Please enjoy this transcript of my conversation with Gilmar Wendt.
Description
Intended as a general chat about team development, purpose and company culture, this fascinating conversation turned out to be exactly that. Gilmar Wendt and I enjoyed some philosophical musings while talking about the Propeller Model (a framework he uses), authenticity, and how we are as people in and outside of the work environment.
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello there this week, I'm talking to Gilmar Wendt, who is a business design strategist and principal of GW and co and award-winning creative agency based in London.
[00:00:12] Gilmore helps transform businesses by aligning brand strategy and culture. And it's these areas that we explore in depth in our conversation.
Here's my interview with Gilmar Wendt. Enjoy. The usual question to start off with is when you were little, what did you want it to be when you grew up?
[00:00:52] Gilmar Wendt: Yes. And it's a very difficult, good question because apart from the police, but fire man Knight in shining armor, I didn't really have anything. I wanted to be good at something. And I felt I would be good at something, but I didn't have a vision to to do anything really. And I, I stumbled into design.
[00:01:12] I, and I did that. Because I fell in love with letter shapes. Somebody told me about the Frankfurt book fair. And I went along and I saw all these wonderful books and I, there was a book on type faces and I opened it up?
[00:01:28] and that's all, this is beautiful. This was a last century. So we didn't have computers were just about seeing the light of day in the classrooms or in the, in the universities.
[00:01:41] So that was still type setting, you know, with large complicated methods. And there were these catalogs that had all the lowercase that'll aids and there was one in particular. I want a type fiscal Granby. That I fell in love with it turned out that that was one of the predecessor to the London underground type phase.
[00:02:02] Anyway, it got me hooked and I got to study found a place where I'm a very eminent person called Hans-Peter Virbac. He's not very well known in the English speaking world because he didn't speak English, but in the German world, One of the key figures in the 20th century book design that got me into book design and I studied with him.
[00:02:27] And you could say everything. I learned about design. I learned through typography. I then design books. For a number of years, very successfully, not just the inside and the outside. It was the whole identity. How do you create a new book publishing house? How should they go to market? And that was for about four or five years.
[00:02:49] I then came to a point with my lovely now wife we'd studied together, got to know each other. She wanted to be in London. I didn't want to be in London. I've wanted to make books in Germany, but at some stage you realize it's either all in or it's going to drift apart. And that was the time when I also had done designed a fair amount of books and felt maybe I needed some change.
[00:03:16] And so I came to London for a year and 21 years later, I'm still here.
[00:03:21] Lech Guzowski: I can, I can relate to that in terms of going somewhere. They come into the UK for university and then a decade beta still, still being, they still remaining there. Your story reminded me of was the story that I've once heard. Well, many people I've heard actually watched on YouTube, which is in one of the university commencement speeches that Steve jobs gave Hugh described his story of kind of, of his life.
[00:03:44] And actually one of the things that he did mention was how he dropped out of university and then decided to drop in on some classes instead, rather than pursuing a certain degree. And it was the exact same story. He got so hooked on design and the actual particular font and design design aspect of, of letters and calligraphy that then he associated that, that experience, that knowledge that he acquired that.
[00:04:08] In his design and how we got influenced, how it influenced the way that some of the funds and the, the, the design of the max apple Macs were created as well. So there's always that connection whether we see that or not. But I'm, I'm curious, obviously, you've, you've been in London for, for many years.
[00:04:23] You've gone through design design. Is your interest. Well, we've been talking about stuff, not necessarily design and graphic design specific as such, but we've been discussing. And that's how we connected things around purpose, how, and, and things around how design and how we build teams and how all of that branding in particular.
[00:04:44] But for example employee running, how that impacts an organization. So I'm wondering what the connection in your work is now. How can that happen and ways that you use your focus on.
[00:04:53] Gilmar Wendt: You touched on a few interesting things there. I've seen that speech from Steve jobs and the thing that. Very much chimed with me with one thing that he said you joined the dots in hindsight, that is something I grew up with two parents who are both artists that were singers with everything associated with that, you know, just about getting it right on the night.
[00:05:16] And that's when it matters the ups and downs, but there were also ideas and it was always follow what you really want to do. And that has been deeply instilled in me. And that's what I have done. So I've always felt I'm on a path, but I can't really describe the end of the path. It just feels like it's throwing me to somewhere.
[00:05:35] And that's why it resonated with Steve jobs. In a nutshell, you could say, when I designed books, I interpreted stories that somebody else had. And then they become interested in the story, not as a writer, but in the creation of the story. And when I moved into to London and worked in kind of more corporate design environment, we were, you know, we were helping companies with their investor story, with our corporate story, with our branding story.
[00:06:02] And I was getting involved in how do you shape the story? And then how do you shape the design out of it? And what I also had very early on. It's the question. Why do you do this? You know, and where does this come from? What this, the, the central point of it, all the soul, the heart, the vision, whatever you want to call that the purpose.
[00:06:22] Of course. So that question. Makes me a terrible small talker because I always go into the deep questions and some people are quite uncomfortable with that, but that is also what drives the work. And that has driven me from being a designer into a strategic consultant, into a culture consultant and into the work that we do today, which has an element of design, but in a much broader sense, we sometimes call it business. And at the heart of it is if you, if you look at what makes a business work we have a model that we've developed. Propeller. And if you have a propeller, it usually has three blades kind of more, but let's say it has three. And if you look at the business as a propeller, one of your blades is your strategy.
[00:07:10] Where do you want to go? What's your plans? How do you build your operations around that? But you also have another propeller and that is the. What is the lift experience? What is the ethos, but at the values, what, what attracts people to be here? then you have a third blade on the propeller, and that is your brand, your communications, what you represent to the outside world. And. If you want to make that business fly, quite literally, you need to turn the propeller on all three, because if you only do it on one and you might break it and this, the intersection of your strategy of your culture and your brand that interests me and that we're working on, because we'll be finding. If you go back to the 18th century and the concept of the division of labor that has led to many inventions and innovations and progress in the 20th first century, it's really led to the silos of the modern workplace. And today that's the. ' cause we're trying to perfect. Everything we're trying to auto to the work has to be perfect, but we're missing the bits that hold it together. And so what I'm interested in is you have a strategy, but why do so many of strategies fail? I've spoken to people and what, you know, what they often say, oh, this is the fourth CEO with a new strategy. I'll survive this one. That was what somebody told me once in an interview. And he was a middle manager, you know, he had responsibilities.
[00:08:40] So you can see if you dealt with these people over with you then. Well, if I'm. And two off strategies are being celebrated. Some pain signed off in the annual report and on the shelf, if you go one, two levels down, but you mentioned the word purpose. People don't know they, they hear the line, but they don't know what the thinking was.
[00:09:03] That won't be it. And that is a big. It comes partly because if you know the silos, you know, there's a strategic function. They have that consultants that is the culture function. The people function, they have consultants, they employ a value in branding, employer, branding, project values, project. And then as the marketing function, the consumption, they have that concept and that will work in silos.
[00:09:29] So they all work on one blade of the propeller and the bit that makes it move. It doesn't really happen. So that's, that's the era area that we're working on and it comes in many different ways. Sometimes people come to us with a branding problem, but we will look at that through the lens of strategies, the lens of culture.
[00:09:50] And we'll look at the aspects that we need to bring into it because on.
[00:09:54] anything you need to win your people over and you do that best, not by telling them what to do, but yeah. By convincing them that what you're doing has relevance to them and by giving them the chance to participate in it. So that is what We do.
[00:10:08] Lech Guzowski: We in our pre-recording chats promised ourselves that we're not going to go down the route of telling people what purposes because I've, I've had two excellent guests on this podcast before where we devoted a lot of time to purpose. One of them was Sarah rosin through. The other one was Allie Medina.
[00:10:27] And we really dug deep in some of, in those two episodes into what purposes and how it looks, what it feels like. And I'll definitely point people in that direction. So I don't want to go down that route of more, what that is, how we identify that, but I'm really keen to know a little bit more about your perspective of what kind of that purpose is, because the thing that I got from the other two interviews and I often get is.
[00:10:50] These days, purpose company culture, and a lot of these terms, I'm more used like buzzwords PR type of spin that organizations put on because it's a fancy thing to do. And I'm really keen to get your perspective on that from where the phones that you've worked and what you've noticed in the industry, what, what is, what's the situation now?
[00:11:11] How and how can we potentially prevent our organizations going down? That is just something that we talk about, but otherwise it's, it's just a poster on the wall.
[00:11:20] Gilmar Wendt: I think that is a very, very important question. And I've, I've actually gone away from using the word purpose in the work a lot, which is sad because I love the word in its true meaning, but it's being used. As a way of saying, Hey, we can sell more. You know, it's become a thing. It used to be the mission and vision and how it's the purpose.
[00:11:47] But th th the thinking behind is very similar. It's essentially about manipulation. If we're really talk about it deception very often, we go back to Shakespeare and king Lear and talk about the glib and oily art of speaking and purpose. Not that is something that I think about. That we live in the era of the phrase, and we're just starting to get into the era of greenwashing.
[00:12:13] We're already in it, but it's going to increased massively because the problems are so real. And, you know, for a lot of organizations, sadly, still, it seems easier to carry on and to paint new colors on the outside. And that is something that. Deeply dislike and that I don't want to be. So what we were talking about often when we, when we get engaged, we say, what is, what are your true intentions?
[00:12:44] And it's okay to want to make money. And it's okay to want to be rich. But I think what we need to get to is to a place where we're honest about that, because that is the bit, it will come to the surface. You know, Facebook has a wonderful purpose of community and bringing people together and everyone knows that's not the business model, you know?
[00:13:06] And it dispatches me when, when, you know, when that happens. So I really work towards helping people be true about what they really want, whatever you want to call it. And that is the. That is what drives the work that we do. And the way we look at that, that fall is when we engage, say an, a customer experience project. Now, some, there are some true intentions. What do we really want to get out of it while we doing this? And there are two parts that we need to look into. It's not just what is the job that needs to be done, but also what is the change that we want? Help people make in their own way of dealing with what they're doing.
[00:13:50] So we're always talking about the two parallel tracks and that's the intersection of that. That's where the interesting work.
[00:13:58] Lech Guzowski: I'm really with you on the purpose of Facebook that you mentioned, and not just Facebook, but many organizations. And I think that's what. It's difficult for me and for a lot of people that we there's that disconnect between the purpose and what the business actually does. And we know there's so much stuff going on behind the scenes that we're not privy to and how business models are run.
[00:14:19] And I think that's where people are more and more demanding clarity and things to be aligned. And. I know what you mean about going away from using the word purpose? It's a great word. Same as the, as the word intention and having values, but they seem to be thrown around a lot. And I I've read the article that you've written in relation to con ganglia.
[00:14:43] And I really liked that comparison of, I haven't personally read a Kinglake. I think the article that you've written on my mind, it might be easier. But I do like the concept that you've read the comparison that you drew that in terms of the, the, the characters and how it relates to that purpose. And There is that there is the difficulty and of how the business avoid that.
[00:15:05] How, how do we, how do they find that alignment? Even just looking at an internal from an internal point of view, when you've got, when a company's got purpose and how does it rally the people inside the organization around that? How did they build that? And what does that mean? And most of all, how did they evolve?
[00:15:23] Specifically that trap of we've got a purpose that we say that we have, but we actually don't live it. What's what's your take on that?
[00:15:31] Gilmar Wendt: I was reflecting as you're, as you're mentioning this. It's the difficult work that starts now, you know, we've gone through the branding era in the nineties, you know? Well, and about one word, one big idea. This is what everything defined. And it's not a logo. It's a big thing, you know, it's it's an ideology now.
[00:15:50] Okay. We're still at the same. Level in some ways by saying that's not purpose. And particularly we use it. I think what it comes down to is how we're trying to go about it. You know, because in a lot of the language, even how you're describing it, there's still a sentiment. How do we get up? It's that implies. Then somebody sits at the leavers of power and trying to see an influence that little minions are walking around and now I need to try and get into their heads.
[00:16:23] Sometimes they're really wanting something very manipulative about that big. And what doesn't change is the sense of somebody sitting there at the top and control. And I think that is an outdated model. Now that is, I appreciate it. It's very hard. If you run 150,000 people organization, somehow you have to have some control, but it's the ethos with which you're approaching. And I think, you know, the question is, well, how do want people to participate? Not everyone wants to have the power, but people have an innate desire to be part of something. So now I have a choice. I can tell them this is what you're part of and isn't that great. Or I can say this is what I believe in.
[00:17:11] How does this relate to what you're. And then know that, that sounds a bit abstract perhaps, but from this comes back to what are your intention? Are we willing to engage in a way that other people have space to come to the table? There's still hierarchy. There still needs to be some decision-making. I'm not talking about sort of basic democracy and everyone has an equal say, I don't think that works, but.
[00:17:37] There's a big difference between caring about the people and trying to control them. Interestingly, a discussion that plays out right now. And do we go back to the office or not? I remember at the beginning of the pandemic, we. We had a round table with people from the charity sector, from finance, from engineering, all CEOs and leaders of this or leading functions of business.
[00:18:05] And we asked the question, so what's going to change. And the one thing, whatever sector they were in, everyone said, we don't want to go back to the old way. Presentee as know those kinds of things, the gossip kind of all the office politics. Now, I'm sure you can't avoid them altogether. But what is interesting is we now have 18 months to reflect on it and where's the conversation going now?
[00:18:31] We do. You know, I think it's likely that the hybrid model is there to stay in one shape or another, but one thing that I've noticed. In the whole debate about going back to the office. I don't hear it enough. Reflection of what I find, which is, I love being back with my team. I deeply love being back in the same space and the energy that?
[00:18:56] happens from being in the same room.
[00:18:58] I did my first business trip. Yeah.
[00:19:00] Abroad since March 20, 22 weeks ago. And boy did. I love it. I didn't actually miss all the flying around, which is not a good thing in the first place. And so I don't think I want to go back to doing as much of that, but going back, seeing something different, arriving in a different country, going and seeing a site, it was a pretty big plant that we visited meeting the people in their own environment.
[00:19:27] You know, getting a sense of the place. It gives you something that you cannot recreate by a screen. It's just not possible. I remember the first time that we, that we set here in Waterloo, in our studio where we said, okay, let's all come in. Okay. Long commute. We've all gotten used to commuting from the bedroom to the top floor, wherever you are.
[00:19:51] You're working at home. We'll come in and we had a day sitting in front of the white wall, you know, getting things done, working things out and so on. And I felt so happy. So it's quite funny. So then the question is how can I create a working environment where people feel that. Because then you don't have to have that conversation about the wheel and want everyone back.
[00:20:15] That's the question of control, really? You know, it's easier to control people if they're all captured, you know, captain, I think one thing that we've learned is productivity. Doesn't go down by people working from home. I think that myth has been thoroughly busted, not a problem. You know, in fact my own productivity is probably gone now, but I've also.
[00:20:36] Know, we've seen that people have worked a hell of a lot more hours in the last 18 months than in previous times. That is those who had a job, you know, so my office workers, but so all of that is not necessary. You don't need the office environment and to control people. If you have motivated. They'll do it by themselves.
[00:20:57] So there's something to be celebrated of working together. And I think that is underused and underappreciated. And I think that it's something that we need to think about as a walking culture. And that is certainly something that we work with when we do work. What is the, how do you get. The energy that comes out of different people working together into something that's greater than the individual contributions.
[00:21:25] Lech Guzowski: I think you're right. That a lot of myths have been abolished as a result of obviously what what's been going on in the world for the past 18 months and gave different perspectives, reprioritize certain things. Thank you very much for calling me out on how I phrase the phrase, the question, because I think you, you you're, you're quite right in that.
[00:21:43] As, as you were giving the answer, I did reflect on that and you're right there is, although the mindsets is right, it's about building communities. It's about getting people to follow others based on what they believe and, and creating groups as such within organizations. And if that is possible within organizations, It's still the wording.
[00:22:04] It's still the kind of how we convey that to the people around us. And I think that's an important piece that sometimes the most genuine of actions fall short because of how it's been presented, how it's been conveyed in the words that have been used, or maybe the by, by who they were delivered. That's also sometimes the case right within the organization.
[00:22:24] In terms of the reprioritizing, certain things for us, what's important for us as individuals, as teams. Yeah, I've, I've been seeing that too, that organizations have noticed certain things that are better. Some things that are worse, but then I still find organizations. Although they've noticed that they want people back in the office.
[00:22:41] They just want to go back to that old model. And it's that still surprises me. And I wonder how, how far that's going to go and whether this is separating the good organizations and progressive organizations from the organizations who cling onto the past a little bit too much And what obviously what the impact is on people's going to be, because being back around people in the same space, couldn't agree more, the energy that you get out of it is, is immense.
[00:23:06] And even introverted people who don't like being that much around others. And, you know, it can be a little bit draining of on them. They still want that as an element, they very, very rarely do they meet somebody who says not completely five days a week from home is ideal for me. There's always an alum that, you know, maybe once a week, once a week, twice a month, everybody always has that bit of a need to be around others.
[00:23:29] And I think that's a fascinating concept in itself as well. You mentioned a lot of we're obviously around development and where things are going in, in the future in terms of the skills. And we've got the separation, the segmentation that we've got going on. W what do you think is the. The soft skills as such, because I know that you've got some views in terms of the soft skills, but as well as potentially the development of AI going forwards into the future and how that might impact how we do work and how work is work is perceived.
[00:23:54] Gilmar Wendt: Hmm, that's an interesting question. The question that it comes to this may be a little bit out there, but I did you read the book sapiens?
[00:24:04] Lech Guzowski: No, I have not. I have not. I know about it. I've heard a lot about it from other people, but I haven't got down to reading it now.
[00:24:11] Gilmar Wendt: If there's a good rules, sometimes if you don't want to read the whole tomb, just read the end. But he said something that the end about the future is this, the question is what do we want to bond? Which I think is a really profound question because we've got Titus, we got ag. We can act in whichever way you want, you know, but free as human beings.
[00:24:37] I mean, within everyone has constraints essentially. You know, as a human race, we're pretty free. And and he's say, well, so what do we want them to want? We can just go down yet. Technology will say everything. That's new technology technology. And it comes back to what I said earlier, but trying to perfect everything.
[00:24:56] And the question is, okay, what's the value of that perfection itself? Does that have that value? And for me, it comes back to humanity. What kind of life do we want? What kind of things do we want to value? And that plays out in endless minute interactions as well in the big grand themes, you know? Yes.
[00:25:20] Climate change. What do we want you to do? What do you want to try? And are we willing to do our bit to change, to avert the worst? Or do we want to see it out? As long as we can, knowing that we in this country, for instance, probably not going to be as badly affected as many others. So, okay.
[00:25:42] That's a pretty deep thing that we've gotten into here, but I, so what helps the future for me? What I want to be for and what I'm trying to. Help create is a place where people come together and create something together that it's beneficial for all of that. So I hope that doesn't sound too soft.
[00:26:05] I don't, this can be in a very commercial context, but there's something in humanity and the fact that we're humans. That is wonderfully magical for me. And I. Maybe I'm old style, but I think that is the thing that I'm most interested in. I'm fascinated by AI. I'm fascinated by technology. I'm surrounded by it.
[00:26:28] And I use it. So I'm all for it, but it's the thing that drives me is the connections between people. And I think coming back to the workplace, I don't think there's anything more fascinating and amazing than a group of people coming together and turning. The intentions, the hands onto a common goal.
[00:26:47] And that is so powerful. You know, you probably know the Margaret Mead quote, famous anthropologist is that men never underestimate the power of a small group of committed citizens to change the world because indeed there has nothing ever been that hasn't. That has done changed like that. That was me quoting.
[00:27:09] Fredy not quite as eloquently as you put it, but that sense of what we're capable of. If we come together is the key driver in what we do. And that's what we try and help organizations get into that a little bit off on a little bit more if they can. But I think that for me is the future of work.
[00:27:30] Lech Guzowski: And do you think there's an element of the combination of how AI is going to be used in the workplace and how it's going to impact us that we should be a little bit more mindful too, so that it doesn't go potentially in the wrong direction.
[00:27:45] Gilmar Wendt: Tricky one. I don't think I can answer that in a profound way, because it's not something that I'm spending a huge amount of time with. I do think it comes back to what do we want to, and now we're willing to take responsibility. Now we're talking about very, very big brush strokes, but can you do as an individual?
[00:28:08] We can't change whether some government will decide to put a lot of investment into, I don't know, drones and what have you. But there are things that I think we should be aware of. So we talked about Facebook. I was talking, I was listening to the radio the other day and there was a woman came up and mother.
[00:28:31] Told of her despair and trying to get her daughter who had agreed to it off Instagram and Instagram just wouldn't delete the account. And if he had been, had some horrible mental health issues as a result of some bullying and they just couldn't get it. Get away from it. So there are small things with technology without worshiping of technology, even that we can think about, you know?
[00:28:56] And I sometimes I had my, my kids, I try to keep them away for the first few years of their lives from screen. Then I'll still more savvy than I ever will be screen. So they caught up very quick, but I wanted to give them some space to explore the wonder of the world. And it's fascinating. You can read that every now and again.
[00:29:15] And how many take, you know, bleeders do the same for their children. So I think a conscious dealing with the things around them. That's something that I think is important, but do you want to want, and do you have the courage to at least take a step towards, you know, on our own? We can't do all that much, but we still can't take responsibility for ourselves.
[00:29:42] Lech Guzowski: The thing that I often find is that we often of course, vilified technology. We verify AI, we verify social media and all of that with all, everything that's going on behind the scenes, that we don't seem to have potential manipulations and things like that. The business models, the purposes that are just a PR stints.
[00:30:00] Be beyond all of that, it's still down to us and how we use the tools, because everything that we use are merely tools. It's us forgive, give us them. The power is that's who are in that hooked into the, into the device, but we've got the. To literally switch it off and put it down and disconnect and do something else.
[00:30:21] So I think it's, it's important as you said, that consciousness and that awareness of that of that dynamic, that we've got more influence over over it. Then we realize recently something came, came back to me that I've watched probably about a couple of years ago. And that was a a series on Netflix about the unit, a Unabomber in, in the states.
[00:30:40] I think it was in the sixties and seventies. And not condoning, obviously what what was done then and all the, all their taxes, their results, but found the manifest. he wrote quite intriguing again staying away from, from, from what we saw was the brutality that the person stood for. But the manifesto is intriguing in itself.
[00:31:02] Gilmar Wendt: I'm aware enough of extremism and, and some of those beliefs. So, but, but what you do, you make me think of something because we're talking about some very big picture themes and some very high ground issues, if you like, you know, and I'm very conscious, that is easy to talk about. And it's not so easy to lift them out in practice, both in personal lives, as well as in the workplace, you know, you can all talk about it. Yeah. You need to talk to people, but how do I do this? When I've got 10,000? I don't even know what that, and I haven't got the time to, so I think we need to acknowledge that.
[00:31:41] I also You make me think, I don't know why we come. We had Shakespeare, so let's use somebody else from my home country, Germany, which is good too. You probably have heard about Faust which is one of those pieces that are very worth reading. There is a sentence in there that makes me think and then says as they meant a script, which I need Google translate for despite my 20 years of the UK to really translate.
[00:32:11] I think it's you can probably translate. You know, you can, you'll still be wrong whilst you're striving for the right thing. that's a wonderful human insight as well. Where I'm getting to is, is kind of, you know, we always write manifestos, we write our thoughts down, we write philosophy on it and what they're trying to do, where, where bringing things to a point to certainty. And I think there isn't much certainty because you can be certainty in one moment and.
[00:32:44] But the next moment you might find, actually I didn't go deep enough or actually I'd forgotten about something and that, and so I find You know, people who are too certain of things are a little bit dubious. And I think, you know, any sort of simple ideology, any has that clear certainty, which I can see play out in, in our world a lot right now on social media and so on.
[00:33:09] And they talk a lot about how the gray zone is not being acknowledged because everything's either black or. Hi, I'm, I'm also gray because I think there's a lot of it and gray can be a beautiful color. I think it's hard live with uncertainty if it comes at you left right and center. But I think if you kind of embrace it and listen to yourself, you can weather it quite well.
[00:33:36] And that gives you. Huge amounts of opportunity to change yourself, to change the way you work to change the way you have for your team work. To change things because it requires an openness. We talked about control and where does that need to control coming from? That's an interesting question. Maybe you need to have a podcast with a psychologist.
[00:33:58] I'm not an expert at that, but it's the question that I spend a great deal, you know, thinking about because often in our work that, you know, what are the politics of who needs to be happy with it in order to make the change happen? Those that are the blockers. And that comes back to control. It often comes back to fear.
[00:34:19] I give you a very simple example just to try to bring it back to the ground a little bit here. You know, waterfall versus agile. As a way of working. I don't think I don't, I'm not sure whether we need to explain the differences. But you know, agile is one of those buzz words. It sounds cool, but I'm getting together doing things and you know, it's called collaborative.
[00:34:41] I believe that collaboration very much agile has a huge amount of uncertain. Because the whole point, of agile is to develop as you go, rather than plan the end and then work towards the end in a straight line when Australia waterfall. So that has huge potential. And I love doing it this way. You need an element of control.
[00:35:03] You need to be clear as to what you want to achieve in order to evaluate whether you're on the right path, but you there's a level of openness. That you allow in this process to react to things as they happen. And I think that that principle, just to bring it back to, into working culture of openness and not tying things down all the time, you need to have some, some rocks in, in the, in the whiskey before you pour it in, you don't want to plump the rocks and afterwards it gets messy, but That embracing that, that sense of the gray zone, and the potential that lies within I wish we could do more of, because I think, you know, coming back to what's the future, who knows what it is, but.
[00:35:53] if we embrace that part, it could be quite exciting.
[00:35:57] Lech Guzowski: It definitely can definitely get you right. Agile is a buzzword and having a word when the idea industry for a little while, I've noticed that very much so surprisingly unsurprisingly agile started with a manifesto as well from, from the creators. And it's actually really interesting to listen to the founders, the founders, however you want to call it.
[00:36:19] The people who kind of came up with the writers of the manifesto, reviewing the state and how agile is being used or misused, actually in a lot of cases, there's a couple of videos. From there talks that are quite interesting in how things have gone in the other direction. Thank you very much for bringing down down to the ground.
[00:36:36] I've got a feeling we went so high up because you did mention a propeller that we, that that's kind of how you get things off the ground. So I think we sort of come in a full circle. I'm curious what you've got going on in the next few months that you're working on any kind of interesting projects stuff that is really exciting that you really at.
[00:36:52] Gilmar Wendt: Yeah, thank you for going on that flight with me. I think we had a lot of uncertainty that, and that didn't know where that was gone, but I think we've landed. And I will say, as an addendum, I, I think manifesto is have a great day. In putting something down it's, you know, it's the third generation where it gets troublesome.
[00:37:13] If you don't develop it, you know, the original intention is usually be great. Fun. It's a funny one. I sometimes get asked, what's your ideal client? And I never have an answer to it because we don't have somebody who says, oh, I want to work in this sector or this company or whatever it does come down to people.
[00:37:30] And that's how I've built this business. In the end. It's driven by relationships with people who have a certain vision, a certain problem, and then say, Can you help me with this? And we're quite open because of the, you know, it's a systemic view that we take culture strategy brand, and you have to look at all of it to solve one of them. And you can look at one of them to affect every, but everything of that. So and that is somewhat reflected in the things that we're doing. So we're helping. Form a B2B brand at the moment in the fan of factoring sector to, to instill a customer centric viewpoint, which is committed to the real big pain.
[00:38:14] How do you get note from somebody who knows the engineering processes to somebody that actually listens to the customer and do that with 50,000 people? So that's a project that we're starting, but breaking that down in pilots to, to work with people from different regions. And bring them together to start with, to get a shed, understand. There may even be a manifesto involved if it's written by the people involved, that can be extremely powerful. That's one thing we're helping in a different business in the fashion sector, who are the real believers in sustainability, which is another really interest. I think there's so much talk. We talked about greenwashing.
[00:38:53] Okay. How do you cut through when you actually believe in this stuff? And when you actually mean what you say, and when you actually have proof of that, when there are so many, you say exactly the same things without meaning it. So that's an interesting communications challenge that we're working on. And how do you do that?
[00:39:13] And have everyone. Have a piece of ownership of that. I'm writing a book when I have time on the propeller and the implications and sharing some of the practices. That we're doing. And because I think at.
[00:39:29] the end of the day, it's an idea that will be more powerful. The more people will use it. So the one thing is to explain it, and also you learn a lot by explaining it, including about the things that you haven't quite worked out yet, which I'm finding as I'm writing the book.
[00:39:44] So those are some of the things that we're doing right now,
[00:39:48] Lech Guzowski: And where can people follow some of the stuff that you do, especially the elements of the parts of the book. So where if people do want to find out when the book goes out, whenever that might be, or how it's progressing, is there a place that is best for people to find you.
[00:40:03] Gilmar Wendt: I think the best place to find me is on LinkedIn. I have an unusual name, so there won't be too many others. If you just Google or LinkedIn Gilmar events and you'll find me very happy. And that's also where most of my I thinking it's published by the emphases, some of it goes in magazines as, as you've read, but usually that's the central point where it comes together.
[00:40:27] So I'm very happy to have conversations. I'll be challenged on things because I tell you.
[00:40:33] like yeah.
[00:40:34] Lech Guzowski: Definitely, definitely encourage everybody to anyone to reach out to you. If, if you want the challenge go Gilmar's views, or I want to go on the, on the hi finding conversation and challenge them ideas and bounce some ideas around. And I've really enjoyed this conversation. Yes, we've bounced around a little bit, but as we, as we did say before we pressed record, that probably is going ended up this way.
[00:40:53] But thank you very much for kind of coming along on that journey with me and thank you very much for your time.
[00:40:59] Gilmar Wendt: Thank you. It's been an absolute type of down.