle with some stuff that I could see. And so I would lean in and say, here's how you do it. And our lecturer and our mentor would say Paul push your chair back. Stop saving them get out of there. Yeah. And I was like, Yeah, but I paid a shitload of money for them to be here and push your chair. But you've got to learn to support them to be able to do this without you constantly diving in and adjusting them and saving them and teaching them that was really hard. For me to it's really hard for me to do and but part of the lesson there as well as like, he was holding a mirror up to how controlling I was, and how actually my controlling nervous of this and rescuing them. And doing all that sort of stuff was holding them back. But it was also holding us. It was preserving my power as the smartest guy in the room. Unconsciously but it was like so he gets him pushed your chair that and I had to sit and listen to this thing going Yeah. Paul jumps in and does this or whenever this happened, Paul jumps in and does that. We just wait for him to do that. This is really humiliating. Take go through that. And it's a really solid reflection of you.

Daniel Franco: 1:25:04

Do you think you would have learned more or less if you went by yourself?

Paul Edginton: 1:25:08

I wouldn't have understood any of that. I would have come back and have been this genius superhero with a thing from Stanford and jump. I still had the power driven low power, because I knew stuff. I thought you relate now. Yeah. And I thought I was elite. Yeah, you get my ego would have been Massey Lotus. Whereas I came back, going, Whoa, now, and out of all of those people, three of us really, were able to stay in the business for various different reasons. So seven people that went three state Yeah, well, but man, we were good. Yeah, we're really good. And, and the people that didn't stay. It's not because they were not good. as well. It just didn't, didn't work out. But then when we won, and we continue to be successful afterwards, the amount we spent, and the pain we went through, was nothing turned out to be nothing. Yeah, brilliant. But yeah, that that constant push, I've always pushed myself to, to learn, learn, learn, but also to put myself so I've, I've been fortunate to study at Harvard, I've been fortunate to study at Stanford. And it's not about sort of, I always preface when I say that. I know I'm just about to sound like a massive wanker. When I say that I've been there. It's not about going there. It's about like, where is the best place? With the smartest people that I can put myself where I'm going to be terrified?

Daniel Franco: 1:26:39

If you're going to do it, you do it right.

Paul Edginton: 1:26:41

You do it half assed, you frighten yourself.

Daniel Franco: 1:26:43

I mean, yeah, I want to, I'm just conscious of your time, because you do have to shoot off half an hour. So I'm gonna ask, there's some questions that I'm going to ask. But thank you for sharing that story, which is, you're right, the continuous learning and growth as a CEO. If you're not investing in self, then you're in the wrong position

Paul Edginton: 1:27:02

learning, learning humility. Yeah, tolerating being told, lets you and this is going to be super important. In the next five years, as is the generational shift in employees in business in the world. At the moment, this this generational shift going on, between all of us, all those people were born in the 20th century, and all those people that were not born in 20th century, and there's there's language and thoughts and culture, or ideas that are completely incompatible with each other, that if you're in a leadership position, and you are not really alert to that, or you're not respectful of it, or not giving it the respect that it deserves, you're gonna be in trouble.

Daniel Franco: 1:27:48

Here, well said. I want to just ask a few scenarios. And then I'll then I want to talk a little bit about what you guys didn't I mean, I know far as well. But the scenario is, I'm a appointed CEO of a new company, relatively small company. 20 odd people, you know, we spoke about your previous business 20 odd people, sales and marketing is at a lower point of maturity, the board, and the owners and the founders or whatever, have huge, you know, aspirations and growth aspirations. And there's a product that actually there's this this could there's something here, right, I could do something with this. Teams, the teams good. The people you adopted in the right positions, you know, obviously, you get them make a few choices here and there. But things are pretty comfortable. But now it's just about growth, right? What is your role as a CEO walking into that position?

Paul Edginton: 1:28:54

Where you're and you really are in a spot. Now, this is where the expectation management so what, what is growth look like? What does What does growth mean? In that sense? It's because it's just a generic term, right? So are you looking to grow sales? You're looking at growing property, looking at growing wealth, you're looking at growing security? what's your what's your tolerance for risk across the business, whether it's from the board, your own tolerance for risk, and the tolerance of risk of the people within the business? How are all those things lining up? Do you all mean when you say it's all about language now? Yeah, when you say growth, do you all mean the same thing? And the answer is not. So what do you mean then? And it's you're you're really roll and it will take some time to work out. So how do we create a growth trajectory that fits with all the competencies and aspirations and expectations that you Have

Daniel Franco: 1:30:01

and Soraka summer growing just to be a sustainable business but someone growing to build an empire, right?

Paul Edginton: 1:30:06

Yeah, we're different, some are growing for an exit liquidity. Some are growing, because and then in terms of Then what's your growth strategy? So it depends on once you once you've defined what growth means to you all, then the next question is, who does that make you? So once you've decided on what your growth thing is together, who does that make you? Because when you come to that, who does that make you it? In fact, it informs your strategy. So let's say,

Daniel Franco: 1:30:36

so who does that make you as in as a as a person or as a business as a business? Yeah,

Paul Edginton: 1:30:41

so as a business, so let's say you're a retailer, yeah. And you have a growth strategy that is to become the biggest retailer in Australia. So you will do that you will grow organically, your retail business, but your total addressable market is probably wider than the brand you have. So you probably if you then look at Wesfarmers, for example, they would have all these brands, and they'll run a house of brands to do that, because those different brands speak to different parts of the addressable market. Essentially, though, if all of those brands are all retailers, then you're using what's called a stacking strategy, you're stacking retail on top of retail on top of retail on top of retail. So, if your growth plan is to be the biggest retailer, and the who you are, is intrinsically a retailer, then your strategy will be to stack retail brands on top of each other to speak to different addressable market. If however, your growth plan is so your aspiration is for growth, and we want to be we want to be big and diverse, then being a retailer is not what you are, then retail is just one part. You want to then if your diversity will come from acquiring and or growing in your supply chain, and supporting and developing a supply. So now you have a stack and spread strategy. So the who you are is not a retailer who you are now as a distributor. And that's a very different way of thinking about growth. And strategy says it becomes this, this loop that links to who you are and who you are can change. Because, and often you get you get these heroic people saying, oh, it's all about who we are and our values and all that sort of stuff. And they don't they don't change. And it might not change, but they evolve. Yeah. And they get better, and you become more mature and you get smarter. And I guarantee I'll be smarter tomorrow than I was. Yeah, yeah. And I guarantee that I can't be smarter. I can't impose how smart I am to how it was yesterday. And so this idea that, you know, you don't change who you are, like, it's just nonsense. It doesn't work that way. It's the same for your business. Yeah. So yeah, that when you talk about growth, and you're that CEO define all of who you are as a business, when you're growing from 20 people to 100, I promise is different than who you are when you're growing from 100 to 1000. People when you go from South Australia to national changes who you are your South Australia, South Australian or your national. Yeah. And because you get this jingoistic way of actually still being South Australian, you, your mouth is saying a national but you're still behaving like a South Australian?

Daniel Franco: 1:33:42

Do do you create the strategy to do it from 20 to a 101st? And then or do you create the strategy from 20 to 1000? Because Because you said you're different. Yeah,

Paul Edginton: 1:33:55

it's it's not. I think it's iterative, all the total time. So it's just this constant game. Yeah. Constantly iterative. And so it goes to this idea of like, when you were saying before, like, I'm never never satisfied with it. Yeah. Well, another version of that is rather than saying You're never satisfied with it, it's like, it's iterative, iterative. Once I get there, then once I jump off, get to that jumping off platform, my field of vision will be different. I don't know what that field of vision is going to be. So let's just get there. And then let's evaluate what that looks like. So there's only two things that are certain things will go wrong. And you'll argue with people about the only two guarantees, taxes and so yeah, so the things to be good at is if the only two things are things will go wrong. And you'll fight about it. The two skills you want to be really good at is conflict resolution and and redesign. And if you're good at conflict resolution and redesign your all you got to do is you don't have to get everybody all the way you don't have to get them To the next point one step at

Daniel Franco: 1:35:01

a time. That's right. Yeah. Now let's flip that scenario. And we've got your appointed CEO in prep to sell a company, right? So we're 1000 people strong company, I want to bring in this digital transformation that's going to automate it, I'm going to reduce my, my staffing by 50%, you know, go down to 500 on people, and then we're going to make it look magnificent and great. And then we're going to sell it because you're seeing a lot of that happening in the market right now. So what what was your was your thought process as a CEO walking into that role?

Paul Edginton: 1:35:34

So there's a bit in that in terms of if if selling the business is the goal, then that who's buying it? So because yeah, the who's buying it is really important, because that's who you're designing it for. Right. So? And is understanding who's buying it and why gets lost? Sometimes in this, so let's say the border said, we're selling Yeah. They become obsessed with selling the business and getting it ready for sale. Right? Why? Well, because we want to exit. Cool. So tell me who in the marketplace is interested in giving money to you? So you can exit? And they're left behind? Wait, what? Yeah. Okay, so you're actually going to build it for somebody who's going to buy and in terms of doing that you've got to build value into the business that is valuable for them. So you've decided what your value looks like, out of it? Yeah. It's going to be incompatible with the value that they're seeing in it. So just understand, is this like the reverse of growth? Right? Yeah. What's your growth language? Now? What's your exchange language? Because you're, you're exchanging your business with somebody else? What's the exchange language looking like? So you design your business and your strategy for the exchange of value. And that exchange is going to be different? Yeah. So in terms of that, I'd like to understand what the exit strategy actually looks like, what is the sale process actually, like? Who is who that's going to be? If they need to see a track record of fat profit for a while? Fine, you can recalibrate the business you you look at what is the core competence of the business and what are the ancillary pieces of the business you can work out what makes the profit of the business and you get rid of all the ancillary stuff now will you have harmed the capacity of the business to diversify and or grow or do different things later? Yeah, but you've got a fat profit and you're exiting So yeah, that's that's what I'm designing

Daniel Franco: 1:37:54

I'm hearing in both answers is clarity right it's just create clarity about what the endgame is always Yeah, it's always your starting point. It's what is

Paul Edginton: 1:38:03

the always be clear but also be clear there's clarity is not certainty. Yeah, there's a big difference between it's always been clear is always communicating and always communicating what you're seeing and adjusting and adjusting and adjusting right? It's not certainty The only certainty is things will go wrong and we will fight about it

Daniel Franco: 1:38:22

and you'll pay tax along the way Yeah. I am really looking at the clock here I was gonna ask a whole bit heap about vinomofo but I'm really interested in your role now as CEO of vinomo fi by the way, I love the story of Vinomofo I put a $300 order in last night. My favourite bit is the the Tom Hanks picture that comes up after you order. Tom Hanks is one of my favourite actors and every time that comes I think that's why I buy it because he's fit you're saying saying thanks. Thanks, T Hanks. The another story you were you know Andre and Justin quite well and you have through their career and now you're the CEO. What is the growth aspirations? Vinomofo How do you plan on taking on this world or know the ecommerce worlds facing some rough time at the moment that you guys seem to be doing pretty well amongst the amongst it also can you tell us about where you guys are at and what the what the future looks like?

Paul Edginton: 1:39:28

So Andre and Justin when and I knew the guys before that Vinomofo and when they were doing road to vino and before that, so but that I mean they're, they're amazing vision back then. And you've got to cast your mind back 11 years ago. Yeah, they're they they knew a fair bit about wine and they loved wine but they didn't if you think about the wine world back then they didn't kind of look like wine. Now people know Because wine snobs and

Daniel Franco: 1:40:01

as far as the digital wine guys aren't as well that their first

Paul Edginton: 1:40:05

thing was like there's a whole bunch of people that would like to get involved in wine and like wine, but are intimidated by people. Speaking about the past, yeah. And it's intimidating. They wanted to create an environment where you could say, I bought that wine because I like it. Why do you like it? Kind of just like it? Yeah. Is that a good taste? Yeah. Yep. So it's,

Daniel Franco: 1:40:34

you know, makes me feel good.

Paul Edginton: 1:40:36

You know, the label impress my mate.

Daniel Franco: 1:40:38

Yeah. That's right.

Paul Edginton: 1:40:41

There's a lot of stuff in here. That gets caught up in wine. Wang curry, right. So they wanted to blow that up. So they this mantra of no bow ties, which stood for the you know, the no imperious naughty and no BS? Yeah. Like, call it out. Yeah. And, and, and do that. So getting rid of wine wine tree? And now and

Daniel Franco: 1:41:01

they and the name itself? Right one? Yeah,

Paul Edginton: 1:41:05

exactly. Right. It's a it's a reverend. Yeah. But always our focus is on good wine. Yeah, that's a good one. Always. So we don't sell stuff that you won't like. And we put a lot of energy into making sure that we buy Yeah, really well, and one that you're gonna like,

Daniel Franco: 1:41:24

yeah. Are my favourites the black market? Especially because I don't know how to pick one. So the black market ones kind of like, well, I'll let you guys do it. And it'll be surprised when it looks up on one.

Paul Edginton: 1:41:32

Yeah. And lots of our competitors do this secret secret product, right? And where they fail, because we put so much energy into getting black market, right. And where the others fail is they put like, it's genuinely a surprise. You're

Daniel Franco: 1:41:47

about to give away your secrets.

Paul Edginton: 1:41:51

it because it's the secret is really simple. Yeah, make sure that the wine that's in the secret deal is the best wine you've got. Yeah. So when somebody opens the packet, they go.

Daniel Franco: 1:42:00

Holy smokes. Yeah. This is awesome. Yeah.

Paul Edginton: 1:42:04

How did how did they get that for that price? It's not sort of like, Oh, yeah. Or it's not unknown? Yeah. It's got to be good. Um, got to get it right.

Daniel Franco: 1:42:13

Interesting. Because I know, a very good friend of mine. And our kids go to school together is a CEO of of a company of wine company. And I don't want to drop names, but it's the his wine. The company's wine arrives on my doorstep. I'm like, How did how can I buy this for half the price than what I can get it from you. He's like, I don't know how they do it either. I tell you. I think it's brilliant. I mean, the CEO can't even get it for me the price that you guys can I think it's wonderful. That's why I buy everything through

Paul Edginton: 1:42:49

you. So yeah, we we buy? Well, we put a lot of energy into doing that and staying true to what our customers are looking for, which is really good wine at a at a good price. Brilliant. And so the guys in 10 years later, there's heaps of people doing that. And in fact, the wine, the language use around the wine world now is different as well. So that's all changed. And so we've got this really great disruption story where there was a market ready for disruption. It was new to e commerce, it was new, it was inviting to new people to come in. But now there's lots of access. Yeah. So the challenge for us now is like, who are we and what's our plan to grow going forward? One of the things as a business, and E commerce has is seeing this around the place at the moment is COVID got everybody online and got used to people buying online or they're also pretty expert at buying online. What a lot of E commerce companies didn't really use the opportunity for is to go, how do we use this rush in this bounty? What are we going to learn from it? Because it's gonna go away? Yeah. And people it was amazing when you know, at the start of it, the language particularly around bankers and investors is like, like, this is gonna last forever. And it's kind of like, you know, when you see a professional sports person who as a professional athlete, has been super athlete when they were young, and then they get paid a lot. And then there's an attendance gone, and now they can't get a job for even a 10th of what they were getting paid. Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 1:44:42

But you see that as also like the bricks and mortar dead, right. That was the language that was coming in at that time. Correct.

Paul Edginton: 1:44:49

Bricks and Mortar is definitely not dead. Because bricks and mortar is where people interact.

Daniel Franco: 1:44:54

It's exactly so people go for an outing, don't they? Yeah,

Paul Edginton: 1:44:58

that human connection. Two years down into two COVID sort of restrictions, people, that's what people really craving now was that real connection? Yeah. But they kind of liked the online version too, because there's not, there's this notion that everything's going to reset back to where it was, it's never going to go there. But it's not going to stay here, either. So we, we started a reform process in 2019, then COVID happened, we kept that reform process going throughout the pandemic, obviously, we the numbers went all up. But we were using that time to get ready to sustain that on the other side. And part of that was making sure that our business model was focused on what in really simple terms is making sure we have a buoyant boat. Yeah, that sounds simple, right. But if If on the other side of the pandemic, there's going to be a downturn in market conditions, I don't know like now. And you weren't investing in making sure you've got a buoyant boat. In fact, you've got a leak in your boat. Because you're saying, we're not going to make profit, we're going to, we're going to lose money, but keep growing. Now, you're going to just lose money, because you're not going to keep growing, because you're going you're churning all of those customers now, and you're having to, with the death of the cookie, and paid channels getting more expensive. Everything is now conspiring against that strategy. So if you still have that strategy, now, you got a hole in the boat. Yeah. And now, where are the investors going to come along? Where's he where's your high growth, frothy story, and investors are gonna pay, it's gone, it's gone. So we've focused on making sure that we have, we still deliver really good product to for our customers, and that our business is is buoyant. And whether our competitors can adjust fast enough to, to continue to offer that kind of value will be up to them. But we're in a position now where we can continue on the other side, and we're still growing. We're talking to some guys in the States. And they're saying if, if, if their econ company can do COVID numbers less 5%, at the moment, they will have had a really good year, we were not going to be 10 or 15%. But we're still growing the business really post COVID Bye, bye again, though, doing the basics really well.

Daniel Franco: 1:47:35

And it's a fun and innovative. It's so experienced, like it's so you feel that as an as, as my client experience with vino MoPhO is that these guys? Are these this business or an organisation has that I want to buy from them because it like for me it attracts it that that type of language that you use, and the experience that you get when you click it on the site is something that you know, sings

Paul Edginton: 1:48:03

out, you can see that everybody who works here loves this. Yeah, yeah, we've got a you got a bar in the middle of the night? Yes. So we taste all of the wine. We don't just if you're a winemaker, we're not just a marketplace where we're dumping your wine. And for as a customer, there's not some wine that no one's tasted like we love this. We've We've tasted 100 of them, and only five of them got through to the side and the other ones that we love. Isn't that amazing? It comes through in the language not

Daniel Franco: 1:48:31

only are you looking for clients like this is the beauty of what you guys have created. Not only are you looking for customers to buy, but you're actually looking like wineries are saying can we sell through you or can we come to you? You know, you're turning people away? Because you want that? Most of it away? Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, most of it goes to you guys and the team out there.

Paul Edginton: 1:48:51

How Thank you. We love it.

Daniel Franco: 1:48:52

I am conscious you have to shoot off in a minute to catch up with a man that I absolutely love. Mr. Andrew none, are you I'm going to jump into some quickfire questions. I had a whole bunch of questions that we didn't get to maybe we can do around to one day. But let's jump into the quickfire questions. To round off the podcast. What are you reading right now?

Paul Edginton: 1:49:15

I've just finished reading pyramid of lies, which is the story of Green Seal. Yeah, I could not put that

Daniel Franco: 1:49:25

pyramid of life pyramid of lies. Okay.

Paul Edginton: 1:49:29

Let's Green Seal won the EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2019. And that was the year that I was in the finals as well. And I remember going man, this guy's so brilliant because I don't understand that thing that he's talking about. Turns out that lots of other people didn't understand that either. But that's about couldn't put that down. And so since I finished that last week, and I just started Peter fit Simon's Eureka. Okay, which obviously the history of Peter Lawler and the Eureka saga A

Daniel Franco: 1:50:01

brilliant what is one book? And let's talk about it from a leadership point of view. What is one book that stood out for you?

Paul Edginton: 1:50:14

This is going to sound so not academic, but it's you is Who Moved My Cheese.

Daniel Franco: 1:50:21

I knew you were gonna say that for some reason I don't know when the boss Benson Rupa, it is a reason why my Oliver is because it just explains

Paul Edginton: 1:50:30

everything that's going wrong will come from comes down to this managing that

Daniel Franco: 1:50:35

I got my daughter to read it to me like it's such an easy read and my 10 year old daughter. I'm like, You got to read this book. And she had no idea what it was about. But then we now she's understanding it's Yeah. Back to Basics. Isn't it really

Paul Edginton: 1:50:48

super. That's it's people that will mess up your great plans. 100%.

Daniel Franco: 1:50:52

I love it. I love it. What's one lesson that's taking you the longest to learn?

Paul Edginton: 1:51:01

A lesson that's been? Gosh. Two that I'm good enough. Yeah, that at that internal narrative light to actually believe that I'm good at this. And I'm allowed to say that. I don't have to constantly be dissatisfied. Not sure that I have 100% learned and I'm coming to the but yeah, that's taken a long time. Because that's that's it's really it pushes you really well sometimes and it doesn't push you well.

Daniel Franco: 1:51:37

Do you think when you say I'm good enough? I have a binary point or next. I think if I say I'm good enough that I stopped trying to grow?

Paul Edginton: 1:51:46

Yeah, no, I think you're good enough. Am I good enough today? I'll be better tomorrow. Yeah, but there are days when as a CEO, you know, you haven't done a good job. Yeah. And you know, I've only sometimes you can string a few days together, we've done a good job a week or, and, and people see it and you think that they do and you think you've got to hide it and all that sort of stuff. I've sort of got old and experienced enough to go guys, I'd reckon last week wasn't my best week, but next week is going to be a better one. So Thanks for backing me up on that one. And you can for people to go okay, so you can see it too. Yeah. And you're not kidding yourself. Yeah, they're more likely to

Daniel Franco: 1:52:29

keep it just shows the maturity as well. The vulnerability piece is what people are after. Yeah, if you're. Yeah, we don't need to go down that today. Yeah, that's exactly right. Brilliant. Good enough. Today, three people. If you can invite three people for dinner, who would they be?

Paul Edginton: 1:52:47

My late father. I would. He used to always he would sit at the table and he would be the last one to speak. He wouldn't have spoken all night. And it was listen, listen to everybody. And then somebody at the end of the night would say, Well, what do you think? And he it would be mind blowing what his observations of the whole conversation outside

Daniel Franco: 1:53:08

when I tried to be that person. I tried to

Paul Edginton: 1:53:11

and but he was he was amazing. At that I would have I would have Andrew none.

Daniel Franco: 1:53:28

Because he absolutely ripping me. So

Paul Edginton: 1:53:30

I mean, he's just he's so smart. He's such a good human, so energetic. And it'd be really interesting to ask my dad what he thought that at the end.

Daniel Franco: 1:53:43

Well, even Andrew Hendry has been on this podcast, and he can he can talk so your dad would have a lot to listen to. Yeah. Like everything that comes out of Andrews mouth is gold. Trust me, it was probably one of our most downloaded podcasts. And the amount of feedback that we got back from him was great. Yeah, that'd be he's joined my invite list tour and of like,

Paul Edginton: 1:54:07

Yeah, I think he'd be awesome. And I think I think someone like and politically, I didn't necessarily agree with lots of things that she did, but I would be super interested to have Julia Geller there, in that, because it she No, no, no. But she, you know, she she she was a person who at a point in time in our history was just at she, whether she was at the inflection point or she was the inflection point. But she's so important in our Australian history whether or not you politically agree with her as is irrelevant. Yeah. I think she was she's important person in our Australian history. And I would just love to underscore Then more of what her experience was.

Daniel Franco: 1:55:02

Yeah, I'm trying so hard to get her on this podcast. She

Paul Edginton: 1:55:05

would be awesome. Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 1:55:07

She's amazing. If you had access to a time machine with one trip to one way trips, up and back, and that's it, where would you go?

Paul Edginton: 1:55:20

Haha I think I'd go, I'd go back to the seven some at some point in time in the mid 70s. So

Daniel Franco: 1:55:31

when you had hair or Yeah, definitely.

Paul Edginton: 1:55:35

But because I think there was there was a lot. It was free. It was, you know, when Microsoft was emerging when Apple was emerging. Yeah. It was, everything was pre digital, in a real sense, but just about on the cusp of of that. So go back set up a couple of stocks. Oh, yeah. Totally would invest in Microsoft and Apple, right. And pull it out of HP. And yeah,

Daniel Franco: 1:56:03

brilliant. Yeah. I love it. If you actually I forgot to ask you a question. What some of the best advice you've ever received.

Paul Edginton: 1:56:18

Just just decide,

Daniel Franco: 1:56:20

yeah, just be a CEO.

Paul Edginton: 1:56:24

Just decide. I love it. But the other one was my grandma Scottish grandmother saying don't ask poor people how to make Yeah, it's not about poor people. That's really about don't don't listen to people who don't know.

Daniel Franco: 1:56:36

Yeah, exactly tested for and it's goes to the whole surround yourself with people. You know, don't be the smartest person in the room or brilliant. I love that stuff. If you could, if you had if your house was on fire you your family, your pets, they're all safe. And you would run back in to save one thing. What would that one thing be?

Paul Edginton: 1:56:56

I have a book there that was given to my dad in 1949 when he was on a ship and it's a leather bound book called treasury of the familiar and it's got an inscription in there and lit interleaved in the things and notes from my dad are exchanged between my dad and I. But the book is all great verse, Roger rodeoed, Kipling and who and and all of the great sayings is in this whole leather bound book is the only position that I would go and grab. Yeah,

Daniel Franco: 1:57:27

so I'd love to read it. If you had one superpower, so when a superhero power, what would it be?

Paul Edginton: 1:57:44

Think it would I don't know this one, because it's sort of like a combination of them all. But I guess it would be for me. It'd be being impervious to impervious to damage.

Daniel Franco: 1:58:03

Like a Wolverine. Yeah.

Paul Edginton: 1:58:06

Yeah. Everything constantly resilient. Yeah, you feel the need to constantly re heal.

Daniel Franco: 1:58:12

That's so good. That's different. We've never had that before. Everyone says fly and you know, boring old stuff.

Paul Edginton: 1:58:19

Well, I think at the beginning of the podcast, I said if you decide to be the CEO, you've made a decision that you can soak up more punishment than Yeah, most people around you. So I would imagine that the most powerful superpower is regeneration, right? How to take the pain and recover.

Daniel Franco: 1:58:35

Breathe it now. I flicked do this before heavy. Bring a dad joke.

Paul Edginton: 1:58:41

I've got my favourite. Like,

Daniel Franco: 1:58:43

be work see, you know my phone and not having that joke.

Paul Edginton: 1:58:47

How much does it cost for a pirate to get his ears pierced? How much? A Buccaneer

Daniel Franco: 1:58:54

so $2 Brilliant. Well done. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Paul Edginton: 1:59:03

Thank you for having me.

Daniel Franco: 1:59:03

It's great privilege. Yeah. And look, thank you for your knowledge and your wisdom and your experiences and, you know, sharing everything that you've learned what not everything sharing a lot that you've learned along your journey today. I know I'm gonna take you Oh, can't wait to re listen to this back and take some of those lessons away. And for all the people that you help I know that you've said to me previously, you love helping CEOs and young up and comers and people who are struggling in these roles and and it seems like you're doing some amazing things out there not only with vino mofo but with that for up and coming businesses. So thank you for everything that you bring into this world.

Paul Edginton: 1:59:41

I think if you're not doing that you're not used. You're not reflecting on your own performance. If you don't understand what makes you perform, then you can't repeat it. So mentoring and supporting other people is as much about you understanding what works as it is share carrying with him if anybody who's not doing that, you know, again, no, lots of reasons to look sceptically. So yeah. So thank you very much for having me.

Daniel Franco: 2:00:11

No, brilliant. I'll be picking your brain on some things to come. No, no problems at all. But thanks for your time. Where can we find you? If people want to get in contact with you follow you,

Paul Edginton: 2:00:23

as you can easily find me on LinkedIn. At just through look me up my name yet? or shoot me an email at Paul dot Edgington at Vino mopho.com. And I'm always happy to pursue to answer and you're

Daniel Franco: 2:00:38

pretty prolific on Twitter too. I see you've got a few followers there, right?

Paul Edginton: 2:00:42

Yeah, I read it. I don't know if I tweet too much. That's profound. But by the time I do I put up and then delete a lot. I'm not gonna say that. Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 2:00:56

Brilliant. loved having you on. Thanks again. And wish you all the best and thank you everyone. Take care. Thanks for listening to the podcast or you can check out the show notes if there was anything of interest to you and find out more about us at Synergy iq.com.au I am going to ask though, if you did like the podcast, it would absolutely mean the world to me if you could subscribe, rate and review. And if you didn't like it, that's alright too. There's no need to do anything. Take care guys. All the best