Jan Lehman: Boosting Productivity with EOS + Microsoft 365

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:00

Thanks for joining us on the Better Business better life podcast. I'm your host, Debra Chantry Taylor, and I'm passionate about helping entrepreneurs lead their ideal lives by creating better businesses. Because as I always say, life is too bloody short. I'm a certified EOS implementer, an FBA accredited family business advisor and a business owner myself with several business interests. I work with established businesses and their leadership teams to help them live their ideal entrepreneurial life using EOS, my guests come onto the podcast to share their journey, their specialty, and how EOS has changed their life. And today's guest is amazing. She has worked with many Fortune 500 companies, and has personally coached the CEO of Walmart on productivity. She's authored the book work smart, do more, and she was a guest speaker at this year's EOS conference on the power of Microsoft 365 to increase productivity and fuel happiness. She's going to share with us the secret to improving happiness and flow in your workplace driven by using EOS productivity utilising is and it specifically Microsoft 365 and AI Jan Lehman is the CEO and visionary of CTC productivity. So welcome to the show, Jan, it's lovely to have you here this morning.

Jan Lehman  01:25

Yeah, thank you so nice to be here. Appreciate the invite.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  01:29

Oh, absolutely. Hey, look, we've only had a quick chat offline before we came onto the show. I would love for you to share with the listeners your journey to where you've got to. NASA, productivity expert, how does that come about?

Jan Lehman  01:40

Yeah, oh, I love the productivity expert. I sound so important. You are. You are. So I guess, starting from school, after graduating, I went to work for Fortune 500 companies. So my first job was with Accenture. So management consulting firm. My clients were like Securities and Exchange Commission, United Airlines, so massively huge companies. And then I went to work for Kraft Foods. And my last position with Kraft, I was actually an expatriate. I was on your side of the water the pond. I was an expatriate living in Stockholm suite. And I had about 60 employees across the Scandinavian countries. And I was responsible for the information systems department and the Information Technology Department for all of Scandinavia. So we were basically all about helping craft leverage technology to increase profitability. Right during that time, I really got some amazing leadership skills. I had some fabulous mentors. I actually introduced my boss to his now wife, because he was so amazing, so he deserved that payback. And anyway, leftcraft started my business 15 years ago, and our focus really is on creating a culture where productivity fuels happiness. So productivity kind of gets a bad rap. A lot of people look at it kind of a negative thing to me, productivity is about, how do you teach somebody to work smarter so they're less stressed and they work in a way that they're happier, right? That's the end zone. That's the end game that we're all looking for. And so our focus is really on software and soft skills. So soft skills would be teaching somebody to be a better planner, how to manage their time effectively, effectively delegate. And then technology. We're experts in the Microsoft 365 platform, so those are really the areas we focus so to tie it back to our amazing EOS community, we're really helping build capacity and get people in their EOS, in their GWC flow, where they're doing what they want to do, right? They're not doing the mundane tasks, the boring tasks, those sort of things. So we just really are well aligned with the EOS. As far as personal success stories, is that something you want me to explain? I'd love you to share. Yeah, absolutely. Look at me. I follow rules.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  03:57

I'm like, Yeah, you're very much a rule for this is unusual.

Jan Lehman  04:02

I love it. I love it. So personal success stories. I was actually just saying last night that if I do nothing right in the world, I produce cute babies. So I definitely very proud of my lovely children. But I think probably the most interesting personal accomplishment is having written a book. And I don't know what it is with writing. Debra, have you written a book? I can't remember if you've written a book or not.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  04:25

I'm in the process of writing a book at the moment, and I have to say that it's a little bit more complicated than I thought it was. And so I had all these great aspirations. I'm going to launch a book in three months.

Jan Lehman  04:37

Definitely an evolved process. So yeah, and what's cool is, when you're done, there's something about being an author. Apparently, people think is pretty cool. So I had my son's friend came up to me at prom last week, and it was like, I heard you're an author. Just think it's funny. So anyway, so that's pretty cool. It's opened a lot of doors. Apparently, when you're an author, people think you are, you're a better public speaker, even though. Of different skills, but I get it. It's a thought. You're a thought leader, is what it is. So anyway, writing my book, huge personal accomplishment. We just hit 100 reviews on Amazon. It's available in Amazon Australia, so it's available all over the world, which is lovely. And we're at like 4.8 rating out of five. So super, super happy. That's wonderful. What is the title of the book? Yeah, work smart. Do more. And the concept of it is, we want to teach you how to work smart so you get more time back in your day, and then you can do more of whatever you want, if you want to invest it in your business, or if you want to spend more time with friends and family. So I love kind of the nuance of the name. That's what it's about.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:41

So and I just want to just talk to you for a second, because one of the things that really struck me there in your introduction, you said, you know, productivity fuels happiness, and a lot of people think that, yes, productivity is all very negative and about trying to squeeze more blood out of the stone and trying to get everybody to do a whole lot better. And I want you to liken it, because I see the same with scorecards. People sort of see scorecards as being a way to kind of keep control of people, and it's all about negative but I always say no, it's about actually celebrating success like they're the rules of the game. And if we actually hit the numbers, it should be the chance for us to go, yay. Well done us. We've actually had our numbers. So I think we have to turn these things on their head and go, actually, we're all about making happier people, because happier people are more productive.

Jan Lehman  06:20

Yeah, I well said I agree. And I will have that same opinion sometimes about scorecards, but I agree.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:28

Okay, so I'm going to go, I'm going to take you back even further. So why did you even get into the fortune 500 stuff? Like, what was your original training in terms of at university? How did you get into that?

Jan Lehman  06:42

That's yeah, yeah. Well, it's funny. My parents were my parents are super happy, because what they paid for me to go to college to do is exactly what I'm doing. So, so I studied Indiana University. The Business School focused on process improvement, leveraging technology. So what I trained on is exactly what I do. I also got my second superpower at IU, which is I have a psychology degree, and that's my secret weapon, I gotta be honest, Debra, because telling you a bunch of productivity hacks does nothing if I can't change behaviour, right? And rolling out software does nothing if we can't get people to adopt it. And so I was very lucky. I probably, like a lot of people, I just gravitated to the subjects that I really loved and were excited about. And you know, you naturally do better in those subjects. And I just continued on that path. I literally been on that exact same path my whole career, okay?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  07:33

And so tell me a little bit about how things have changed, because technology is just moving at a pace that we can't even comprehend, right? And so it becomes more and more prevalent in everything that we do. How is that changing the whole field of productivity? Is it because I, I always wonder, does it actually make us more productive, or can it actually have the opposite effect?

Jan Lehman  07:59

Oh, oh my gosh. We need to be Yeah, we could be hanging out for a long time on this one. So yeah, to answer lots of great questions in there. So I productivity absolutely can be a hindrance. With the notifications, the pop ups, the distractions, all those kind of things. It is definitely a hindrance in this day and age when companies don't really explain how to use your suite of tools, so people are confused and unclear and that kind of stuff. And then it's at the same time such a huge productivity gain and a huge opportunity. But most companies don't understand how to use the technology they have. And it's interesting, yes, but what's changed? A lot of people think Microsoft 365 which is the area we specialise in, they think it's still just like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and it's like a whole suite of tools to help teams work together more efficiently. But most companies don't realise that, and they don't set it up that way, and so they're missing a lot of opportunity. And and then AI, as we all know, is another huge area of opportunity, and most people don't realise that Microsoft's AI tool is a unique animal that everybody should be exploring. It's very different in what it can do versus other AI so there's a lot changing in that space, for sure.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  09:13

So we're talking about co pilot specifically, I'm guessing, within Microsoft, I must admit, I have to confess, that I have not done anything with it yet, and I am learning a lot more about how Microsoft as an as a suite, Microsoft 365 suite, has got lots and lots of stuff in behind it. But tell us a little bit about Yeah. Why? Why is it different? You said it's different to the other AIS out there. So tell me a little about that.

Jan Lehman  09:34

Yeah. So, first off, micro so co pilot is built on the same technology is chat GPT. Microsoft is heavily invested in chat GPT, and but what makes a difference is copilot allows you to leverage your data within your Microsoft 365 environment easily, and so it's part of the reason why we're on a bandwagon of getting people to get rid of third party applications. Applications and be all in with Microsoft. We don't sell Microsoft product. We just see the waste. And so when you get rid of third party applications, your data is all in Microsoft. Copilot now has easy access to it. So one differentiator is that. The other differentiator is when co pilot, let's say you're brainstorming with copilot about some, you know, really interesting topic that you really don't want the rest of the universe to know about. When you're using co pilot, it actually keeps those results confidential within your Microsoft 365 environment, and even follows the permissions within Microsoft, so not everybody in your company could actually see the result. Now you need to know what you're doing with setting up permissions and security and all that stuff. But that's one of the really unique things about copilot. So we're always saying, always look to Microsoft to use their software first, and if it doesn't meet your needs, then by all means, bring in other software. There's no doubt there's a need for third party software. Just don't start there.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  10:55

Okay? And as you said, it's a lot more than just Word and PowerPoint and everything else. So how would people even start to think about how they can improve productivity in their like, what are those? What are the warning signs that you're not being productive?

Jan Lehman  11:11

First of all, I guess the warning signs that you're not being productive? Well, usually it's stress. I'll be honest. What's what's happening for a lot of people is, I would say most people that reach out to me for coaching or whatever it's, it's I'm on the verge of divorce because I'm never home. I'm stressed out all that kind of stuff. So to me, stress is a huge warning sign that people are not working as smart as they could be, for sure. I yeah, I think that's the big, the big warning sign, I would say, in in unless, if you're doing like, billable hours so often, we will have law firms reach out to us and they'll be like, Jan, My people are working like 12 hour days and they're billing six hours. I don't really know what's going on, but there's a disconnect, right? And when we get in there, we can see where their waste is really that. And to your point about technology, often it's interruptions and distractions, bouncing people around. They're doing bouncing from one topic to the other. A lot of people really think productivity is moving fast and juggling a lot of plates, and it's not. Productivity is a much slower pace. It's much more intentional. It's a lot more white space on your calendar. So I have great job security. That's all I can say for sure.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  12:21

Yeah. So the signs are a bit of stress overwhelm, but working too many hours, not really feeling like you're getting ahead, and potentially juggling too much at one time, and that causes stress overwhelm. And so then how do as a productivity kind of expert, what do you do in terms of, where do you start with these people?

Jan Lehman  12:43

Well, we always depends on what we're working on. So if, if, if we're talking to an organisation, so if I'm talking to a CEO and I'm asking, what the pain points are, if they start talking about communication, collaboration, accountability, organisation, team, challenges. I know there's something in the Microsoft 365 suite they should look at, right if they start talking about more an individual's performance, then we know we really want to look at what the individual's doing. And if I'm ever doing individual coaching, we always start by asking questions to try to get to the root cause of what, at least what they think is getting in their way. And so often, people will be very honest, and they'll say, I'm a procrastinator, or I'm I don't like delegation, or I'm drowning in email. And so they'll self identify what, what they think the issues are they're getting in their way. But during during coaching sessions, we really uncover a lot more as well, right? That's just the tip of the iceberg, but yeah, we have our ways to kind of get in there, ask questions about business pain points, personal pain points and and really kind of work our way through getting them to, yeah, exceptional changes, for sure.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  13:52

And obviously, as you said, that's where your psychology stuff comes in as well, because you're actually able to kind of delve deeper, and I suppose, embed the way that they actually are using these tools? Actually? No, you tell me. Tell me how you do that. So you said that it's really helpful with your psychology background, because you can have all the best tools in the world, but if somebody doesn't adopt them, they're no good to you. So what is your approach when you're looking at changing things in an organisation?

Jan Lehman  14:19

Yeah, well, if we, if we're rolling out something like Microsoft 365 like, the adoption of the software is one of the hardest things, there's no question. And so there's, there's a lot of strategies to it. Part of it is, you want to really focus in the what's going to be the biggest benefit, the low lying fruit, to get people excited, right? So we always say, like, everybody's about what's in it for me right now, because we're drowning, we're all drowning, so don't give me another piece of technology unless it's really going to help me. So it's, it's a strategy to really think about what's something that's going to benefit the person. And then we always say, when you're when you're rolling out 365, if we were working with you, we always recommend pulling together a pilot. Group, and the pilot group is the one that's going to learn about the technology first and help connect the dots between the business issues and how to use the software. And together, we really lay out this plan. And I always say that this pilot group, they really need to be your internal champions and your marketing people, because they need to get people excited to get the groundswell going. And what will happen is, you know, inevitably, we'll roll out some of the technology to one department, and then everybody is hearing in the hallways like, What do you mean? We have 75% less emails like, what can we be the next people to go? So there's really a master strategy here, right about, how do you roll it out? And then it gets to the point, though, you'll be at 80% really adoption, and you'll have their curmudgeons that just don't want to change, they don't want to leave email. And that's what I always tell leaders, like that's when tough love has to step in, right? You just, I'm not going to respond to your email anymore. We're going to be having our conversations in the new communication platform. So there's a lot of strategy, some of it's psychology, some of it's just good business strategy, but it's a lot about, how do you get people excited about technology, and then they start to become those internal champions.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  16:06

I love it, and you're right, in the marketing department is always a great place to start, because we do get excited by those things. Okay, so I must admit, I was reading something the other day, and I know that within EOS, we work with clients. We used to say to them, but you know, somebody has to hear something seven times before they hear it for the first time. But they did some research a year ago where they actually it's like 32 times before they actually hear it for the first time. And I always used to laugh, because I used to say to leaders, it's like, you know, you could sit there in your mind going, but I've already told you that once, and you say, Well, if you told them that once, you've got six more times to go. Now it's actually 31 more times before they actually really here for the first time. So it has definitely changed. Technology has changed the way that we have to approach things. Now I know that you are an EOS fan, and that's how we actually first got introduced. So tell me a little bit about how you came across EOS and what it is that you like about it.

Jan Lehman  16:58

Yeah, I'm such a fan of EOS. I Well, I'm in ground zero. I live in Minnesota, so it's close to ground zero. So there's so many implementers, integrators here, and so I, we've probably been learning about EOS way earlier than a lot of you know, organisations, and I fell in love with it because there's really a lovely synergy between EOS and what we do. So we, we're very blessed to have a quote from Mike Payton where Mike talks about, Peyton talks about, you know, the synergies. And so I always say like EOS focuses on like macro organisation, right, helping the organisation run more effectively. And we focus micro. So we focus very much on the individual, which is why I just had the wonderful opportunity to speak at the EOS conference, because what we do is just so lovely of a compliment to it. But I just, yeah, I mean, I believe that the root of productivity is organisation. I just think that's the foundational principle. And there's so much in the EOS methodology about organising, right? Organising your rocks, your tasks, your priorities, your accountability, your structure, all that stuff. And so I'm a huge fan. And so we purposely look for EOS companies, because I know if somebody's running on EOS, they're, they're going to have the capacity to work with us. They're they've thought through whether this is the right priority. They they're open to ideas and suggestions. And so I'm a huge fan. So we, I'm a tiny little company, but we adopted EOS last year, and I thought that I was an integrator, because I, you know, I'm, I'm like, I'm linear, I'm a linear thinker, right? Of a process. Girl, man, I was that was not in the right seat for me. So I am total visionary. I just understand and value, right, the structure. And so I now have a fractional integrator, and I'm super happy about that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  18:44

Yeah, it is interesting. When they brought the process book out, so EOS has got, obviously the traction book, being the original book, and then a whole lot of other books that support it, but they started doing these individual books about the individual components, and they brought up the process one, and I thought, I don't really like process. I'm going to find this really boring as batshit. I loved it. And what it made me realise, and this is what I now say to all of my visionaries, we actually are process people. We're not necessarily good at following the process, but we are really good at connecting the dots and working out how to do something better, which is actually what process is. And so it made me realise that actually most people who are visionaries, they actually do love process. They just don't necessarily like follow up process.

Jan Lehman  19:24

Well, that's actually interesting. I so I one I had this, I had the same reaction. Well, no, I had the opposite reaction. You did. I was so excited when the process book came out, because I'm like, Okay, if EOS is making process cool, they're going to love what we do. So I was so excited that there were more eyes on that, but it is fascinating to me. Most people want process. They want things to be defined, but they don't want to take the time to write it down right and define it. And so most people value process, but it it can be a tedious task, and so obviously it's one of the first to be procrastinated for most people.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:00

Yeah. Yeah, and I think it's because we tend to over complicate it as well. That's one of the things that I see. So when I work with EOS companies, you know, we'll often do a session in a quarterly where we'll use the three step process documented to do their core processes, and we can actually get through all of their core processes in about two hours. And now that's not getting into the level, you know, it's not into minute detail, but it's the core process. It's the core things that have to be done, and it's the power of having your leadership team around the table doing it together. You can really simplify it and get it to a point. We're not saying it's 100% perfect, and of course, you gotta go out there. We're going to test it and measure it and see what's actually happening. But I think the reason we yeah, we procrastinate, is because we try to make it bigger than bit.

Jan Lehman  20:40

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Said, I agree.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:44

Okay, so we're obviously on the same page in terms of loving the EOS model and whatnot, in terms of the work, the work that you did. Tell me about the conference you gave you, obviously at the EOS conference, what were you talking about there, leveraging..

Jan Lehman  20:58

The power of Microsoft 365.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  21:03

Yeah, it's obviously a very underutilised tool. And why? Why do you think that is?

Jan Lehman  21:09

Oh, so the how do I say this? Let's see what's happening in a lot of environments. Is companies are rolling out the software, but no one really understands how to connect the dots between business issues and how to use the software. And a lot of times, what's happening is companies are relying on their their IT groups to teach them. And so it's it's kind of interesting. One of the things I distinctively made a point in my introduction about what that I was managing it, and is, I kind of emphasise that, because I wanted to kind of bring that up. What's happening is a lot of leaders don't really, maybe understand the skill sets in the technology space. And so traditionally, like when I was at craft, traditionally, I had an IT group. So these were the, you know, the hardware infrastructure, they're keeping the cyber criminals out. They're keeping our systems up, right? So they're, they're really like about the infrastructure, and then you have the information systems people. And the Information Systems people, traditionally like an environment like craft, we were developing software to solve the business issues right now that we have software as a service like Microsoft, 365 or Salesforce, or whatever it might be, we no longer need these people to develop software, right? We're not unique butterflies, but what's happened is that skill set has disappeared in companies, and so what we're left with are these amazingly talented technology people. IT people, but they're not. They don't really connect the dots between software and how to use software to solve business issues. And so most IT groups are thrilled when a company like ours comes in, because it's not what they're trained to do, right? They're trained to keep cyber criminals out, keep the land up, all that kind of stuff, right? And so that's part of the reason that we're seeing that really companies aren't taking advantage of software is no one's really telling one's really telling them how to use the software. And then I sort of joke, I I have had the wonderful opportunity of coaching vice the vice president of cyber security for Walmart, that's fortune one, and I'm teaching him how to use the software. So I'm like, if I'm teaching a fortune one company how to use a software. I'm not sure Microsoft's teaching so, and I make fun of them, I know they're out there and they're teaching, but I say it in jest, but it is kind of funny. So really, there's just we fill a very unique niche in helping companies understand these business issues can be solved by using the Microsoft platform. And yeah, just companies are not aware of the power of the technology.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:47

So okay, and so, where do businesses start? You know, if they're thinking about we must be able to do I mean, because I think I would say probably 90% of all of my clients are actually on Microsoft. There's very few that are not on the Microsoft platform, but I see that they do. They have all sorts of different software from all different parts that they're trying to kind of pull together. So if they're, if they're thinking about that, there must be a better way. What, Where do, where do you start? What's the process that you go through?

Jan Lehman  24:12

Well, take inventory. I think it's a good way to do it. And so really look at what are all, what's all the third party software you pay for? And then really, you need to get educated on the Microsoft suite, quite honestly. And I mean, there's lots of places you can go and look because people are interested. On our website, on our resources page, we've got, like, years of Microsoft 365, webinars on different apps and tools. Also our case studies, I think, are really interesting, because our case studies are written from our clients vantage point of what was the business issue, what did we help them use in the technology space? And then what was the ROI? And it really opens people's eyes to, oh, well, we have that issue. We could use that software. So it's really taking the time to get educated on what exactly does the software do. And then, you know, if the third party software is unique. Make it different and it meets a particular need, don't get rid of it like the whole point is, if your software you're paying for can meet your need, then get rid of the third party software. But and sometimes Microsoft fills, we can really fill a void quite often with the software as well. So we'll have customers that have often they'll have an ERP tool or enterprise resource planning tool, or a CRM customer relationship management tool, and it's super good and because of their industry or whatever, but it's lacking in a particular area. And so you can actually build out really sort of, we call them. We call them SharePoint supplements. A lot of people think SharePoint is just where you store your documents, but SharePoint is actually where you can build out robust applications. And so we'll build out robust applications to kind of meet the needs where keep your third party software, but what it's not doing for you. We can build out a solution in Microsoft. That's we built a solution for running EOS in Microsoft 365 So, and that's part of that solution is as a SharePoint application combined with some of the other tools, and there's just, yeah, huge opportunity, fantastic.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  26:05

And going back to your personal experience of EOS, so you said that you know you recognise you're the visionary, and you've got yourself a fractional integrator. What has it done for your business? Because it this is what I love about EOS, is that I work with companies that have got 600 staff and companies that have got 12 staff, and yet the EOS framework can still help them. So tell me a little bit about how it's worked within your business and what it's done for you as a business.

Jan Lehman  26:28

Yeah. So we realised now, as we look back, how much we were spinning our wheels, right? And we just were never the traction. The name traction for that book is so perfect, right? Like we just were spinning our wheels. We weren't getting stuff done. Part of it was, I think a big part was a lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities. We we thought we were crystal clear what we're doing, but there, you know, we weren't and and that sort of stuff. And then laying out the, you know, the the vision and the targets, you know, the three years and all that stuff, we started to really then be able to pick and choose the right things to focus on. And when you don't really identify where you're headed, it's kind of easy to pick maybe a little bit more short sighted rocks, right? So, so it was really helpful to go through that whole exercise. And yeah, I'm just a huge fan. I recommend we often will have companies reach out to us because they think we teach people how to run EOS, because we do so much in that space. And I'm always like, no, here's an implementer, here's an integrator. It's not what we do. But I'm a huge zealot for it, for sure, until I'm really interested.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:31

Because one of my other businesses is actually providing fractional integrators into into businesses for those, for those who, because the integrator role doesn't have to be a full time role, and in fact, in many organisations, it isn't. It's a one or two day a week kind of role. So tell me about your fractional integrator. What? What benefit that has brought for you as a visionary? Because, you know, most people listening to probably visionaries like ourselves, kind of and maybe struggling with the big picture, versus getting really into the weeds, getting sort of stuff sorted. So tell me really about your fractional integrator.

Jan Lehman  28:00

Yeah, Debra, I think you're so smart to have that organisation. It's it's so needed. And I refer a lot of my clients to fractional integrated companies like that, because not everybody can afford a full time integrator, or maybe they're just starting out. They're trying to understand it. So it's been huge for us, and we've been able to sort of scale up and scale back given kind of, you know, cash flow, different things, of the services. What I like about it is, you know, we get to the point where we are bigger, and I want to have a full time integrator. I will be using my fractional integrator to help me hire, train that person, vet them, because, as a visionary, I don't want to do that. So I just, I am a huge fan of fractional integrator companies. It's great place to start. And even if you have even if you have a full time a full time integrator bringing them a fractional person in to coach and develop that person and help them, because I will meet full time integrators that are questioning if they know what they're doing right, they have confidence issues around it, and the visionary is not going to help them right, typically. And so again, these fractional companies are just a brilliant concept.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  29:02

No, it's all we find as well. It's like it you can have somebody who perhaps is the perfect integrator in the business, but they've never done it before, or it's the first time that they're really taking full accountability for the profit and loss, for the business plan, for really driving the business. And as you said, that the self doubt creeps in, but also it's difficult, because working with visionaries, we're quite a unique breed, aren't we, and so we're not necessarily, not necessarily all that supportive, and we certainly don't want to dive in and get into all the detail, which means they can often feel a little bit lost. And so I think, yeah, bringing that fractional person in can actually help, as you said, to to coach and train them and and also make sure that they understand that what they're doing is perfectly normal having somebody else to talk to. We actually have a mastermind group as well for integrators, which is for people who are probably on their first kind of role as an integrator, and they actually get to meet on a monthly basis with other integrators just to talk about the some of the challenges they have with the visionary but also with the rest of the team.

Jan Lehman  29:58

Yeah, that. It's brilliant too, because it can be lonely. It's lonely for the visionary, lonely for the integrator. So the masterclass sounds wonderful.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:08

Hey, one last question about EOS, in terms of, do you have a favourite EOS tool, like, what's been the game changer in your business in terms of the EOS system model? Oh, that is a tough one.

Jan Lehman  30:21

I mean, I'm a definitely, a huge fan of really evaluating if people the GWC, because what ultimately drives productivity is exactly that, when people are in the right seat doing what they love to do, have the capacity. So I'd probably have to say that tool that have companies evaluate that, and evaluate their people and and realise this person's not they're not dumb, they're not whatever it just might be a wrong alignment and get them in the right spot. And because often we will see productivity issues with people that just because they're in the wrong seat. And so having the EOS tool framework to explain that, especially before we go to the EOS company, is so helpful, because I can have that conversation after coaching somebody that this person is absolutely in the wrong seat, right, and explain kind of it's, you know, their capability to be able to understand or something like that, is really helpful. Yeah, there's so many tools, so that's a tough one.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:15

But you're right that the people analyzer, I think, is one of my favourite tools for, you know, when you've got a people issue, it actually forces you to take all of the emotion out of it and think very clearly about whether or not it, whether it's, first of all, is it the person? And then, is it something we've done to actually set them up to kind of fail because we put them into a role that they don't GWC or or have they, you know, we haven't given them the right support in terms of the capacity part or the capability part of it, so that making sure that we've actually given them the support. I just think it's beautiful. It's a chance to really take a step back and have a look and sort of say, right, you know, we've got this, this amazing person. We've just put them in the wrong role, therefore we've set them to fail. And we need to actually look at that and get them back into, as you said, a role where they're in flow. Okay, cool. Hey, we could probably talk all day, because we love, we love business, we love EOS. We love, I love, we love, obviously, having productivity is in terms of top tips and tools. So if people are listening in, I love them to always walk away from these podcasts with something they can actually go and do. What would you say your kind of top three tips and tools are?

Jan Lehman  32:16

Yeah, well, why the one big one that I see a lot is that leaders often make assumptions that people know what they know, or do things the way they do it. And it's fun when I'm coaching like number of people on a leadership team, and they'll you know that I could just tell that the CEO as soon as people know how to do certain things, and as I'm coaching them, they have no idea how to do that, right? And so I think my, my tip I would give for all leaders is Don't, don't make the assumption people know what you know and do things the way you do. So if you find yourself saying, hey, you need to be better planner. You need to manage email more effectively, like, don't stop there. Actually have them show you how they do it, because it'll show you that they do it differently and probably inefficiently, and that's why they're dropping the ball or struggling. So that's that's a big one that I often want to make sure leaders know, is really stop making the assumption.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  33:13

And I just want to just sort of go back on that as well. It's really interesting, because we are all different in the way that we process things. I remember when I was running the Event Centre, I thought I had put together the most amazing processes, lots of checklists for you know, before an event, during an event, after an event, and then I sat there, and I kind of watched my team and realised they weren't using any of the tools that I'd actually set up. And I was horrified. But I've got all this stuff set up, but it wasn't the way that they did things. And so whilst it worked for me, it didn't work for them. So I think we often have to look at and go, Yeah, make sure that just because it works for you does not mean it's necessarily going to work for somebody else in the organisation.

Jan Lehman  33:50

Yeah, yeah. I would. Another one is, is just invest in your people. I just I it's so fascinating me, people will pay for me to do keynotes, to keynote presentations. And, you know, Coach leaders. But when it comes to like, training everybody in the company on how to, like, manage email or use their time effectively, it always gets cut from the budget. And I just, I feel, and I think part of it Debra is, what I just said, is that leaders are like, I know how to manage email, so everybody in the company must know how to manage email, and I'm a good time manager, so everybody the company, but it's a huge gap. And I've, I've literally had leaders say to me, why don't want to pay for training? Because what am I might be just training these people to go to the My competitor. I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's so short sighted, right? Or they're like, people are multitasking. They don't pay attention. And so what I see happening is they throw the baby out with the bathwater. So yeah, there's going to be the people that are just not going to pay attention in a training. But why would you not help the people that want help to work smarter? And so it's, it's definitely a blind spot for a lot of leaders. So I would love to see why that not just my job. Training, and old training, where companies really start to prioritise it more and just focus on even if you helped 25% of the people on the training, if you can get an ROI on that, which is not that hard to get an ROI on it, it's worth it for the investment. But, yeah, it's been a tough sell, so I'd love leaders to be a little bit more open to it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  35:20

Yep, so don't, don't make assumptions. Invest in your people. You know, it's easy to get return on investment when you're looking at training. And the final tip?

Jan Lehman  35:28

Final one's got to be, they're using the software thing, right? So just really evaluate what your software is. Take the time to do that inventory and really look at, you know, stuff like people companies are paying for licences for tools like Calendly, which is, like, you know, a tool you can use for scheduling. There's a Microsoft version of that. Why, you know, why are you paying that for everybody when you're already paying for it? Microsoft? So it's, it's doing the inventory to see where you have a duplication of you're paying for it twice. For sure, would be a third tip.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  35:59

And that's, I guess, getting the inventory is reasonably easy. It's actually amazing. Is it? When you even in a small business like ours, when you look at the amount that we spend on software, it's, it can be huge. So you imagine that in a bigger organisation, there has to be room for improvement there, right?

Jan Lehman  36:15

That there's, there is in small companies. I mean, it's huge that the ROI you can get even in small companies. We helped one company, it was only three people, and we helped them start to use teams. Built a little SharePoint application that it didn't cost much money at all, and we saved them three quarters of a person, like they were about ready to hire a fourth person and didn't need to, just by showing them. So even little bitty companies get massive value from it, not just bet.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:40

Okay, that makes perfect sense. And there's just one last thing I want to explore a little bit before we finish up. So in terms of AI, you know, it's the buzzword, everybody has different opinions about whether or not it's going to take away all of our work. I believe that it actually frees us up to do more valuable work by taking away some of the mundane stuff. But, and, you know, what is, what's the, what's the key to using AI successfully, in your opinion?

Jan Lehman  37:06

So the key is making sure there really needs to be a business strategy around it, and a kind of a company wide approach. What's happening right now, it's phenomenal. Everybody's playing and doing stuff, but we're starting to see really icky things, right? Like you can just tell these are AI automated emails going out to clients and customers, and it gives a really bad impression. So it's great people are playing, but there should be a more of a strategy, maybe a little bit definitely more governance around how to do it, and really come up with the way of, how do we teach people, what are the rules, the ins and outs of it, and roll it out in a more, yeah, little bit more organised approach, I guess would be a good way of saying it. But oh my gosh, it's gonna save so much for productivity. I mean, it's gonna free us up for so many different things. I'm a huge fan. There's just opportunity to do it a little bit better. So we don't, I don't know. I just think we're looking sloppy right now to our customers in a lot of areas.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  37:58

And you right, you can, you can see pretty easily when something is actually written by AI. So I actually use it. I use it myself for helping myself to write articles and things. But I'm very, very careful about the way that I brief it. I've got the ideas I'm having a conversation with my detour to get to the end result. Whereas I think some people just, you know, they see it as well as pump out stuff quickly. And it's becoming very generic.

Jan Lehman  38:23

Well, you're doing it right, Debra, you should have the final eyes on it, because a lot of times it's rewriting something very differently than what you intended. So people are trying to use it to go faster, but they don't remember they should be that audit check before it goes out in many cases. So yeah, agree.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:39

And what about co pilot in Microsoft is that going to make finding things easier? This is my little frustration in terms of SharePoint, or any of the file structures that we have. It's often difficult to find things. I'm assuming that this is going to make things a whole lot easier in terms of being able to find the right stuff well.

Jan Lehman  38:59

So it sounds like your your Microsoft environments not set up properly to start, because logically, there's a logical way to set it up. So it makes sense where everything is, and that's we'll see that as a gap in a lot of businesses, and the search, just the basic search in teams, is significantly better than the search in Outlook, and so you can easily find stuff, so maybe not knowing how to explore teams for surge. But then, yes, co pilot then adds on to that. So we have a client where they were they wanted to create, like an Excel spreadsheet to list like, whenever they have an issue and what the solution is, and they realise, like, nobody in the company is going to fill this out, right? People are too busy. So we've developed a co pilot agent for them, so their own private like co pilot tool. Now that group just asks the questions and it scrubs all the data, finds where that discussion was, and comes back with the answer. So it's exactly what you want is. It's allowing us to leverage our data, pull the information super fast. But I would definitely encourage you to consider making sure. Your environment set up properly at the beginning, because copilot is using your data, so making sure your data is all in there and set up properly is important.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:08

Yeah, I think it's probably a challenge for most businesses. I mean, I've been running my business for 20 years now, and I and I'm sure that I'm not even certain, because it would have been me in the beginning, just me and so everything was done the way that I did it, and I was pretty certain we have not had any chance to review it. So I imagine others, others are probably sitting in the same situation, whether you've never really done a full audit of where things are at or what could be done better, which is obviously where you help. One last question, the biggest turnaround that you've seen it you said that you've got case studies on your website where you can talk about how you've actually helped people. What do you think has been the biggest turnaround that you've had with a company that you could share with us?

Jan Lehman  40:45

God, there's so many. I think let me, let me touch on just coaching results. Because I think that one is just happening over and over and over again. So on average, like we deliver a 10% bump in productivity when we coach somebody, and a 10% bump is like giving somebody over a month back in their year. Because, like, that's not small potatoes, and that's the average on what we deliver. One of my favourite things, though, is like I was just coaching a controller, and we bumped her productivity up 15% but her job satisfaction went up over 70% like we see those high marks on stress reduction and job satisfaction, like out of the park and so that, to me, is our business. Basic best success is we are reducing people's stress levels. We're teaching them how to work smarter, getting their GWC flow. So I love that we, on average, deliver a 10% bump in productivity, but the the employee engagement scores and all that stuff are the best reward I could get, for sure.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  41:43

And I guess that expected my one of my favourite us tools is the delegate and elevate. When you're doing things that you love and you're great at, that's when you're happy, isn't it? So it's about being in flow and getting rid of those things that you're not so good at, perhaps don't like. Yeah, fantastic. Hey, Jan, look so much gold in there. So you know, just the three top tips. Again, you know leaders, please don't make assumptions. Make sure that you're actually looking at what's really going on. Invest in your people. It's not hard to get return on investment. And as you just said, if you can make a 10% saving, that's a month of a person's time in a year, which is not insignificant. And then have do. Please have a look at your software inventory and see what you're doing and what you're using and where there is opportunity to make changes. And then obviously, talk to someone like Jan, who can actually help you with with putting together a plan to improve that productivity. Most importantly is we get happier for employees working in the stuff that they love. Okay, so we're going to pop in the notes of the podcast where they can find your website. So the website address is CTCproductivity.com.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:49

CTC productivity. And your book, again, just gives the title of that book again.

Jan Lehman  42:52

Work smart. Do more

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:55

Perfect. And you can find that on Amazon, both in Australia, but also in the year, yeah,

Jan Lehman  43:00

I know that I found that out. I'm like, that's so cool.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  43:04

Hey, Jan, thank you so so much for your time. I really appreciate it lovely to hear about the work that you do. But also have some with EOS. It's been an absolute pleasure.