Latest / The Good Builder Podcast / The Daily Dose #180 | How Influence Shapes Every Great Builder: Dan Urquhart on Leadership, Culture & Core Purpose
Transcript
- Aaron Ng (00:00) This amazing episode is brought to you by the legends at the New Home Electrical Specialist. Go and have a chat with Alan and the team. They are the experts in New Home Electrical and they work with some of the biggest and smallest builders all around Queensland. Go and check them out. It's tnhes.com.au or just look them up on Instagram, LinkedIn, or all the socials and have a chat with Alan and the crew. They're gonna make your life a fair bit easier. Az | The Good Builder (00:46) Good morning and welcome to the Good Builder podcast. This gentleman doesn't really need an introduction because he's an absolute legend and we've had him on a lot of times before. But just to give him a very brief introduction, had, well, actually I haven't gone into this for a little while. I actually worked with Dan in a previous life. one of the best builders around. I know he's not a builder anymore, but he's one of the best builders around. He's one of the best businessmen around. And he is one of the best mentors around because I bounce so much stuff on him at the moment. It's not funny. So mate, welcome Dan from a thousand feet deep back to the Good Builder podcast. How are you? Dan Urquhart (01:20) Wow. Going well, mate. Thanks for that generous introduction, mate. Well, I'm just over. Az | The Good Builder (01:27) I mean it, mate, as I always say, because I think the deeper and the more I get to know you and I know we talk a bit off pod and I like to be fairly genuine. I talk about everything we talk off, but you do help me a lot, mate, just with everything in life, in business and stuff like that. So I appreciate you and I appreciate everything that you do for our community. And as a matter of fact, I think I, snapped a story yesterday and I was very proud of myself. I started your course. I sat here on this couch, put it up on the TV and I'm like, get into it. All right. And I was like, just take five minutes. All right, then, you know, because we all get very busy and everybody out there knows this is a startup and they saw me on a yacht yesterday and I'm always running around doing stupid things and, I'm very busy seeing what's going on in the industry. But I went, nah, I'm going to take an hour and a half and just sit here and develop myself just better myself. Dan Urquhart (01:52) Rippin' in. Az | The Good Builder (02:20) bugger everyone else in the world, it's about me for an hour and a half. And I switched on your video and from the first video on the, well, there was the overview of the hand, head, heart course, but in that first thing around leadership and setting up your business the right way from that first video, mate, I was just into it. And as a matter of fact, I got so into it that I finished the first module. Dan Urquhart (02:21) Yeah. Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (02:46) And we will be catching up next week on my answers and where I'm at. I've learned a lot about myself and I was nearly late for the Glenville homes. Yacht lunch because of you. Dan Urquhart (02:53) Ha Ciao. That's good, mate. I love it. Thank you for the feedback. Az | The Good Builder (02:57) But ⁓ yeah, guys out there, if you want to jump on and do this online course, like I'm shamelessly plugging it now because it's amazing. But you know, go and check out the website again. We'll put the link in there. But honestly, what I said to Dan before this podcast was, know, I'm a busy kind of guy at the moment and I hope that stops, but I took some time to, as I said, look after myself and better myself. And I started doing this course and I was like, another one, let's see what it's like. And I knew it was really good, Dan, don't get me wrong, I know it's from you. And then, but then you go through the whole, and I am like, my God, I can't wait to do the next chapter and I'm coming in tomorrow morning on a Saturday morning to do the next one so no one annoys me. And I've only got a few phases to go through, I've got to go through those three phases and I'm there and I can see this light at the end of the tunnel like. Dan Urquhart (03:28) I'll get it right. Yeah. Yeah, good. Az | The Good Builder (03:49) It is just this blueprint mate, was that purposeful? Like it is just so the online course is great. I'm sure the one-on-ones are great and we're to do a few of those, but it is just so it, you can navigate it very easy. It shows you the path to where you got to go. Was that the purpose of the whole thing? First hand. Dan Urquhart (03:57) Yeah. Absolutely bro. Yeah, it was because you know, like, like all business owners, you know, we we know what we know and we don't know what we don't know. And handed heart the program leadership team and cultural development program mate, it was born out of every mistake we made every tension we had around, you know, leadership and, and structure of a business and how to get the best out of people and, you know, my mindset, you know, I found that the biggest obstacle in my organization was me. Az | The Good Builder (04:20) Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (04:32) And so we start there and then we wrestle with time every single day. And so we deal with that. And then, know, purpose around mission, vision, core values and rallying the time we deal with that and then system and process and all the stuff that's, you know, real business, you know, it's because real business is not so much what we do. It's how we do it, why we do it and who we do it with, you know, and then the, what we do sort of comes next. And if we do it well, yeah. Az | The Good Builder (04:32) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah You know what, Dan, you know what's actually, yeah, sorry, you go Dan, sorry. I was gonna say, I'm just so excited. Sorry to cut you off. But one of the interesting things for me, mate, was work style. Something like the work, like how I, my leadership style. You know, am I, am I a, what really hit home was our pods, really. You know, when you go, are you a coach in the grandstands or are you getting on the field? Dan Urquhart (05:00) No, you got it, mate, you got it. Goodbye. Yeah. Yeah, good talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're on there, Mike. Mike can never tackle, Mike can never heat up. Az | The Good Builder (05:21) I'm totally a field dude, man. I'm like a ball boy. I'm a ball boy. Yeah, I've got my hands all over that ball, you know, and then I look at it and I'm like, that's why. ⁓ that's why this situation happened. in my previous business. That's why that didn't go so well, you know, and there's all these little things and I love how you're not and you show strength in each of the personality types and work types though and there is a balance that you can shift. Dan Urquhart (05:32) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (05:49) where you need to shift into different modes. So anyway, mate, I just wanted to say thank you for giving me a complimentary look at it because I really appreciate that. And I wanted to do it because as I said, I wanna, as I do this course, I'll talk all about this course and my personal experience and a few of my answers and they'll see me evolve like a chimp to a man in no time, Dan Urquhart (05:49) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Good on you mate. Az | The Good Builder (06:12) But before we get into that, we'll not even get into that because we will get into that. But today I wanted to talk to you about your influence workshops. And, know, I think influence is one of the most important skills. I think a lot of people don't understand it. It's something that's not taught at schools and it's not taught about how important it is. But before we get into it, you know, could you take us through what influence actually is and how important it is in a business, mate? Dan Urquhart (06:20) Yeah. Yeah, really good. Well, influence is everything, isn't it? Because leadership essentially is influence. But in the past, we may have got away with leadership being more position, about authority, if you will. And it's not like it's not that. And this isn't a new thought, but this is the thing. Leadership is positional, fair enough. Az | The Good Builder (06:44) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (06:59) And it's about authority, fair enough. But people only follow people they want to follow eventually. Eventually they'll go, I'm out for good and bad reasons. so influence is more about permission. And we understand this, mate, because you even think about our own children, right? I mean, when they're younger, we have authority over them and for good reason to keep them safe. And obviously we love them and all the rest and we want the best for them. And so when they're younger, we have authority over them. Az | The Good Builder (07:04) Yeah. Yeah, okay. Dan Urquhart (07:27) But when they're older, they come out from under our authority and we're actually hoping that we've got some influence in their world. But as our kids get older, even our children can decide to listen or not listen. And we're hoping by the time that they're not under our authority anymore, that we've sown enough in them that they would actually want our influence. And so this is why influence is actually permission. And so when we think about influence as a leader, Az | The Good Builder (07:35) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (07:54) in a workplace, it's actually permission to lead. It's deeper than just authority or position. And the thought is that, you this is how we define influence. We define influence as leadership is influence, influencing people and outcomes towards desired results. If you own your business and you can't influence outcomes, Az | The Good Builder (08:12) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (08:18) you're gonna be spinning your tires. And mate, I've talked about this a lot, but that was the first couple of years of me in business. I just couldn't influence the outcomes I wanted, you know? And was a lot of that was because I didn't have, I hadn't developed my team and I didn't have their trust yet. Az | The Good Builder (08:24) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, wow. Wow. So actually, Dan, like, so these workshops that you're running at the moment, actually, I think I got so excited about your hand, head, heart stuff, I forgot to mention these, but Dan's running a bunch of these influence workshops, which have been sold out. And, you know, teach all about this. Within this, and I saw a little bit within the course I was doing, and you just mentioned, and defined what influences and I loved it. What are the sort of Dan Urquhart (08:42) Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (08:57) You talk about in this course that I'm doing the six leadership sort of style styles that sort of influence things and what they are. Could you go through exactly what they are? I found them fascinating because and I'm going to talk to which one I was after you kind of go through them because I think this kind of influences how influential you are or you know, Dan Urquhart (09:02) Yeah. Yeah, it's a driver. Like say, your leadership style is a driver of effective influence. And so, you know, when we think about that, what we're saying is, okay, well, if leadership is influence, how do I increase my influence? And so when I say a driver of effective influence, essentially what I'm saying is, how do we increase our influence? And how do we be sure not to decrease it? Because remember, if you're a leader, Az | The Good Builder (09:21) Yay! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (09:46) position will only get you so far, you need to be ensuring that your influence is growing with you too. And if it's growing, you will get the desired outcome that you're looking for. But if your influence is Az | The Good Builder (09:58) Absolutely. And you keep that team too, Dan? Does this retention come under influence? Do you feel there's a link? Okay. Dan Urquhart (10:04) absolutely, mate. It's yeah, it is my it's exactly that it's everything to do with business you ever think about, like, you know, profit, reputation, cash flow, you know, quality, you name it, they're all byproducts of a healthy performance driven time. you can't have a performance driven time without an influential leader influencing outcomes. Az | The Good Builder (10:09) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, true. I love how you've done that, Dan. This is what I want to do. There's a lot of problems out there in the construction world, isn't there? Like you say, cashflow, trade shortages and things like that. Now I've talked to a few builders and actually I had a very interesting chat with JG King. So I should make an introduction to John King, the executive director there, lovely bloke and man, that was a fascinating podcast. I'll be dropping that next week then. Anyway, very influential. I can see. Dan Urquhart (10:36) Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (10:51) Cause I saw a bit of your stuff on LinkedIn and I was like, I'm kind of getting what influences this dude's influential. And, it was, it was what he was able to do and similar to what you were able to do is kind of break down that there are, as I said, all these problems with trades and things like that, but they never have them because they've got all these things. It seems at the foundation of their business sorted where he has great relationships, great influence. Dan Urquhart (11:14) Yeah, yeah Az | The Good Builder (11:18) You know, which then bleeds into a successful business that didn't miss a beat over COVID. Their timeframes never missed a beat. I know there's other things that he's doing and people will hear about this, you know, that he does his own manufacturing and whatever, but still they don't manufacture the time when you're under pressure to get material unless you have the influence to make them to reach the desired outcome of getting the material to site in a timely manner. You know what I mean, Dan? Like it all comes back to that leadership. Dan Urquhart (11:20) outcome. Yes. Yep. Yeah. It does mate, comes back to, and the idea of influence is that we'd influence the things that we can influence, because it's not about control. ⁓ It's about being able to, because you can't control the weather. And sometimes you can't control external things that affect your cashflow. But what you do about those things is where, is where influence comes into play. You can be negative about it. You can be pessimistic about it. You can shout and scream and jump up and down, but that won't move anything. Az | The Good Builder (11:50) Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah Dan Urquhart (12:11) what we're actually hoping to do with influence. And when we understand the drivers of influence, which we'll get to, we can start to influence even the way we think, because that's the driver of influence mindset. And the second driver of influence is the one you mentioned, which is our leadership style. And it's so important. And what we want to do sometimes as leaders, and we're all human, is we just want to put the responsibility of things on other people without actually influencing Az | The Good Builder (12:11) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Dan Urquhart (12:39) their capacity to do their role. And then also to work under stress and also work under pressure. It's not about life all of a sudden rolling out the red carpet just because you're a person of influence. mean, life's still hard, things still happen, but it's like, well, now we have a recipe, if you will, to just keep moving forward. Yeah, so you talked about styles as. Az | The Good Builder (12:43) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan Urquhart (13:06) Okay, so if a driver of influence, firstly mindset, the way you think, of course, and we've got to think. We do, got the criteria, because we always want to define what we're talking about, what we mean by influence, what we mean by driver, and then how you can outwork that. So first one is mindset. The second one is style. Now, your style, and this isn't a unique thought for me, I heard this myself, but I think it's a really good analogy. Az | The Good Builder (13:11) Yeah, and you go through that in the course too, actually. Very cool. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (13:34) There is no one leadership style to lead with. So it's more like a selection of golf clubs, if you will. Because you're going to be under all sorts of different pressures and tensions with all sorts of different problems to solve with all sorts of different people and not one size fits all. But in our program, with that in mind, we did develop what we thought were the six drivers of influence for your style as a leader, if you will. Az | The Good Builder (13:36) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I like it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (14:01) Okay, so the first one would be a capacity driven leader. That's the style of leadership. So that style of leadership is a positive leadership style. So it says, if I wanna move the needle from my organization, I have to build capacity into my people, my systems, my processes, my people have to be able to carry the weight of success. Has my organization got a foundation? And the capacity driven leader, Az | The Good Builder (14:21) Yep. Dan Urquhart (14:26) spends a lot of their time and their mindset on building capacity into those things. And we can see why that would have a positive outcome. The second one would be an influence driven leader. Now that seems to make sense, but what this is, is this is a leadership mindset. And the thought here is that every single person in your organization from the receptionist, the apprentice, Az | The Good Builder (14:30) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Hmm. Dan Urquhart (14:50) right through to the general manager, CEO and yourself need to be an influence driven leader because the success of every task within your office, within your business is gonna rely on the success of somebody else. You're gonna rely on interdependence. You need everybody in the team to be able to move that task forward. And if your success hinges on somebody else doing their job well, you're a leader. Az | The Good Builder (15:02) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (15:15) And you need to influence outcomes. You need to be able to go, how'd you go with that? Do you need some help with that and follow it up, make sure it got done for instance. And so whether it's the apprentice, the receptionist or right through every, the role of the leader, a capacity driven leader will develop their team to understand that everybody is a leader. Everybody influences outcomes. Nobody's just a, you're not just an apprentice, not just a receptionist. You are a key member of our team. You carry influence. Az | The Good Builder (15:21) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Dan Urquhart (15:44) And the expectation here is that when you're in our team that you influence positive outcomes. And so that's a mindset. And so that across the board. The next one that we talk about mate would be a control driven leader. Now this, this can get into, into negative territory when it's a bit out of control. There's nothing wrong with control driven leadership. Every builder out there knows what it's like to go to the job site the day before handover. Az | The Good Builder (15:50) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (16:11) five days work to do in day. Let me tell you, when that happens, you're going into control mode. And it's all good. This is the thought, if you're in control mode, control driven leader all the time with your team, firstly, your team's gonna be heavily relying on you. You're not gonna empower them to make decisions for themselves, which means they'll be further relying on you and you'll burn them out. Az | The Good Builder (16:14) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Control leadership. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Dan Urquhart (16:38) Yeah. If you're walking around your business with one word every day, smacking the ball around, you're not going to have the finesse that you need as a leader to be able to deal with the range of things that are going to come up in your world. Control driven leadership is a selection of a club and you need it sometimes, but don't ever use it. Az | The Good Builder (16:45) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm- Yeah, and I reckon I fall a little bit into that one, Dan. I've always been a, you know, I've been in leadership roles, but I just, I'm inherently a doer. I'm inherently someone who likes to get their hands dirty, get involved. When I played footy, Dan Urquhart (17:18) Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (17:18) You'd never see me not with the board like whatever. I remember getting swung around with Maury's that were like three times my size, but I'd be like, whatever, let's go. I want to hit this dude and let's go. Like I was just involved. You got to be there. You got to be showing that you and it's not about showing off, but about showing that you're doing the work and come follow me. You think that's the right example sometimes. But I felt that in my old business too, Dan, like, cause I always liked that in my, in my previous business Primal like, you know, and of course, you know, some Dan Urquhart (17:20) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. Az | The Good Builder (17:46) uh, clients that you work for, the more you give, the more they want. So you're getting hands on as well with them and you get in and then you're getting more involved and you're getting more involved. And then, know, squeaky wheels over there and a squeaky wheels over there and you're relied on for everything. And then you sit back and you go, why is everything coming to me? Why is everything coming to me? Because you're involved in everything, mate. You're involved in everything and you, and you think you know everything and you've got your hands dirty on everything. And that's the reason. And I resonated. Dan Urquhart (17:50) Yeah, Exactly, Az | The Good Builder (18:14) very much of that. And I do that in time sometimes with businesses. Like I said, I'm not perfect. I'm not here at the good builder trying to preach to everybody that this is how you do it. I bring people on like you to say, this is how you do it. I think I'm a walking test case man. Like I think I want to be a living case study. And when I die, people just go, damn, like that was interesting. Probably don't do it like that bloke, you know, but this is why, you know, I want to be open because Dan Urquhart (18:28) We all are, mate. Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (18:41) It does. And I remember I had a fantastic, ⁓ Janae I'll give a shout out to Janae who listens to the podcast. And she was my general manager at primal and a lovely lady. And I worked with her at Mirvac And when I did, said to her, I'm going to work with you again. This is how much I thought she was amazing. And so when I went to GJ's, I couldn't get her in the Queensland state office, but I bring her to primal when I started my own business. The poor thing will never do marketing again after working with me for seven years. Dan Urquhart (19:06) Yeah, well. Yeah, right. Yep. Az | The Good Builder (19:09) That's sad. I shouldn't laugh, but it's kind of sad. I burned her out like, and we're still really good mates, but she is now a very successful Pilates teacher. And she's amazing at it, which is great. I think she found her why working with me through pain. She just went, there's got to be a better way. Dan Urquhart (19:13) Yeah. Yeah, good. Yep, yep. Yeah, mate, look, it's funny, isn't it? Because no leader sets out for that sort of stuff to happen. And it sort of goes back to what we talked about at the beginning, because the first driver of effective influence is mindset. And the categories that we would write that down in as would be worker manager and leader mindsets. So it's way that we've found to think about it. Az | The Good Builder (19:32) No. That's right. Yeah. I shouldn't have skipped those because that was the first thing I went through, of course. And I identified worker. Dan Urquhart (19:52) Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is, is that if you, if you can address your mindset, so, and I was the same. So I came into my building business as a trades person, you know, and as a supervisor. And so I go on, this is going to be unreal. I've got all the experience. I've got all the desire, you know, we know how to get it done. Obviously we, we, you know, as a supervisor for, you know, for that company for years and what let's hit the, let's hit the your ground running, but Az | The Good Builder (20:02) Yeah. Yeah. Mmm. Dan Urquhart (20:18) I was a worker mentality. And so what it meant was, is I solved every problem, put out every fire. I wasn't developing my team. And then I looked around and wondered why they weren't backing me up and helping me to achieve the goals. Well, because I thought influence was just, you know, work ethic. Well, it's not. It's not like you don't have a work ethic. You've got a great work ethic. What you've got to choose is what you're working on. Az | The Good Builder (20:19) Yeah. Yeah, let's play. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Dan Urquhart (20:42) And we're going to talk about core purpose a little bit later. What, we do in business and, and in, you know, well, especially in business and for every builder out there, we need to look at our core purpose. And when we're thinking about a core purpose, this is a question we ask, what is it that you do that only you can do? Because while you're doing things other people can do, you're not getting to the things that Az | The Good Builder (20:45) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (21:07) only you can do. Az | The Good Builder (21:09) Yeah, exactly. Dan Urquhart (21:10) and see I got into my business and because I wasn't doing the things that only I could do and I was doing all the things that I created a team to do, the high level business stuff wasn't getting done. Sales started to plummet, teamwork developed, which meant we always really pushed for quality. we never, didn't get, it's not like we didn't get there in the end. And I think I've explained this before. The problem was it was the Az | The Good Builder (21:16) Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (21:36) pressure and the grind to get there was always, to your point, always tiring and it was a grind and so you burn people out. Now you don't mean to, but you've got no system of process, you've got no real workflow, you're doing things twice and so everyone's under tension and stress and then they start dropping off one by one, there's a staff retention issue. Az | The Good Builder (21:38) Yeah. Yay. Yeah. No. Nah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (22:02) And it all comes back to the fact that the worker mindset just is not a good way to lead. You can't lead like that because it'll burn you and your team out. Az | The Good Builder (22:08) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you know what, Dan, and sometimes like, as you said, I think the the worker mindset too is, is sometimes not. For me, I think it's for nothing else, but you also want to do a good job. And especially when it was, this was my first own business as well. And I think a lot of builders and tradies out there would resonate with that. Like you get your own building business, like you said, and you're like, you know, it's got to be perfect. So, you know, I had web developers. Dan Urquhart (22:24) Yeah. Postmark, you're signing. I'll get it. Az | The Good Builder (22:37) But I'll jump in the website, tidy things up and I'm like, what am I doing? You know, and then as you said, the whole thing is you don't purposely burn people out, but you can see definitely how it happens. And it did, man. was really your whole, everything you're saying in the course is, is true. And that's what I loved when I went through the course and I, I'm sorry, I skipped that mindset bit, but that was the first I was like, boom. And then I went into leadership style and then I could. Dan Urquhart (22:41) Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Az | The Good Builder (23:03) I could see this way where when I try and do it myself, I'm like, I know there's an issue and I know it's kind of like, I'm too much of a worker, but what do I actually have to change? And then you just try and change your style, but you're not really talking to your mindset and thinking about that. So you're missing a whole heap of thing when mindset is number one. So this gave me a, as I said, a full blueprint that, Dan Urquhart (23:21) Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yes it does. Az | The Good Builder (23:28) that yeah, I think it's gonna be an interesting 12 months for the good builder by the end of this. Dan Urquhart (23:32) Yeah. Yeah, well, mate, we've spoken about it on nearly every podcast. And it's why we say that as leaders, you know, high level leaders, of course, it's not saying we don't work, we just work in areas that really move the needle for the organization. And so what we what we've likened that to be as a coach in the stands, not a player on the field, you know, someone's got to got to be able to see what's going on. Somebody's got to look down on the play. Someone's got to set the game plan. plan. Someone's got to develop the team. Az | The Good Builder (23:45) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (24:00) You know, and if that's not you, who's doing it? Because if it doesn't get done, you won't win the grand final. You don't win the grand final without a crap team that's fit, ready and ready to go. And there's a lot of elements to that, but it starts with the leader. And so when we think about influence, it's like, look, influence is not only desire. We all have a desire for positive influence. We all have a desire to do the right thing. We all have a desire for our businesses. Az | The Good Builder (24:02) Let's drop. Yeah, done. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (24:26) to be successful. What we don't tie together is the fact that influence has drivers and your mindset is the first one. The way you work and the way you think about work, the way you think about time and how you spend that time is going to affect your influence and your outcomes. Time can be the best. Az | The Good Builder (24:28) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I hate time. Time is my worst enemy. Dan Urquhart (24:51) probably be your best friend or absolutely your worst enemy. Az | The Good Builder (24:54) It's my worst enemy, mate. I say it all like it's my little private thing. I haven't really ever said it out loud. I despise time. I don't know why but Dan Urquhart (25:02) It's funny, it's funny as well you ever think about this way, successful people, successful organizations don't have more time. They don't have more time than you, they don't have more time than me. They just manage it. Actually what they do is they influence it. They influence time rather than time influencing them. Az | The Good Builder (25:09) Yeah, I know. I know. Use it Yeah. And that's where I think I was going wrong too, because I was like blaming time for a little while there. In my old business, I'd like, I haven't got enough time. There's just not enough time. There's just not enough time. And then I'd see Elon Musk send a rocket to Mars and I'd be like, there's not, I don't have enough time to do this email. You know what I mean? And I was like getting so frustrated. Anyway, I'm so sorry, Dan. I love this podcast because this is a great convo, but I think I cut you off from the last three leadership styles. Dan Urquhart (25:25) Yeah, I haven't got enough time. There's never enough time. Yeah. Hahaha Yeah. dear. Yeah, let's get into it back into that. So we talked about, so styles, so we're talking about mindset. Now let's get back onto style. So styles is a selection. It's like not one size fits all. It depends on the person, the moment, the issue. Yeah, it's like a toolkit. So we talked about capacity-driven leadership. So that's like non-negotiable of leadership. You've got to be building capacity into people, team, process, system, all that sort of stuff. Okay. Az | The Good Builder (25:52) Yep. Yeah, it's the club, like we said. Dan Urquhart (26:13) Then influence driven leader. The role of every leader is to have their team understand that they're all influence driven leaders. They're all influencing outcomes. The next one we talked about was control driven. It's a club in the kit, but you don't wanna overuse it because your team will be too dependent on you and you'll burn them out. Okay, then let's have a look at maybe the opposite, which is your delegation driven leader. Now it's funny, I read a book just recently. Az | The Good Builder (26:20) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (26:39) I haven't clear his book from the coach of pen and panthers, like massive, massive success that had their over the last six years. But what they would tell you is, is that all of that success came years before when they were nearly bankrupt and they set what they were called the 2015 vision document for their club. And what he says is he says that, influences, he's super power. Az | The Good Builder (26:41) Yeah, well... Yeah. Yeah. well. Dan Urquhart (27:01) So to be an influence driven leader is a very positive thing. But here's the problem. you, sorry, to be a delegation driven leader, sorry, to be a delegation driven leader is his superpower. But here's the tension you've got to manage with that. If you delegate tasks without setting people up to win, you're gonna find out the hard way that they weren't developed enough to be able to carry that weight. Az | The Good Builder (27:05) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (27:26) And so you can do a couple of different things. You can influence people when you delegate and show them how to win, show them the measures. Essentially, we've talked about this before. If you're going to delegate to people, you need to set the expectation. You need to empower the outcome. So empower the person. You need to measure the results and you need to hold people accountable. If you're to use... Az | The Good Builder (27:35) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (27:49) delegation as your leadership style and as a superpower, you need to do those four things. If you don't do those four things, what's gonna happen is you're gonna give them a job and you're gonna go straight to hold them accountable. Az | The Good Builder (27:54) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yep. Dan Urquhart (28:01) And you're going to find out the hard way that they weren't ready or they didn't have enough information or, you know, or it wasn't the right person to give them that job. You know, there's a million different ways you can cut it, but this is the thought as a style. when we talk about delegation, it's awesome, but just make sure that you understand that it's your job as a leader to make, to help them to understand what winning looks like and then develop them to get to, to get there in the end. Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (28:10) Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, cool, cool. Makes total sense. Makes total sense. Because on the back flip of it, I've worked for some that are very delegated delegation type leaders and same sort of thing that the I remember our team just, you know, because of we weren't set up for success, there's almost a mutiny. Mutiny on the ship, you know. Dan Urquhart (28:30) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what happens and see, this is the horrible thing, mate. Like I know you personally, and I, you're a legend of a fella and, and I never ever set out to do the wrong thing by my team. And I know why I say that I know you and I think you're a great fella is because I know that you would never set out to do the wrong thing by your team. And yet when we, when we look on social media, we hear all this language around toxic leaders and toxic teams and, you know what, mate? Az | The Good Builder (28:57) Yeah. No. No. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (29:12) Mostly I think it is, I'm not saying there's not those types of people, but mostly, and we've talked about this before, but mostly I think it is, it's not no care, it's no how. People just don't know how. And so they go about life and work and business and leadership the way they always have. But what we need to understand, we need to develop ourselves. We need to grow into our roles. Az | The Good Builder (29:14) Yeah. We have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (29:37) And so what happened when I took on my business is that I took a workers, tradie, builder, supervisor, carpenter mindset into a multimillion dollar business that required leadership at a level that I've never known. And when you go into a spot like that, Az | The Good Builder (29:37) Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (29:56) You you start to learn the hard way that you're just not where you need to be. And sometimes, unfortunately, that can cause stress and pain to other people. So this is why this is so important now, because then what happens is not only you're hurting people, is, you know, fundamentally, no one wants to do that, I don't think. But beyond that, you start to risk the very thing that it is that you're doing, which is creating a business. Az | The Good Builder (30:00) 100%. Well, yeah. It is. No, no. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (30:21) And then it starts to risk your reputation, your cash flow, your profit, your personal relationships. And unfortunately, marriages, ⁓ friendships, the whole work. this is the, this is why we call this the drivers of effective influence. Because we say, Hey, look, get these couple of things right, start to manage them, not be perfect at them, but understand the toolkit and use it, develop yourself. Az | The Good Builder (30:24) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (30:48) you can start to grow your influence. You can start to influence outcomes and desired results. But if you just stay where you are and don't change, nothing will change. And in fact, the world changes at such a great rate that if even just being stagnant is going backwards. And so we're always needing to develop like it's madness, you know, it's like. Az | The Good Builder (30:50) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. absolutely. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (31:12) Like right now, our organization, Thousand Feet Deep, I just caught up with a sales mentor yesterday. And we're just hired him, right? And the reason we hired him is because I don't know enough about sales. I've got to bring professionals into my world to help me be better. We've got accountants. No, it's not rocket science. We've got solicitors. We've got a sales expert. Az | The Good Builder (31:18) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (31:35) hiring people, essentially what happens guys is whenever you hire someone to be part of your team, you are delegating to them. But you've just got to make sure you set them up to win. And I didn't do that as, and it was a horror show for a bit. Az | The Good Builder (31:41) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. ⁓ as I said, same with me, Dan, it was the exact same thing. And I reckon everyone's gone through it, mate. Like you just would. And this is the thing. This is where I am super passionate about Dan. Like, and we've talked about it so many times before, but can we please have every business in Australia just dedicate an hour every week to training their employees on something? Dan Urquhart (31:52) Yeah. We're go screw it. Yeah. Yeah, right. Az | The Good Builder (32:12) Just one hour a week. Imagine you did that for your team one hour a week and you bring in Dan from a thousand feet deep. And you went, we're to talk about influence this week. Even if they don't come on, you know, a full course with you, which they should, but if they, even if they just got in, imagine the retention of employees. Imagine the, think, imagine I'm a big dream. I think I'm like John Lennon, right? And I'm like, imagine the thing. Imagine what it would do to society. Everyone's just bettering themselves. That culture of bettering yourselves is embedded in every workplace in Australia. And we are the gun hoe on self-improvement and being better as a person and better as a community. Wouldn't we just have a better world as well as businesses? You know, it's just like, you know, I don't know, I may be peace or maybe I draw the longest bows in the whole world, but I'm just like, there's some simple things that business, like rather than taking your boys out to the pub, Dan Urquhart (32:38) Yep. ⁓ my, we really would. Az | The Good Builder (33:05) and getting them pissed, that doesn't help because you go home and you get in trouble. And I used to do that from your wife because you're drunk. Like, why don't you do a one hour course on leadership influence. Or like I said, just that one hour I took on that first phase of your course, Dan, just about mindset. I learned a lot about myself just asking an hour of questions. And I came out of that going, I am so much clearer on my life. Dan Urquhart (33:31) Yeah, Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (33:31) as a whole and who I am. It's like, come on guys, like, I don't know. Dan Urquhart (33:35) My what you're saying, what you're saying is just so vitally true. So one of the things that we did to turn our business around was we created, we created a weekly leadership meeting for our team. And it was Wednesday morning quarter to nine until about 20 past nine, past nine. And we got every single Wednesday and we came with what we call ways to think not more to do. Az | The Good Builder (33:42) ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (34:00) I wasn't giving my team more to do. It wasn't a takeaway where you go, right, now let's go and fix this and do that. It was giving them ways to think. And so a thousand people, well, mate, it is, it's developing a team, hand, head and heart. So skill set, mindset and character. The thought is, is if you don't do that, they won't be ready to win. it's like, you ever think about it this way, mate, and we've used this example before as well, but. Az | The Good Builder (34:00) Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're adding value. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (34:25) think it's a good one. So armed forces continually train. Emergency services are continually training. ⁓ And yet, you know, and sporting teams, right, they could train for 40 hours a week for two hours a day. Okay, and then when you look at our teams that work for 40 hours a week, how often do we train them? Zero. And you know, even if it's Az | The Good Builder (34:28) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. Dan Urquhart (34:53) Even if it's not zero, even if it's just a little bit is better than nothing, but we don't just train them. We train them hand, head and heart. We train them skillset mindset and character. And we have leadership programs that, that you can implement in your organization. So we have different leadership topics that you can purchase and you can run them for seven weeks, seven weeks of material. And then, then you buy another one. There's another seven weeks. There's podcasts that we do stuff like this. Az | The Good Builder (35:01) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (35:22) Beyond that, there's seven habits of highly effective people. That was a great one that we started our team on. There's so much material out there where you can develop your team and the ways to think, not giving them just more to do. Actually investing and caring about them as a person. Az | The Good Builder (35:25) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And you know what, like that analogy between sporting teams that you're brung up in, you know, podcast number 10, even though we're up to 176 now. But like, I was, I've been thinking about it over the past few weeks and since doing your course, and you talk about it in one of these videos, you know, you talk about the coach in the stands and who are you as a leader and all this sort of thing on your, on your hand, head, heart video that I loved. And, and I was like, and then I was thinking about the bond. Dan Urquhart (35:49) Hehehe. Az | The Good Builder (36:07) So I still have friends that I played football with when I was 12 and 14 and we trained together and we developed together and we kind of, you know where I'm going with this Dan? You know what I mean? And the bond, I would work with those fellows again. Those fellows would work with me, not work, but like we never worked together, but we know that relationship is strong. Look at a workplace. You look at a workplace. LinkedIn is a, I love LinkedIn. probably the biggest menace on it. But on LinkedIn, what I really Dan Urquhart (36:13) Yeah, Good thought. Yeah, great thought. Yeah. Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (36:35) don't like about it is you see, I've seen this several times, a worker will go to an employee will go to a certain company and go, Oh, I'm with my family. They leave, they've got a new family and they announced their new family. And I'm like, that's like a public divorce. That's so bad. But me and my footy mates wouldn't have a public divorce. And now I wouldn't kind of like, if you had that bond with the company, like for me, came out to our auto Tony Skallias I'll talk about a business outside of the construction industry. Dan Urquhart (36:47) Yeah. Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (37:03) He was an epic leader and I had a pretty wild childhood. And even when I was working for Kmart, they knew some things I was doing that he took me under his wing and he was such a lovely fellow and let me, you know, probably turned a blind eye to my lifestyle. Now with that, I never went to another job with this, new family, like I've always got this bond back there. And I'll tell you what, that if Dan Urquhart (37:15) Yeah. take mine. Az | The Good Builder (37:27) I just wanted to expand my wings and I was a younger fella back then and I wanted to get into the construction side. I got into commercial construction, that sort of thing. But if it wasn't, I'd always go back to work with them. And I think that's the other thing that training does and that sort of support, because he used to do that. We used to do training all the time. He used to better me all the time. He used to just have a chat with me on a Monday morning. What did you get up to on the weekend? Oh, you're doing all this sort of thing. Oh, you shouldn't be doing that. Dan Urquhart (37:49) You cared about, you cared about your Az | The Good Builder (37:53) You know, you don't need to talk to me. Add value to my life. And I, and I just forever. You'd be like, have you read this book? Have you had this bit of knowledge? Have you thought about marketing in this way? Anyway, I'm going on a long thing again, mate, but I'm just reiterating that I think that it is a completely missing piece in our business world as a whole in every industry, not just construction and you certainly, and I know there are other guys and teams out there, but Dan Urquhart (37:56) Yeah. you No, Mike. That's all. Az | The Good Builder (38:22) What you teach is like the foundational thing of a business that will really bring it together and cement the team. And I think it's important. Dan Urquhart (38:29) Mate, yeah, well, I think what you're saying is just relevant, mate. To be honest, it just paints the picture of how important it is and so many levels to invest in people. You know, I think the ultimate goal of leadership is that the people that come to work for us are better when they leave, if they leave, across their whole life. But this is the problem and the tension. We're down to pressure as leaders and business owners. That's not like we don't care, we just... Az | The Good Builder (38:32) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (38:56) We don't know how one or we just don't have the time or emotional energy because we're that sort of burnout or not even so much burnout, but just always in the grind. And so part of your core purpose, if you will, is part of the time that you spend and invest in one week needs to be dedicated to, well, firstly, time to breathe. Give yourself as a leader time to breathe. And then it's like investing in your team. Az | The Good Builder (39:06) Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (39:22) You know, you're the way that you move the needle for your organization is you get your team developed, you get them up for game day, you show them what winning looks like and you develop them so that they can take the hits. This is the thought. Your people will keep taking the hits and keep taking the run-ups. But sooner or later, they'll ask why are we doing this? And if you're not, if you haven't developed them, you haven't given them clear vision, clear purpose, if you haven't, you know, if they don't understand why they're doing what they're doing, Az | The Good Builder (39:22) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (39:48) Sooner or later, they'll want to play for another team. It's just the way it rolls. And then it all comes back. It all comes back to the leader. Az | The Good Builder (39:50) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And let's see. It does. Okay. And that's it. I would, like I said, I'd hit it up for you, Dan, mate, if I ever work for you, but I'd hit it up for this fella any day. You know, you'd just be like, whatever, let's go. You know, he's a yeah, that's, that's leadership. And that's the influence. That was the influence bit too. I can tell he's a very influential. You know, the other thing interesting, Dan, and we've got a few questions to go, mate. But another interesting thing was when I was on this yacht with the Glenville guys yesterday, they were talking about the guy who created Dan Urquhart (40:03) Yeah, good night. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the influence bit. Az | The Good Builder (40:24) Springfield. Do you know Springfield out here in Ipswich? So it's a it's a mega city man. So a family did it divided up the land and did it all this this Indian family amazing, amazing city like I worked in the shopping centre there for Mervac that we developed and was one of the first of its kind. Totally sustainable streets going through it. This place is amazing. And a gentleman named Nick, I Dan Urquhart (40:28) I don't. Okay. Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (40:48) I met him on the boat. He's the director of Fraser's property. And he worked with this gentleman who owns all the land in Springfield and Ipswich and did this mega city. And he had this amazing vision. And I remember reading the story and he said, before we even build the city, it's got to be connected. So he sold the vision of the city. Dan Urquhart (40:49) Yeah. Okay. Yeah, okay. Yes wow Az | The Good Builder (41:08) to the people putting in all the NBN lines to make sure it was a totally connected wifi driven tech city that could work out in the Western suburbs of Brisbane. And I was like, I read this story and this guy knew him. And I said, that guy must be amazing. Like he just must be, cause it was like, you know, a bit of dirt out in Ipswich sort of thing. And he said, the guy is like, Dan Urquhart (41:29) Yeah, yeah. Az | The Good Builder (41:33) his best skill is influence. He can just influence and sell the dream of what this city was and they did it. And now there's a train line going out there. God damn, that's the power of influence building a city. And I said, man, that guy, he's going to leave behind a legacy, you know, just like, it's so cool. But he's done it through, through that leadership and influence. That's what he said. Dan Urquhart (41:43) Yeah, We'll It is so good, mate. You know, that's so good. Yeah, well, that's exactly right, mate. It's like, it comes back to your desired result. So what we say again is leadership is influencing people and outcomes towards desired result. And so getting back to our styles, if your desired result is control, Az | The Good Builder (42:02) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan Urquhart (42:14) That's how you'll lead. If you decide result is positive influence, you will shift and change the way that you lead depending on what you desire to happen. And it's not manipulation, it's influence. Remember, you're working with people and you're asking for permission to lead them. And so it comes back to your desired result. And so we talked about, okay, so let's just recap quickly. So we've got, Az | The Good Builder (42:15) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (42:39) Capacity-driven leader, what a capacity-driven leader's desired result is to have a foundation that can carry the way to success. That's their desired result. They really don't want people burning out. They don't wanna find out the hard way that success is actually too much to carry. Influence-driven leaders, their desired result is to create positive outcomes throughout the organisation. Then you've got your control-driven leader. Az | The Good Builder (42:46) Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Dan Urquhart (43:04) Well, guess what the desired result of control driven leader is? Control. And remember, it's not like it's not a good style. It's just, if it's overused, it becomes evident that your desire is to control. And really that's just not a good leadership style. Okay, and then you've got delegation. So delegation is a really good style. And what is the desired result? The desired result for a delegation driven leader is that they'll be able to Az | The Good Builder (43:07) control. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (43:28) to be able to move on to other things and be able to hand things off to other people. It's like, get on with what I need to do ⁓ and you do what you need to do. And that's really good. And that's like inevitable. Every time you put a team member on, that's what you do when you're delegating, but you've got to set them up well. Okay, now let's look at the final two styles. So the final two styles are workload driven leaders. And... Az | The Good Builder (43:35) Yeah. Yeah, Yep. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yep. Dan Urquhart (43:53) emotional driven leaders. Okay, so workload driven leaders, their desired result is just to get through the workload. Now it's that's not a bad thing. That's a good thing. But the problem is, people works work worker driven mindsets will always have more to do than time to do it. Because, because a leader fundamentally a leader needs to go from a work that worker mentality to a leader mentality. And they need to understand that Az | The Good Builder (44:02) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (44:18) you don't move the needle for workload anymore. You move the needle for influence through influencing outcomes, for developing your people through finding opportunities for your organization, finding investment opportunities and new sales. It's, it's about, building harmony and unity into your team, holding people accountable. It's about creating new product lines. It's making sure sales. I mean, the lead has to get everything done. And so a workload driven leader. Az | The Good Builder (44:20) Yeah Yeah Yeah. Yeah Yeah, yeah. Dan Urquhart (44:44) Um, where it just, just goes into work mode. It's just, it's a, it's look again, it's a, it's a club in the bag and it's a style that you're going to need to use. When you kicked off, when you kicked off, um, the good builder, mate, you just had to rip in just, you know, and so did I workload. You have to get it done and that's fine. But this is the thought sooner or later, we need to start empowering team. Az | The Good Builder (44:55) Yeah, yeah, I'm a bit of that too, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (45:11) And a workload driven leader will be reluctant to do that because you can't find good help. You want something done right, you got to do it yourself. ⁓ And they just go, I'm just easier to do it myself. That's the fallback, you know? Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (45:18) Yeah. Yeah. You're talking about me, bro. When you say that, was just like, oh man, that's me. I'm just like, no, I'm not like that, but I'm, you know, sometimes I am. I'm just like, oh, look, by the time I write this email, I could just do this. Dan Urquhart (45:36) Yeah. And it's, thing is, it's just a, it's not a, it's not a personality flaw. It's just a leadership trait or leadership style. And it's like, just, we, we have a thing called the scale of influence in the sky. Well, sorry, we have a thing where that, but we also have a thing called, the, a scale of, function. And what we, what we're trying to have people understand is it's not Az | The Good Builder (45:43) Mmm. Dan Urquhart (45:58) pass and fail. We're not saying don't work, don't do this and don't do that. We're saying, just depending on where you are on the scale of function, you're either gonna be extreme or functional. You just wanna be measuring yourself. Okay, so a workload driven leader, okay, maybe it bends that way. Let's just make sure you're functional and not extreme. Because if you're extreme, you're not gonna have the time that you need to develop your team. Az | The Good Builder (46:00) Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, and that's, that's the other thing I liked about the course. Sorry, Dan is that it was, it gave, it gives you a measurement tool. As you say on a scale, it's not like do this, don't do that. Cause I was expecting, I'll be really honest, mate. Like I said, in the beginning, I was expecting like, I knew I'm a worker. I'm a workhorse man. Like if I was a horse, I'd be one of them Clydesdale's and I'd just be ripping shit through a field and I'd love it. And that's all I want to do. You know, I just one of them guys, but anyway, I knew it. Dan Urquhart (46:30) Yeah. That's Hahaha. Sorry. Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (46:49) And then I was going, Oh, what's, what's he gonna say? What do I have to do? What do I have to change? Because it's in me. I've been like this for a long time now I'm going, how do I get rid of it? You know, I'm going to have to take some magic mushrooms I reckon and get my brain reconfigured or something. But anyway, I was like, Dan Urquhart (46:54) Yeah. Yeah. It will reconfigure brain. I don't know for positive reasons, but anyway. Az | The Good Builder (47:07) Yeah, no, probably not, mate. But you know, they're doing all these studies nowadays, all these crazy stuff. I'm not getting into it, by the way. But I was like, I was like, Oh, my what is it gonna what is he gonna tell me? What is he gonna tell me? And it was like, that's okay. There's a time for this exactly what you're saying in this part. And I really liked it, Dan. And what it did was give me an ability to go, Okay, this is what I made up off. And to understand that, and then to know that I can pull clubs out and that that's what that was cool, Dan. Dan Urquhart (47:27) Mmm. Yeah, mate, and that's it. We don't want anybody, it's not passing forward. Hey, no leader, parent, person needs more guilt. You are who you are, I am who am, people are who they are. That's a beautiful thing. Hey, we want to work with our strengths. But there are some responsibilities that leaders have just innately. And to be able to perform those, they need a toolkit and they need time. Az | The Good Builder (47:37) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (47:59) You know, and they need the right Az | The Good Builder (48:00) Yeah. Dan Urquhart (48:00) mindset and they need the right style. ⁓ and so the last style that, that is, is in our list, course, ⁓ cause I'm sure there's so many different stalls out there, but those are the ones that we've identified. And the last one would be emotional driven leader. And so an emotional driven leader, that's look, that's really important because we need to be able to inspire our teams. We need to feel the emotion of the things that is going on in our businesses. We need to. Az | The Good Builder (48:03) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (48:26) hurt with people when they're hurting, we need to be able to understand what people are up to and feel stuff, you know, and inspire. And some of the best leaders have been inspirational and emotional driven. The problem is, is when it's on the scale of function, when it's extreme, and your team members don't know which leader they're gonna get from day to day. When things are going well, it's great. And when things are going poorly, Az | The Good Builder (48:45) Mmm. Dan Urquhart (48:50) Everyone knows about it. And we fluctuate from being stable to like, well, insecure or over the top or aggressive or sullen or whatever it is. Hey, look, and you know what? We all get like it. We have emotions. That's the beautiful thing. It's not about don't do it. It's just be aware that if you're up and down and your people see it, that's going to affect your influence. And people will love you for it. Like, it's not like, Az | The Good Builder (48:51) Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, dad. Dan Urquhart (49:16) when people leave, don't leave because they hate the leader or necessarily, or they hate the place and people leave for good reasons as well as bad. It's not like, you know, the best of places have people leave. But with the thought though, as a leader, we need to rely on influence and our influence needs to be growing, not shrinking. And what we've talked about today are just some styles that we can be aware of and just to monitor and Az | The Good Builder (49:20) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (49:41) And the truth of the matter is, is if you're in that extreme version of all of those traits, your influence is gonna shrink. People are for whatever reason, not gonna wanna, maybe they won't trust you as much. Maybe they won't wanna follow you as much, but whatever it is, we're in control of that. We have some rules now where we can go, right, life's life, stuff, stuff, but this is how I'm gonna handle it. Az | The Good Builder (49:46) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, yeah, I would say to our community, I think that's a worthwhile exercise for them to get you in for, even just to identify what their leadership, even the disc profile stuff as well, which we can talk about. But that's important. like, you've got to, I think you've got to know who you are. And you've got to know who's within your team as well. You know, it's just fundamental to it, Well, mate, just another question. Dan Urquhart (50:15) Yeah, yeah, we do that. Yeah, good. Good thought. Yes, mate. Yeah, that's right. it is. Az | The Good Builder (50:30) What traits do you see destroy influence the most? I'm really interested in this one. Dan Urquhart (50:34) Yeah, good thought. We'll see. Yeah, well, it is interesting because again, getting back to the drivers of effective influence, the drivers of effective influence was mindset, styles and traits. And so we've talked about mindset, talked about styles, now traits. Okay, so there'd be lots to be honest as, but the ones that we deal with, the first one would be a disciplined versus ill-disciplined leader. That's a trait. Az | The Good Builder (50:45) Yep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Dan Urquhart (51:00) That's a trait. And so it's like, you don't want to be a do as I say, not as I do leader. You don't want to say, well, well, this is a thing, I guess. Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (51:04) Hmm. What if you're a mix? ⁓ I think I'm ill-disciplined in my life. I'm not, not, not, okay. I'm ill-disciplined in, when I work with my team, ill-disciplined in the way I speak because the way I am now is the way I always am. But yeah, so not as in ill-disciplined, as in I don't get the job done, as in the way I dress sometimes, the way I speak. And I, I... Dan Urquhart (51:19) Yeah. Yep. Az | The Good Builder (51:30) This is a really, I'm being really honest here. I'm not trying to be funny or anything, but I, I do sometimes wonder, that impact my influence? Because I'll go to events now and people go, there's Asual McCasual. Because he's always a casual. They call me Asual McCasual. And I'm like, does that impact my influence? Or is that, is that a trait that impacts my influence? Or is that something that they just know me as? That's just me. Dan Urquhart (51:32) Yeah, yeah. I love it. I can tell you what I think about that. I think that's just who you are. And so we can make too much or not enough about discipline. You see, because you're super disciplined, mate. You're up at ungodly hours at the gym and you're always doing it. So let's not make too much or not enough about discipline. we want to remember, we want to be who we are. But this is what more the thought. As a leader, you don't want to say things and not follow through. Az | The Good Builder (51:54) Yeah. Yeah, cool. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Yep. Cool. Yeah, thanks. Dan Urquhart (52:17) You don't want to say you're going to do something and not do it because the whole time you do that, you lose credibility. You don't want to change system and process and not stick to it. You don't want to go onto the next new thing without disciplining yourself to have the steps that you need to follow and follow them. know, and then, you know, if you say you're to do something as a leader and you don't do it, then you just say, Hey guys, this is the reason we didn't do it. So you just discipline yourself to communicate. Az | The Good Builder (52:20) Yep. Yeah Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (52:43) You know, and there's some other forms of discipline as well. Like if you're always late to meetings, you can hardly hold your team accountable when they're late. You know, so of course we're really just talking about operational things within a business. The way you speak, like your mindset, styles and traits are disciplined. We all feel like losing the plot when things don't go well, but we discipline ourselves because we know that we want to grow our influence and not shrink it. Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (52:48) Yes. Yeah. Yeah, cool. Yeah Yeah. Yeah, nah, that's cool, Dan. No, I wanted to talk about that because we do get asked by, you know, a few builders around this place as well, because like, I talked to them and they're all, you know, as you know, they're smart guys, and there's some smaller builds, but they're like, I'm not a leader. And look at me, you know, and I go, well, look at me. You know, I've been like, position leaders. Dan Urquhart (53:22) Yeah. Yeah, well you're right. We're all latest. Az | The Good Builder (53:29) It doesn't matter what you look like. doesn't matter. Dan Urquhart (53:29) Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (53:31) You might have a few tattoos or you, you know, you are a bit more casual. I love how you define that. think it, I do worry about it as I said, but you know, on the, on the flip side, I can see, know, you can't change who you are, but it's, it's the, it's actually the operational bit of, you going to do the job? Do you actually do what you say that is more important than, than what you may, you know, Dan Urquhart (53:51) Yeah, it's a big part of it. Yeah, well, the uniform idea, right? Okay, let's talk about that. If you're a leader and you're in trying to, and you were holding your team accountable to wearing a uniform and turning up looking sharp, and you came in with a singlet and stubbies, well, that's probably do as I say, not as I do. And that is a discipline trait. Az | The Good Builder (54:09) Yeah. Yeah, not sexy. Dan Urquhart (54:15) Like if you're in a workplace where it really doesn't matter and you don't care and they don't care, well, what's it matter? And so I guess the idea you might say this concept is you don't wanna be a do as I say, not as I do leader. Az | The Good Builder (54:18) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, cool, dad. Yeah, no, I love it. I love it, Dan. And it's, I just wanted to make it applicable because it is man like as, as when you don't, when you don't have like what you have gone through and you don't have the expertise that you have, you do ask yourself, I do. I, that's why I talked to you outside of these pods. I asked myself this question, Dan, I'll know I'll ask Dan this like, am I, if I do this, what's this like, or am I crazy if I'm thinking this? Like, you just don't know it's always good to have a professional sounding board. Dan Urquhart (54:40) Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (54:56) I think mate. Yeah, that was the other thing. so you do the minds, you do mindset, leadership styles, traits. And I think the next bit that I get into, and I'm just about to get into Dan, I won't lie, I haven't got into it yet. I think it's phase two is the core purpose stuff. Dan Urquhart (55:10) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it's an extension of phase one, but yeah, core purpose. Before we get on the core purpose, let's let, do you want to finish off the other traits? No, let's do it. So you're, so your, your next trait, if you will, would be, when we think about character versus charisma, and so what we're, what we're looking at there mate is, and Az | The Good Builder (55:13) Yeah, so could... Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, Sorry, don't go. Yeah. Yep. Dan Urquhart (55:30) I read a book once and he talked about say, you know, I think it was back in the 50s, the 40s or 30s. Your word was your bond. You were respected by the decisions you made, the man you were, the way you treated your family, man or woman you were, you know, and the fact that you could be a person of your word. And then what's happened in the sort of 70s, 80s, 90s, now what's been birthed is this, Az | The Good Builder (55:38) Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (55:53) It's more about charisma. It's more about personality. It's more about what you own, what you wear. So you're actually respected for things that are external and replaceable rather than internal and foundational. And so this is the thought as a trait, as a leader, you need your leadership and your organization to be built on character, not charisma. Charisma will get you so far. Character, you can build on character. You can't build on charisma. Az | The Good Builder (55:58) Yeah Yeah Yeah I love it. Nah. Dan Urquhart (56:19) It's, and again, we're not saying pass and file. We're not saying don't be, have a great personality, me charismatic, me friendly and be bubbly and over the top and all the rest of it. That's all great. But you, need to be making sure that we're being honest. We're people of our word, you know, that, that, that we do the right thing by people, even when it hurts, you know, that we stick, stick to the quality measures and stick to our standards and that we're treating people well in our team and outside of that time, all of those things that are character. Az | The Good Builder (56:28) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (56:47) You know, and you might play Az | The Good Builder (56:47) Yeah. Dan Urquhart (56:48) a character and everybody would have heard this is that character is your character is how you behave when no one's watching. And so when we think about a leadership trait, that's super, super important. Now, the next one we would think about would be your competence. Hey, there is no cutting it. If you're a leader, you need to be competent. What you don't need to be is perfect. Az | The Good Builder (56:55) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan Urquhart (57:12) Competence versus incompetence. If you're have the leadership trait, you have to be confident. Now, what I've found is that I'm pretty good at some stuff and not so good at other stuff. And that's where I hire. And my team knows where I'm not good. And I'll be honest about it. And I don't make any apologies about it. Where it becomes an issue, it's not that we make mistakes, because that's not what incompetence is. Incompetence is when we continue to make them, cover them up and don't own them. Az | The Good Builder (57:20) Yep. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (57:39) because your team sees that and then a couple of things happen. They've got to drop their standard or they've got to try to cover up your issues and problems and whatever. And it's the elephant in the room and no one's talking about it. You lead like that, you're going to shrink your influence. If you make mistakes, just own it and have your team own it. And if it's a consistent area because you're not strong in that area, don't work there. You're the leader, you own the business or you're managing the business. Az | The Good Builder (57:48) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah. Dan Urquhart (58:05) employ somebody that can do that job way better. And then the last one just to move us on mate is security driven leader. So when we think about traits, we need to be secure. Now every single leader on the planet, as far as I'm aware, has insecurities. Every person has insecurities. It's not about not having them. It's about not feeding them. It's about not leading from them. Because Az | The Good Builder (58:08) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (58:32) what the best, well, okay, so how does this outwork? This would be, if you're an insecure leader, you're gonna take the credit for things, you're not gonna take the responsibility for things that are yours. You're less likely to empower the team because you potentially feel threatened. Now we all go through this. It morphs in lots of different ways to be insecure. And so essentially, Az | The Good Builder (58:43) Yeah, 100 % Yeah. Dan Urquhart (58:56) The way to combat that is just to act the opposite, just very complimentary when the compliments due to, I think John Maxwell says it this way, a great leader takes a little bit less of his fair share of the credit and a little bit more of his share of the blame. And when you don't feel like doing that, you just do it anyway. That's what it is to not feed your insecurities. Hey, we've all got them, it's not pass and fail, welcome to the club. Az | The Good Builder (58:59) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (59:21) If you work out of your insecurities, you're going to shrink your influence. Az | The Good Builder (59:24) Yeah, I love it. Can you recap those traits because I cut you off in that first one then. So from the top. Dan Urquhart (59:30) Nah, cool mate. So we're thinking about leadership traits, those traits, those things of a leader that are really gonna grow your influence. Discipline versus ill discipline. We've got competence versus incompetence. We've got security versus insecurity. We've got character versus charisma. Yeah, not in that order. I think I buggered the order up, but you get the flow. Az | The Good Builder (59:46) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Now that would that would good dead, but that's what I that was the one that I went through recently. So I think when we do our meeting, we'll go through all of my findings about who I am and do all of that sort of thing. So that's gonna be cool. But yeah, this is what we're going to talk about. And that was the next bit that I'm I'm gonna start doing tomorrow. And I know we're talking about your influence and influence workshops, but I think this comes Dan Urquhart (59:57) Yeah. Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (1:00:13) it all feeds into it. It's all integrated. And that's what I love about the course, but is your core purpose and finding your core purpose, Dan. So can you talk a little bit to that? How do you help leaders and how do you help businesses find their core purpose and why is it important? Dan Urquhart (1:00:14) Yeah. Yeah, well, mate, it's good. We talked about a little bit at the beginning. And so the question that we ask when we're thinking about a core purpose is this. What is it that only you can do? What is it that's gonna really move the needle for your organization that only you can do? And depending on your mindset, styles and traits, while you're working on things that other people can do, you're not getting to things that only you can do. And that is a recipe for breakdown. And so when we think about a person's core purpose or a leader's core purpose, what we wanna do is we wanna look at your week and we wanna go what activities in that week Az | The Good Builder (1:00:41) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (1:01:03) are gonna drive the needle, move the needle for the organization and increase influence and drive results. And then it's like being very disciplined around what you do and what you don't do. And then we've got some criteria that we look into and we work leaders through that. We try to define everything as, you know, yeah. Az | The Good Builder (1:01:09) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. it's, yeah, it's fantastic. It's like, imagine you rocked up to a role and you just got the job and someone said to you, this is your core purpose. You know, I know like you've got to find it for you. This is what you're talking about in terms of leadership, but in terms of setting up a team for success, imagine you could do that. Imagine you gave a resume. I know I could have got a thousand jobs now thinking back, I'm too, I don't want to get a job anymore. Dan Urquhart (1:01:30) Hmm. Az | The Good Builder (1:01:44) But imagine I could go get it. If I did a resume and I handed in my resume and I said, my core purpose is, and I knew exactly what I was good at in the business I was going for and what I was going to do. You got that job. You know what I mean? This stuff is powerful. Yeah, this stuff is powerful, Dan. Like the stuff you do is powerful. And why I love it is because it's not taught anywhere else. But it's fundamental to everything. If you knew your Dan Urquhart (1:01:45) Hahaha Yeah, right. That's it. And then you discipline yourself to stick to it. Yeah. Yeah, okay. And it's everything we learned at the hard way, mate. Because as a builder, I was sitting there at one stage, remember it dawned on me in this one stage. And I was sitting there, I was sitting there dealing with maintenance issues, right? Like as builders, we know that one of our, you know, what would you call it? One of the hardest things is to manage maintenance issues. Now I'm not talking about the worst of maintenance, just even just the upkeep, you know, you're handing the house over, you've got a three month maintenance period, you've got to get that done and then... Az | The Good Builder (1:02:18) Crazy, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Dan Urquhart (1:02:38) Beyond that, something else happens and then you build a lot of homes in a year and that all adds up. And so I'm sitting there and there was a fire I didn't want to start. And so I always tried to be on top of maintenance. And then it dawned on me one day, don't I actually hire someone to do this? And so what I realised is I was working on an area that was important to me, fine. And I was working on an area that was important, fine. But it wasn't my core purpose. Az | The Good Builder (1:02:42) DOCH Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (1:03:05) And as much as it was a massive part of our business, it wasn't moving the needle for us moving forward as regards to sales and development of my team. And actually what was going to move us forward was that I empowered somebody else in that role to do it super well and left them to it. That was going to have the long-term implications and the outcomes that I really needed rather than just trying to solve a problem in the moment. And so, Az | The Good Builder (1:03:21) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (1:03:32) You know, like this core purpose was birthed out of my failure as a leader to do the right things. And then whilst I'm doing something that somebody else can do, I'm not getting to things that only I can do and sales start to drop off or whatever else was really important to the business. Az | The Good Builder (1:03:37) Yeah Yeah, yeah, you know, as I said, it's just so practical, so logical. I have one last question for you today. And but guys, take a listen, I'm going to drop that pot around the first module of hand head heart. And that was really cool. But if a builder or leader wants to become more influential, Dan, what would you recommend them do? And I know what I would recommend them to do. And that would go 1000 feet deep. Dan Urquhart (1:04:06) Yeah, mate, well... Az | The Good Builder (1:04:09) or get Dan in your business and have a chat with him. That's what I would do. Dan Urquhart (1:04:10) Yeah. No, mate, thanks, mate. Thanks. That's great. Well, look, we have a couple of programs that you can buy online. We've got the Drivers of Effective Influence online that people can purchase. We've got Core Purpose on there as a program that you can buy. But obviously, mate, Hand Ed Heart, the full leadership team and culture development program, that's something that we work with lots of different leaders in lots of different fields to Az | The Good Builder (1:04:24) Yeah. Dan Urquhart (1:04:34) to give them a game plan for success in regards to these areas. But look, even if you didn't call us, start with your mindset, styles and traits and resist the temptation to think that it's your team's problem. It's never the team's problem. We all watch sport, mate. The team stick around for way longer than coaches. look, and I'm not even saying that's fair. And a lot of times it's not fair, but... Az | The Good Builder (1:04:34) Yeah. That's for real. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (1:05:00) The thought is, that it always comes down to leadership. know, it all like, if you succeed, if the team succeeds, it won't be a fluke. What we say as is that strong, consistent cultures are forged, they don't evolve. If you let them evolve, they'll devolve. You know, and you might have a strong culture for a little bit, but if it's a fluke and you don't know how you did it, you won't be able to replicate it when that best Az | The Good Builder (1:05:03) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Dan Urquhart (1:05:26) person that you've got on moves to Queensland or New South Wales or for me, Queensland, for you, New South Wales. People leave, things change, dynamics in business change. We need to understand what a good culture is and how to shape it. And if you don't know how to shape it, another saying we've got is this, is that the strongest influence in your organization is shaping your culture. And if it's not you, Az | The Good Builder (1:05:32) Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Urquhart (1:05:53) then someone or something is shaping it for you. You don't want that, mate. You don't want that. And so this stuff's really important, not because we teach it, but it's like important for all the reasons we've spoken about today. Profit, cashflow, reputation, desired results, friendship, marriage, family, the whole lot. Look, and then we put everything into this as organisational leaders. And it's much on the line. Az | The Good Builder (1:05:56) Yeah, 100 % Dan. No, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And Dan, you know what, just, and just day to day as a team, as I said, I think you're just going to have a stronger, more connected team that will do anything for each other. And that's what I loved. I, I, you know what, I don't regret anything in my life, but if I ever, if I moved from, if I could look at a career move that I shouldn't have ever made, I wouldn't be sitting right here right now, but I would have never, I would have never left. Dan Urquhart (1:06:23) Yeah, no. side. Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (1:06:45) you know, came up with Tony Skallias if I, if I didn't want to spread my wings, to be honest with you, it was amazing, mate. Every day I went there, I felt safe. I think I've talked about a podcast. I've mucked up an ad over a weekend. And you know what? I walked in the next week and they're like, we got you back. It's all good. Next time, here's a process. That's leadership. Dan Urquhart (1:06:51) Yeah. Yeah, cool. Yeah, good man. Good man. Az | The Good Builder (1:07:07) That's that sort of stuff. And Dan Urquhart (1:07:07) That is way shit. Az | The Good Builder (1:07:09) the other thing I wanted to say before we go, All the leaders out there that listen to us and anyone who just loves business. And I know you guys do was why you listen to the podcast. Could you please have a look at hand head heart program? We're going to put the link in the thing in the, in the description here. And you've got time over Christmas. You've got three weeks over Christmas. If you can just dedicate one day to bettering yourself. You're come back a better leader. You're come back with a better game plan and you're gonna have the time to do it and actually dedicate to it. And that's what I'm gonna be doing over Christmas Dan And like, I'm gonna be finishing, I reckon I'll finish it before Christmas. Sorry, Christmas and probably do it again and go back through it and refresh it. I don't know, mate, but I think the time, I use Christmas a lot for self-improvement. I know that sounds funny, but it's when every, you know, the construction industry goes quiet. Dan Urquhart (1:07:56) Good, right. Az | The Good Builder (1:07:58) And so Dan Urquhart (1:07:58) Yeah. Az | The Good Builder (1:07:59) I'm a meditating monk. I'm like out there reading every day. I'm doing stuff like that. And I always feel better and I'm energized for the year ahead. The problem is it doesn't keep going. But you know, if you can take a small step and have a look at that hand head heart course by a thousand feet deep and Dan on the pod, I would highly recommend it and take some time to do it. It's going to change you. Like I'm, so pumped for what it's going to do for me, Dan. So thank you, mate. I think that's the podcast. Dan Urquhart (1:08:01) Haha! beauty. Yeah, my. Az | The Good Builder (1:08:25) It's a bit wavy. I had a few examples in there and I'll edit a few things, but I think we got where we needed to and, mate, you know, your stuff and I love working with you and I do recommend you to anyone, mate. Dan Urquhart (1:08:26) Beautiful. Well, mate, I think to be honest, your examples today were right spot on lower crackers and mate, it is what it is, we're all human. It's not about being perfect, it's just about being willing and having toolkit. Az | The Good Builder (1:08:40) Mm. Yeah. Yeah, it is, mate. And that's why I gave the examples because what you teach is real and it applies to real life really easy. It got me thinking about a whole heap of stuff. So as I said, recommend it to anyone out there, take a bit of time over Christmas and improve yourself. You know, I think that's a good thing to do. Give yourself a Christmas present. See you later. Dan Urquhart (1:09:02) Thanks, bro. Good on you, bro.