Rare Breeds and the Culture of Possibility

Transcript

Des Dearlove:

Hello, I am Des Dearlove, co-founder of Thinkers50. Welcome to our weekly LinkedIn live session, celebrating the brightest new voices in the world of management thinking. 

In January we announced the Thinkers50 Radar list for 2024, 30 highly exciting rising stars in management thinking, and we’ll be hearing from two of them today. This year’s Radar list is brought to you in partnership with Deloitte. A key topic is making workplaces wholly inclusive and healthy for everyone, as is sustainability. And as you might expect, all things AI and digital loom large too. Today though we are talking about an unusual type of talent: rare breeds. We do like to make these sessions as interactive as possible, so please let us know where you are joining us from today and put your questions in the chat or comments box.

Well, our guests today are leadership and brand experts. Sunny Bonnell and Ashleigh Hansberger celebrate the power of being different. In their book, Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous, and Different, they outline seven unconventional traits that are traditionally viewed as vices in the business world. But they set out the case for organisations to treat these so-called weaknesses as strengths and thereby create cultures that champion diverse thought and fuel innovation.

Their award-winning branding company, Motto was founded in 2005 with just $250 after they dropped out of college together. Sunny is the CEO and chief visionary, and Ashleigh is chief strategy officer. They’re best known for creating ideas worth rallying around for tech-centric companies who are building a better future. The dynamic duo’s strategic and creative contributions have driven billions of dollars in commerce by shaping the world’s most inspiring products, services, and brands, and they’re going to tell us more. Sunny and Ashleigh, welcome, and congratulations on making the Thinkers50 Radar list.

Sunny Bonnell:

Thank you so much.

Ashleigh Hansberger:

Thank you so much, Des.

Sunny Bonnell:

Excited to be here.

Des Dearlove:

It’s lovely to have you here. You both answered at the same time. I’m going to have to call you out by name next time. Listen, before we get on to talking about your work, tell us a little bit about your journey? How did you two meet and what inspired the two of you to start Motto?

Sunny Bonnell:

Well, we met in a snowball fight in the early ’90s and we met as young teens and we ended up going to college together. And in our early 20s we dropped out of college together to found Motto, and that was 2005. And that was about, we actually just celebrated our 19th year in business yesterday. And so, we have built a global branding agency that works with leaders and leadership teams at periods of growth and evolution and transition where we are helping them align around a big idea, and then helping them forge that idea across the culture and the brand. We’ve been at it a while and came together as teens and have been on this wild ride.

Des Dearlove:

Yeah, no, I think it has been a wild ride too. Very exciting. Ashleigh, have you ever had any regrets about dropping out of college?

Ashleigh Hansberger:

No, school was never really for me. I went because it was what you were supposed to do. All my friends went to college. I tried it out for a couple of years and just realised I didn’t personally feel like I was getting much out of it. I didn’t really know exactly what I wanted to do. I didn’t know what I really wanted to study, so it wasn’t a hard decision for me to say, “You know what? I’m going to go a different path.” And ultimately we made that decision fairly quickly. And I think, Sunny, you might be a little different. You really loved the experience of being in school, which was different from me.

Sunny Bonnell:

Well, I was on track to be a veterinarian. So, the two of us, she was going to be a journalist, I was going to be a veterinarian. And so I was enrolled in pre-vet school and really did love the experience. As a matter of fact, when we dropped out, we dropped out so young that I think that just we had this kind of blind courage that anything was possible. And I ended up going back to school. I went to Savannah College of Art and Design and studied and went all the way to a master’s to study design. We ran Motto and then I went back to school and just tried to learn all the things that I was learning technically. I was trying to learn in the real world as we were building the company, so it was a really interesting journey. But I am a little bit different in that I feel fondly about that time, but I don’t regret dropping out, because I feel like it ultimately created Motto.

And it created our perspective of how to build a company in a world where, particularly as women we’re like 0.1% of all creative agencies even owned by women. The fact that we even built the company in a world where it’s largely dominated by people other than us, I think it ultimately created sort of a backbone, if you will, that allowed us to push through and challenge the status quo.

Des Dearlove:

It’s interesting, some of the language you were using, you talk about blind courage and backbone. And I mean, that’s part of it. I do think, to Ashleigh’s point, an awful lot of people end up staying in school and college because it’s expected and because they don’t actually have the … I think it’s less that they don’t have the courage, I think it’s more that people have a tendency to want to conform. And if they don’t know what they want to do, they just stay on that track. You talk about the fear that makes people conform and to some extent that same fear that can really suffocate creativity. How did you come to terms with that? Well, how did you come to that conclusion?

Ashleigh Hansberger:

I think it was through our own experience. When we started, everyone told us we were too young, too inexperienced, too female, too whatever, to succeed in a world where other people made the rules for us. And that did breed some doubt and some confusion and some uncertainty about, “Is this really possible? Can we do things our way? Can we create a life and a business and something for ourselves that was truly on our own terms?” And of course, when you’re young like that and you don’t know what life is going to have in store for you, all kinds of things bubble up to the surface. And certainly I think that that fear component was there. But there was also just, I think a natural-born instinct in both of us for some reason, where that never really held us back from doing anything. I think success really does happen when you move forward despite whatever fear that you have.

And that has always been something that Sunny and I have been able to do for whatever reason. We haven’t analysed it all that much because it just feels sort of natural to us. It’s just something that we do. We have a bias for action and despite whatever that fear is. And I think that that’s largely what has compelled us and propelled us forward over the past 19 years is just that, let’s move on, even though it feels a little scary right now.

Sunny Bonnell:

Yeah, and there’s something too about that I was just going to add to what Ashleigh was saying there. Which is one of my favourite things that we like to say is, “Be thankful for small minds because that’s how the rose grew from the concrete.” And I think sometimes when you are suppressed or people doubt you, there’s a decision that can be made. It can be that you fall back like what you’re talking about, Des, or you march forward, and it makes you want to prove those doubters wrong. And it forges you in the fire, because you start to believe, look, if you have it within you that you have a vision for something, the world is trying to stop you. And that’s for anybody trying to build anything of significance. There is doubt, there are voices, there is your own self-doubt, which is the warrior that you’re up against anyway. It’s actually sometimes more intimidating than the voices around you. When you are able to quiet that noise, vision becomes incredibly clear. It takes action to keep chipping away at the sculpture that you’re trying to reveal for yourself.

Des Dearlove:

I want to talk about the book Rare Breed, but just before I do, do you think, it’s just occurred to me, do you think that the fact that there were two of you and that you were in it together, do you think that helped? I’m speaking as someone who had a co-founder with Thinkers50 as well, and I know that there’s a good side to it and sometimes not such a good side to it, you sometimes … At least you’ve got a comrade in arms, you’ve got automatically you’ve got someone that you share your concerns with. Do you think that was a factor?

Sunny Bonnell:

I think so. I mean, yeah, Ashleigh can speak to that too, but we had to learn, we were very, very young. I mean, you’re talking 20s, no emotional maturity, a lot to learn about each other and how we worked. And over time we were anchored by a greater purpose. But beyond that, I think what we learned how to do was that we learned that each other’s strengths and weaknesses were the counter opposite of each other. And so, when you are able to balance that with anyone, I think that allows you to do greater work. Because you start to have a great deal of self-awareness of, “I’m not really great at these things.”

For example, I’m pretty strong on the vision side, but Ashleigh is really strong on the creative and strategic side, and she’s just a brilliant cut through of so many things, and she can really make sense of my crazy and wild ideas and bring me back down to earth when I start to get too high up in the air. She really grounds me in that way. Same for her. I probably drag her through all my crazy ideas, and she’s like, “Hold on a minute. Too many ideas at one time.” But that’s the counterbalance of finding that scale, if you will.

Ashleigh Hansberger:

And what we do, that’s what you do, what anyone does who attempts to do something on their own. It is very lonely. And having a partner there, someone who shares a vision, shares your values, really believes in the things that you believe in and I think has your back and all of that stuff. I don’t think that Motto would have never been what it has become and what it will continue to become if both of us weren’t there for each other along the way. We would have given up individually probably a long time ago, because this is hard.

Sunny Bonnell:

All the time, yeah.

Ashleigh Hansberger:

It’s really hard. And so when you’ve got someone, and I don’t take it for granted at all, because I personally know that if I were doing this on my own it would never have gotten to where it’s gotten. And I think the same is probably true for Sunny. It’s a very lonely experience when  … at the end of the day … and so having that person there is the thing that actually makes it work. It gives you that ability to keep going.

Des Dearlove:

You know that at least one other person is listening at least! Yeah, somebody else, one other person cares.

Ashleigh Hansberger:

Don’t get me wrong. We’ve had our fair share of fights. I think there was a time I might have run your toe over with my car. We’ve had all that stuff, right-

Sunny Bonnell:

Yeah, and it makes great work.

Ashleigh Hansberger:

And I think that, that’s very normal for anybody working together and anybody who’s close enough to where you’re in this together. And so you experience all of those emotions, all of those ups and downs really as one.

Sunny Bonnell:

And we’ve expanded it to our team too. We’ve expanded the thinking to the team so that you have this kind of healthy tension, if you will. Where it’s important to allow your team to disagree and commit. We’re really big believers of like, “Hey, you don’t build anything of significance without or anything great if you are always in agreement, if you’re always in alignment.” Sometimes it takes that ability to be not aligned and to be able to fight for your ideas and say, “No, no, no, that’s not what I mean.” And you have that sort of discourse. I think that what builds great, great ideas and great companies is to have that be normalised.

Des Dearlove:

Okay, let’s talk about the book. Let’s take, we focus on your personal experiences, but I mean, what’s really interesting about the book is it’s a lens to other visionary leaders. It’s looking at how they influence their brands and their organisations. And I do, I think it’s such a good subtitle. The book is, as I mentioned, at the top of the program, Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous, and Different. Tell us a little bit about the seven virtues? How do you define Rare Breed? What makes these people different? I’m going to ask you, Ashleigh, I can see you’re both not sure now who should speak first.

Ashleigh Hansberger:

We define rare breeds as people who succeed because of who they are, not despite who they are. And the reason that we wrote this book was for an entire group of people, really the underdogs. The people who are cast aside for being the very things that actually turn their weaknesses into their strengths. And so, in the book we define seven virtues really. Most people will call these things vices and would consider them counterproductive to success. We consider these virtues, which are really the qualities and the traits of unique people that enable them to do big things in the world. And oftentimes these are rebellious people, audacious people, highly emotional people, obsessed people, hot-blooded people, weird people. We’ve got all of these traits that really make up the DNA of a rare breed. Sometimes you’re not all of them, but you usually have one or two of these qualities that really kind of come up to the top of your chart.

But rare breeds are, they walk differently in the world. They are people who, like I said, they succeed because of who they are. And they don’t allow those things that other people would consider dangerous to find and different about them to stop them.

Des Dearlove:

Okay. And Sunny, are there examples that we can point to that we might know in public life, perhaps at the heads of organisations? Are there rare breeds that we can identify that we can say, “Oh yeah, she’s one of these or one of these?”

Sunny Bonnell:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think that rare breeds have been with us since the beginning of time. Joan of Arc was a rare breed. Maya Angelou, Lenny Bruce, the people that we … Martin Luther King, I mean, these are people that have defied convention and changed the world because of who they are. Despite a great deal of controversy around their purpose and what they were fighting for, fighting against. And rare breeds tend to move the world forward because of that. As Ashleigh said, they move the world forward because of who they are, not despite who they are. And typically there’s a perilous side to this, right? Where they’re called vices because they are, in fact there’s a dark side to them. And in the book we really reframe them as virtues, things to be leveraged. Rather than rebellious being something that is seen as a negative, we really flip that around and say, “Well, what if it was a strength, was a positive?”

And not only could you hire for that, but that it was part of what you were building into your toolbox of who you are. And you were able to call on that, so-called vice. In times where change was required, how could that be a force for good? And so we dig really deep into that in the book about why it’s a vice, why it’s a virtue, but more importantly, how do you turn it into a virtue? We don’t talk a lot about that, especially when we hire individuals and particularly rare breeds. One of the things that we see quite often is they’re often pushed out of organisations because they have these dark traits, so to speak. And we were like, “Why is it that way?”

And our own very journey was built around that. People telling us that we were too rebellious to succeed, or too opinionated to succeed, that we were just a force in every room that we walked into, as it was a negative. Too much of something. And I think that’s true for a lot of people who try to find homes in organisations where they feel they don’t belong. Well, it’s not them, it’s the organisation. It’s the people that are leading that organisation. We felt that there was not a manifesto out there that really talked about that and could be a guidebook for people that were searching for organisations that celebrated those differences, rather than tried to eliminate them.

Des Dearlove:

Okay. Now, I know you’re not necessarily HR folks, you are very much leadership and branding people, I know that. But how can organisations identify and begin to hire for these qualities? Because as you say, the filtering process, the interviewing process, the whole process is to some extent is to get the right shaped pegs or the normal shaped pegs in the normal shaped holes. And anybody who doesn’t fit will be, I mean these days probably is filtered out by AI, never mind the human ability to see something different. How can organisations reorientate themselves so that they can recognize these traits as positives, rather than negatives? Ashleigh, you want to take that?

Ashleigh Hansberger:

I think it’s a real cultural thing. We always say, if you want to have the kind of company, if you want this kaleidoscope of fresh thinking in your organisation, which is really what every company needs now in order to be relevant in the future, then you need as many different colours and variations and ideas as possible. And no matter what kind of business that you are in, you are the business of humanity. So, we believe it’s very important to build an organisation that has this variety of thinking.

I think it is dangerous when it comes to culture. You talk a lot about these cultural fits. And being able to slot people into a culture like a Lego. And there’s a lot of danger to that, because what happens is that in and of itself creates this homogenization. That in and of itself creates this like-minded thinking, almost too much. And so we believe it’s really important to have this variety of thinking to be able to just come at the world and solve problems in a variety of different ways. It’s really important that when you are thinking about who belongs in your company, it becomes less about do they fit in our company and more about, can they contribute to our culture and make it better. Rare breeds need to be viewed as contributors, not people who are just there who kind of slot in, but people who add extreme value to an organisation.

And it’s a mindset shift from a lot of leadership teams and a lot of companies because trying to find people who believe what we believe, who all of that stuff, which is relevant in and of itself, but it’s almost not enough. Because you don’t want to create the kinds of conditions where it’s just stuck. Because the way we’ve always done things is not going to help us in the future. We need to be able to come up with new ideas and fresh thinking, which is why you need those contributions that help you get there more so than you need, what is going to fit in, who we are right now?

Des Dearlove:

And Sunny, it sounds as though this is potentially a kind of an antidote or a vaccine against groupthink. Because what happens quite often is everybody speaks the same language and starts to believe, make the same assumptions. You’re inside an organisation and quite often or we’ve seen many examples where it becomes detached from the reality of what customers are thinking and what consumers are thinking and what suppliers are thinking. And yet, there’s no way to break the groupthink because we’re all thinking the same thing.

Sunny Bonnell:

It’s true. And I think that the way that you break through that is you have to allow for that diverse thinking. But more importantly, a lot of people ask us, “Well, why did we call it Rare Breed? Why did we have that name?” And the story behind that was, in 2000, I think it was maybe a year or two into our business we were thinking about quitting. And my dad came to us and said … Well, we were like, “We don’t think we’re cut out for entrepreneurship. This is way too hard. We don’t think we should be entrepreneurs.” And he said, “Well, you two are a rare breed. Not everybody’s going to love you. Not everybody’s going to understand you. You have to succeed because of who you are, not despite who you are.”

And that little phrase, it’s interesting because a lot of you hear these terms, right? You hear the word misfit, you hear the word outlier, and there’s negative connotations with that. And so in our mind, when we thought of the word rare breed and what he meant when he said that was that you’re unordinary among the kind. And it’s not something to be ashamed of. It’s something to be proud of. And so when we use that phrase, it’s truly a badge of honour. It’s not something to be said, “Oh, you’re different for difference sake.” No, you’re different because we’re all different and we need to be able to fully build that into our infrastructures so that we are not, and quite frankly in most organisations that we work with, and why I think this book took off in the way that it did is because a lot of people were like, “We didn’t have a book like this.”

In organisations we saw it dualistic where people were reading the book and taking it up to their organisation and being like, “We should read this.” And then we had leaders who were leading organisations saying, “We need you to come in and teach us this thinking, because we’ve realised that we have a diversity problem. We realise that we’re not hiring for that level of talent where we get these folks in and then we end up pushing them out.” Why are you doing that? And so that dovetails into the next book where we talk about culture of possibility. You need rare breed thinkers and you need strong leaders and people of different ideas to come together and create that culture of possibility. But more importantly, organisations need to learn how to create a culture of possibility where each individual can thrive. So you’re tapping into the strengths and the weaknesses. And if you have people that have those weaknesses, how do you actually create learning and development to scale them up? How do you grow leaders within your teams? That’s so important, and they don’t think enough about it.

Des Dearlove:

I mean, that was going to be one of my next questions is, how can leaders, rare breed leaders, how can they inspire other people in the organisation to exhibit or step into some of their other qualities, perhaps the qualities that they haven’t chosen to show in order to get the job or they felt to get the job? How can you inspire people to be a bit more unconventional? Ashleigh, that’s one for you.

Ashleigh Hansberger:

I think it is a cultural shift. We have, as a world, as a business world, we have a tendency to really glorify visionaries and big ideas and all these things. But it’s really the culture within a company that makes the biggest difference. And I think that when rare breeds are within your company, they’re able to inspire people to come along with them, because they actually believe that anything is possible. And so they become these ambassadors to change culture and allow for the kind of culture and create the kinds of conditions that make crazy ideas seem quite logical, because it is actually, crazy ideas get a real bad wrap. And we tend to want to put them in a box and label them as dangerous and too risky. And I think this is actually the thing that allows companies or makes companies really stand still and halts their innovation.

And I think when you have rare breed people within companies, they create a different mindset if they’re allowed to. That allowed thing is really important, because you have to give yourself permission to be able to change. And to change an entire company, an entire company’s culture in fact is the hardest thing to do. And that’s why you see a lot of rare breeds being pushed out of companies. Because the companies don’t have the cultural conditions that really help them thrive and help them nurture and help them continue to grow. It’s kind of like, “Our way or the highway,” kind of mindset, which is why you have some challenges there.

Des Dearlove:

No, it’s interesting. You’re using the word you used a couple of times, mindset. And of course it takes me back to Carol Dweck’s work on the two types of mindset. And almost it fits perfectly in a certain way, because a fixed mindset is we conform, we just do what we’ve always done. And a growth mindset is, I think, talks to your kind of culture of possibility. The fact that the growth mindset is a way of looking at the world, which all gives you a different perspective on the world. And you’ve used that phrase culture of possibility a couple of times, Sunny, tell us a bit more? And it sounds like this might be the direction that you’re both moving it in. It feels like it’s a natural segue from Rare Breed and possibly there’s another book in it.

Sunny Bonnell:

Yeah, well, it’s actually the subtitle of our next book. But what it really is, what a culture of possibility, or at least the way we define it is, it’s fundamentally rooted in the belief that anything is achievable. And it’s a culture-driven by innovation. It’s an environment where every challenge is seen as an opportunity for creativity and possibility. And really what you need in order to have that is three things. You need to have a vision that dares. You need to have talent that believes. And you need to have values that liberate. And so when you have all of those three ingredients, you can create a culture of possibility. And what it really is an attitude flip where the idea isn’t the hero, it’s the culture.

And that’s so important, because what you’re trying to do there is, we’re a big idea company at Motto. Just to back this up a little bit. Motto has carved out a really unique territory within our own organisation where we work with leadership teams that are looking to define that signature idea that sits at the heart of their organisation and makes it famous. A lot of these companies that we work with strategically and creatively lack the articulation of it. The idea is already in there, it’s the heartbeat of their organisation. They need to find it, they need to resurface it and put language around it. In order to do that though, what we’re finding is that you have to have more than the idea. You then need to have the idea become something where it’s in the construction of a culture that allows that idea to take off. And it has to come from the visionary, it has to permeate the brand, and it ultimately has to be supported and built from the culture, so it’s kind of building it from within.

And when we work with our companies, we’re trying to bridge the gap between those three things, the vision, the culture, and the brand. And how we do that is through a big idea. And how we do that is to encourage a culture of possibility, not only within our own organisation and how we hire, but also for the teams that we work with. Because the four most powerful words in the world are, “I have an idea.” The challenge with that though is how do you execute that idea? How do you bring that idea to life? And that is where a lot of organisations, they’re not short of ideas, they’re short of how to actually action the idea and bring it fully through so that you have ambassadors not only within the company but externally as well.

When we’re building that big idea and we’re building that culture of possibility, what we’re trying to do is find a way to sort of deliberately control the controllables. You have a great deal of influence over your own business and your own brand. But a lot of people think that it’s just what your audience thinks about you. It’s somewhat true, but you actually have a great deal of influence of not only the culture that you build, but you have a great deal of influence over the brand that you build. And so we like to try to unite it all.

Des Dearlove:

I’m going to take some questions in a second, but I was going to ask you anyway, but you’ve just gone there automatically. To what extent, I’ve just written down here, brand equals culture. To what extent does the brand and culture overlap? Are they the same thing? I remember quite a few years ago and now there was a book called Corporate Religion, and obviously it was a shocking title to put religion in business, but basically it was-

Sunny Bonnell:

A very rare breed.

Des Dearlove:

Scandinavia. Yeah, a Scandinavian guy wrote it, I’m trying to think of his name. But basically he was saying, a brand like Virgin is one of his examples. It’s more than a brand. It’s like an ideology, it’s a way of life, it’s a philosophy. It runs a lot deeper than simply the surface where you’re just trying to kid customers that that’s what you believe. You have to really believe it. I mean, that sounds like you’re both got in your head, so that’s a good sign I think.

Ashleigh Hansberger:

Well, yeah, because the world’s greatest companies are more than famous names. They are ideas. And what happens in a lot of companies is this disconnection and misalignment between their brand, what they want the world to know about them, what they speak, the messaging, the way they show up in the world, and the culture, what it’s really like behind the scenes. And oftentimes those two things are in complete opposite, and oftentimes they’re in contrast. The promise that you’re making through the brand is usually not really lived in the DNA of the culture. And you create a lot of challenging companies. And so, the most effective way to do that is really to think of them as this symbiotic relationship between a brand and its culture. We do like to use the two different terms. A lot of folks say, “Brand is culture, culture is brand, it’s all one and the same brand is everything.” And of course, we believe that as well.

But I think it’s really important to have who you are as an organisation needs to run through the veins of the entire company. Through its brand, through its culture, through its vision from the top down and from the bottom up. And so that’s where you see those exceptional case studies of companies who are doing it right. They’re really living their values, they are what they say they are. It’s not a different story behind the scenes than it is in front of the curtain.

Des Dearlove:

Yeah, I think that’s really important. And I would be remiss if I didn’t say, by the way, I have an idea being the four, I mean Thinkers50 absolutely completely endorses that particular notion. I mean, the whole organisation is built around the importance and the value of ideas and the notion that ideas can and do move the world, change the world. And I’ve just remembered the gentleman’s name who wrote Corporate Religion. It was Jesper Kunde, I think he was Danish. I’m going to stick my neck out and say he was Danish. I think he was definitely Danish.

Sunny Bonnell:

We’re getting that book.

Des Dearlove:

There you go. I feel like I can give him a shout out. I’ve got a couple of questions for you. We’ve got a question here, to the diversity in thinking Ashleigh mentions, I understand that diversity helps expand creative thinking. However, with diversity, I understand that it becomes more difficult to make decisions. How do we make decisions with large diversity in thinking?

Sunny Bonnell:

I have some thoughts on that one. Ash, you want to take it thought-

Ashleigh Hansberger:

Take it, Sunny.

Sunny Bonnell:

… I’d contribute to what you said?

Ashleigh Hansberger:

I think I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to talk about this kind of decide and commit and disagree kind of idea. So feel free, go ahead.

Sunny Bonnell:

Yeah. Well, I think that one thing that we’ve learned, and again, this is just our own experience, right? Every person’s going to have their own perspective on this. But I don’t believe that you can achieve consensus. I think that some people are going to say, “This is how you build the rocket.” And some people are going to say, “This is how you get to the moon.” And you may never get to the moon if all you do is speak about all of the ways that we could do it. There’s so many ways to get to it and build it. I think what you look for in cultures of innovation is disagree and commit, and that’s a Jeff Bezos thing.

But it’s the one thing that I think we’ve had to learn, is that at some point the team has to, you can argue your points to infinity, but at some point you have to plan to flag. You have to say, “This is the hill that we’re marching towards. This is the flag that we’re going to carry. Do you support where we’re going? And if you don’t, that’s okay too, but can you commit to helping us build it?” Because you’re never going to get everyone nodding their heads in agreement. You don’t want that. I think that’s not necessarily what the gain is. And even in the leadership teams that we work with, we can never get that, very rarely. I mean, sometimes we have sort of these breakthrough moments where we’ll have utter complete alignment. But you’re trying to envision the future and help teams mobilise towards it in the best way that you possibly can.

Ashleigh Hansberger:

And the truth is, is that in most companies, most companies exist in a state of fake harmony, this artificial harmony. Where it’s just politeness and agreement. And the really great cultures actually invite conflict and productive conflict into their conversations and to their discussions. Because at the end of the day most companies are running at the speed of light. Leaders are in lots of different directions. We’re kind of like these centipedes where our legs are all going in a different direction, and that is not going to take us far at all. And so I think it’s really important to remember that, to Sunny’s point, consensus is not necessarily achievable, but commitment is achievable. And the commitment is what you’re really wanting people to say, “Yes, I can help support this and I can help build this. I might not believe that this is exactly what it is, but my mind could be changed by the way that we go through it and do it.”

And continuing to value those contributions in the how, I think is how you continue to inspire people to want to continue building that thing. And some people, if they can’t commit, then they’re definitely not the right fit for the company, because you can’t have a company whose people are not in belief of, “This is where we’re headed.” It’s really important to get that commitment and that buy-in.

Des Dearlove:

I mean, there was another question earlier too, talking about, because you mentioned bias for action. I mean, presumably that’s part of what you’re saying. There comes a point at which all the talking in the world and all the ideas in the world, you can throw them at the wall for as long as you want, but eventually you’ve got to pick one or some and have that bias for action. Because ideas without, I mean again, a Thinkers50 saying is we say, “Thinker plus doer equals impact.” but equally idea plus action equals impact, because you need both. And you need to be prepared to get on the front foot and actually do something with an idea. I think I’m just saying what you’ve already said, to be honest.

Sunny Bonnell:

That’s all right, Des. It’s okay.

Ashleigh Hansberger:

Well, the interesting thing about this too is, sometimes those decisions are wrong decisions. I mean, sometimes you decide something and you realise through trying to make that thing work that it’s the wrong decision. And that happens. And guess what? That’s part of business. Not every decision is going to be the right decision. Sometimes you make the wrong decision and you have to back up and make another decision in response to that. And that’s okay. I don’t think it’s, you’re not looking for the perfect scorecard when it comes to this, because there’s no guidebook that tells you exactly what decision to make. You can’t predict that everything that you do is going to lead to success. Sometimes lots of those things are going to lead to failure, and that’s part of the learning process as well; failures aren’t mistakes as much as they are lessons that it’s just one way that didn’t work, we got to try another.

Des Dearlove:

Yeah, okay. But I’ll take another, sorry Sunny.

Sunny Bonnell:

I was just going to say, I was just going to say one thing there, Des. That’s actually why we created VisionCamp. We saw a real desperate need out in the marketplace, particularly for all the brands that we’d worked with and all the leaders that we’d worked with that that vision was actually something that they couldn’t galvanise around. They had a bold, brave vision of the future, but they couldn’t get everybody to break that vision down into actionable steps. And also we were seeing a great deal of ego-driven visions, rather than selfless visions of, “Hey, we want to build a future for the world rather than ourselves.” And so that’s when we launched, about a year ago we launched a program called VisionCamp. It’s a virtual and in-person executive leadership workshop where we literally go into companies work with executive teams, and we’ve built out a proprietary 7P vision script that we’ve developed in-house that we take teams through, to understand and pin their vision. But not in a way that’s just like, “Here’s a great idea, let’s put it into a deck and hope that everybody follows it.”

It’s actually built into the product, the purpose, the promise. It’s all of the way that this idea becomes a vision and that vision can be galvanised and mobilised and ultimately brought to the world. And we’ve seen such an interesting pique of interest around something, because there’s nothing out there like it that exists. That there’s brand workshops, there’s culture workshops, there’s leadership workshops, but nobody has really gone down the rabbit hole and said, “Well, what about vision?” Which is probably the most critical thing that we build our organisations around. And yet so few companies even understand their own company’s vision. Why not try to help organisations find that, articulate that and build it?

Des Dearlove:

I’ve got a question here from Richard. He’s asking, there is a question here. “I think humility over ego. Do what is best instead of what is popular. President Clinton mentioned to keep the door open when it comes to and divergent views on moving the needle in business or otherwise.” It’s sort of a question, it’s actually more of an observation than a comment, but I’ve got a question for you. Can you get too many of these rare breed people together in one organisation to the point where it’s just a cacophony of interesting, I’m sure, but ultimately too many cooks, too many cooks, too many whatever, too many people who are different that you don’t actually, that it ends in discord?

Ashleigh Hansberger:

Sunny, I know you got some thoughts on that.

Des Dearlove:

That’s definitely one for you, Sunny.

Sunny Bonnell:

It’s like the perfect dish, right? Where if you over season it, then it doesn’t taste the same, it doesn’t taste right. And I think it’s true in organisations. I mean, you need people who steady the ship and you need people who rock the ship. But at the end of the day you always need a captain. You need somebody, again, who’s visionary enough to say, “This is where we’re going.” But you need both. You can’t have too much of one or the other, I think. And that’s actually part of hiring, that’s part of building the culture of possibility. You’re actually deliberately finding the right talent, finding the right people, finding people that can harmonise together and disagree together.

It’s something that I reflect a lot about on Motto’s culture. We’ve been a slow build intentionally, and the reason that we do that is because we understand that every ingredient that we put in changes the dish. We are actually really thinking through, “How do you do that? How do you find people that challenge everything? And then how do you have people that kind of say, ‘Hold on, we just kind of need to keep infrastructure running and the ships on time.'” And you need both. You need both in order to be successful. At least again, that’s our experience. That’s what we’ve learned. Having seen it in cultures and being in cultures all around the world. That’s probably the one thing that I have extracted. I mean, Ash, I don’t know if you have anything to contribute there.

Ashleigh Hansberger:

I 100% agree. It’s a balancing act. Because too much rockiness is not good either, that can breed its own version of chaos. I think that the best way to use rare breeds within your organisations is to hire the ones that are mature rare breeds. So that they can really understand how to use their gifts to move the organisation forward. It really is about dropping the ego.

Des Dearlove:

Yeah, no, that’s been a theme. I think that’s echoed in some of the comments I can see over here in the chat. Listen, we have run out of time, I’m afraid, but we talked a little bit about the culture of possibility. Two things, where can people find out more about your work? And I guess the next thing is, what’s next for the two of you?

Sunny Bonnell:

Completing that book. Well, you can find us at, wearemotto.com, and I think some folks dropped there in the book. The book’s largely been sold out, so if you can get a copy, that’s fantastic. It is available on Audible and things like that, and Kindle. But the next book is probably launching somewhere towards the end of 2024. Hopefully we’re working towards that date, but it could be early 2025. And for those people that are interested in VisionCamp, you can check out Visioncamp.io and learn more about that leadership workshop. But everything’s at wearemotto.com for the most part, so you can check us out there.

Des Dearlove:

Okay. And Ashleigh, last question to you. If there’s one thing you’d like people who listen to this webinar to take away, if there’s one point that you want them to carry with them into the world, what would that point be?

Ashleigh Hansberger:

Well, I was reflecting on our 19 years of Motto yesterday, and one of the things that I put in there was, is that your team mirrors your leadership, and it’s really important to look in the mirror all the time. And I think that self-awareness goes a long way. And as leaders, if we can show up in the world and be self-aware and really understand that the way we show up, how that influences and infiltrates and affects our entire team and our entire organisation as a result, I think that that one little area to pierce through is really special and important. I would really encourage people to do that. It’s the work that I’m doing right now. I’m spending a lot of time in that realm, and it’s fascinating and challenging and all of those things, but I think I would encourage us all to take a look at that.

Des Dearlove:

That’s a fantastic last point. I absolutely agree with you. I think self-awareness is one of the missing links in modern leadership, but the more we can encourage people to look in the mirror, the better. Huge thank you to Sunny and Ashleigh.

Please do join us on the 3rd of April at the same time when our guests will be Hatim Rahman from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. And his research investigates how artificial intelligence is impacting the nature of work and employment relationships in organisations and labour markets. You wouldn’t want to miss that, so please do join us.