“It’s about awareness; it breaks my brain and it breaks my mind, how often people just blindly move into stuff without that self-awareness of what it is that they’re trying to achieve.”
Ben Prinsloo
In this episode you’ll hear about
- Prioritising organisational challenges: Identifying issues in the workplace and knowing what to solve first and what’s possible to solve first
- Leading diversity/inclusion initiatives: Knowing where to start in championing diversity and recognising when genuine inclusivity is actually being achieved
- Transparency vs oversharing: Walking the line between openness and oversharing by knowing when information is purposeful and how to be tactful in your communication approach
- Managing customer experience in academia: How to identify the needs of your customer base (particularly in higher education) and balance engagement with
Employee engagement & forced fun: Why the term ‘forced fun’ needs to be banished and the trick to motivating employees toward team initiatives
Key links
About our guest
Ben Prinsloo is a passionate and strategic leader, primarily in customer experience and retention, having spent the last 7 years in the online education sector. Ben previously lead student engagement and retention at Pearson and Chisholm Online.
Within his numerous roles, Ben has successfully delivered key initiatives for business enhancement, optimisation, and expansion, as well as developed new operating models to demonstrate improved cross-functional collaboration and performance.
About our host
Our host, Chris Hudson, is a Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.
Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.
Every team approaches transformation in their own way, also bringing in their own partners to help. And while they’re working towards the same organisational goal, it’s this over-fragmentation that stunts rapid progress at a company-wide level.
Having worked as a marketer, transformation leader, teacher and practitioner of design thinking for over 20 years, both here in Australia and internationally, Chris brings a unique, deep and ‘blended’ skillset that will cohere and enable your teams to deliver ambitious and complex change programs.
Transcript
Chris Hudson: Okay. Hello everyone and welcome to the Company Road podcast. I’d love for you to meet our next guest, Ben Prinsloo. Ben, we met a few years back and I was running a bit of a design thinking workshop at Pearson where you’ve recently left as the head of student engagement and retention.
And you spent the last little while, last few years in your career working in the higher education market, specialising in online education. And you told me about your passion for creating simple and effective experiences that drive student success and business growth as well. So, let’s just start with something as I’ve been dying to ask this question.
How do you balance the worlds of learning, academia and customer experience? Maybe that’s the starting point.
[00:00:44] Ben Prinsloo: Yeah, I mean, I guess there’s definitely some interesting intersectionality with balancing both the customer’s experience and the academic side of it. It’s different working with different types of students, particularly postgraduate students. Majority of them are full time working. A lot of them have completed or majority of them would have completed some sort of bachelor degree.
And so the experiences that you create need to be thought out a little bit differently. These people are busy. They come to online study particularly because they want flexibility. And I think I’ve seen that with multiple online providers where they claim to have flexible experiences, but really it’s all regimented.
There’s certain schedules that need to be adhered to for students to continue to progress in certain ways. And so I guess my key focus has always been on how to create simple experiences, think about the frustrations and think about the limitations that come across to these students.
And simplify it. I mean, when you can demonstrate that you’re doing some thinking for them, it takes away the frustrations that don’t need to exist. They’re there to study and they’re there to gain academic achievement. And I guess that’s the focus that I always work towards achieving.
[00:01:50] Chris Hudson: Maybe it’s a misconception or maybe there’s an indulgence involved when it comes to academia. It feels like there’s sometimes a discussion that leads to a tangential thought that leads to another discussion. And obviously that’s fine in an academic setting, but when it comes to the subject matter that they’re looking at but obviously from a customer experience point of view, that would be different.
They would still, like many other people out there in the wide world would still value a simpler customer experience. Is that your feeling?
[00:02:12] Ben Prinsloo: Yeah. I mean, look, I think the students are there to study, right? And so I think we found the biggest success by collaborating very closely with the academic delivery component. That is the reason for them being there. And so when we work closely with the academics which, it’s sad to say that we haven’t always seen institutions or universities do this well, there seems to be a quite a bit of a silo when it comes to student support and the academic delivery.
But when you can really bring those two pieces together. It really creates a harmony for the student where they can see that there’s thinking and engagement being done for their success. And so when they can see that, again, it removes a little bit of that anxiety or that limitation that they have in their mind that they’re going to have to repeat themselves and tell the same stories to their academics and their student support.
And so when you eliminate that feeling or that anxiety, it creates like an openness from students. And so that they’re more willing to share with us as the student support and student experience people, because they know that information is going to get across to their academic delivery partners.
And so, and vice versa, they know that when they’re, bringing up challenges to their academics,
that’s going to come back to us and we’re going to be on top of it. And we’re going to be ready to support those challenges that they have.
[00:03:24] Chris Hudson: Yeah. I want to maybe just take a step back a little bit, which is just to think about your professional journey and how you ended up in the land of students and how it is you came to this area of focus and what drew you to it really?
[00:03:35] Ben Prinsloo: I mean, I’ll be entirely honest. I landed here with complete mistake. Happy mistake. I was not one ever personally that enjoyed study. And maybe it’s a, a lack of concentration or a lack of the autonomy that comes with being taught how to think by certain programs and courses. And so it’s interesting that I ended up in this space.
I mean, I started by working in a contact centre for a very large vet provider prior to all the vet fee help scandals that went down in 2014. , I was given some great opportunity there by the general manager of the online division of the time, that saw some potential, in the work that I was doing.
And so from there, I really got to learn a lot about the academic delivery part, about compliance and governance and, how to really plan for growth. It became very quickly clear to me that, this happens and I guess in all businesses, but the silos that occur between, very much needed service delivery components of the student experience. Think about the first inquiry from a sale through to a student actually starting and the decision making process that occurs in that.
And, the commitment that needs to happen and then for them to actually start engaging into the academic journey. And so I guess to go back to how I ended up with that, it just created this like fascination for me is to be like, well, there’s so much commitment and there’s so much thought that goes into bettering your life through education.
Why is it that students get to this point where they’re enrolled and they’re ready to study and then they give up? And that really tickled my brain. And so from there, I got really interested in how do we create these experiences, that allow the students to just not worry about the service or the experience that’s being given to them and actually let them focus on why they’re there and that’s to, achieve some academic success.
[00:05:20] Chris Hudson: So it’s almost when you strip away the part that is a pain point or that does take them longer than they should or whatever is getting in the way of them doing what they’re there to do. If you take that away and you make it easier and then they’re happy but it’s almost like an anti design process.
[00:05:32] Ben Prinsloo: Yeah. I mean, I guess there’s this piece as well of like, an ethereal being when you look at students just as a number, it’s like, do they exist? Don’t they exist? But there’s real people there. There’s real people behind these screens, investing their time, whether it be for personal growth, whether it’s for better opportunities so they can look after their family.
Everybody’s got different motivations. And so when you can connect to those motivations and join them up with the academic purpose. I think that’s where a lot of success comes on offer for experiences rather than just treating people behind screens as numbers.
[00:06:06] Chris Hudson: Yeah. What is it about your practice and maybe your particular approach with this that gave you some really true insight? Because I think often people just come up with very sweeping generalisations or, you know, student experience has been managed a certain way for a long time, particularly within certain organisations schools, universities and, all the way through.
It’s never been a carefully curated experience or one that has really brought in, the floods of investment that other industries have really benefited from it in my view anyway. What did you do to really get under the skin of what the students stood for?
It’s a really broad term. I mean, it could be anyone from this age, this age, there could be so many different points of life at which they enter. So yeah. How’d you go about that, doing that yourself?
[00:06:45] Ben Prinsloo: There’s a balance between the student experience and giving them what the students need, but listen, we’re all in business to make money. That’s the reality. And the reality for me, and what I’ve taken a lot of effort in having to convince many people of, is that the money making power actually sits with, creating exceptional experiences for the students that have already been enrolled and already committed.
I often see institutions and training providers focus so much on just driving new business that they forget to really embed strong process, and technology, both for the students, but also for their staff to allow for that incremental revenue performance, to come through.
And so for that, I would say data. There’s so much data available, in ways of anecdotal insights from the students directly that tell you what’s going on. People are not going to be shy about telling you what they feel that they’re not getting for their money, right? They’re still spending their money, regardless of the fantastic government funding opportunities that students have here in Australia, they still have to pay that money back and they’re going to tell you what they need. Okay. And so if people are not listening to that from either the student support side or the academic side, things will start to fall apart, but then the data doesn’t lie.
There’s so many stories that you can tell with the data. And so. I think what happens is making sure that data’s properly segmented and that you’re actually looking at what it’s telling you, because, if you just chop and change the way that you maybe filter or display or create the data insights, the opportunity comes to you and that’s where you’re able to really, make the money for the business, but also it’s identifying experience gaps.
And so there’s this relationship between using the hard data that’s available, and listening to what students are saying to bring it together to create the experiences that benefit both the student and the business.
[00:08:38] Chris Hudson: So in your world, what comes first? Is it the data that’s driving the hypothesis or is there usually a hypothesis or an opportunity or some kind of more business level directive that’s driving what’s going on within the teams, where does the focus really get driven from?
[00:08:52] Ben Prinsloo: I don’t think that there’s one answer to that because, institutions or, educational businesses will be in different phases depending on what their focus is. So of course, you got to think about the strategic imperatives that exist for the business. Is it student growth and maybe it’s business to business growth?
These things need to be taken into consideration. But absolutely. I rely heavily on data. And I question it a lot. I never, I shouldn’t say I never trust it, but I’m always suspicious of it. Because when you poke around and you ask questions of what the data is telling you, that’s when you get to the truth.
I don’t always take it as face value.
[00:09:26] Chris Hudson: Do you have an example of something that you remember just being like a total I guess a drain of your time, but it took you down a windy path and it didn’t result in anything? Is there anything like that, that I’m sure it happens a bit, but
[00:09:37] Ben Prinsloo: A hundred percent. I mean, so it wasn’t long after I started in my role in the last organisation I was with that I noticed that the data just wasn’t telling the right story.
There was some great metrics that were defined and some great performance goals that were set for teams which was driving good performance, but you could see that there were things falling off that just were never then picked up again.
And so the term retention will always be from one milestone to the next, how many students are you retaining and how many you keep moving. But what happens to the students that aren’t retained? What are they doing? Because there’s been investment put into that and there’s been, a lot of sunk costs that occurs to get these students on board. And so I was like here’s a very clear opportunity for us to, again, segment this data differently. And I designed it. I consulted with some colleagues and I was like, this is a clear winner, right? This is a clear winner for us to make some money and, improve our experiences to the students that are being forgotten, so to speak. And it just didn’t matter what I did or who I spoke to. It just became very clear that wasn’t going to be the focus for the business. And so, after a lot of back and forth with my boss at the time, he was, a wise lesson to learn about patience. He said, this work is not done in vain.
You just need to park it for when the business is ready. And so COVID happened, we all experienced it. And that pushed us into a different phase of the business. And so we really had to be smart about protecting and growing our own. And so then this work became relevant again. So you dust it off, you refine it a little bit and you move forward and from there, we put this work into an initiative cycle.
But then you experience different difficulties, does the capability actually exist to make this work a reality? And in our case, the answer was actually no. The capability did not physically exist for us to create this idea that I had. So then, you’ve got to pivot.
And so we pivoted and I created an MVP. I thought about, well, what is really the north star of what we’re trying to achieve here. And that was to regain access, for these students that had already spent so much time and money and effort that are being left by the wayside, unintentionally, but this is the product of some process. And so, we made it happen. We probably got about, I would say 60 percent there and we saw some great impacts from that. So I guess, it comes back to like storytelling of what is the purpose? Why do this now? Why not do it later?
What is the impact that is being offered by doing this work now? And like, what is the bad thing that happens if we don’t do it? Because sometimes there isn’t a bad thing that happens. And that was the reality, I guess, of this case at that point. But as the environment changed, we got an opportunity to bring this to life and I was, it’s great to see then, building that patience to wait and bring something back into the front line.
[00:12:19] Chris Hudson: No it sounds good. I mean, there’s definitely a school of thought around the fact that, anything is progress within a business context, organisational context. Sometimes there are those, rabbit holes and you go down them. But yeah, I was interested to hear about how you’re able to preserve what you did successfully really because so much of what’s done is either just not communicated, lost, put into the drawer. This fictional drawer that people talk about, bottom draw, you bring it out on a rainy day. How did you make sure that it was brought up at the right time? And what were some of the techniques that you were using to breathe life back into it, really?
[00:12:49] Ben Prinsloo: There’s so many pieces that feed into that. I guess a big part of, for me is about awareness and it’s not just self awareness, but also awareness of what is happening with the business. Like again, I mentioned before, the phase that the business is in or the focuses that they’ve got. But it’s also about creating really strong collaborative relationships. Because when the time comes and in this instance that I just mentioned, it was important that while we were looking at ways to achieve, certain revenue targets and goals, during the time of COVID, and the hangover that occurred because of it, that’s when it came back to me because I thought to myself, well hang on. There is a purpose here for us to strengthen what we’d done. I had initially created an idea that I thought would generate incremental revenue. So you bring those pieces back together and that’s where it comes in. And the collaboration comes in because it’s like, well, if I’m going to get buy in to do this.
Where I failed the first time was that I really try to push on my own. So it’s like, well, how do you bring all the pieces together? If you’re fundamentally changing the way a business looks at data and how it uses that information, it doesn’t just impact one area, it impacts all of them, if not a big part of them.
And so it’s around communicating with all the right functions and all the right leaders to make sure that everybody’s on the same page and that the purpose of what you’re trying to achieve is aligned. Because once that occurs, I really feel like that’s where I got the support and got the encouragement to actually push ahead with it.
[00:14:19] Chris Hudson: Was there something specific do you think that was, I guess, customised to this particular culture, really? But in the way that you collaborate with academics or people that work within education,
you know, I’ve worked in the industry as well, and I just feel like there’s a way in which you have to present things.
And, it’d be the same as if you were talking to architects or if you were talking to scientists. You’ve got to go about it a certain way. What’s your point of view on that?
[00:14:41] Ben Prinsloo: Yeah, I mean, I guess I found no matter how hard you try to prove a point or an idea your thought process and communication is not going to resonate with everybody. And when you’re working from, specialist marketing staff and, highly educated and experienced academics, as a contrast, the mindsets are so different.
And so I know that could seem simple, but, sometimes simple can lead to the path of least resistance. And so when I feel that the message is not coming across to stakeholders, I turn my statements into questions. I open the dialogue. Because at that point, you know, you’re creating this feeling to the stakeholders that you’re involving them in your decision making, and that you’re really valuing their input.
So it turns like this conversation around from this is what I’m telling you, or what I’m thinking, we need to do to really, creating this opportunity for input and collective decision making. And it’s also great for you to reflect on your opportunities, sometimes when you open these things up for questions you get to further that self reflection and think, oh well, maybe I didn’t think about that. Or maybe there is an opportunity to refine here or there. And that’s again where the power of collaboration comes in. So I’m a very direct communicator.
And so I’ve had to learn. I’ve learned a lot from that. And I guess this is one of the things that I’ve learned is, instead of just telling people you have this idea and it’s going to work and, let’s all get on board and go with it, it’s like open the dialogue, have a conversation, because everybody’s got something to contribute.
You just need to be willing to hear it.
[00:16:10] Chris Hudson: There’s often a preconception that an idea has to be communicated in broadcast fashion, really, that you’re up there on your pedestal and you’re preaching down to to whoever it is that’s there and available to listen. Or you’ve prepared some slides and they’re sitting in the boardroom listening to it.
It’s a different one and obviously a more immersive and interactive dialogue as you’re describing can be a different way of handling the situation. So what kind of approaches on questions and asking questions have you been able to use that you think work well? Because I’m assuming it’s more than, do you agree or do you disagree?
[00:16:40] Ben Prinsloo: I mean, you’ve got to come with perspective. The impact of decisions that you’re making will impact different functions, and parts of the business differently. And so it’s about taking the time and considering, well, what boat are these stakeholders sitting in? What is potentially in it for them?
What do you need from them to, that you’re always going to need something from. All different functions, and not in the sense of like, you’re going to need people just to make your dreams become a reality, but you’re going to need their expertise. You’re going to need their input to make it a well rounded, executed piece of work.
And so I really try to think about, well, what are these people contributing? What are the risks that I see, that could happen? And how do I get them to contribute to be able to respond to risks, and react because it doesn’t matter how well you scope work. There’s always going to be something that is missed.
That’s just the reality. Particularly when we’re working in a fast paced environment, so, I guess it’s, taking that time when you’re having that open dialogue to consider all the factors that could go wrong, but also go right. And how it is that you get people to contribute. I’ve worked in instances where I have been taking the lead or created or generated the idea initially, but then hand it over for other people to execute, because I can acknowledge that these are actually the right people and the expertise that need to take on this work. And so you can remain as a sponsor or as a person for, thought process or, any type of, risk mitigation or, that kind of way.
But at the end of the day, if you’re not the right person to execute, then you hand it over.
[00:18:17] Chris Hudson: Oh, you mentioned a couple of really interesting points there. One is around the reaction and also thinking that through almost in preparation. I think you see it working out and playing out, obviously, in an event space where, say there’s a debate or a panel and, you’re creating tension necessarily really or deliberately because you’re essentially putting people together that might have a different point of view on the same topic. Is that something that you’ve planned for? Or do you feel like you’re just good at facilitating it in the moment?
[00:18:41] Ben Prinsloo: That’s a great question. And I think that’s one that you need to consider the stakeholders you’re dealing with.
You’re not going to know this from day one. It’s impossible to know how people are going to react. Coming back to self awareness and awareness of others, I think it’s really important to know your own weaknesses and that can include behavioral, not just technical weaknesses, be confident in your strengths, but then be aware of your colleagues weaknesses too, because sometimes when you’re, a direct communicator, like I am, when there’s no intention to offend people, you’re just communicating facts or communicating what you want to see achieve.
It can rub people up the wrong way. And I really shouldn’t laugh at that because it’s, it’s been a big learning curve for me and depending on the person, will depend on the reaction. So yes with some stakeholders, I take some extra thought about what can potentially happen in this conversation and what could be some reactions.
But as time goes on, you can build stronger relationships and, be willing to say, let’s put this on hold and let’s come back because maybe there’s something that both of us are missing. And if, a couple of people in the room are very passionate and can get heated, I think it’s great because, we should be able to challenge each other because how else are you going to grow?
But with some stakeholders, I’m more than happy to just fly with what’s happening because there’s a certain level of comfortability that occurs to say, you know what? I respect what you’re doing, and I respect what you’re trying to achieve. So I’m not going to assume the worst. I think it’s very easy for people to just assume that there isn’t good intent with what is being said or what’s being recommended.
And so I guess that’s a little bit, a learning journey as a leadership team and getting to know your colleagues, but also for yourself.
[00:20:20] Chris Hudson: Yeah, good intent is really interesting, isn’t it? Because it just means that often the message it’s communicated one way, received another, but the intent you’d think is there. Sometimes it can be misconstrued, but yeah, you’d like to think that everyone’s on the same team and they’re all helping each other out, even if the communication isn’t in agreement immediately.
So, I mean, I think that’s healthy thing about, academic areas and, study. It feels like you can have a point of view, it might be listened to, it might be discussed a bit more, it might bring in other factors. It feels like it’s quite open to that. Is that your experience of working within education as well?
[00:20:52] Ben Prinsloo: Again it really just depends, it can come down to the leaders that create a leadership team, but also really will depend on the leader or the senior leader leading the team, I’ve been very fortunate in this last, role that I had a leader that was very strong on collaboration. And so from day one, there wasn’t this idea that anybody had anything to achieve on their own. And when you have that mindset from the start, it’s like, well, we have a common purpose. We’re all working towards the same goal. It changes conversations. It doesn’t mean that you don’t disagree and that you don’t, have moments where you’re like, what is actually going on right now?
Because that’s just work. But there’s always a reminder to be like, well hang on. We’re all here for the same purpose. And so let’s take a step back and go, what are you contributing to this purpose? What am I contributing to this purpose? And let’s then find the overlap and use that.
[00:21:43] Chris Hudson: That’s really healthy when that works out. Obviously the team dynamics are there and they’re set in place. It also means that down the track when you’re looking to shift from a more strategic to an implementation stage, the team around you almost across it to the extent that you’ve got an understanding, you’ve got a trust within that group that you can pass it on.
It doesn’t matter if one or two people aren’t there in the meeting that, the common purpose will still be represented, with the best intent as you were describing.
[00:22:07] Ben Prinsloo: Yeah. I guess that’s a really interesting point and something that I’ve experienced with different leaders is how much they keep their own teams informed. That has changed, the capability. And I think the ability to generate momentum to execute things a lot. And so where I’ve worked with leaders that are open and share with their teams, it’s far easier for my teams to engage with them because personally I’m open.
I don’t feel like there’s anything to hide. Of course, there are things that need to remain confidential for whatever reason. And that occurs, but there’s no reason to be hiding strategy or to be hiding goals. Like I really like my teams to take the ownership of what they want to do. And so when you create that accountability in the sense of letting them drive their own innovations, when it comes to these, more strategic pieces and collaborating with the other teams, it makes it so much easier because they’re already informed about what needs to happen. And it’s interesting how delays can occur when leaders don’t inform their staff because they don’t feel for whatever reason that it’s required for them to be across certain details. And then you’re almost, not just stalling momentum, but taking a step back because it’s like, okay, well, let’s bring everybody on the same page.
It creates misunderstandings. It creates these situations where one team is working towards what they think is the same goal as the other, but it’s not because they don’t have the same level of information. It’s a really interesting point to think about not just sharing information cross functionally, but also how you share it down so that can occur organically at that level too.
[00:23:36] Chris Hudson: Do you think oversharing is a thing or do you think that’s just nonsense now?
[00:23:40] Ben Prinsloo: I think it comes down to intent again, right? Why are you sharing information? If you’re sharing information for knowledge of being able to do your job well, to be able to think about risks, to be able to consider, what needs to go where. And again, I come back to creating that accountability, the information needs to be purposeful. I would never suggest just sharing, the notes of a leadership meeting. I don’t think that’s valuable. That’s the job of a leader is to be able to know what information your team is going to need in order for them to generate their own success, but to continue to cross functionally collaborate successfully too.
[00:24:13] Chris Hudson: A lot of what we’re saying is, it’s sort of about creating the right conditions in a way within the organisation. So I suppose the question I have is really around how much influence you really have in that realm as an individual versus how much you can expect from the organisation to really set up the conditions to be right?
[00:24:29] Ben Prinsloo: Good question. I think that it comes down to how much willingness you’ve got to actively contribute to an organisation’s culture. I was very lucky to lead the culture committee of the business that I was with for the last two years of the role. Well, I say lead very loosely.
I mean, I was the coordinator, if I’m honest, because the people that were on the team were really the leaders and they’re the ones doing the work. But we made a point of making that team, extremely diversified as far as backgrounds, but also from the different functions. Yes, more functions were more heavily weighted as far as volumes than others.
But driving that inclusivity, it was interesting to see that the thought process or the perception, I should say, change of what it means to contribute to a business. When you’re like learning together, when you’re socialising together and when you’re working towards the same goals and you can see how your work fits into that, I think that changes the ballgame. There’s a lot to say about creating genuine and authentic inclusivity versus just ticking, I guess, this corporate buzzword box that people say that they’re inclusive.
[00:25:30] Chris Hudson: Inclusivity is a big theme, obviously, but if you were to describe the feeling that sits behind that in yourself, when you know that it’s working well what would that be?
[00:25:38] Ben Prinsloo: I think it’s when you can see that people are really being their authentic self and they don’t have to think about what they’re saying. There’s these moments and I’m not saying, let’s just speak about the first thing that comes into your mind. But when you can tell that people are generally relaxed and not applying this filter.
I think we all notice that, we all notice people applying filters when they’re in certain conversations around certain people, whether that be senior leaders or, people within their team. I think when you can create an environment where people feel like they can contribute without this filter and it’s authentic, that’s I think the true feeling of inclusivity and I’ve seen that particularly when we’ve come to like D&I events, the diversity, equity and inclusion events where people have to share some really vulnerable stories. Well, they don’t have to, but of course they volunteer to. And that includes myself, you know, I even shared some, really vulnerable stories to a group of 200 people.
And it says a lot to see how comfortable I was in myself to share this about, these stories about me, but it also then how people react, like there was so much support and so much so much engagement. It’s like, we’re just seeing each other as people and you remove this, like, oh you’re this role or you’re this title. And you become a person.
[00:26:46] Chris Hudson: I mean, there’s a big topic as well around vulnerability in the workplace and how much that landscape or that, it’s probably not landscape. It’s more of a mindset that is either being accepted, I think it’s still being questioned a lot as to what the value of vulnerability is within the workplace, particularly from conventional traditional groups, leaders and it comes up against a bit of resistance.
So actually, the funny thing is that the vulnerability obviously exposes the reaction, which then creates a discussion around it. Without the vulnerability having been there, you don’t get anywhere really because you’re still in the status quo. So yeah it’s interesting to see how little leavers like that, little nudges.
I think it’s all in the spirit of progress, but it does take a bit of something extraordinary basically to bring out a response that can then elevate the discussion and then start to move things on.
[00:27:31] Ben Prinsloo: That comes back to awareness again, right? Like know the people that work for you and know the people, that are there. You’re not going to get it a hundred percent right. But look, I’ve seen it go terribly wrong. I’ve seen good intentions. With having people be uncomfortable with uncomfortable conversations, right?
Cause there’s a lot of power and being uncomfortable and being able to grow from that. But then sometimes the content that comes with that can be very triggering. And so it comes to the awareness, it’s like be aware of yourself and be aware of the people around you. And. I think that’s where, again, the power of the a function like a culture committee where you’ve got representation from so many different angles, you can think about, well, what could go wrong?
Because the intent is for growth and development and for connection. But there is also, like you say, a very much an opportunity to spark controversy. So there’s some, definitely some awareness and mindfulness that needs to go along with that. And it’s tricky. It’s not easy, but I think it’s still worth it.
I think it’s still worth trying than not trying at all.
[00:28:29] Chris Hudson: Yeah. Even if it’s the wrong thing, it starts you somewhere. It sets a benchmark. Can you describe the situation in which it was attempted, but just didn’t quite hit the mark?
[00:28:38] Ben Prinsloo: Yeah. I mean, I’m not going to lie. There was a very specific example that, that came to mind. There was, some great intent, as I mentioned about being uncomfortable and having uncomfortable conversations for the purpose of growth. And there was a TED talk shared for people to watch, again, with great intent and great purpose, but the content itself, I don’t think it was necessarily not relevant, but it just wasn’t with the times, we all experienced it.
There’s been rapidly changing awareness around, racism and sexism and all of that and the conversations that are continue developing. And I think that’s great because it takes education and conversation for us to be actually truly aware of this. But the content was just, it was really out of date.
And so there was a lot of triggers for people, with different backgrounds that weren’t the necessarily from a white educated family. And so, that caused controversy and, listening to the stories of the people that it impacted really resonated with me because it’s just like, we all experience some sort of diversion to, comments or to content that comes out, right?
That’s just natural. That’s what we do. But it’s again, it comes to that self awareness of, what is this message that’s actually being shared? Then it comes back to the storytelling as well right because the intent could be good but if the message is not being delivered right, it’s not going to land.
[00:29:56] Chris Hudson: There’s a difference in bringing out content to support a point. If you’re running training or if you’re doing something learning and it backs that up, but the point is made and sit s there in the background, you can take it or leave it, doesn’t really matter.
But if it’s there to really almost do the full running point landing and, make the announcement, actually set the stage then that’s a different, It’s serving a different purpose,
[00:30:16] Ben Prinsloo: Yeah. We’ve taken a bit, I guess, of a sidestep from the conversation, I’ve. I’ve taken a lot of time, I think, for myself to learn about the impacts to different groups of people in a workplace. Particularly, I’ve taken a big interest in how women are treated in the workplace and women in leadership.
It’s really blown my mind to see. How people have, a very unaware bias to some of their actions. And again, I don’t think people’s intent are bad, but when you can actually observe it, it’s just really interesting. I still struggle to understand where these biases come from.
I guess I’m very lucky, you know, Australia is the third country that I’ve lived in. So I’ve seen so many different cultures and I’ve seen people from so many different walks of life. And I’m not gonna by any means say that I’m, an expert or I’m great at all of the things that’s not possible.
But I’m always so willing to just sit and listen and learn and be educated because sometimes you don’t need to have an opinion on something. You just need to be willing to sit and listen. And then, be willing to make the change. Yeah it’s a hard conversation to have, but I think an important one.
[00:31:20] Chris Hudson: Absolutely. Very important. And actually, a number of these episodes we’ve gone into that area particularly with some of the women that have appeared as guests on the show, but I’m often feeling like there’s a hesitation almost sometimes. you know, it’s not a peer to peer conversation. And obviously, we can touch on some of the themes and you quickly get into that realm of generalisation. I think it actually would take more from, non women in whichever form, to actually take a more active role in, in having that conversation from an observer’s point of view and actually bring some of that distance together because it’s one of these things that just isn’t really talked about as openly as it should be, other than on International Women’s Day when the cakes come out and everyone’s talking about their initiatives that they’ve run once a year, but it’s a much bigger theme.
So I’m interested in hearing a bit more about it and like what drove you, what personally motivated you to get into that area.
[00:32:10] Ben Prinsloo: Do you not think it’s bizarre that we need to have an International Women’s Day to talk about women in the workplace? That’s the issue that I have with it. It’s
[00:32:19] Chris Hudson: like
[00:32:20] Ben Prinsloo: we don’t need to dedicate a day to it, women are here and they are contributing and they’re doing amazing things and probably far better than a lot of us male counterparts can ever do.
So I don’t know why we’re need a day to talk about it. It should just be there. I think if, there is a time to acknowledge and really uplift and empower women for what they’re achieving, great, let’s not make it an agenda item to talk about what we’re doing for inclusivity in the workplace.
It should just exist. And so you’re right. I think it’s up to us as the male counterparts to actually say something. I’ve got some great female leaders that I’ve worked with in different roles. But I also have some really close friends of mine that are strong female leaders in other industries and very male dominated industries.
And their question to me when I talk to them about this is like, they always say, well, what are you doing about it? Because it’s, can’t just be us changing it, you’ve got to be able to, speak up and sometimes it takes people just speaking up and saying, Hey, that’s not okay, or I don’t know why this is happening, to actually create the change.
[00:33:17] Chris Hudson: Yeah, it definitely feels like there’s not a toolkit of responses or anything that exists that men should be following as a code because it’s
more nuanced more nuanced
and it’s in relation to a particular scenario, but more often than not it won’t be even noticed, so.
[00:33:31] Ben Prinsloo: I think that there’s just, it’s education. There shouldn’t be a toolbox of how to respond. It should just be, it should be known. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to the success of businesses to just acknowledge the power that comes from the diversity of different backgrounds, education, life experiences, and acknowledge them for what they are and let people contribute.
Let people share their experiences.
[00:33:54] Chris Hudson: So in and around diversity and inclusion, do you feel like there is some practical steps that can be taken to make sure that the wheels are set in motion in the right way within an organisation. Who do you think is best placed to lead some of these initiatives?
[00:34:07] Ben Prinsloo: I think in these instances it’s important to have representation from different levels. It’s interesting to see how people react when you can incorporate a really grassroots approach to this work, in comparison to, traditionally, I think, you’ve got these leadership team sponsored initiatives and it’s a conversation that happens, but nothing actually ever happens if that makes sense.
And so we made it a purpose, a point in the business to not have people from the leadership team on the culture committee, as an example. And so there was one of us, which was me, to help coordinate and lead the activity and, then bring it back to the leadership team, for support or, for funding or whatever the case may be.
But let the people do the work for the people. what they need. If there’s anybody that knows what they need, it’s the people on the ground they talk, they know how it feels to engage with leaders from their division or other divisions. I guess I mentioned that before, but really just sit and listen, and identify from that what it is that you can do to change.
[00:35:07] Chris Hudson: Hmm.
[00:35:08] Ben Prinsloo: And it doesn’t have to be huge. They don’t always have to be these big ticket items. It could really just be some small steps to just create an environment where people are psychologically safe.
I know that probably sounds- could sound far fetched, but it’s really not, it’s really not that hard.
[00:35:22] Chris Hudson: In jumping into that committee, I mean, it sounds like it was very much, with the best intent, you were looking at solving for some of these errors. What were you identifying as the big challenges to solve in the first instance, and how do you go about prioritising things in that sense?
How do you know what’s right or what’s right to solve first?
[00:35:39] Ben Prinsloo: I think there’s a difference between what’s right to solve first and what’s possible to solve first. And so I’d like to consider both of those elements because just because what’s needed, and could really make a huge impact might not be possible. And then you’re dying on a hill, for no reason.
And so we had multiple pillars, there was five pillars that the team worked with to contribute from like learning and development to social engagement to reward and recognition. You’re really testing me now, but there was five pillars in total. And so the work was really to think about, well, what are some short term, medium term and long term initiatives and ideas that could really help create momentum for change.
And so I guess that was a big part of the role that I played in that team was to question and say, okay, I think all these ideas are great, and there’s great reason for them, but let’s talk about what’s realistic, so that we can actually feel, number one, that we are contributing, and that we, feel the purpose and the need for what’s happening here, but also that we can show change, that we can demonstrate the change, and so it might not be these grand gestures and these grand ideas, but often it led to some of the smaller ticket items that made the difference.
I think a good example would be, going through a business sale and being divested out of the organisation,
There was a lot of confusion because it’s impossible to know all of the information and to share it across everywhere, even really senior leaders in the business at such varied level of information.
What I, I thought would be valuable to do was to, not necessarily turn it around, but flip the power perspective. And so what we did was we worked with our academic leaders in the committee and got some additional academic experts to come in and support from psychology and really turn around to this, to think about, well, what does this change mean for me?
How am I feeling? How am I impacted? And what opportunity does that change then create for me, right? Because it’s very easy to go down this negative narrative of, oh all this change is coming. It’s going to be terrible. We’re all going to be impacted. And yes, there is some reality of that, but with change, there’s always opportunity, right?
And so we really wanted to bring that to the forefront and then create a collective decision about what it is that I, as an individual am going to contribute to the new journey and what they wanted to contribute as a team and as a business. That’s probably the most impactful work that we were able to do and I was very proud to see it be executed.
[00:38:02] Chris Hudson: No, it sounds brilliant. I mean, the, yeah the bigger question around whether the leadership team or the board is equipped to really take on some of these challenges is an interesting one because their focus has traditionally been elsewhere. The trajectory up to leadership positions has been based on skill set in a particular area as a practitioner, as a leader, as a manager of people, and all of these.
I’m going to call them more, horizontal or they transcend all walks of life in business. The fabric of the culture and what the community is, at large actually stands for is something that none of those people individually is really equipped to solve for in a way, because it’s the combined combination of parts.
So the fact that you’re able to set up a committee, and I’m interested in hearing a bit more about that and how it was set up and maybe, what are the ways in which you can get the right mix of people, the right allies involved in some of that, but the effect that you’ve been able to bring about from that is really encouraging.
So how did you go about setting up?
[00:38:53] Ben Prinsloo: So look I was not part of the inception of that team. It was from another leader who then went on to maternity leave. And when they went on to maternity leave, asked me to shepherd and, lead and that’s why I mentioned I did it for about the last 18 months or two years of that time.
But this leader, it also really took some time to think about, well, what is the purpose? What are we trying to achieve here? And it was that, that collective voice. And so that’s why it was really important for them to think about getting grassroots people involved with this initiative and the committee, and making sure that the representation occurred.
And there wasn’t this unseen influence from the leadership team because people talk differently and people respond differently when there’s too much leadership in a room. It doesn’t matter how much you try. It’s something I’m so fascinated by like, it doesn’t matter how much time you spend with certain groups of people or, how much you can share about yourself to really humanise yourself.
There’s always some perception that it’s like, oh, well, I can’t say this because there’s a leader in the room.
They really wanted to eliminate that and I think that was a big part of the success. But then there was also encouragement to engage more with the leadership team because they could see that the thought processes and the work that they were doing was very clearly being supported and encouraged.
So it did help bridge that gap in a sense as well.
[00:40:09] Chris Hudson: Yeah, it’s amazing. It reminded me a bit about, so a company that I started, close to when I started out in my career, was a marketing agency. And one of the behaviors that they were always looking at when it was time for reviews was around productivity. And when I first started out, I didn’t really know what that meant.
And what they soon did was explain how it was manifest in different areas. So what it meant was that if you saw something that was wrong or something that needed to be fixed in a work context, and you made the observation, obviously, but then you took the initiative to then either point it out or do something with it or I guess the concept of seeing the environment in which you work and exist, trying to figure out how you can improve it and bring that but in your own way, it’s very much about what it’s solving for yourself as well as the environment you’re in was what they were after.
And then they would play back some of the examples where they’d seen you do that in the review process, ooh that was quite interesting. But ultimately, it’s about accountability and connection to what people actually believe in and what they feel they can do. And I think the reality of it is that a lot of people feel a bit helpless and misguided.
They’re there to work. The work structure, the project structure, all of that is happening. And this can be seen as a bit of a distraction or something else on the side that is over and above. And that’s a bit of a drain. So it takes certain people, I think, to come into these groups.
What’s been the best way to motivate people and get them involved?
[00:41:24] Ben Prinsloo: Initially, it wasn’t that easy. I mean, I, again, I wasn’t part of the inception of this group. But I know from engagement with this leader that it wasn’t easy to get representation from everywhere because there is like this unspoken. What is this going to be?
What am I going to contribute? Do I actually feel like I have a voice? And let me just preface that by saying as well, that there are many people in organisations that are there to come in and do their work and leave. And that is a hundred percent. Okay. Like I value people that can know who they are and say, you know what?
My role here is to do my work well. And that’s it, right? Like some people just don’t have, the interest in engaging with this stuff and that’s okay too. But the people that do care, are often going to come from areas that are potentially more customer facing. So, the more socially demanding functions. And so that’s what was found, right? It was the people that were working in sales and customer service that were really stepping up and in the academic delivery too, because, they’re constantly dealing with people. So they have that innate comfortability to be able to think about, how do I contribute because I’m constantly getting feedback about what’s happening, right?
The challenge was getting some input from functions that weren’t necessarily as customer facing. And so that was what we try to work on and I try to encourage when I took over the leadership of that committee. There was a couple of members that had left for whatever reason, whether they moved on or they didn’t want to be part of that functionality anymore because of work demands or whatever the case. So then they shifted it from like an open invitation to me, more approaching either leaders of a function to say, please nominate or approaching people. I would think would be valuable contributors directly as well. I would probably say this till I’m blue in the face, it’s about awareness, it breaks my brain and it breaks my mind, how often people just blindly move into stuff without that self awareness of what it is that they’re trying to achieve.
It’s like the concept alone is good enough, but it’s not. You’ve got to think about all those external factors that make a concept a reality.
[00:43:32] Chris Hudson: Yeah. So I think you know, as an employee, as a, as somebody who’s part of the company in one way or another, you’ve got to think about where you sit, don’t you’ve got to think, am I an active contributor to this or am I going to be more passive and be deliberate about that and obviously have conviction in what you do, but, I don’t know, I feel like because the more active people are the ones that are, the arguably more visible within the organisation as well.
That creates a split in the culture somehow. It’s basically the people that are leading it and the people that are then just observing or turning up just to do the work and go home.
[00:44:00] Ben Prinsloo: Yeah I guess in the beginning, particularly with certain events, there was a challenge with getting people engaged. But I think we’ve made a very big point of it to make it very much opt-in. Nothing was mandatory because if there is one phrase that I really dislike and I never want to hear again in my life, or I will, is forced fun.
[00:44:18] Chris Hudson: Oh yeah.
[00:44:18] Ben Prinsloo: really dislike,
[00:44:20] Chris Hudson: Yeah.
[00:44:20] Ben Prinsloo: dislike that saying I’ve heard it so many times. You know, you think you’re doing a good thing and getting people together and they’re like, oh well, it’s just a bit of forced fun. And so you, again, you listen to that, right? You listen to that and you go, well. Let’s make it opt-in because if you want to participate you will and interestingly enough, you know particularly with our last social event we had I want to say 85 to 90 percent of our employees engage with it because there was open conversation about what it meant to be part of something like that.
There wasn’t like a company mandated, afternoon of mini golf. Like it was an opportunity to really, get together and socialise and recognise. So I think that’s another element that we always introduced with certain events, right, is recognition, create an opportunity, when we’re disconnecting people from the day to day work life to create some fun, but also really recognise the work that they are doing.
And not just have this sense of forced fun because I think I’ll probably have a little twitch every time I hear that.
[00:45:18] Chris Hudson: Alright, I won’t say it. And I’m glad when you were introducing the theme of that and I was thinking, well, have I said it at some point through this interview? And then you said forced fun and my relief kind of set in because I knew I hadn’t said that word, so that was okay. Last thing I want to do is upset my guests on the podcast.
But anyway, some great themes. I really enjoyed the chat today and yeah, particularly around your approach. It seems very pragmatic. Obviously you’re very much in favour of the transparency, the openness, vulnerabilities obviously coming into it. One of the questions that we sometimes ask around superpower, but is there anything that stands out as being unique to you in the way that you like to go about work?
What makes you effective in the work that you do?
[00:45:53] Ben Prinsloo: I think there are many weird and wonderful people out there, and I’m one of them. I think we’re probably more weird than wonderful at times. I think it’s my innate ability to look at a whole picture, right? I think that’s what has allowed me to do that.
I’ve had some great influence from a dad that has worked in businesses his entire life. And have been exposed to many great leaders from different areas. And I’ve always surrounded myself with people that are direct communicators like I am, because that’s the best way that I learn.
And I guess that, it comes back- I’ll say it one more time to self awareness. It’s like, how are you willing to reflect on your own contributions and your behaviors to grow and learn? So I guess that when you have this constant ability to have a continuous improvement cycle on yourself, it’s easier to have the ability to look at a continuous improvement cycle at work as well.
[00:46:42] Chris Hudson: Yeah. I mean, that’s so valid and I really appreciate you articulating it so well this audience too. So Ben, thank you so much for the chat. I think we’ll stop there. I could go on like you, I could go on and on about self awareness because it’s been a constant theme for me too but, yeah, really love the conversation and yeah, looking forward to seeing what happens next in your next step and in your next chapter as well.
So before we finish maybe just tell people about how they might be able to reach you if they’d like to get in touch, talk to you about some of the themes we’ve raised today, but also to ask a question or just get in touch,
[00:47:12] Ben Prinsloo: Well, thank you firstly, thank you a lot for your time, Chris. I’ll be honest and say I had no idea what the word intrapreneurship meant before you reached out, but I’ve, gone and educated myself. So thank you for that and for the conversation. But yeah, I mean, please, if anybody wants to reach out, I’m always open to conversation.
You can reach me on LinkedIn and I’ll be here to have a chat.
[00:47:32] Chris Hudson: Brilliant. All right. Well, thanks so much, Ben. I think we’ll leave it there and yeah, enjoy the rest of your day.
[00:47:36] Ben Prinsloo: Fantastic. Thanks, Chris.
[00:47:37] Chris Hudson: Okay, so that’s it for this episode. If you’re hearing this message, you’ve listened all the way to the end. So thank you very much. We hope you enjoyed the show. We’d love to hear your feedback. So please leave us a review and share this episode with your friends, team members, leaders if you think it’ll make a difference.
After all, we’re trying to help you, the intrapreneurs kick more goals within your organisations. If you have any questions about the things we covered in the show, please email me directly at chris@companyroad.co. I answer all messages so please don’t hesitate to reach out and to hear about the latest episodes and updates.
Please head to companyroad.co to subscribe. Tune in next Wednesday for another new episode.
0 Comments