Colin Browne — The culture guy we talk company culture and how it can impact your bottom line

My special guest in studio tonight on this edition of What's Involved is none other than Colin Brown. Hello Colin. Hello Dave. We haven't spoken to you for a long while, well I haven't spoken to you for a long while, but I do, I get your mails on a Monday, every Monday, and I read all about what you're up to and everything. So Colin Brown is from an organization, you are the chief. Yeah. With a capital C. With a capital C. Of Happy Sandpit. Yeah that's right. You and I first got to know each other and interact because of the book, which is a couple of years ago that you did it, How to Build a Happy Sandpit, but an absolute classic I believe, still as relevant today as it was then, but let's let's go back in time a little bit and tell me a bit about Colin. Who is is Colin and how did you become, you might hate the term, but I mean let's let's call it instead of a guru, let's call you a culture specialist. I think what I am is I'm a curiousist or something like that, like I have an itch I can't stop scratching, I'm really really interested in this. And so it began for me, so my background, deep background is business journalism. I was in Dubai during the 90s, came down here and then at a certain point started with a couple of partners started a company called Sales Guru, which had a magazine. Yes I remember that.

Yeah yeah yeah, so company's still going strong, magazines no longer no longer a thing, but that was that was how we started out and and then and then so I kind of got the entrepreneurial bug when I realized that journalism is in my blood, but it's not necessarily the best-paid profession right, and as I got a bit older I kind of thought well maybe maybe so I got into the whole notion of building things and it's it's you know with all of the lessons that go with that. But around about, I don't remember the time now, but I think there's probably about two thousand between 2008 and 2010 anyway, I hired somebody who I frequently describe and I solemnly believe to be the worst employee in the entire universe. And this person taught me about the importance of hiring properly, about the importance of organizational structures, being able to sort of absorb bad people and be able to either sort them out or spit them out. Essentially they taught me about culture and and I realized what I knew was nothing at all. So I went back to my business journalism roots, I kind of decided on a sort of a side project, excuse me, so I went off to start interviewing and and I figured the easiest thing in the world would be to just phone some of the business contacts that I had and do some interviews about culture with them, how they hired, how they built their businesses or whatever, and as I began to realize there was something bigger at hand I got a little bit more audacious, so I began to knock on the door of Alan Knott Craig and Raymond Ackerman and Ivan Epstein and Alan Ambor and all of these sort of great South African business founders to try and find out what they knew and have what they'd experienced. And the result of that was how to build a Happy Sampit, the book that originally was out end of 13, revised in the middle of 15, and so just just looking at South African businesses and and how they've built those that have built exceptional culture and driven high levels of employee engagement, how they did it. Which is fascinating because I always used to say I was unemployable because I didn't play well in the Sampit with other children, so when I came across the book I was like okay but now I mean a company is a company is a company you are you know you join a company you go and sit in front of HR they read your CV and ask you how much of it is made up or whatever the case may be and then and then you get it so what is this culture thing and talk to me about culture why why in a business is it important and is it only important for large large corporates? No no no and if it's important for everybody but I think I think to be honest with you it's it's it's almost impossible for some large corporates to get there anymore. See the purpose of culture is to drive employee engagement what we mean by engagement an engaged employee is somebody who likes where they work and they like who they work with and they like who they work for and they like what they do for a living and they think it's a worthwhile use of their time. Remember you're trading off a day every day of your life to go to work so it would be helpful if you thought it was a worthwhile thing to do. Those sorts of people tend to be okay going into work and getting on with their stuff. Now if you can take somebody like that and make them happy doing it as well i.e. take the obstacles out of the way enable them to actually get on with it and produce excellent stuff then you end up you start to make the journey towards employee engagement and culture fundamentally is the the sort of the philosophy that underpins all of that. Your culture really is is the philosophy of the organization you're either a controlling organization or an enabling one you're either a you know a sort of a people focused one or a money focused one for example and then you can drill down further and further and further into it and there are a number I mean a huge number of South African organizations that are very culture first they're very very focused on the notion that one central understanding okay employees are contractually obligated to come to work every single day and they're contractually obligated to do their jobs but they're not contractually obligated to care to do it with a great attitude to go the extra mile to do any of that stuff they get to pick that every day and as much as we'd like to be able to control them we can't necessarily do so they get to choose that so what we should be doing is creating environments that make them want to choose it and companies that are focused on culture do that because very often I mean you walk into to any corporate just about and they're on the wall proudly displayed is our mission statement our values and you look around you go people would work here ever read that I was at a place a little while ago and they certainly didn't do any of that and it was big and bold it took up almost one whole wall behind the reception desk give us examples of you know I mean what you talk about to me who has sort of notoriously been unemployable maybe it's I don't know it's a whole combination of things but you know sort of in a place like it sounds ideal I mean it sounds like you're saying to me the stuff you hear about the Googles of the world and those places in Silicon Valley where they've got the bean bags and the pinball machines and and they they're producing massive results it sounds almost like a pipe dream though well so let's just let's just divorce a couple of notions the first one is Google has bean bags and skateboard ramps and free food and all of those wonderful things and those are perceived to be some of the artifacts of a successful culture but I think there's a bit of a halo effect thing going on Google's already successful because it's Google and it can have skateboard ramps and all that kind of thing because when you hire the creme de la creme you're gonna let them cool off a little bit those things are not about motivating people to work because they're already super motivated I mean it allegedly hires one of every thousand people that apply there so it's getting the best of the best of the best okay so it's not it's not worried about motivating people to do their job perhaps it's worried about people burning out or something like that or maybe it's just fun because they can do whatever they want but you make a mistake in thinking that that's what culture isn't and many organizations will do that they'll they'll try to sort of sort of jazz up the the working environment and achieve absolutely nothing because largely when I say it's about philosophy I mean it deeply largely the frustrations people have are that they fundamentally want to do a decent job they fundamentally want to please you for the most part that describes people pretty well I think I don't think too many people deliberately wanted to let you down or disappoint you or waste their time so most of them want to do something decent but they can't because the environment stops them from doing it so you're a great customer service person you love people you get a real kick out of getting people like getting a smile on their face but you're not allowed to do anything unless you phone upstairs and and ask permission and on all that kind of stuff that's the problem philosophically the organization isn't set up to enable people to deliver culture so you may as well just not bother trying to hire great great sorry to deliver service so you may as well not bother trying to deliver great service people because you'll never get it out of them anyway because nine out of ten times in in South Africa what you hear is is this old cliched saying now we can't complain about the service because there isn't any yeah specifically from service related industries I've been into personally I've been into a couple of entertainment slash casino slash entertainment complexes and it's supposed to be all around service and the customer journey and I kind of like no and then you think about you know what the guys must go through and you go okay maybe I couldn't do that yeah okay maybe if you're asking me to work from midnight until 5 6 in the morning I'm not going to smile tell me like that but I mean I know casino specifically put a lot of time and effort into that what corporates can you share any corporates with us that are that are successful yeah I mean there's so many of them and if I think about just the companies that are in the book I mean companies like some companies are just universities for me I mean companies like Investech or King Price Insurance or Comair the things that they they know are things that that's how a lot of my understanding of culture and how it plays out in South Africa actually evolved because they've been pioneering in this I mean the way the way Investech hires or the way King Price dares to sort of lay out its its its organization it's its building and and the way it inducts people and all of that kind of stuff there's some clever things going on I'm good at this down here we are I've actually made what is his name is to escape to me now because I was at one of your courses with the CEO of Hidion Galloway yes yes and I mean initially when when you introduced him I was like there's no ways this man is a CEO he doesn't dress like one he doesn't talk like one he's only just 40 and I mean that company is a 2 billion Ram business now it's it's amazing it's amazing but actually you know if you spend a bit of time with Hidion the the inside of that building actually the outside of that building looks like the inside of his head yeah it's just he's just he's some people have expansive visionary capabilities and some people don't but those aren't necessarily necessary either one of the one of the greatest leaders that I that I knew and he's just recently departed was Eric Fenter at Comer I mean Eric was was a CA right I mean he was extremely introverted quite awkward in front of a crowd very funny always very gregarious but but but a bit self-conscious but that man understood an enormous amount about how to drive great engagement inside an organization and this was a company by the way that that focused on driving extremely high levels of efficiency in other words it wasn't about luxury there I mean so we do these three-day field trips every every now and then where we take gonna ask you about right so I take executives out on the road and we'll go and visit a whole bunch of businesses and learn about culture I'll talk about that in a second but just just an aside we'd frequently go to like King price insurance and Comair on the same day the King price is like colorful there's toys everywhere it's it's wild and amazing popcorn machines and slush puppies then you go to Comair and it's industrial in Spartan yeah and yet culture works there equally as well in fact potentially better I don't know it's hard to measure one versus another that's the thing about culture but like the values are embedded there people are getting on the teamwork is strong or the results of being people are innovating they're doing amazing things because the way in which they've developed the values are right for the organization people understand what their values mean they understand why they're necessary they can adapt to those and so you've got a really great teamwork dynamic going on and that's key to a to a great culture well there we go we are chatting to my special guest in studio tonight Colin Brown from the happy sandpit he's done a couple of things aside from the book there's a new project but when I come back I want to find out where culture starts so we'll be talking about that it is a Monday night what's involved my special guest in studio from the happy sandpit is Colin Brown the chief now I said before we went into the break Colin I want to find out where where does culture start because you know this show we I have a lot of people that are that that work for big corporates and and they they listen but also we have some small and medium quite a few small and medium business owners that listen as well where does it start because I found and and I've been trying to decide because there's so many nice buzzwords I could use for what I do and I'm like a solo preneur or I'm a net preneur or just sometimes manure but where does culture start because if you've got a big company and you haven't got a drought I think it's gonna be an uphill struggle so so how do we start let's talk with us for it with a few staff members yes so here well let's just let's just deal with that that last part first if I made it because it's a challenge there I mean I think about large corporates that anything about some of the large organizations the owners have left the building the they're sort of the leaders that are the original leaders have left the building it's now a publicly traded company shareholders mostly are pension funds and they care about dividends returns they don't really care about what it's like to work there and I wonder whether organizations like that they tend to have lost their soul whether they can actually get that back whether it's possible for large organizations to reinvent sufficiently because the problem with it is it starts not in any particular place or any particular person but it starts with authenticity any of us can reinvent you can reinvent yourself and decide to become something else you can decide to become Robert Smith of the cure if you want to as long as you're authentic about it sooner or later I'm gonna start believing it I'll be like well the guy really means it and he's really trying hard and actually he's not bad at this right and that's kind of what we're trying to deal with with organizations and culture if we're gonna say something if we're gonna do something and we do it authentically and it starts to feel right over time the culture can shift it can't just happen as a project however so it's easier for people to to sort of further for the origins of great culture to start with the founder of an organization or indeed the origins of bad culture by the way to start with the founder of an organization it's easy to start when the organization's small and because ultimately what you're doing is you're trying to create a reflection of yourself or reflection of something that you like and as once that starts to sort of perpetuate and and you find people who are able to sort of carry that forward and I'm talking about a philosophy a set of beliefs a set of processes a way of doing things a way of feeling about things the way you react to stuff the way you speak it to each other whatever it might be those things form the genesis of culture if you like but I mean authenticity really I think you can do it midstream you just got to get real about it because what happens a lot with small businesses and and you know as you start to grow as the the the founder of the business you kind of jack of all trades so you do a bit of everything so first of all there's the control issue about letting go and letting somebody else come in but then also you go oh we got so big oh crap okay well auntie Sue she used to do books back in 72 so let's get her in to do this and then you know the brother-in-law well he did this and suddenly you you've got a business but there's a bunch of people in it that shouldn't be there that you don't like so is that something as an entrepreneur I should be thinking about and thinking about in terms of what I want my business to do and grow this is how I want it to be so I think it's a it's a difficult one that because I think you know some some people and we were talking earlier on about companies like like King price for example hitting on didn't start a business in order to to hire his his his family and friends he started a business to scale something huge and that meant from the outset he was always looking for cool people good people smart people who could help him build a business and that was kind of that so you're not actually getting caught up in that that kind of thing where you've got you know your auntie or your mother or your brother or whatever if you are in that situation then I would say it's it's you're probably you're probably already building something that is that is a bit afraid of change anyway that's probably not necessarily an organization that's ever gonna be known as an organization with a great culture mm-hmm generally I mean if cultures definitely grow and thrive through diversity as much as anything else add people who can bring new dimensions and new ideas and you start to get closer to to to doing something great and this is where you talk about engaged stuff or somebody would have the freedom to go listen I think I should do this or or I think we can do that or how about this and and a bit of latitude in decision making as well because some corporates are very very autocratic yeah and and and and those so I actually in in a way I mean I think about people that I know who work for large corporates and what I know of them largely not across the board entirely but largely they're smart people they're educated they're experienced their skills and and they could do amazing things but the the environment in which they were precludes them from doing so in other words what they are is people who are constrained by the organization those people tend not to be terribly engaged because they know they can do more they know they could do better things now that doesn't necessarily mean the people who are free to do everything they want are fully engaged either I mean some sort of a structure is it is a good thing and and I know a lot of organizations that I've worked with that have been much more freewheeling have discovered that structure is a good thing as well so so it's a double-edged sword you know but certainly unless you're hiring drones which you probably aren't people have generally got something more to give they they they can be trusted to come up with some ideas there are their opinions are worth listening to and and organizations that do that kind of stuff more tend to drive higher levels of engagement it's it's a definite fact now what happens if somebody's listening now maybe they're in the car and they wear home in the office still whatever the case may be and they go yikes okay clearly we do not have this this culture that drives engagement we need help I mean are you busy do people either South Africans are traditionally very arrogant I think and we kind of think that we can sort out everything ourselves are they companies out there you mentioned King Price you mentioned Comey but do companies come to younger Colin listen sure we think we need some help and what sort of help do you give them do you start from the ground up about and say okay let's have a look what is your mission what is your vision do you short with that exactly so so the so it starts with the underlying philosophy let's try and uncover what your underlying philosophy is because that tells us what where we are and what we're all about so that that very often is a matter of discovering what you live and die by and that means doing some deep introspection and often it's uncomfortable but through that process we should be able to pull out some ideas which can fundamentally they're your core values are the things that that matter most to you those core values are the underpinnings of your culture they're the things that that describe well when I say what you live and die by I mean that literally they're the things that enable you to sleep well at night or to get up and and and go off to war if you're if you're in alignment with those things most of the time we don't get those things right most organizations do not core values are actually nothing more than tepid lists of preferences I we quite like it if things were like this we put stuff on the wall it seems like it'll do the job we've ticked the box and we move on we're missing something because if you've got a deep understanding of your core of your of your underlying philosophy and you can articulate it through a set of core values which describe it then you've got all of the underpinnings of a strong culture your ability to hire people find people align people mobilize people form teams around people hold people accountable all the stuff you want to do it's crazy how little how few companies get that part right well as you're talking about this I mean it seems a bit like Nirvana to me you know to wake up in the morning not being self-employed because that's an entirely different thing but but to wake up as an employee and go you know what I'm can't wait to get to work I can understand as an entrepreneur you're driven you're passionate I mean I love getting up and going to work even though at the moment it is just down the passage which is a big plus in my life but you know on the occasions where I've worked in corporate culture before I haven't I literally I felt stifled I felt the collar and the tie in those days I was just no yeah no so I can imagine that that well I can't really imagine that that feeling of I want to go to work and yet I know they're people that are like that well I think I think most people kind of like the work they do and kind of like where they work I think most people could be made much happier if if we we were focused on building environments that drove engagement instead of focus on building environments that that drove results I mean the the greatest irony in the world is that engaged people drive results and and you don't have to manage them as much you know and so if you're focused on the operational matters in the bottom line you're just giving yourself an upstream problem which is the people because it only happens if the people are engaged focus on the engagement the rest happens I mean not exactly one two three but fundamentally that's how that's the order of things yeah well I've I mean I've heard stories from people that that I've come across because I would love still to to to actually get hidden in you and have a chat to him but I mean King Price was seen as this little smutty nose child that came on and everybody that was in the the insurance industry sort of poo-pooed them and then you hear how people that that work there absolutely adore it yeah Gideon is almost universally loved and apparently this is hearsay now but he rides around the offices on a bicycle well so I don't know if he still does anymore it's a bit more a bit more there is a scooter track all the way through the place now so they do actually ride that but the first time I met him he nearly killed me riding across the mountain the the call center on a mountain bike that was our first our first interaction yeah but I mean you know I think the thing about it is we are a country where there are numerous problems social problems the difference between the haves and have-nots are massive yeah I mean they say we're the most most what is what's an imbalanced country in the world unequal country in the world yeah to our great shame so in order for us to build great organizations in in this environment we need to be conscious of some of these things it only does us it does us good when we do so and those companies that have dared to put this kind of thing first companies that we visit on our three-day field trips like like like intellect in which the software development company and in Melrose arch an amazing organization that understands this stuff they're not alone there's a this we can find a number of companies that are like this and those that are brave tend to have engaged employees it's not a secret it's not a mystery hmm not a surprise so obviously people in South Africa and indeed internationally because you do travel internationally yeah I'd need need this advice and help you've gone a step further and when we come back I want to talk about that step further because I think it is absolutely brilliant my guest in studio CEO the chief at the happy sandpit so if you want to check it out happy sandpit dot com is where to go my guest in studio Colin Brown from the happy sandpit okay so two things I wanted to do I said there's this one new development which I'm very very excited about and then also you you've mentioned this this field trip that's what's that all about so so round about it is literally what it is is we go around for three days we take executives we put them on a bus and we go into a field trip so like like like kids go into a museum any what we'll do over three days we'll go and visit seven businesses to learn about culture so while we're there we'll have a tour we'll meet the senior executives usually the the country leader CEO whoever it might be the founder if that's appropriate if there is one there we'll have a presentation we'll get to ask all the questions we want about how they drive culture and and and really what it was it was so the end of I think it was it was the end of 2016 that we first started doing this and it was really I noticed a sea change round about the middle of the year where people were starting to come up to us and say you know we've got the problem we've done all the reorganizing we can we've done all of that stuff and nothing seems to be working maybe there is something to this culture and engagement thing but where do we start and so this was the answer this was the answer to that question where do you start let's take you and show you so we've done about 11 of them now I mean we're in September we're going to see and I'll get this wrong we're going to see McDonald's and missing link and DHL and we're going to see afri host and flight center in Anglo-american platinum and we're going to see intellect it's seven companies over three days and these are seven companies that you Rick and have got the culture first they are culture first organizations they're companies that get this stuff they've done they've done immense work trying to find out how to drive engagement and they actively do that first before they go about their operational matters because I think that something like that a field trip if I'm if I'm sitting in a in a leadership position and I'm going okay I know we need to make changes I don't know how if I can go and see other people and talk to them okay what have you done what is this done what is that is a phenomenal value and it's amazing stuff because I mean we really do get we really do get a hell of a lot of information people are incredibly generous we will go and spend a couple of hours two three hours with each organization and and learn about them so we're pretty busy throughout those three days but the amount of information that comes out is extraordinary I mean we're really very very lucky to have that that's phenomenal so September so September third fourth and fifth is the next one there'll be another one I'm working on now later in the year and then but typically we do sort of March May September November and then and then people would just mail you obviously there's a there's a cost involved it's three days of your time but all of that's on the website on happy sam pit calm you'll find all of that so you can get all of that there there's a suspect us to download which will tell you everything fantastic now onto the exciting thing because I've noticed in some of the work we do etc etc gamification in the workplace is becoming a thing and when I was having a look through your stuff a little while ago I was like hang on a second this is new you've got a board game yes so it said tell me all about the board game and and what why why a board game I mean it's it's fantastic and I've seen it and and I now get why you did a board game but tell us why so the basic the origins of it I thought we needed some sort of a mechanism in a workshop type format to help companies understand their core values because like I said before most organizations tend to have a mild set of preferences not a deep set of core values and so we thought it would be a good idea to set up a scenario a workshop type format which which makes you interrogate your core values and resolve dilemmas and so that was the beginning of that and then we thought it'd be very interesting if we took those dilemmas outside of the context of your organization so we take your core values but now we take them out of your organization so now they stand in isolation now we've really got to understand what the core values are and we'll throw you a bunch of lose-lose scenarios and you have to decide whether to go left or right and the only thing you can you can use to make your decision is the core values and then because we were taking them out of context we thought let's take them really out of context so the game we used to play was you break up into teams each team represents a senior crew members of the Titanic and we're gonna throw a bunch of dilemmas related to the Titanic at you and you got to make decisions whether you go left or right and you can only use your core values do we do this or we do we do that but then last year I found myself in a situation where we're doing quite a lot of these workshops and had some back-to-back ones and and one client decided that they wanted to concurrent sessions instead of two consecutive sessions on the same day and I needed a facilitator to help me do that so I phoned up somebody that I knew she came in I gave her a briefing we didn't have much time and she went and ran a session on her own and I realized it was quite easy to do like it's quite an easy thing to play you just have to have you know you have to have some facilitation skills and you must understand and believe the core values are important but if you've got that then you're probably okay to go so I thought well if that's the case and why don't we just turn it into a board game and put it in a box and that way we can just sell you a box and you can play it on your own so there's a full set of instructions in there it's a it's a so you basically buy the box and and off you go so if this is for example if somebody's in HR for example and maybe HR isn't the right people I don't know maybe the marketing guys need to do it but if you're in a position like that they could literally get hold of you by the board game and they could start this process of change and and creating their very own happy sample via the board game well and by the way the board games called iceberg by the way just sort of we're talking about the same thing but yes I mean absolutely I mean the idea here is by the time you for you played a round of iceberg the time you played a game of iceberg and and whoever you've played it with I mean it could be the entire organization in many instances it is that then you've got a whole bunch of data a whole bunch of information you've gathered because we're breaking into teams we're debating we're writing down responses we're coming up with and then we're presenting what we think we would do and how we were informed by the core values how we got to that point so we're talking about how we've interpreted the core values and how we've we've done that but all of that information if we were to facilitate for you we use that to create a report so you get a report at the end telling you how people understand the values how they're interpreting them whether or not there's alignment whether they actually understand them in the same way whether they were able to make decisions around them in the first place etc etc but if you if you decided to facilitate on your own which is kind of the idea of the board game that you'd be able to do that then you just gather all of that information and you can go ahead and and create the report on your own but now let's say let's say we get that we get the board game we play it we've got all this data can we then come to to yourselves at happy sand putting okay like I've got a whole lot of stuff yeah so we've set the groundwork help I mean you can then step in as well yeah so at that point what we've got is we've got it we've got a roadmap as to to what's actually going wrong because each of these dilemmas will reveal something about how the levels of trust inside your organization and how people feel about it or leadership whether or not they trust leadership or whether there is a sort of a common understanding of integrity whether we're very risk-prone or very process-oriented or whatever so there's those sorts of things the way in which you go will tell you something about about how you understand the values and what we often find is that that's at odds with how the organization positioned the values in other words people are kind of going well we think we should go left but the organization would definitely go right so there's a problem there yeah yeah so yeah we could do something we could help you to unlock all of that and put that put that into sort of a format that makes sense to you now it's just been released well released beginning couple of months now the interesting thing you mentioned earlier on offer is that you're selling this game internationally now yeah international organizations are seeing value yeah that was a surprise to us too you know and I'm going wow this is this is awesome I mean this is South African innovations that African kind of concept from the South African melting pot of culture and and and corporates and and people are finding value in this I mean you were saying now the Dutch yes so so there is a Dutch organization that's looking at licensing this in Dutch and and selling it in the Netherlands for us I mean we've we've we've sold copies of this game to Australia Canada the United States Singapore Bulgaria Italy the Netherlands this is and this is without a sales and marketing strategy so all it was because the game came along and there's been a whole bunch of stuff in the pipeline already that we've been working on we've kind of gone about it without without without sort of a very very sort of focused focused intent so really it's been just just often linked in mentions that these these games have been sold well I thought that there was real room for this in South Africa and it was developed for with South African organizations in mind but it turns out that there's actually quite an interesting international market for this that's that's cool South Africa has I mean they have you know taken advantage of this game please tell me yes that that there's a lot of sales in South Africa yeah so obviously the majority of them are talked about the sales internationally I mean I can tell you on you know seven fingers in South Africa no we're definitely getting some traction here and you know it's it's actually nowadays I mean I'm always walking around with a box under my arm wherever I walk in to see somebody and I frequently walk out without it so you know and then just invoice when I get back to the office so that's kind of cool what about somebody who has maybe a training well facilitation background maybe an HR background would this be something that you would be happy to say to them there you go go off and and you can now facilitate with this yeah we always I mean you get good facilitators and you get bad facilitators yeah it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what kind of toys you have if you're a bad facilitator that's difference you're not gonna get hired so here's here's the so yeah I mean I'm happy it's it's a consider it a board game consider it in a shop if you want to go in and buy one go ahead and buy one you just come to us and buy one yeah so so it's for sale so absolutely I mean I think that if I was to advise who should buy one I mean you really ought to believe first of all the values are super super important because the entire game is underpinned by by that so that's a that's like a starting point if you're in that position and you already believe that then you're you're in good shape if you don't then it's probably not going to be particularly helpful but we I mean we find that in in most organizations now there is an increasing awareness that workaround values has to be done and this is a great way to get that done to just sort of kick off that that work I think it's absolutely fantastic before I let you go because we're starting to to run a little a little low on time here um you've written how to how to make a how to create a happy how to build a happy sand brilliant book thank you and and as I said as relevant today as it was when it was first published that's still available over pace can you get it from the website yes you can you can get or just just just did you tell now so it's always been available on Kindle yeah so you can go to Amazon.com and buy it off Kindle download it yeah it's a horrible horrible site that you know it ever since they've done that one-click buy now button oh man I've been in trouble so you can get it you can get it there as well yeah but you can still get the hard hard copy of it yes indeed yeah so what what what is next for Colin Brown I mean is there another book we waiting with baited breath yeah and we've been waiting for a long time so I've been working on it it's been taking various forms it's been going along but there is there is another book in the pipes as I speak it's underway and I hope to have that out before this year is out that's kind of the the goal I've set myself that it'll be out during that kind of October November lead up to Christmas type period and then and then and then after that I have a notion of what comes next but actually I think the the the next big thing for us will be a second board game and and then maybe a third so we've got some some ideas about what those are gonna be yeah yeah I'm sort of set up a I mean so having understood review come on give us a sneak preview of what the games may be so the second board game will be about change management definitely I mean that's one the area where we we we think there's a lot of work that needs to be done companies that make changes tend to make sweeping massive changes when they mean to change one thing so it's a matter of sort of looking at the future looking Department of the future Department of nostalgia and and how do we how do we resolve an issue so that's one thing they this the third one is a sales game which we know that is that are you planning that in this year or no no no no that's this is so the second one that'll be that'll be a 2020 thing of you I think it's gonna take a little while to get that absolutely right it's quite complex to do to do that in a way that is absolutely meaningful and we want it to be really great but that's that's that's a definite that sounds fantastic next thing well we're gonna have to have you back and and we're gonna now put you on the spot so when the new book is launched I'd like to be one of the first to know not for sure and then you're in and then board games but in the meantime if somebody wants to get hold of you email address Colin COL I N yes at happy sandpit.com Colin at happy sandpit.com otherwise they go and check it out happy sandpit.com at the board games on there you can order from the website as well so you you will be able to so we are this is like I said it's a bit like the shoemakers children you know it's kind of so there is I'll stick up a zapper code we have a zapper code so it's easy to actually order off off and I'll do that and but we haven't if you go there right now you probably can't but somebody can drop you an email you can make all the necessary arrangements and ship it out quick quick okay you have stock just in case yeah yeah we do oh fantastic so I want you tomorrow the books there the game is there it's called iceberg it's a fantastic game okay I'm just having a look at it earlier on it's been so well thought out the processes are brilliant and it's it is it's the buzzword at the moment gamification I've always believed that learning has to be immersive and interactive this is a great great way to learn also you can get hold of Colin he does talks he's got keynote presentations all of that and more you'll find on the website it's happy sandpit.com Colin thanks thank you so much it's such a pleasure it's always a pleasure that was fast it always does though I mean you know we have this I'm very lucky I get great guests in every week so and it's a great show people people say to me but you know I'm like you don't understand I'm the one that gets so much benefit out of it because I get to meet interesting people I get to learn and it's absolutely fascinating Colin thank you once again go well we wish you all the best with the game iceberg and I can't wait to read the next book that was at my guest Colin Colin Brown CEO of happy sandpit.com