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Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 164 with the
Joanne Lockwood: title Harnessing Humanity for Success.
Joanne Lockwood: I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Bhavesh
Joanne Lockwood: Naik. Bhavesh is a business performance and longevity
Joanne Lockwood: expert who helps leaders build thriving, resilient
Joanne Lockwood: organisations by embracing the humanness of their people.
Joanne Lockwood: And when I asked Bhavesh to describe his superpower, he said it
Joanne Lockwood: is that he brings a deeply realised sense of self
Joanne Lockwood: awareness, leadership and organisational success. Hello, Bhavesh.
Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Joanne, for having me.
Bhavesh Naik: Glad to see you. That's a pleasure. So you're based Washington, is it? If I
Bhavesh Naik: remember rightly, I'm Outside of Washington D.C. about 10
Bhavesh Naik: miles north, northwest, so I'm in Montgomery
Bhavesh Naik: county for those who might be familiar with the area
Bhavesh Naik: here. Fantastic. Outside, is it like out there
Joanne Lockwood: at the moment? So we're in February, aren't we? Is it cold?
Joanne Lockwood: You get icy breezes. It gets cold, yes. Right now today
Bhavesh Naik: is probably 20 degrees Fahrenheit and I don't
Bhavesh Naik: know what that translates into. Incentigrade, that is definitely below zero, but it might be
Bhavesh Naik: like 5, 10 degrees below zero. And that, that's pretty, pretty normal for us,
Bhavesh Naik: you know, this time of the year. So it's, you know. Right. Winter is about
Bhavesh Naik: to be over, hopefully. But it's cold, luckily. We used to have
Bhavesh Naik: some storms like really bad snowstorms 5 years, 10 years ago,
Bhavesh Naik: but we haven't had those for a while. So that's some good news. And I
Bhavesh Naik: don't know if that's good news or bad news because I know. So it's just
Joanne Lockwood: cold. There's no strong winds and pouring rain and snow. It's just
Joanne Lockwood: cold. That's true. Yeah, yeah, it's just cold. Bit like going skiing. It's just
Joanne Lockwood: cold. It's not. It's nice sun, but cold. Exactly,
Bhavesh Naik: exactly, yeah, Cold, yeah. As we're saying, when I read out the
Joanne Lockwood: introduction just now, you believe in self awareness and I'm a great
Joanne Lockwood: believer in emotional intelligence and being self. Aware. So
Joanne Lockwood: how does that manifest itself for you in high performing
Joanne Lockwood: workplaces or what got you into the work you're doing
Joanne Lockwood: now? Yeah, so self awareness and I, if I can go back a
Bhavesh Naik: little bit. So self awareness to me is, first of all,
Bhavesh Naik: it's just terminology, views, it's not even a belief to me.
Bhavesh Naik: It is an experience of being in a certain way,
Bhavesh Naik: if that makes sense. So self awareness. So if
Bhavesh Naik: someone googled self awareness, right, There will be a
Bhavesh Naik: definition that Google spits out which would be some version of, okay, being aware of
Bhavesh Naik: your strengths and weaknesses. Now that's a very intellectualised version of that. I don't know
Bhavesh Naik: where that comes from, but when I talk about self awareness, self
Bhavesh Naik: awareness to me is more of the classic definition or more of a common sense,
Bhavesh Naik: the literal definition of self awareness, which is self aware
Bhavesh Naik: awareness of the self. So self is here, this person right
Bhavesh Naik: here speaking to you and being aware of this person
Bhavesh Naik: and all his surroundings, right? So. And I like to do this,
Bhavesh Naik: a bit of an experiment and I want to do this with you if you're
Bhavesh Naik: game. Joanne, can we do that a little bit? Yeah, yeah, let's go for it.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. So just to kind of prove a point, I like to show rather than
Bhavesh Naik: tell because you can use a lot of words, but when you so and
Bhavesh Naik: our listeners can follow along with us, here I am talking to
Bhavesh Naik: you. This is my perspective, this person right here, right?
Bhavesh Naik: And I have my internal experience, right? My thoughts and feelings and
Bhavesh Naik: all of those things. And then I have my senses, right? So I'm interacting
Bhavesh Naik: with the outside. So there's sounds and you know, sights and
Bhavesh Naik: you know, pictures and all the other senses. Like we have five senses.
Bhavesh Naik: So there's this person talking to you and then there is you.
Bhavesh Naik: So there is your perspective. You're talking from there or you
Bhavesh Naik: seeing out from that side right now for both
Bhavesh Naik: of us there's also, if you know, we have this ability as
Bhavesh Naik: humans to be able to see ourselves doing
Bhavesh Naik: whatever it is that we're doing so we can bring an awareness
Bhavesh Naik: to this person. It's almost like you're coming out of the body and looking at
Bhavesh Naik: ourselves, but not looking at ourselves, just feeling ourselves. So
Joanne Lockwood: like playing a video game where you're controlling your first person shooter, you're
Joanne Lockwood: controlling your character on the screen from above rather than being through the
Joanne Lockwood: eyes. You're exactly an aerial view. Yeah. Now experience.
Bhavesh Naik: Do you feel that a little bit? Yeah, sometimes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So
Bhavesh Naik: it's in this moment, right here, right now. So we're
Bhavesh Naik: having this conversation, right? And I'm speaking to you, and yet
Bhavesh Naik: there is a faculty here that allows me to
Bhavesh Naik: observe me speaking to you, having this interaction with
Bhavesh Naik: you. Yeah, I can snap my mind into that. Yeah. It's not default.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I can. It's not default. Yes. Yeah, but you can get
Bhavesh Naik: into that. And did you get into it? I can see myself in the corner
Joanne Lockwood: of the room over there and see me at the desk. I can do that.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Okay. Right. And you're using the intellect a little
Bhavesh Naik: bit and it's even easier than that or it's even simpler than that. But
Bhavesh Naik: we can't do it because. Because we've been trained not to do it.
Bhavesh Naik: The children are very much like that, right. When they are toddlers, they
Bhavesh Naik: are leaving that state and then our intellect pulls us out of it.
Bhavesh Naik: So that is the self awareness that I'm speaking of. And when
Bhavesh Naik: I talk about self awareness, the realised sense of self
Bhavesh Naik: awareness, and that's a key word, right. It's not just intellectualised sense of
Bhavesh Naik: self awareness, it's just being here and experiencing it here.
Bhavesh Naik: And I'm here most of the time just observing
Bhavesh Naik: whatever this person is doing right now. I go in and out of it,
Bhavesh Naik: but I'm probably there 60, 70% of the time when I'm awake. And
Bhavesh Naik: that's a wonderful way of being because we can talk about that if you want,
Bhavesh Naik: but that's. So that is an important
Bhavesh Naik: thing for me to talk about because that
Bhavesh Naik: is an agent through which in my work, I
Bhavesh Naik: think transformation can happen within organisation, within teams,
Bhavesh Naik: within ourselves. I'm just trying to create a metaphor for my own, my own thinking.
Joanne Lockwood: So what we're really doing is by stepping back and
Joanne Lockwood: observing ourselves, we're taking a additional level of
Joanne Lockwood: responsibility for the actions you're taking because you're observing those
Joanne Lockwood: actions in real time, not just being in the action.
Bhavesh Naik: Exactly. Right, Right. Yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes we talk about this gift
Bhavesh Naik: gap between an action and reaction. So something
Bhavesh Naik: happens and we react to it. Right.
Bhavesh Naik: So that gap between something happening and we reacting, that gap,
Bhavesh Naik: you can call that self awareness. Right. So, yeah, exactly what
Bhavesh Naik: you're saying. I'm. I'm kind of saying the same thing in a different, slightly different
Bhavesh Naik: way. And that is a very powerful way of being.
Bhavesh Naik: And there are other connotations of that. You know, for example, that's a very happy
Bhavesh Naik: place. That's where happiness is. Because this is why children are so happy most
Bhavesh Naik: of the time. Right? Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I think I'm more aware of that modality of thinking. When
Joanne Lockwood: I'm planning or imagining
Joanne Lockwood: what I'm doing tomorrow, or if I'm trying to
Joanne Lockwood: sequence a project or an outcome, I'll be
Joanne Lockwood: thinking of me as an avatar computer game navigating the
Joanne Lockwood: world. And I'm saying, okay, so I'm going to get on the train. I'll see
Joanne Lockwood: myself getting on the train and I'll be interacting with people. I'll be having conversations,
Joanne Lockwood: I suppose, more in the future tense. I'm planning my life and my
Joanne Lockwood: next. What I'm doing through that remote control
Joanne Lockwood: avatar, if you like. Sure, sure. Probably less so in the moment.
Bhavesh Naik: Okay, yeah, yeah, I get that. Yeah, yeah. And
Bhavesh Naik: doing it in the moment is. It takes a little bit of
Bhavesh Naik: practise, but if you come to it again and again and again,
Bhavesh Naik: you may feel a certain sense of, like, relaxation. So another way
Bhavesh Naik: of looking at this is being in the zone, being in the flow. So
Bhavesh Naik: when people who play sports, when they are.
Bhavesh Naik: They get into the zone, and when they're into the zone, they're not
Bhavesh Naik: processing, they're not strategizing, they're not planning, they're not thinking,
Bhavesh Naik: they're just doing what they need to do. Now, there is an aspect of skill.
Bhavesh Naik: You know, they've developed certain skills, right. But they're
Bhavesh Naik: not thinking about, okay, you know, if. If I'm. If I'm shooting
Bhavesh Naik: a basketball, right, they're not thinking, they're not strategizing,
Bhavesh Naik: they're just doing it. Right. So. So that makes them. Because if I
Bhavesh Naik: am strategizing in that moment, if I am practising,
Bhavesh Naik: right, then I'm not as effective as I would be if I was
Bhavesh Naik: just being in the moment. And so then if you're going
Joanne Lockwood: into automatic mode, it's. Yeah. When you. When you
Joanne Lockwood: develop a new skill, from my understanding, is that you would. First of all, you'd
Joanne Lockwood: be very conscious of what you were trying to do. Right. And then you end
Joanne Lockwood: up. You then end up with a dip in performance. All right? And then you
Joanne Lockwood: break through that and then you become better because it becomes embedded in your. In
Joanne Lockwood: your subconscious. It becomes. Sure.
Bhavesh Naik: Absolutely, yeah. Bit like driving a car. How often do you come home
Joanne Lockwood: from work and you don't realise how you got home? You think, oh, did I
Joanne Lockwood: Did I, did I stop at that red light? Did I see that red light?
Joanne Lockwood: Well, you must have done because you're not conscious about that journey.
Bhavesh Naik: Exactly, exactly, exactly. And that's an excellent
Bhavesh Naik: example, driving, because that's a skill that most of us have really mastered.
Bhavesh Naik: So once you master a skill, then you go into a zone. Sometimes it's
Bhavesh Naik: called the state of being in a flow. Right.
Bhavesh Naik: Where the activity is happening and your mind is
Bhavesh Naik: engaged. Because your mind is engaged, this person here can just kind of
Bhavesh Naik: step back and do other things. Now we tend to do a lot of
Bhavesh Naik: thinking because we are thinking people and we have been trained to think all
Bhavesh Naik: the time. But if you can let that thinking quiet down a little bit,
Bhavesh Naik: you can just be, just be present, you can just be in that
Bhavesh Naik: moment. Right, so like it's right
Bhavesh Naik: this, right this moment. Right, so if I, if I asked you this question, Joanne,
Bhavesh Naik: are you aware right now? No. Right, but. So when you say right
Bhavesh Naik: now. No. Right, but there was a pause. I said, are you aware?
Joanne Lockwood: I had to test, I had to test myself and evaluate in my head whether
Joanne Lockwood: I was or wasn't and came to the conclusion, no, I'm in the moment right
Joanne Lockwood: now because I'm focused on the conversation. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: What we're going to talk about next, the, the flow of the podcast. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: more in active thinking about what we're doing mode
Joanne Lockwood: rather than observing, if you like. Let me, let me ask you a different
Bhavesh Naik: way. Are you conscious right now? Because you weren't when
Bhavesh Naik: you were sleeping at night. I'm awake. I'm conscious. I've, I've,
Joanne Lockwood: I've got decision making power. Yeah. Right, so then if I
Bhavesh Naik: ask you again this question. Pause for a bit. Are you conscious?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I've conscious, yeah. Okay, so you went to some place before answering
Bhavesh Naik: that question. Are you conscious? You went to that place called
Bhavesh Naik: consciousness. That's an experiential thing. It's not intellectual. So there's
Bhavesh Naik: a gap there that you went to and then you said,
Bhavesh Naik: yes, I'm conscious. That is the awareness. So it's
Bhavesh Naik: a different name for it. Awareness of consciousness. That's the consciousness.
Bhavesh Naik: And, and it's beyond. The reason why I'm kind of getting a little bit
Bhavesh Naik: down into this is because this is key.
Bhavesh Naik: It is so central to everything that I talk about in my work
Bhavesh Naik: with organisations and people and teams and things like that. So
Bhavesh Naik: this is the agent, it's beyond intellect, it's outside of
Bhavesh Naik: intellect and processing. Okay, so we've got the
Joanne Lockwood: multi state of mindsets. We've got, as you say, we've got the,
Joanne Lockwood: the self aware looking down on you,
Joanne Lockwood: able to influence the world around and direct you in different
Joanne Lockwood: directions. You've got the heavily engaged in autonomous mode where
Joanne Lockwood: we're just doing what we do. Right. How do we,
Joanne Lockwood: how can we use those different states to our advantage then? Right.
Bhavesh Naik: It depends on which situation we're talking about. Right.
Bhavesh Naik: So for example, there's an aspect of this called the situational awareness,
Bhavesh Naik: which is if I'm just walking down the street, just kind of being aware of
Bhavesh Naik: my surroundings, that's one kind of awareness. Right. So it
Bhavesh Naik: gives me safety, it allows me to feel, you know,
Bhavesh Naik: out and, you know, be aware of things that may be not quite right
Bhavesh Naik: around me. And then I would make a notice of that and then I would
Bhavesh Naik: act appropriately. Maybe I change my direction, go someplace else, or
Bhavesh Naik: if it happens to be a friend who is approaching me, then I would walk
Bhavesh Naik: up to that person and say hello, things like that. So, so that's one
Bhavesh Naik: example. But then depending on different situations,
Bhavesh Naik: this can become a handy tool. So like for when we talked about
Bhavesh Naik: sports, being in a meeting, being in a sales call, being
Bhavesh Naik: in negotiations, being talking to
Bhavesh Naik: a manager, talking to an employee, having a team
Bhavesh Naik: meeting, having workshops, what we're having right now for this conversation right
Bhavesh Naik: now, I think that conversations like this become more
Bhavesh Naik: powerful when we play from this. Because
Bhavesh Naik: what needs to come out, what needs to happen in this moment, the
Bhavesh Naik: right words. And we've been in that zone. I'm sure you've been in that zone
Bhavesh Naik: because you do this a lot, right. Where. Right. Questions just come
Bhavesh Naik: out of the moment and say, aha, let me ask him this.
Bhavesh Naik: Right. So. And that's a very effective way of
Bhavesh Naik: just being. So let me just try and explain the metaphor that's going around in
Joanne Lockwood: my head. So we have, I think you used
Joanne Lockwood: the word agents earlier. So we've got. And maybe
Joanne Lockwood: even I'll bring another word in. Sensors. Yeah, we've got these agents
Joanne Lockwood: and sensors. You know, you talked about your threat analysis
Joanne Lockwood: sensor and you've, you've got some bit of your brain that's checking on
Joanne Lockwood: that sensor. Occasionally we've got another one that's checking in on the conversation
Joanne Lockwood: sensor ahead of us. We're having a communication with somebody or we've got our,
Joanne Lockwood: our hunger sense or sense of direction. So we've got, our brain is going around
Joanne Lockwood: all these different inputs to ourselves and
Joanne Lockwood: generally we're not aware of them. But what you're saying is we're trying to become
Joanne Lockwood: more aware. Exactly. Of these specific interactions we're
Joanne Lockwood: having with the world and not just treating them as in the flow,
Joanne Lockwood: we're being aware rather than just being in the flow. Yes,
Bhavesh Naik: yeah, yeah, right. There is this term called
Bhavesh Naik: neuro linguistic programming. I'm sure you've heard that term, right? Neuro linguistic nlp.
Bhavesh Naik: Yeah, I have a bit of a take on that, right? An
Bhavesh Naik: interpretation of that. I like that term. And it means certain things to
Bhavesh Naik: certain people, right? There are practitioners of nlp, but if you break down
Bhavesh Naik: that term, neuro linguistic programming, right? So
Bhavesh Naik: neuro is neural network, right? We are receiving bits and bytes
Bhavesh Naik: of information right into this, into this instrument, right? And
Bhavesh Naik: we happen to have five senses, right? So from the external
Bhavesh Naik: sources and then the linguistics. So we call it.
Bhavesh Naik: The linguistic part is the labels. So basically language is
Bhavesh Naik: series of labels. So we have thoughts, conceptualization and
Bhavesh Naik: we have labels and ideas and those are connected
Bhavesh Naik: together, right? Words, sentences, paragraphs.
Bhavesh Naik: So with those we attach meaning to what's happening. So all
Bhavesh Naik: these inputs coming in, because the input coming in is just bits and bytes of
Bhavesh Naik: information. We're using computer terminology, right? So by the
Bhavesh Naik: way, BFM aside, computer was actually made
Bhavesh Naik: after people looked at the human body. So computer
Bhavesh Naik: is the replica or a copy of what humans can
Bhavesh Naik: do, right? But now we live in computers,
Bhavesh Naik: you know, we live in this age where we're so surrounded by them that
Bhavesh Naik: we look at them as a way to look at ourselves.
Bhavesh Naik: So anyway, bits and bytes of information, linguistic, right?
Bhavesh Naik: So language, so that gives it meaning. So if there is a loud
Bhavesh Naik: sound coming from that corner over there right now, all of a sudden I
Bhavesh Naik: would basically look at that because there is some circuitry here
Bhavesh Naik: that attached a meaning to that, right?
Bhavesh Naik: That there's a thread there. And I looked up, right? So that is
Bhavesh Naik: the linguistic portion of that. And programming is. I react like
Bhavesh Naik: that in that fraction of a second because I'm programmed to do it.
Bhavesh Naik: So that's the neuro linguistic programming. So that's one way of looking at it. I
Bhavesh Naik: happen to. So this self awareness, I happen
Bhavesh Naik: to see that self awareness in seven dimensions.
Bhavesh Naik: We talked about in the introduction. We talked about being human right
Bhavesh Naik: now. So one question that often comes up is what does it mean to be
Bhavesh Naik: human? And we have basically said
Bhavesh Naik: for ages that being human means being rational.
Bhavesh Naik: This is how we are different from the animals. We are rational people.
Bhavesh Naik: Animals don't have that rational capacity.
Bhavesh Naik: And that's true. Chimpanzees and some of the other things
Bhavesh Naik: that other animals, they do. There is
Bhavesh Naik: some truth to that. But what I Like to say is that, and I
Bhavesh Naik: think this has been talked about before where
Bhavesh Naik: it's the awareness, the fact that we are aware of this
Bhavesh Naik: person, me being me, us being able to look at ourselves
Bhavesh Naik: as a third party. Our language is like
Bhavesh Naik: that, you know, some there's a word called I and there is called word called
Bhavesh Naik: me. I is me, the subjective person, me. This
Bhavesh Naik: happened to me as like a third party. So that's like an
Bhavesh Naik: object in a way, right? So what makes us human actually
Bhavesh Naik: is our self awareness as far as we know.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes, cause and effect. Seeing your reflection,
Joanne Lockwood: knowing it's you, how you interact in the world, that's kind of all that stuff
Joanne Lockwood: that separates us from beings that aren't self aware. Yeah,
Bhavesh Naik: exactly. And that's what allows us to even teach children something.
Bhavesh Naik: I don't know if you, in England you say this rhyme,
Bhavesh Naik: head and shoulder, knees and toes, right? So a child is
Bhavesh Naik: growing up and we kind of say well this Right, exactly. So if the
Bhavesh Naik: child wasn't self awareness self aware, we wouldn't be able to teach
Bhavesh Naik: them this. Right? Because we're bringing their awareness to themselves. We're teaching
Bhavesh Naik: them self awareness. They were all very self aware but we kind of bringing
Bhavesh Naik: the linguistic and rational aspect to that. So being human, self
Bhavesh Naik: awareness is what makes us human. And I look at that awareness
Bhavesh Naik: manifesting in seven different ways.
Bhavesh Naik: So and another important thing, this is also how we are different from
Bhavesh Naik: AI or artificial intelligence or general AGI.
Bhavesh Naik: Artificial general intelligence. So and
Bhavesh Naik: this is important to kind of understand. I watch a lot of YouTube
Bhavesh Naik: videos by very smart people, but they don't talk about this. They're saying
Bhavesh Naik: that, okay, you know, computers are becoming very smart and we are programming, redoing
Bhavesh Naik: this data modelling and you know, we are collecting all of this information and
Bhavesh Naik: retraining our models to think.
Bhavesh Naik: They're not really thinking, they're just processing data. Right. The
Bhavesh Naik: meaning is given by us because we are the ones with the self awareness. So
Bhavesh Naik: ChatGPT is gonna put some things together, right? But it doesn't understand
Bhavesh Naik: the meaning of it. It's the reader who's reading it who's gonna bring
Bhavesh Naik: meaning to it. Right? And that's the definition of being a human.
Bhavesh Naik: So there's some hope for us. The machines are really not gonna take over. They
Bhavesh Naik: could, but they're programmed. Only if they're programmed to do it. Isn't the difference
Joanne Lockwood: really? Even though quantum computing, all these computing
Joanne Lockwood: advances we, we've had over the last 100 years, whatever it may be,
Joanne Lockwood: the difference really is our brain is Just a better computer at certain
Joanne Lockwood: tasks. Yeah, AI, quantum
Joanne Lockwood: computing, whatever. We want to talk about that. The machine computers
Joanne Lockwood: are really good at ones and zeros and sequencing
Joanne Lockwood: and those sort of things. What they're not trained on is you say
Joanne Lockwood: sentience. Our brain is just a more evolved
Joanne Lockwood: bit of flesh that enables us to be specialists in that, in that area. Which
Joanne Lockwood: is why we know, yeah, we're not all good at mathematics in our head. But
Joanne Lockwood: a computer is so different things. So could AI
Joanne Lockwood: machine based computers eventually develop
Joanne Lockwood: matrices like our brains? What's to stop them?
Bhavesh Naik: Yeah, that's a good question. So if I go back a little bit. So have
Bhavesh Naik: you ever had dealt with. There is a problem that you're trying to work out
Bhavesh Naik: in your head, right. And you can't figure it out and you
Bhavesh Naik: went for a walk and you engaged doing something else or you were just
Bhavesh Naik: walking or doing something else and all of a sudden the solution drops in your
Bhavesh Naik: head. Has that ever happened? Oh, it happens all the time.
Joanne Lockwood: I trust my brain to do that. Sometimes I will deliberately.
Joanne Lockwood: If I can't find something, I need to solve something. I know if I
Joanne Lockwood: put it on a shelf in my head, I'll wake up one day or something
Joanne Lockwood: will happen. I go, ah, got it, there it is. And I don't sweat it.
Joanne Lockwood: So I know I trust my brain to solve that equation at some point. If
Joanne Lockwood: I leave it on the, on the back burner. Yeah.
Bhavesh Naik: So I want to go back and preface something. Everything
Bhavesh Naik: that I propose is for examination. So no belief system here,
Bhavesh Naik: Right. So I would highly encourage people to
Bhavesh Naik: know, listeners to take what I'm saying
Bhavesh Naik: for checking. Don't, don't buy what I'm saying as a belief
Bhavesh Naik: system or a dogma. Right. This guy's saying it, so it must be true.
Bhavesh Naik: Don't do that. So with that I would say that the brain.
Bhavesh Naik: Right. So then this goes into some pretty fundamental existential
Bhavesh Naik: questions. Right. If the brain is wired
Bhavesh Naik: that way to get these answers, who
Bhavesh Naik: did it? Right. This is a very fundamental question and Right. We
Bhavesh Naik: don't have the answer to that. I'm an evolutionist,
Joanne Lockwood: so I guess as an evolutionist, a Darwinist, I would say
Joanne Lockwood: it evolved in that way.
Bhavesh Naik: So that is a creationist theory.
Bhavesh Naik: Creationist theory is, and I'm not opposing
Bhavesh Naik: the theory within certain contexts. That is a, that, that, that is
Bhavesh Naik: true. And at the same time you always
Bhavesh Naik: ask this question, the, the origin question, which is, okay, if there was an
Bhavesh Naik: evolution, where did it begin? At someone's cell. It's
Bhavesh Naik: Big bang, of course. So Then you say, well, okay, what was there before the
Bhavesh Naik: Big Bang? Well, there was nothing before the Big Bang. So if there was nothing
Bhavesh Naik: before the Big Bang, how did everything come from
Bhavesh Naik: nothing? How does that make sense? How can everything come from nothing?
Bhavesh Naik: So those are the questions that we go into, right? Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: And if there is a higher being, what came before that?
Bhavesh Naik: Exactly right. The whole infinity is such a almost
Joanne Lockwood: impossible concept for humans to imagine or rationalise because
Joanne Lockwood: we want there to be a bound on something. And infinity doesn't give us the
Joanne Lockwood: ability to process what's beyond because there is no beyond.
Bhavesh Naik: That's true. If time is true, time is infinite and space is infinite,
Joanne Lockwood: then everything is possible. Yeah. Yes.
Bhavesh Naik: Now, what I would say is that infinity and
Bhavesh Naik: no infinity, or the opposite of infinity, whatever that may be,
Bhavesh Naik: finite. Those are finite, right.
Bhavesh Naik: Those are concepts of the mind. Right. In the
Bhavesh Naik: original word for zero was. Was actually shunya,
Bhavesh Naik: which was in Indian philosophy, it was considered both
Bhavesh Naik: infinity and zero in one,
Bhavesh Naik: if that makes any sense. So. And I don't know if you're going off track
Bhavesh Naik: here, so. But we're on the. On the topic, so let's kind of
Bhavesh Naik: follow this, right? There's a song that I used to sing to my kid, you
Bhavesh Naik: know, Three blue pigeons sitting on a wall, right. I don't know if you heard
Bhavesh Naik: that. Three blue pigeons sitting on a wall. And then one fleas flows up, one
Bhavesh Naik: flies away. How many are left? Two blue pigeons sitting on a
Bhavesh Naik: wall. That flies away. Right? One is there
Bhavesh Naik: that flies away. How many are left? No blue pigeons, I guess. No
Bhavesh Naik: blue pigeons sitting on a wall. Right. So there's zero blue pigeons
Bhavesh Naik: sitting on a wall. But what is left when you take away the
Bhavesh Naik: pigeons with the idea of a pigeon? Just a
Bhavesh Naik: wall, everything is left, everything is left. So that's infinity, right?
Bhavesh Naik: Everything is infinity and zero is. So
Bhavesh Naik: when we talk about these concepts, they are very
Bhavesh Naik: contextual.
Bhavesh Naik: So something that is kind of very difficult to
Bhavesh Naik: wrap our heads around for a lot of us, if you haven't really spent time
Bhavesh Naik: doing this kind of thinking, is this idea that
Bhavesh Naik: the world goes away when you go to sleep. Right. Where did the world go
Bhavesh Naik: when we enter sleep? So our belief system is that it carries on. We
Joanne Lockwood: just weren't aware of it. That's my belief system. So there's no guarantee that it
Bhavesh Naik: does, though. And thank you for that. Having that little.
Bhavesh Naik: That doubt. Right? So the world comes into existence when
Bhavesh Naik: this person wakes up. That person wakes up for that person.
Bhavesh Naik: Right? So the idea there is.
Bhavesh Naik: That there is. I'm not proposing Another model, Although I think there is
Bhavesh Naik: something in my mind there's another model outside of
Bhavesh Naik: the linear thinking on creationist Darwin. All of those
Bhavesh Naik: things are good. They're wonderful things. Right. And so the other thing that
Bhavesh Naik: happens is that when we talk about these kinds of things, people we don't have,
Bhavesh Naik: we haven't thought about this much. So what we do is we automatically go into
Bhavesh Naik: the opposite. If it's not a creationist Darwinist
Bhavesh Naik: theory or if it's. If I don't believe in Darwin's theory of evolution, then I
Bhavesh Naik: must believe in seven day creation theory. And we
Bhavesh Naik: have a very strong reaction to that. Right. Or some other aspect.
Bhavesh Naik: Or I have to be spiritual. If I, I think it's more nuanced
Joanne Lockwood: than having, having to believe in a seven day creation theory. I think there's. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it can be intelligent design. There can be other things
Joanne Lockwood: that create. Doesn't have to be a, it doesn't have to be a God definition
Joanne Lockwood: figure. It could be a higher intelligence or a.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. A matrix model, if you like, where there's
Joanne Lockwood: a. Could be. That's a wonderful model. Simulations and Exactly. Other things.
Bhavesh Naik: Computer game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, so the reason
Bhavesh Naik: why I kind of get into this is because the awareness,
Bhavesh Naik: right. So when we have that aha moment. So the
Bhavesh Naik: word gnosis, G N O S I s and the word knowledge comes from
Bhavesh Naik: the word G N O S I s gnosis and the original meaning of the
Bhavesh Naik: word is sharing insight into the nature of things.
Bhavesh Naik: So you know, we have all this conditioning that we have and we have an
Bhavesh Naik: aha moment. And once we have an aha moment about that, whatever that is,
Bhavesh Naik: then our mind doesn't go back to the way it was before and we have
Bhavesh Naik: expanded our understanding. Right? So
Bhavesh Naik: then that's one way to define knowledge. So
Bhavesh Naik: knowledge can be collection of data, right? Rewiring for
Bhavesh Naik: our brain the physicality of brain collection of data.
Bhavesh Naik: But learning and knowledge can also be just blowing up
Bhavesh Naik: of our existing body of knowledge and having an
Bhavesh Naik: insight. And that's where our mind opens up. So
Bhavesh Naik: this is how we can go beyond our filtering and biases and things like that.
Bhavesh Naik: And this is the real growth, right? Because you
Bhavesh Naik: know, growth doesn't happen by just collection of data from different people, different
Bhavesh Naik: opinion, different perspectives. Right. It happens when we have our
Bhavesh Naik: own insight into things and we say aha. Now
Bhavesh Naik: that doesn't mean that it's an original thought. It doesn't mean that no one else
Bhavesh Naik: has taught that thought before. But to me, in that moment, that's my original thought.
Bhavesh Naik: And this is where the growth is, right? This is where what I call
Bhavesh Naik: true learning is. And to me this is important because this is
Bhavesh Naik: how transformation in people happens. If I want to work with someone and I want
Bhavesh Naik: to help them get better in some way, shape or form, and if they are
Bhavesh Naik: willing, then this is the faculty that helps us get there
Bhavesh Naik: or it helps us help that person get there. So when you're
Joanne Lockwood: working with teams in a workplace, is this a
Joanne Lockwood: one to one or is this a group session? Because
Joanne Lockwood: I would imagine that everyone's
Joanne Lockwood: interpretation of what you've been saying, they'll have their
Joanne Lockwood: own metaphor, their own sense of what that means.
Bhavesh Naik: And that's wonderful. How do we align people and try and get some
Joanne Lockwood: commonality of. That's a great point of purpose. Yeah.
Bhavesh Naik: So we say, so diversity, right? We talk about.
Bhavesh Naik: Your podcast talks about inclusion and diversity, right? And equity. So
Bhavesh Naik: there's two contradictory ideas there, right?
Bhavesh Naik: There's diversity, but then we have to come together and work. So
Bhavesh Naik: we have to find some common ground, which is what you're asking, right? So what's
Bhavesh Naik: that common ground? Well, the common ground is very easy with risk
Bhavesh Naik: factor is what? We are all humans, you're all human beings, right? So that's our
Bhavesh Naik: common ground. And then the question comes, well, how do you define a human being?
Bhavesh Naik: And that's all that conversation that we have, right? We just, we just had
Bhavesh Naik: thus far. So to answer your question to me, when
Bhavesh Naik: you, a team, an organisation, whether you are five people, two people
Bhavesh Naik: team, or you 100 people or thousand people, or a hundred thousand people or the
Bhavesh Naik: entire civilization, right? The foundation is
Bhavesh Naik: to me so. Well, first of all, we are all human beings. So I think
Bhavesh Naik: we all agree on that. To me, I try to
Bhavesh Naik: access this awareness, which is a common ground. To me, that's a common ground.
Bhavesh Naik: So that can be a dogma, that cannot be something that. I'm not expecting
Bhavesh Naik: Joanne to understand that or accept that. But we explore that.
Bhavesh Naik: But we start with this idea that we're both human beings.
Bhavesh Naik: So that's the commonality. Now within that there
Bhavesh Naik: is the diversity. So the diversity. The funny thing is that there are 7 billion
Bhavesh Naik: people on this planet. Not two of us even look alike,
Bhavesh Naik: right? So we are truly, each one of
Bhavesh Naik: us is a truly unique individual. Now add to that our psychological
Bhavesh Naik: conditioning, our upbringing, our belief systems, our talent.
Bhavesh Naik: So even if you have two twin brothers or sisters, you know
Bhavesh Naik: you're going to have differences, right?
Bhavesh Naik: So they're two entirely different people. So the,
Bhavesh Naik: the challenge is to find the Common ground. And
Bhavesh Naik: to me that is awareness. And we can say, okay, fine, it's human beings, so
Bhavesh Naik: we all human beings, and then we need to at the same time celebrate
Bhavesh Naik: the, the uniqueness that we bring to the table. So
Bhavesh Naik: awareness. And then what comes out of that awareness is
Bhavesh Naik: the celebration. That's how I look at it, right? So awareness is the ground, it
Bhavesh Naik: doesn't change. That is the oneness that we all share, we all
Bhavesh Naik: are aware. So there's consciousness there, there's consciousness here, that's what we share.
Bhavesh Naik: But the manifestation of that, the expression of that awareness is
Bhavesh Naik: so entirely unique to each individual. And this is why I believe that
Bhavesh Naik: perspective is our superpower. Our self awareness and pursuit to the way we express
Bhavesh Naik: and way we play out in this planet is our
Bhavesh Naik: superpower. So now when
Bhavesh Naik: we bring it to the teams, I think the basic element is of course,
Bhavesh Naik: the person, that's the node. So if you were looking at Eiffel Tower, we talk
Bhavesh Naik: about organisational structures, right, all the time, right? So if you're looking at it as
Bhavesh Naik: a static structure, a bridge or an Eiffel Tower, you're going to
Bhavesh Naik: have the nodes, right? And then between those nodes there is these big beams,
Bhavesh Naik: like iron things, right, that they connect them. So
Bhavesh Naik: those are the relationships. So if an organisational structure
Bhavesh Naik: is a structure like that, then you're going to have people and the relationship between
Bhavesh Naik: those people. So how we talk to each other, how we converse with each other,
Bhavesh Naik: how we work with each other.
Bhavesh Naik: So the strength of that relationship is the strength of the organisation. So the
Bhavesh Naik: strength of the people in organisation is the.
Bhavesh Naik: Is how strong, how functional, how performant you are,
Bhavesh Naik: how productive that organisation could be. That's.
Bhavesh Naik: It's kind of an abstract thing, but, you know, I think, I don't know if
Bhavesh Naik: that answers the question, but. So that's where it comes together,
Bhavesh Naik: relationships, basically. Yeah, I grasp the concept. You know, we think about.
Joanne Lockwood: You talk about self awareness and, you know, looking at yourself from above and you
Joanne Lockwood: can then look at the impact you're having. You know, if you can see what's
Joanne Lockwood: going on around you, you see all the actors and all the people taking part,
Joanne Lockwood: you can perceive the impact you're having, positive or negative. You can
Joanne Lockwood: start to address your biases, you can start to address. Exactly. You can start to
Joanne Lockwood: contextualise the environment you're in. Whereas if you're just looking in the moment,
Joanne Lockwood: you're blinkered, you're very shut down, exactly in a reactive mode,
Joanne Lockwood: then you're going to be less, as you say, self aware. Of what's going on
Joanne Lockwood: around you. Right, exactly. It's how do you move from the
Joanne Lockwood: awareness to action? Do you make that
Joanne Lockwood: leap? First leap is stepping out of yourself. The next leap is
Joanne Lockwood: being aware and then the next leap is how to re. Engage
Joanne Lockwood: control. Yes. And how does one do that?
Bhavesh Naik: Yeah, that's going to be contextual. So for example, so
Bhavesh Naik: if you look at the context, there is, okay, what is it we're trying to
Bhavesh Naik: achieve? So there is a vision first. Right.
Bhavesh Naik: And why do we want to achieve that? So there's a why. So there's a
Bhavesh Naik: purpose, there's a vision and there's purpose. Right. And once we have
Bhavesh Naik: those in mind, then we can say, well, how do we get there? Right, this
Bhavesh Naik: is where we want to go, this is why we want to get there. This
Bhavesh Naik: is my why is to why I want to get there. And then we say,
Bhavesh Naik: well, what are some of the things that I need to do to get there?
Bhavesh Naik: What are some of the actions that I need to take? What, how do we
Bhavesh Naik: execute to get there? And that's where our steps and
Joanne Lockwood: steps here, sort of how do we get to five, how do we get to
Joanne Lockwood: six, how do we get to 10? Exactly. Yeah. Looking at the
Joanne Lockwood: big picture rather than the ground in front of us. Yeah. And
Bhavesh Naik: the big picture could be. So it depends on how big an organisation is. For
Bhavesh Naik: example, let's say you're running a hundred people organisation,
Bhavesh Naik: you're a business and you have a CEO
Bhavesh Naik: or a founder and there's 100 people working within their organisation and they have
Bhavesh Naik: the reporting structure. So then we had to look at
Bhavesh Naik: that. So how does awareness come about? Or how does
Bhavesh Naik: it become an agent to doing abc X, Y, Z. So the first question
Bhavesh Naik: is, do they even want to be aware or not? It's a very basic question.
Bhavesh Naik: So if now I work with, always work with, start with the
Bhavesh Naik: leadership out and I don't like to say top down, but that's
Bhavesh Naik: another way of saying it. I like to look at this one person. Even
Bhavesh Naik: if there is a multiple people, team, executive team, there's one person
Bhavesh Naik: who is in a leadership position, who is the ripple effect, who's the centre of
Bhavesh Naik: this ripple effect? Right, that person. And I work with that person in executive
Bhavesh Naik: coaching. So that's one of the ways that I start and that's actually almost always
Bhavesh Naik: the way. But why would you want to do that? If the why isn't there
Bhavesh Naik: if everything is working fine, if the, if. If the revenues are where they want
Bhavesh Naik: it to be, where, if, if they're the gross margins are where they want it
Bhavesh Naik: to be. If their people are productive and happy and wonderful, they're showing up every
Bhavesh Naik: day, they don't complain, then you don't need to talk about any of this, right?
Bhavesh Naik: Just keep doing what you're doing. But what if your revenues
Bhavesh Naik: aren't where they need to be? Right? Your productivity is where you need to
Bhavesh Naik: be, right? Your people are. It's like a rolling door, right? They're not
Bhavesh Naik: staying, there's no retention, there's on and on and on, right? There's
Bhavesh Naik: lots of problems that organisation can. And this is a healthy organisation, every organisation
Bhavesh Naik: has problems. So if you want to fix that problem,
Bhavesh Naik: right, that's when we begin to talk about, well, what are some of the ways
Bhavesh Naik: that we can. We can do this? Now, what happens typically
Bhavesh Naik: is that most people will go to. I call it the business
Bhavesh Naik: philosophy. The business philosophy that has been handed down generation to
Bhavesh Naik: generation to generation. And this business philosophy is where they go to.
Bhavesh Naik: They don't find their answers there. And we are actually sort of
Bhavesh Naik: in this loop right now. I call it the dependency epidemic.
Bhavesh Naik: Our organisations are deeply dysfunctional today.
Bhavesh Naik: Our engagement. Gallup has done studies where they say that most people are.
Bhavesh Naik: Only 33% of the people in organisation are engaged
Bhavesh Naik: to their work, right? The other 60. So if you have six people
Bhavesh Naik: team, only two people are engaged, the other four are doing
Bhavesh Naik: one is actually destroying the work of the others. And I think the remaining three
Bhavesh Naik: are just there doing the minimum required. And if you manage a team of six
Bhavesh Naik: people, you'll kind of get this. And this is normally how you play, right?
Bhavesh Naik: So the question is,
Bhavesh Naik: why? So am I running a functional organisation or am I running a
Bhavesh Naik: dysfunctional organisation? If you're running a dysfunctional organisation, are the popular press
Bhavesh Naik: management giving you those answers? If you are getting your answers there, then
Bhavesh Naik: perfectly fine, keep doing it. If not, then
Bhavesh Naik: you need to kind of open up the mind and say, well, let me
Bhavesh Naik: think about something else. And this is where someone like Bhavesh comes in and say,
Bhavesh Naik: well, hey, look at it this way, right? That's when
Bhavesh Naik: they will be open to listening to someone like me. Because my proposition
Bhavesh Naik: is that we are still using the management practises and
Bhavesh Naik: philosophies that were developed in the industrial age, which was about 250 years ago,
Bhavesh Naik: codified in that time, scientific management theories. But
Bhavesh Naik: we really saw, we haven't really evolved the way we
Bhavesh Naik: manage people, the way we build organisation, the way we lead people at all.
Bhavesh Naik: We put man on the moon. You know, this used to Be a giant
Bhavesh Naik: supercomputer just 50 years ago, right? But we hold that in the palm of our
Bhavesh Naik: hands. But we have done absolutely no.
Bhavesh Naik: Well, there's some. So industrial age
Bhavesh Naik: revolution that was an attempt on our part to
Bhavesh Naik: say, okay, let's make our people
Bhavesh Naik: productive, super productive. And we said, well, how do we do this?
Bhavesh Naik: And there have been studies done. It's a guy called Frederick Taylor, he comes along
Bhavesh Naik: and he says, well, he was a machinist and we were fascinated by machines. So
Bhavesh Naik: he saw the businesses as machines and people as
Bhavesh Naik: machine parts. So the entire philosophy of managing
Bhavesh Naik: people was looked on as if people are machines.
Bhavesh Naik: And this is a flaw. We still look at it, our people as
Bhavesh Naik: machines. This is why we love AI even more. I've been talking about
Bhavesh Naik: this for 20 years. This message is even more relevant
Bhavesh Naik: today because we love AI for this reason. Because we don't know how to manage
Bhavesh Naik: people. We don't know how to deal with people. We don't know how to deal
Bhavesh Naik: with differences. We don't know how to deal with people who
Bhavesh Naik: have passion, who have talent, who have their opinions,
Bhavesh Naik: right, who have wisdom, who have aspirations, who have goals in life.
Bhavesh Naik: We don't like that, we don't know what to do with it.
Bhavesh Naik: So the existing management philosophies don't give us tools
Bhavesh Naik: to it. And this is not their fault, this is not the fault of the
Bhavesh Naik: leader. So the result is that I call it
Bhavesh Naik: dependency epidemic. We have created deeply
Bhavesh Naik: dependent organisations. So if the leader goes away for three months or six
Bhavesh Naik: months, the organisation begins to fall apart.
Bhavesh Naik: So just think about a business, right? If someone is running, I'm sure you work
Bhavesh Naik: with business people, right? Where you have somebody's running a 200 people firm,
Bhavesh Naik: the business owner says, I'm going to take a sabbatical, I'm going to go away
Bhavesh Naik: for six months. When she or he or they come back, the organisation
Bhavesh Naik: is gone, right? Most of the time, unless they've set up some structures and things
Bhavesh Naik: like that. So then
Bhavesh Naik: going back to your question, how does self awareness come
Bhavesh Naik: into play in this? That's a very important question. So once they're
Bhavesh Naik: open to looking at this, then we can talk about
Bhavesh Naik: how to bring in the human element which is missing
Bhavesh Naik: in our business. So truly finding all the conversations that we've
Bhavesh Naik: had until to this point, looking at a human
Bhavesh Naik: being as a human being, not as a machine. When we do
Bhavesh Naik: that, we unlock the true potential of our people.
Bhavesh Naik: We're already paying for it. We salaries are the highest
Bhavesh Naik: on most people's P and L statements,
Bhavesh Naik: but we are only getting 33% from that. So
Bhavesh Naik: if I learn how to do this. Well, this goes into all of the things
Bhavesh Naik: that's happening today, you know, remote work and bring them back.
Bhavesh Naik: Cancelling the DEI initiatives and stuff like. Because we don't know how to
Bhavesh Naik: deal with human beings as human beings. So did I go on
Bhavesh Naik: a rant. As you're talking now? I'm thinking,
Joanne Lockwood: if you think about a diverse world we live in,
Joanne Lockwood: people have vastly different starting points on the
Joanne Lockwood: journey you're talking about and you throw into the mix someone who's
Joanne Lockwood: neurodivergent. I can imagine there's a
Joanne Lockwood: huge challenge in trying to get this alignment. But given the
Joanne Lockwood: starting point, and must be a real challenge to you to work with organisations,
Joanne Lockwood: you may well be able to get a number of people thinking in this
Joanne Lockwood: way. But the challenge must be the outliers who really struggle with the
Joanne Lockwood: concept. Yes. And the outliers. Actually the
Bhavesh Naik: outliers are probably the majority I work with. Not, not
Bhavesh Naik: everybody is open to this message. And
Bhavesh Naik: that's true. At least today. It might be different 10 years from now or 20
Bhavesh Naik: years from now. It's
Bhavesh Naik: the only way that they can be open to it is if
Bhavesh Naik: I bring them results. And the results have to be
Bhavesh Naik: there, otherwise commitment
Bhavesh Naik: won't be there. Right. Or so for me
Bhavesh Naik: to sell this quote, unquote, sell this to the organisations,
Bhavesh Naik: I need to bring the results and sometimes fairly immediate results. And then when
Bhavesh Naik: we're talking, and I'm not saying a week or month or something like that, three
Bhavesh Naik: months, six months, there's some results and then they get a little bit
Bhavesh Naik: sold and then we can do a long term. Ultimately this is a long term
Bhavesh Naik: commitment type of thing. Right. It's a long term, one year, two year, something
Bhavesh Naik: like that. But it can, it can happen. The
Joanne Lockwood: other thing that's occurring to me as you're talking is we almost
Joanne Lockwood: need to be able to step out not just of ourselves, but, but
Joanne Lockwood: also ourselves as part of a team or ourselves as part of a business.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm going to look at how all my team is performing.
Bhavesh Naik: Exactly. And how my business is performing. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it's that shifting your focus from
Joanne Lockwood: self to team to division to organisation
Joanne Lockwood: and being self aware of all those layers as well. Absolutely.
Joanne Lockwood: Challenge. Absolutely. Well, the measurements that we
Bhavesh Naik: use, I mean we actually do it, you know, we call it objectification. Right. Object
Bhavesh Naik: objectives of KPR and all those things that brings
Bhavesh Naik: an element of awareness.
Bhavesh Naik: It's a very narrow view of that awareness, but it does
Bhavesh Naik: so. But what this requires is
Bhavesh Naik: more of a open awareness on the part of the leadership. It starts
Bhavesh Naik: there. If they are, if they don't get bought into this, then
Bhavesh Naik: it absolutely doesn't work. Right? So it's a transformation that starts from the
Bhavesh Naik: top down or inside out. If the person who is the leader,
Bhavesh Naik: who is in the centre of the organisation and if you look at it as
Bhavesh Naik: like a ripple effect, so it has to work
Bhavesh Naik: from the leadership team, they have to commit to
Bhavesh Naik: it, they have to be, to, to be
Bhavesh Naik: open to this idea and then willing to give it a try. So then you
Bhavesh Naik: know, in those experiments, you know, in those pilots, you kind of say, well these
Bhavesh Naik: are the things that we're going to shoot for, you know, what are you looking
Bhavesh Naik: for? Why are we doing this? And they'll find a three month thing where you
Bhavesh Naik: can see tangible results. Now the tangible results
Bhavesh Naik: may be measurable, but sometimes they're not. Now anything can, can be
Bhavesh Naik: measured, right? But sometimes it's, it's an intuitive feeling. Most leaders
Bhavesh Naik: are actually intuitive, right? And they'll know
Bhavesh Naik: that, okay, my team is functioning better right now.
Bhavesh Naik: The problem is when you have a hierarchy where you have a vice president who
Bhavesh Naik: is reporting to a president and CEO and he needs to prove to their
Bhavesh Naik: superiors that whatever it is that you're taking on is working and
Bhavesh Naik: then they have to prove it to someone. But if you're working, I work with
Bhavesh Naik: basically folks who are self contained entities
Bhavesh Naik: where there is a definitive person who is at the
Bhavesh Naik: hell, right. And this person is,
Bhavesh Naik: doesn't have report to anyone except their family, you know, so
Bhavesh Naik: they, they are. So that's, that's where I come in. And
Bhavesh Naik: those, that is where my bread and butter is because
Bhavesh Naik: organisations, it can happen. I work with organisations and within the pockets. So
Bhavesh Naik: within organisations there is sometimes someone who is in charge of P and L
Bhavesh Naik: within the large organisation and they have that self contained team.
Bhavesh Naik: I've done some work with them, but they are always accountable to someone.
Bhavesh Naik: So. But even in those cases anything can be measured. Productivity can be
Bhavesh Naik: measured, even happiness can be measured. So. But you just have to find out what
Bhavesh Naik: those measurement matrix are. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm with you on most of this. I'm just trying to think about, I'm kind
Joanne Lockwood: of a, I'm definitely a possibilist to start. Yeah, anything's possible. And
Joanne Lockwood: then I move into implementation and
Joanne Lockwood: all the risk analysis and resistance and objection handling. So one
Joanne Lockwood: outlier is going to, I'm not saying it would
Joanne Lockwood: disrupt the whole process, but it would make the communication channels between
Joanne Lockwood: team members and the business more tricky, wouldn't it?
Bhavesh Naik: Yeah. Where people aren't wholly bought into this. It really has got to.
Joanne Lockwood: You got to embrace this as a team. Yeah, yeah. Now, so. So
Bhavesh Naik: this is where it becomes important to make sure that it's not seen as
Bhavesh Naik: some kind of like cultism thingy that's come being forced down from the top,
Bhavesh Naik: right. They have to buy into this. So for that there is a very
Bhavesh Naik: simple way. You don't have to talk about any of these things. There are sometimes
Bhavesh Naik: when I would sit down with someone who is, who's a leader and I would
Bhavesh Naik: say do this and there, there a. There's a
Bhavesh Naik: process that begins with one on one. So if you're a leader, say you have
Bhavesh Naik: a hundred people, company, you have five people who are reporting to you, who is
Bhavesh Naik: the executive team. All right? And you want to kind of give this a shot.
Bhavesh Naik: All I would ask you to do is, is have a one
Bhavesh Naik: on one conversation with each one of these people and don't talk about any of
Bhavesh Naik: this stuff that we talked about because it made this scare them away, right?
Bhavesh Naik: But ask them some three or four, very simple question, right?
Bhavesh Naik: And what. I don't know how much time we have right now, but I would
Bhavesh Naik: ask them to take a sheet of paper like that and, and write down at
Bhavesh Naik: the top of my job, right, My job here with this organisation,
Bhavesh Naik: and ask the first question, why? Right?
Bhavesh Naik: Halfway down that sheet of paper is what? On the
Bhavesh Naik: back of the sheet you write how and how, right?
Bhavesh Naik: So if I'm a manager or you're a manager, you would sit down with this
Bhavesh Naik: person and say, well, why is this job important to you?
Bhavesh Naik: So this becomes part of the management process. It can also become part of the
Bhavesh Naik: recruitment process. These are powerful questions to ask, right? Why work here? So
Bhavesh Naik: they'll come up with 1, 2, 3 things. What's your vision working here?
Bhavesh Naik: Right? Fast forward 2, 3, 4, 5 years down the
Bhavesh Naik: road. Where do you see yourself in context of working here? And then
Bhavesh Naik: on the flip side, how do we get there? So this
Bhavesh Naik: process, we can do another podcast just on this, but this
Bhavesh Naik: process brings together everything that we've talked about and it's a simple
Bhavesh Naik: enough process. So the idea there is that when they
Bhavesh Naik: say why, when they answer the question, why is it, why am I working here?
Bhavesh Naik: They are basically giving you the reason that that's their engagement,
Bhavesh Naik: right? Organisations don't have this conversation. Why are you here?
Bhavesh Naik: We've done incredible volume of data
Bhavesh Naik: analysis and things like that, and we do job performance and stuff like that. But
Bhavesh Naik: they don't ask these basic questions, why this job? Why are you here? And this
Bhavesh Naik: question needs to be visited again and again and again. Not because, like a
Bhavesh Naik: challenge or anything like that, but share with me why it's important for you
Bhavesh Naik: to work here so that I understand you. There are some
Bhavesh Naik: guidelines. Now, you don't misuse this, right? But
Bhavesh Naik: there is. So it's. You know, we talked about this, right? The
Bhavesh Naik: structure. The structure is relationship between two people.
Bhavesh Naik: This is how it happens, right? You ask the why question, why you're
Bhavesh Naik: here, and then what's the vision? There needs to be some. Some
Bhavesh Naik: understanding, some empathy. All of these things come
Bhavesh Naik: into play, right? Understanding the other person, not jumping and telling them
Bhavesh Naik: why they need to be there, right? You're listening and you're asking
Bhavesh Naik: the question, why are you here? And, and, and they're telling you. You listen
Bhavesh Naik: and you write it down. You let have them write it down, right? Whatever the
Bhavesh Naik: cause, you can't argue with their why, right?
Bhavesh Naik: So, and then they, they tell you what is their vision of being there?
Bhavesh Naik: And they say, well, I want to be. I want to be making $150,000
Bhavesh Naik: a year two years down the road. Now, that vision you
Bhavesh Naik: need to basically agree on. If someone is saying, well,
Bhavesh Naik: I'm going to be making $300,000, and you might say, well, this job is not
Bhavesh Naik: going to get you there. It'll get you to maybe $200,000.
Bhavesh Naik: So it's this kind of a conversation that
Bhavesh Naik: needs to happen between the boss and the. And the
Bhavesh Naik: employee to have that bond. And then the
Bhavesh Naik: idea is that the manager, the supervisor, the leader
Bhavesh Naik: becomes a resource to that person, right? At one
Bhavesh Naik: level. And then. So it's like, I think you mentioned, it's
Bhavesh Naik: almost like being a coach, right? You are in a coaching
Bhavesh Naik: relationship just as well, as much as you are also
Bhavesh Naik: a leader or manager who's responsible for this person to do what they need
Bhavesh Naik: to do. But yeah, you become a resource, you become a mentor,
Bhavesh Naik: you'll become all of those things or some of those things, but that's it.
Bhavesh Naik: So the understanding and empathy and
Bhavesh Naik: really getting to know someone and what makes them tick and also
Bhavesh Naik: being very ethical about it, because you can't be talking about 12 all these people
Bhavesh Naik: and you can't play politics based on what someone tells you, because if you do
Bhavesh Naik: that, then that breaks the trust, right? And then they won't open up or they'll
Bhavesh Naik: give you the wrong answer. They'll give you the answers that you want to hear.
Bhavesh Naik: Yeah, but, but so my point is that this comes down to nuts and
Bhavesh Naik: bolts. And I've done presentations on how this
Bhavesh Naik: little process ties into a lot of the things that we talked about. Right. Because
Bhavesh Naik: there is a correlationship. So, you know, there, there's
Bhavesh Naik: intricacies of how asking these simple questions actually
Bhavesh Naik: taps into a lot of the things that we talked about and being aware
Bhavesh Naik: here. Right. So you bring awareness to. That's always a play.
Bhavesh Naik: That's always in play. Right. You are. You are being aware of
Bhavesh Naik: the conversation. When you're aware, you will notice things
Bhavesh Naik: in people that you normally would not notice if you weren't aware.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. You'll be able to understand them better. Yeah, I mean, that's a critical
Joanne Lockwood: part. When I'm trying to. I mean, my brain's going
Joanne Lockwood: back to things like emotional intelligence. And the whole point of self
Joanne Lockwood: awareness and self management, self regulation, is to be more aware of your
Joanne Lockwood: surroundings as well, and the cues you're picking up from people. Be aware of your
Joanne Lockwood: breathing, your biases, whatever it may be. Right, right. And so
Joanne Lockwood: once you become aware of self, you become more tuned in and aware
Joanne Lockwood: of others. So then you could regulate and adjust and be
Joanne Lockwood: more person centric, aren't you? That's great point. Yeah,
Bhavesh Naik: excellent point. Exactly. So when you. The degree to which we are self
Bhavesh Naik: awareness is a degree to which we are able to help others get in touch
Bhavesh Naik: with their own self awareness. And there is this connection,
Bhavesh Naik: this understanding, deep understanding that. That we normally don't
Bhavesh Naik: see in business. Relationships because leadership is sort of social influence
Joanne Lockwood: and being aware of self and how you're interacting with somebody else gives
Joanne Lockwood: you, I was gonna say great power, great insight into
Joanne Lockwood: having productive conversations, productive outcomes and
Joanne Lockwood: persuasion, whatever it may be, by creating that alignment. And
Joanne Lockwood: that starts with self awareness and aware of others, isn't it? Exactly.
Joanne Lockwood: Constantly. Course correct. So you're not crashing into each other. Exactly. Yes.
Bhavesh Naik: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Great. That's a great point. Yeah, I think I get
Joanne Lockwood: it. Good. All right, thank you. Yeah, yeah. So I've been trying to play
Joanne Lockwood: with everything you're saying and trying to contextualise it into my metaphors and
Joanne Lockwood: view of the world. And I think. I think I'm getting what you're saying here.
Joanne Lockwood: And it's trying to create that alignment and that interfacing with other people,
Joanne Lockwood: starting with who are we? Right. And then who are you?
Bhavesh Naik: Yeah. And how do we want to communicate and how do we become more effective?
Bhavesh Naik: All right. Yes. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for playing with me on that.
Bhavesh Naik: So because these are. These are different things that people
Bhavesh Naik: that, to Talk about in, in a business conversation that most people are,
Bhavesh Naik: are accustomed to. So. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I
Joanne Lockwood: talk to a lot of people about emotional intelligence and to many people it's a,
Joanne Lockwood: a dark art just talking about it and. Yeah. Even
Joanne Lockwood: getting people to be accountable for their, for
Joanne Lockwood: their Persona, it's like. That's right. I'm just me. I don't care, I don't care
Joanne Lockwood: what you think of me. I'm just me. Well, actually if you start caring about
Joanne Lockwood: what, what people think of you, it's not, not necessarily to worry about judgement or
Joanne Lockwood: worry about the negative side, but just aware. Because if you, if you think you're
Joanne Lockwood: A and people think you're B. Yeah. Then you need to
Joanne Lockwood: shift perspectives. Exactly. If no matter how
Joanne Lockwood: I'm thinking, you believe I'm like this. Okay, hang on a minute.
Joanne Lockwood: Why is there a disconnect between who I think I am and who you think
Joanne Lockwood: I am? Right. Yeah. And if there's a misalignment there, you have the power of
Joanne Lockwood: change, don't you? Exactly. Yes. Yeah, you do. And I want to throw
Bhavesh Naik: out another term. Emotional intelligence is a good term and there's
Bhavesh Naik: a very specific definition of what that means. I like the term emotional awareness
Bhavesh Naik: because it's a very simple term. It's self explanatory.
Bhavesh Naik: It's awareness of how you're feeling. So one of the awareness. So the
Bhavesh Naik: seven dimensions of awareness is. One of those seven dimensions is
Bhavesh Naik: awareness of how I'm feeling in this moment. So that's a very
Bhavesh Naik: powerful thing to be. Right. So and emotional intelligence
Bhavesh Naik: to me is. It implies, it may not be meant that way, but
Bhavesh Naik: sometimes it interpreted as using intellect to
Bhavesh Naik: overpower the emotion and that's somehow that context. And
Bhavesh Naik: that's not good because that is a suppression of emotion. Suppression of
Bhavesh Naik: emotion is not healthy. So I like the term emotional
Bhavesh Naik: awareness in the sense that. Okay, what am I feeling this morning in,
Bhavesh Naik: in this, in this moment. So right now we're having this conversation. So I am
Bhavesh Naik: in a nice optimistic, happy state right now because I
Bhavesh Naik: enjoy having this kinds of conversation. Right. And so that's
Bhavesh Naik: my feeling right now. Now I may be sitting down, having a cup of coffee
Bhavesh Naik: and I may be tired a little bit. Moment to moment, being
Bhavesh Naik: aware of how I'm feeling. That brings us a tremendous
Bhavesh Naik: amount of power to, to own that feeling, number
Bhavesh Naik: one. And then if there's something needs to be done about that, then we can
Bhavesh Naik: do that. Yeah. So I think I like that differentiation and I see what
Joanne Lockwood: you're saying about. Because I always get worried that if you're.
Joanne Lockwood: We talk about, you know, the four pillars, if you like, of emotional intelligence.
Bhavesh Naik: Yeah. The self awareness and the self regulation. It's almost, as you say,
Joanne Lockwood: it's almost trying to override. Right. Your natural flow
Joanne Lockwood: state. Exactly. Force yourself into a different zone. Yes. Rather than
Joanne Lockwood: just being hyper aware and in that moment. Yes. And
Joanne Lockwood: realising you're maybe standing in the wrong place. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I think also if you. If you recognise that humans store
Joanne Lockwood: a lot of memories with their emotions and how they're feeling, you're going to regress
Joanne Lockwood: back in time to a place where you were happy. Right.
Joanne Lockwood: Can. Can change your whole Persona, can't it? Bringing yourself in that. In that
Joanne Lockwood: conscious state. Yeah.
Bhavesh Naik: One example I'd like to give is, you know, imagine Martin Luther, Dr. Martin Luther
Bhavesh Naik: King Jr. Speech. You know, I have a dream. If he was being
Bhavesh Naik: emotionally intelligent, he would kind of regulate those emotions and
Bhavesh Naik: he'll say, I have a dream. Right. He'll say, I kind of have this dream,
Bhavesh Naik: but I'm not sure if I'll be able to attain it or not. You know,
Bhavesh Naik: who knows? Right. That's being emotionally intelligent. Right. But there
Bhavesh Naik: is no doubt, there is no hesitation, there is no. That's
Bhavesh Naik: emotional awareness. Right. So emotions are very powerful and they
Bhavesh Naik: have a purpose. There is a reason for those emotions. And some of these
Bhavesh Naik: emotions are wonderful because it brings us together, it allows us to
Bhavesh Naik: do things that we have never done before. And so one of the things that
Bhavesh Naik: we've done with some conversation we had about viewing people as machine parts
Bhavesh Naik: is that we don't like people emoting in the workplace. Right.
Bhavesh Naik: Because we don't know what to do with it. All right, so this is why
Bhavesh Naik: we love emotional intelligence so much, because it sometimes it can be used
Bhavesh Naik: as a way to tell people, hey, you know, be emotionally intelligent, don't let it
Bhavesh Naik: all hang out. Right. Oh, and I'm starting to see that term in job
Bhavesh Naik: descriptions. You know, you require emotional intelligence to work here and then
Bhavesh Naik: that can be taken in so many different ways. We are so dysfunctional and we
Bhavesh Naik: are so toxic that you'll need to be emotionally intelligent to work
Bhavesh Naik: here, otherwise you'll fall apart. So. So. But that's my
Bhavesh Naik: cynical take on. I suppose I would interpret
Joanne Lockwood: it as, you want people to be accountable. Yes, that's true. For their
Joanne Lockwood: impact, accountable for their intent that goes bad. I
Joanne Lockwood: mean, that's how I would. That's true. I wake up believing I'm doing a
Joanne Lockwood: good job. I believe I'm a good person, but someone else has a Different
Joanne Lockwood: belief. So the impact I've had has been negative. I just have to be accountable
Joanne Lockwood: for that. Either I reflect and go, actually, you're
Joanne Lockwood: right. Or yeah, I reflect and go. Now I'm, I'm, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: comfortable with what I did and I'll stand by that. So I think some of
Joanne Lockwood: it is just having a, having a. You go back to
Joanne Lockwood: what, the language you use. Self awareness, self reflection and just that
Joanne Lockwood: appreciation of self, whether that's the helicopter view. Right.
Joanne Lockwood: How do I come across? Am I a dick or am I a nice person?
Bhavesh Naik: Right. I want to be a nice person. Right. If I'm coming as a dick.
Bhavesh Naik: Yeah. I got the power to change, haven't I? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So as
Bhavesh Naik: soon as you're aware, you have the power. Exactly. Exactly what you said.
Bhavesh Naik: Yeah. You know, once you're aware, then you have the power. But if I'm
Bhavesh Naik: suppressing it, then I'm suppressing it and then I'm denying that I
Bhavesh Naik: even have that feeling. And then if you don't accept that there is an issue,
Bhavesh Naik: then you won't fix it. So then you'll continue to behave in that way.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And you have the choice to change in the future. Exactly right. If
Joanne Lockwood: someone points out to the, to you the fact that that remark was
Joanne Lockwood: racist. That remark was whatever. Yeah. And you go, I
Joanne Lockwood: don't care. Well, that's your choice. Yeah. You have the choice to change. Telling
Joanne Lockwood: someone to change is not what you're trying to do. You're trying to. You're trying
Joanne Lockwood: to create a gravitational attraction to change, being
Joanne Lockwood: positive, aren't you? So. Right. Show, don't tell. Yeah, yeah. And,
Bhavesh Naik: yeah. And there are patterns that we play out. There are certain belief
Bhavesh Naik: patterns that come to the surface in awareness. So for example, if
Bhavesh Naik: I have certain views about certain race of people or certain shape of
Bhavesh Naik: people and they are hidden, there is nothing wrong. We all have flaws,
Bhavesh Naik: Right. We might have some experience with a parental figure who was short
Bhavesh Naik: and that person wasn't nice to me. So then I have may have been holding
Bhavesh Naik: some grievances about people for short. Right. So
Bhavesh Naik: then I may react to them in a certain way. But if I'm aware of,
Bhavesh Naik: of my patterns, my emotions, my thoughts while I'm interacting with people, then
Bhavesh Naik: I would over time begin to see that, that, hey, there is a pattern. You
Bhavesh Naik: know, I don't like short people. Right. So then if nothing else, you will be
Bhavesh Naik: able to. Course correct. And you will be able to say, well, okay, you know,
Bhavesh Naik: I need to be aware of the fact that I have this issue so, you
Bhavesh Naik: know, may play out because these things are. As soon. As long as
Bhavesh Naik: these things are subconscious, we have no power. Exactly what you said.
Bhavesh Naik: But once they come into our awareness, then we have the power to change our
Bhavesh Naik: behaviour and ultimately even change that. Pat, that. That takes
Bhavesh Naik: some work sometimes, but. Yeah, but we can at least change our behaviour.
Joanne Lockwood: This has been an absolutely fascinating conversation and you're right, we could dive even
Joanne Lockwood: deeper into this and spend many, many more hours
Joanne Lockwood: going into this. And I've really enjoyed it. So how can people get hold
Joanne Lockwood: of you, you know, if they want to find out more? Sure. The best way
Bhavesh Naik: to get hold of me is my website, which is AWA
Bhavesh Naik: Y R E and I spell it out because the
Bhavesh Naik: pronunciation of that name is actually aware. But it's spelled with a Y,
Bhavesh Naik: right? A W A Y R E dot com. The best thing that I ask
Bhavesh Naik: folks to do is go to the top right and click the Start
Bhavesh Naik: here button. And that gives you some assessments and some. Just all
Bhavesh Naik: free stuff that allow you. That allow you to take some
Bhavesh Naik: answer, ask some question or answer some questions and it gives you some. Some
Bhavesh Naik: reports and things like that. So. Yes, and then you can.
Bhavesh Naik: From there you can get my email, my LinkedIn.
Bhavesh Naik: I'm on LinkedIn a lot. Yeah, I've been on your website before
Joanne Lockwood: and there's quite a lot of video content on there as well, isn't there? And
Joanne Lockwood: that's true. Interviews you've done and yeah, there's some good stuff on there. So not
Joanne Lockwood: just, yeah, the interactive stuff, but yeah, you can consume
Joanne Lockwood: more of your ideas on the videos and things. Yes, I've
Bhavesh Naik: done some videos on some of the things that we're talking about today. I also
Bhavesh Naik: have a podcast which is called the Business Philosopher with the new
Bhavesh Naik: podcast and on that podcast I have people who have
Bhavesh Naik: built successful organisations and some of the leaders we talked about
Bhavesh Naik: today, they fit in that category. Really
Bhavesh Naik: great people that I've interviewed, including
Bhavesh Naik: Joanne. Little old me. Yeah, I was a guest a
Joanne Lockwood: couple of weeks ago. You were a guest a couple of weeks ago. So,
Bhavesh Naik: yeah, so we have had some great conversations on that. Encourage
Bhavesh Naik: you to check it out. The podcast. Yeah, excellent. Well, I'll put all those details
Joanne Lockwood: in the show notes, so I'm sure people will get in contact with you and
Joanne Lockwood: I'll make sure your LinkedIn profile's there because as you say, it's a place you
Joanne Lockwood: hang out a lot. So do I. So, yeah, no doubt we'll bump into each
Joanne Lockwood: other again there very soon. Sure, sounds great. Thank you. So much.
Bhavesh Naik: Thanks. Thanks for having me on your podcast. Enjoyed and this was a great conversation.
Joanne Lockwood: Thank you. Enjoyed it. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express
Joanne Lockwood: my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending
Joanne Lockwood: your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
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