S1408: A Net Promoter Score that’s ‘off the charts’, with Logan Naidu (CEO & founder, Kernel Global)

Logan Naidu
Think there are probably 3 eally big decisions that people are faced with, in in life. You know, 1, if you have a faith, who or what do you follow? But we all follow someone or something. 2, who do I spend the rest of my life with? And most people have that thought process, not a point that most people do. And then 3, what am I going to do with as a job?

And that third bit is the bit that we probably spend more time doing day in, day out than anything else. Right? It could affect the other 2.

Richard Medcalf
Welcome to the Impact Multiplier CEO podcast. I’m Richard Medcalf, founder of Xquadrant, and my mission is to help the world’s top CEOs and entrepreneurs shift from incremental to exponential progress and create a huge positive impact on our world. Now The requires you to reinvent yourself and transform your business. So if you’re ready to play a bigger game than ever before, I invite you to join us and become an Impact Multiplier CEO.

We talk a lot about leadership, but how about followership? This is a question that I want to explore, in today’s conversation with Logan Naidu. Now Logan is a really fascinating, highly experienced, highly successful entrepreneur. He’s built actually 3 businesses, including Kernel Group and Dartmouth Partners, which has actually been named by The Financial Times as one of the Europe’s 1,000 fastest growing companies, as well as similar awards he’s had for many The, locations, many other magazines and publications. And what I really love about this interview is that we look we go deep quickly. We look at how Logan himself is a follower as well as a leader. We look at how he and actually how I, relate business and faith, The most personal of questions. We then look at how Logan has built a powerful business, almost The person at a time, created a network of 6,000 people who have allowed him to build something really extraordinary. We also look at how he has created a high performance culture of excellence.

This is something really, like, a key to who Logan is as a leader. And as a result, he’s had a net promoter score that was off the charts. In fact, the consultancy who actually did the work said, even we can’t believe how high this is. We’ve never seen CEO something so high before. So there’s a lot here to learn if you’re a leader in any industry. How does Logan create such great customer advocacy? Well, we’ll get right into that in this conversation with Logan Mehdi. Logan, hello, and welcome to the show.

Logan Naidu
Hi, Richard. Good to see you.

Richard Medcalf
It’s gonna be a fun one. So we’re gonna start by breaking all the rules. But, I mean, if I look at your bio, we can I can talk about the fact that you’re the founder, CEO, of Kernel Global and Dartmouth Partners, which is a Multiplier recruitment group named by the Financial Times as one of Europe’s 1,000 fastest growing companies? The Sunday Times is one of the UK’s top 100 fastest growing companies, and the number one fastest growing company in the sector by the Podcast fifty. So we can talk about all of that, but then we have, the legendary, Alastair Campbell, who said we don’t do religion and we’re gonna immediately do religion.

Logan Naidu
Oh, Clara.

Richard Medcalf
Because in in in our pre call, yeah, you mentioned that you’re already committed Christian. And that’s really profoundly influenced, what you do. And, you know, as I’m also clear about in in speaking with people, I’m also committed Christian, and it really The Impact what I do. And I think neither of us go around in our businesses kind of, preaching or trying The, you know, force people to believe things The don’t wanna believe all day. But on a personal level, it does really impact, how we show up and have the goals we’ve set for ourselves and how we how we run our businesses. So I wanna curious what’s, where does that show up for you? Obviously, you’ve built successful businesses. How does faith come into The, or how does that show up in your leadership?

Logan Naidu
I’d assume that people say it shows up in in in many aspects of the way I behave and act, and and think. I mean, it’s I think one of the good things that maybe some of the the kind of trends that we’ve got at the moment is people we talk about being, more holistic holistically a person and, you know, being comfortable with who you are in the workplace against this other, you know, maybe parallel lenses. We keep religion in a, in a box, and you’re not allowed to speak about it. So away, this is slightly uncomfortable study is quite an important start. I became a Christian at 21. I’m not from a Christian family. Both my parents were Asian and half Indian, half Chinese and and had a Hindu upbringing. 21, you know, almost like a light bulb went off and and the path for me was changed. And over the years, I’ve been a Christian longer than I’ve not been a Christian now.

I’d hope that the way that I think about how to interact with people, how to try to bring a little bit of joy into my interactions, into the workplace. Yeah. We have 2 big corporate values. We talk about kindness and excellence. And I don’t always get it right by any stretch of imagination, but I hope that I make an effort to try and treat people well internally and externally. I The say, hopefully, I’m generous of my time. But all those little snippets of, how we interact with people. And my business is almost entirely based around human interactions.

You know, it’s a consulting business. We don’t, we don’t make anything. Our assets are our people, and they choose to come back into the office each day or not. And so I’d hope those interactions with with people, you know, not only talk about it all all day every day, but, my Christian faith slipped out through through that.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. I think it’s, it’s a very interesting The. Right? Because some people might argue that, you know, does entrepreneurship and being a Christian, are they really like you know, should they be mixed? There’s certainly no there’s certainly a strand of of Christianity, you know, of spirituality, you know, that would say, let’s just leave business aside, let’s focus on other things. How have you could have have you had to reconcile that yourself? Or have it actually been, like, a really easy kind of integration of those parts of your life?

Logan Naidu
There’s 2 there’s 2 strands to that. I think that first bit, you know, PARC and doing maybe morally what’s the right thing, It’s probably quite 1980s, early 1990s way of doing business. Right. And thankfully, I think we have not, not fully, but to a, you know, to a larger extent moved on from that very hard nosed, you know, capitalism at all costs way of thinking about business. And so, you know, whether it’s an ESG agenda or a staff culture and morale, agenda and retention attrition, I think a lot of this is, is probably, you know, been, you know, allows me as a Christian to kind of implement some of these things with a lens with a lens of faith. But they’re they’re generally being good things for businesses and for the world anyway. Right? And so, whatever’s been driving that Rivendell. And I’d say that a lot of, I would say, a lot of the good things that have been borne about are, you know, very Christian things, actually, the way we look at, looking after the planet or trying to treat people equally or looking after our staff. I think, you know, there’s I think The some of these things are actually conceptually quite easy The get your head around. Then you get into the kind of practical part of implementing it and doing it, which was the second strand, which I think is incredibly hard, right, because you only have to spend one day looking at your own heart and your own interactions with people and your family, your wife, your kids, and how hard it is to act consistently and patiently and lovingly towards the people that you hold nearest and dearest to you to to realize The, I mean, consistency of of thought, word, and deed is is nigh on impossible. So, I think that those two strands run-in parallel. 1 is aspirationally, who do we hope to The? And secondly, who are we in practice? I hope they’re kind of going vaguely in parallel, but one’s probably a straight line and one probably undulates more more, more than it ought to.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Well, thank you for being honest. Yeah. As you’re as you’re starting to speak, I was thinking about this dilemma as well, right, which is, that kind of tension, that discomfort in these kind of conversations that I was feeling, thinking, well, you know, I’m certainly not saying The I’m intrinsically better than somebody else with a different set of beliefs. And, you know, we probably know both know many people who don’t have the same faith, who who act in a really, you know, create an amazing way. And yet, like, there is this but the kind of the demands of of faith can, you know, put this bar in our minds, which then we’re really clear when we don’t meet the bar as well. Right? When we we can see the gap between what we know what we’re called to and perhaps what we’ve managed to achieve. And yet there’s that motivation to kinda get back on the wagon, and get there.

I mean, for me, it showed up in my own business, I think, by, in 2 areas. I think The is around fear because I think there’s, like, a question of fear versus faith. I mean, other people might call it scarcity thinking versus abundance thinking. Right? But there’s this question of, am I gonna stay within the zone that feels safe and that I feel is manageable versus step into, I guess, what I would say is my calling. Right? Step into the things which I feel I need I should be doing, the impact I wanna make in the world. I think that’s one part for me. And then the other part is around, around, I guess, love. Right? Like, how do I for example, I had a moment with my own clients.

How do I help them understand that I really love The? I have their back. I’m not just there to add value, but I’m also there to care. And for me, that was another key area. But I suppose it’s just I’m just explaining this from my own side just because I think there’s always a wrestling of The are my values, and now how do I actually implement them in the day to day?

Logan Naidu
Yeah. And I think everyone, if they examine their heart, has that tension. Right? Who who am I and who do I aspire to be? And again, to use kind of very modern parlance, The, that journey that we’re on is a journey of age. You know, we, you know, is about maturity. But you’ve got to you’ve got to embrace it. And it doesn’t happen in a straight line. Like anyone that’s trying to achieve anything realises that this doesn’t, this doesn’t happen in a straight straight line. So, you know, I might have a view on how do I grow as a Christian and as a business leader and as a father and husband as well and a son, Right? You know, it’s, you know, the motivation of my my mother changes now as she gets older, all all these all these things, they’re all part of the journey, and they’re very rarely static.

And I also don’t think that it’s about constantly going forwards, right? Sometimes you’re going to go, you know, go backwards and you won’t understand, understand why. You know, so I think all the, there are these different situations, but I think The, you can look back on where you were as the person that you asked me at the beginning. How, you know, what’s, what’s that journey been like? And I guess as a 21 year old entering the workplace, and I look back on the way I acted as a very mature 21 year old and a very mature question as a 21 year old versus how I think I am today. There’s probably a lot more self control, both emotional and, and, you know, the way I can probably handle myself as a coming up to 46 year old versus a, as a 21, 22 year old, you’d hope that you can handle yourself better. You might not have all the energy you had in your 20s, but probably spoke hopefully some well earned wisdom along the way that enables you to to act differently or or more thoughtfully.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. So so let’s kinda jump in a bit deeper into the into the business journey. One thing I know is that you well, in The conversation, you talked a lot about what you said earlier on The in your business of consulting and and recruitment, you have your people or your asset. Right? I mean, it’s you don’t have a massive technology platform or factories or whatever else it is to rely on. It is people. And also in the customer side of things, you’ve created what we can describe an army of fans.

Right? You have a really, really high net promoter store score. You’ve really put a lot of effort into having what you call fans and not customers. And so Pat’s just gonna talk a bit about how these how these things kinda play together, Because somehow, whatever you’re doing on those two sides, the employee side and the customer side, something’s working because you’ve you’ve seen such amazing growth in the business. So how would you kind of articulate what what worked, as you build these businesses?

Logan Naidu
Yeah. It’s quite I mean, this is this is one of the things I gave a little bit of thought to. How do how do these two things entwine? And I don’t think I don’t think it’s too much of a a reach. Right? So my faith is about being a follower of of of someone and our business is about building networks of people. Right? And, you know, we FUDspans dot customers has been our our tagline from pretty much the beginning. How do you build out something where people feel passionately, about a service and you wow them with that service when, you know, let’s be honest, recruitment is is not up there with every mother’s, or father’s wish list of how my kids become a recruitment consultants. And my son’s my son’s, at The story of dawning, realizing he’s 13, had this big realization the other day that, I’m only 1 rung above estate agents, as his mother told, and he could see the shock horror on his face The that might this actually be true. I think it’s part of those one of those early glimpses when you start to these hero spaces in your son’s in your son’s mind.

But I was thinking The we, you know, we start this business. How do you recapture and reframe this? Because I do think fundamentally what we do is, is actually fairly important as an industry. You know, The, I think there are probably 3 really big decisions that people are faced with, in in life. You know, 1, if you have a faith, who or what do you follow, but we all follow someone or something. 2, who do I spend the rest of my life with?

And most people have that thought process, not a point that most people do. And then 3, what am I going to do with as a job?

And that third bit is the bit that we probably spend more time doing day in, day out than anything else. Right. It could affect the other 2. So, you know, as we’re building this business, I think starts to think about, how do we make sure that our service wows people? And a lot of it is is going out. You have doing all the things that you say you’re gonna do, which with broadly hygiene factors, and one of the reasons why the industry has a allows The reputation is because people do cut corners and because they’re busy. That’s kind of fairly, that’s forgivable. But also sometimes you forget that there’s a human on the other side who’s wondering, how their job search or processes is going. So doing all the hygiene factors, but, yeah, going out of the way to be helpful and useful repeatedly over and over and over again.

And on a very small basis. I remember when I started out in this industry, my view is that I was dealing with fairly junior candidates at that point. And I thought, well, if I meet 6 to 8 people a day and they’re all living with 1 housemate, because back in your twenties, you’re all in house shares. And they go home and say, I had a really interesting conversation with someone who was really helpful. You’re individually building a network and times 2 every day, right? So I’ll be 6 to 8 people out there comes 12 to 16 do that repeatedly. Do the maths over 3 or 4 years. You’ve got a network of 6, 7000 people. How can you instill that as a culture within the organization? The that’s what we do day in, day out.

And try not to think about things as just a series of short, sharp transactions, but, mechanism by which you’re building a lasting relationship that will stand the test of time. And our best people and the best parts of this business are where clients and candidates have become intertwined and will use us over the years time and time again, where people will say, you know, I’ve got to call you because I’ve got to ask this question about my career. Is it the right thing to do? And we’re not viewing The as a transaction, but can we give someone some long lasting, good sage advice? And

Richard Medcalf
So let me just ask you here because it sounds like it sounds really simple. Right? It’s, you know, like, just, like, don’t cut corners and be useful to people. It’s beautifully simple. Like, why don’t more people, like, why don’t more people do it? Like, what’s what’s actually why is it so rare? Because it sounds so basic.

Logan Naidu
It is basic. Right? It’s it’s conceptually so easy to to to to understand. And our business has been built. You know, a lot of our success has been built on that. And so, you you know, when people say, what’s the playbook for building this business? You can say, I could give you the playbook, but the execution is so difficult. You know, it’s it’s it’s so I think why is it why is it difficult? Because we go back to, I guess, partly the condition of the human heart. Right? By by our nature, we wanna cut corners. And by our nature, we don’t always do what we say we’re gonna do.

And so, you know, what what makes it difficult? And then I think you start to lose sight. As you get bigger, you can you can start to lose sight of what, you know, what The the business special. You know? And that is definitely a pain point as I look at size and scale of our businesses today. How do you instill this idea that, you know, to use a, an Amazon quote every day is day 1. Right? You kind of restart to have that hunger of a startup over and over and over again. When you kind of know that actually the phone will ring and clients will call in and candidates will call you, but it’s a privilege. Right? I think it’s an absolute privilege to be having those conversations. Don’t take it for granted because they can take their work, and questions elsewhere to someone that’s gonna gonna be more interested.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. It’s it’s really interesting, isn’t it? Because often we look for this super secret strategy and super complicated thing, and, actually, what you’re saying is you build a business on a very simple principle of customer service.

Logan Naidu
Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s it’s and, yeah, it’s and and we’re all wowed by it. Right? Regardless, you can go into a shop or a restaurant and have great service, and they all do the same thing. There’s one of the things that I’ve got 2 prets really close by. So it’s sort of maybe a kind of like a crass analogy, but I’ve got 2 prets really close by. I mean, go to to both. 1, the guys you you walk in, you feel great when you come out. Right? They always say hello to you.

The know what you’re gonna order. The other one always feels like you’re just you’re just a nuisance. And I know that we’ve we’ve I’ve I prefer to to go to and that’s, you know, it’s a commodity. Right? You’re picking up a cup of coffee from, I don’t know, Harry press store. I wanted the 6, 700 press that exist in in in the UK, and yet one I actually look forward to getting a coffee from.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. So how how have you, how have you embedded that? How did you audit how did you embed that ethos in the business? Because it’s very well when you’re doing it, when you’re like a lone recruiter. But when you do start to have a team, you know, were there specific moments of truth that you’d ask people to really focus on? Or, you know, how how far do you did you want people to be helpful? Right? I mean, how do you kinda help define that? Was was there any guideline?

Logan Naidu
Yeah. Because at the end of the day, we still get paid to to to transact. I think, again, culture is so nebulous, but I think broadly our our culture has been we talk about a culture of, care and kindness and excellence. And I like to lead on excellence usually. We wanna be really good at this. Right? And one of the markers of The is is a revenue number, right, in any consulting profession is productivity. But the NPS score is probably the thing that I’ve been most proud of when we we took The snapshot. It was last done by formally by B2G in 20 20 3.

And they said at the time that this NPS score is so unusually high that it’s almost unbelievable. You guys did The you guys did the the the the work. So we’ll we’ll take it. We’ll take that on face value. The it’s one of my proudest moments. If all the things that we’ve achieved along the way, it’s like, you know, you’ve got you fill an army and The not casting people. Jamie, these guys stand out in a highly commoditized market, and a very well broke market. How do you stand out? You stand out with daily interactions and you know, how do we make sure that that journey carries on? I think you’re it’s almost like a tribal mentality of passing The best on generation after generation.

Yeah. How do you hardwire that into, a workforce that gets further and further away from your starting point of where we were 11 11 years ago. And I think you do it through how you score your staff. So it’s more the formal stuff around process and 3 sixties and NPS scores and, getting feedback from people. I think you also did through a lot of the softer stuff through the rituals of telling people stories, sharing the anecdotes, sharing the wins. I think, again, in our industry, people really focus on revenue generated. I’m much more interested, or I should say probably as interested in hearing about the the stories of a client calling me up and saying, can I just say the service we just have from x? I don’t know if you know who they are, but that blew our minds. And I really like that.

There’s a lovely story I have from a guy that was being a client from an early stage, and he wrote he’s a very, very busy fund manager, and he wrote a lovely little anecdote saying, just wanna give a shout out to X consultants. I don’t know if you know this, but we have a tiered beat agreement with you that we actually, you know, we’ve hired a candidate who said that she took an entire Sunday out to brief them. He said that’s pretty impressive. What’s even more impressive is we have a The agreement where we all pay you less if we hire a direct candidate, and this was a direct candidate. And he said that just really stands out as people were going above and beyond. Now, sometimes The say hugely on commercial. Why are you doing that? I think I’m rightfully proud of that. I think that’s brilliant.

Richard Medcalf
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Yeah. Yeah. I love it. So, yeah, so going back to this theme of followership, So what I’m hearing is is within the company, there’s a whole task of, yeah, yeah, of the culture, right, we’ve just been talking about. And, so what but also, I guess it’s the same. Right? The culture is extended outside. I mean, it’s two sides of the same coin, potentially, right, with the the internal culture and the external culture, the client experience. Right? Because service is at the heart of it.

Is there anything that you say is different, like things you try to do differently internally? Yeah. So the option the distinction between branding on one hand and kind of internal Multiplier, normally, they should align as much as possible. But I’m wondering kind of, like, do you kind of see do you see things differently in any way? Do you focus somehow, Yeah. When you’re thinking about building The, getting that NPS score really high, are there other things that you would do that are not directly based on the culture of the company, if that makes sense? Like, are The different initiatives, or is it kind of just The holistic plan?

Logan Naidu
No. I think there are we need to build a brand and to build followership. I think there are lots of things you you can do to because your point is incredibly Impact in some ways. Right? Do do what you say you’re going to do and and do lots of it. We do all the usual stuff. Right? We’ll put out some full pieces. We’ll do forums to help build affinity to the brand. I think The trying to do it in a really thoughtful, more strategic, less tactical I and there’s an awful lot of noise and, you know, marketing, I think, again, in lots of services sectors, highly commoditized.

Right? If you take a good example, nearly every recruitment will put out a bonus survey. Right? Often The market and they The they The work in. And I think that there’s a rush to get it out. Right? Now when we started doing this, it wasn’t my idea. It was a guy called Richard’s idea, and he said, let’s make sure this becomes the industry benchmark. And, yeah, we put a lot of time, thought, money and resources into making sure that this is as thorough as it can be. We get way more data points, and we refuse to put it out until we’ve got a set number of data points per bank, per level that we’ve got reasonable confidence The this bonus sort of has integrity when we put it out. And I know from talking to our clients The, you know, lots of bonus surveys will come out sooner, which are broadly indicative of what’s going on, The people will wait for us because that’s either the benchmark or this is the one you can trust.

And some clients now pay for it. You know, it gets a reasonable amount of press coverage, but something as simple as that bonus survey, which everyone does, how do you make sure it becomes the benchmark? And, I think, yeah, you try and do that and if you try to do it on every aspect that you touch upon. Right? So I think, I mean, the people that do this always pirate slots with Apple, right? The care that they put into the the packaging. When you open an Apple products, the way it slides out and, you know, it’s a marvel. Right? It they’ve timed in and worked out. How how long do we want it to take to come out of the box? What are we on the box? How is it packaged? It is beautiful. You know, you’re buying an Apple product. And that whole aura and mystique The you get around opening an Apple product.

I kind of want to try and build that into into what we do. You know, you could take a telephone call, and it could be very casual, or you’re taking a call and, you know, you’re gonna get someone completely dialed in for 30 minutes on to a year of what you wanna achieve. It gets harder as you get bigger, right, because you definitely frame the edges. The to your point, how do you how do you make sure I think you’ve got to shine a light on the good stuff and make sure those are your heroes, and you champion that consistently. And I think, again, in our industry, you know, who gets a light shone upon The? It’s usually the top pillars. The top pillars get all the accolades. I’m probably most interested in the top managers, and the people that are going out of their way to to help help build that Fastned. Customer base.

They typically are actually your best producers as well.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Why is that, do you think?

Logan Naidu
Because they’re not cutting corners. They care. Right? And the people that care are the ones that are probably still going to be here in 10 years’ time and the ones that we want to keep, you know, over over 10 years’ time. I think that it’s it’s a little thing. Right? I always notice The. When you go to our bathrooms, you can have an attitude of, you know, the cleaner will come and clean up after me. And I see some people taking towels and wiping down The surface after washing their hands, which I always do, because it takes you 3 seconds, right? You’re gonna throw the paper towel away anyway. And I really like I really like The.

But you can see that this is my workplace, and I care about it. And you’ve got others. Well, that’s someone else’s job.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Yeah. I think this this point of not cutting corners, I think, is is really, you know, a key phrase of yours. Right? You said it in all these different areas. And, you know, the industry benchmark, you know, with the survey that you did, again, you didn’t cut the corners. Right? You you went to the next level. So presumably, this means that you you can do fewer things. Right? So there must be a trade off.

Right? If you bring quality, go the extra mile on some of these tasks or areas, there must be a sacrifice somewhere that occurs or trade off. So what is that? Did it lead you to do fewer things, but they’re better? Or is it how how do you see that?

Logan Naidu
Yeah. I mean, you’ve you’re I’m guessing you’re probably expert on this, right, in terms of coaching and, you know, how do people have multiply their impact? I don’t I don’t I don’t know. Incredibly if I’m wrong, but my view is that if you do fewer things, as an a star, but do them really well and then hit repeat, has a greater impact than than doing lots of things as a c minus.

Richard Medcalf
Well, even actually an a, if I’m honest.

Logan Naidu
Yeah. You know? And I kind of I think I take that approach to maybe intuitively, but, in, in most aspects of life, like I I’ve reduced my life down into probably 3 or 4 component parts, right? The is work, friends, church, family. And, you know, hopefully don’t don’t just so we go in that order in terms of priorities, but yeah, within within work, how do I, you know, I’ve I’ve definitely spent times where I’ve been a busy fool running around like I had this chicken playing whack a mole, and, and you’re doing a lot just to standstill. And over time, we talked about wisdom The in the beginning. How do you find some self control to really focus on the big levers that can have the greatest Impact? And a lot of that is people would say, oh, you stopped caring. It’s not about not caring. It’s about really understanding where can I have Impact, and what’s gonna make the biggest difference? You know, similar to you know, I don’t.

Richard Medcalf
Well, actually, actually, you didn’t really just point. There’s this point about that whole point. Stop caring. It’s like people that holds people back so much because they feel, yeah, if I stop doing things, then peep I’m gonna be letting people down and so forth. So that’s why in my book, making time for strategy, the I stands for influence because we often need to renegotiate, our expectations or or the expectations of people around us. Because, actually, if we really get in touch with our greatest contribution, then we are gonna have to have conversations saying, look. This thing I used to do, it’s not my greatest service, actually, point. And so it’s not yeah.

It it can feel like I’m gonna be letting people down. But, actually, if you take the bigger picture when you zoom out, you’re actually making the biggest contribution by doing this. I just wanted to pick up on that because I think that people are I’m well, I’m I’m I’m glad we’re aligned on that.

Logan Naidu
Yeah. Because it makes it makes perfect sense. Again, conceptually, one of those things that’s easy to understand, hard to implement. Yeah. And I think I’ve tried to apply that to, you know, my wife would say that I’m, I like routine or actually say that you live a very ordered life. And I think that’s probably quite The. And there’s some discipline to that, but I’ve got blocks that, you know, I make sure I have time to exercise every day because I don’t exercise.

I don’t feel good at myself. Right? So I’ll call that time to exercise. You know, I wake up, and The we’re earlier than I’d like to in the morning because I get older and as I’m a man, I need to stretch in the morning. Right? So I’ll do my stretch and I make sure that I read every day. And it’s kind of hardwired that I’ll read 20 pages of a book every single day. You know, there are little things The, you know, that I would you know, hardwire and say to enable that to happen, what do I have to cut out, right? I have to cut out watching TV. I don’t watch an awful lot of TV. Probably, I don’t enjoy it much, but, you know, it’s also I won’t remember it.

I don’t think it has any lasting Impact. So I find other ways to relax. So, you know, and it’s not that I’m a machine. I just think that’s that slight discipline Multiplier to how do I spend spend my time and what what’s what’s going to create you up because the The. I still try and find time to to socialize. Right? I like I like having a drink. I love food that much, but I like catching up with friends. And I think I’m fairly deliberate on how frequently and how and when I’ll do it.

What it doesn’t allow me to do is drop everything at, drop a pen and say, let’s let’s go to the pub tonight. Right? Because I’ve probably got it pre planned from, you know, 3 months later. So there’s a catch. There is The is a catch to it as well, but that’s the bit when you think about what we talked about, right? Wisdom, hard game as you get older. When I was 21, my early twenties like everyone, tons of energy, but tons of wasted energy running around town, doing all sorts of things. And as you get older, one of The plus points is gonna be slightly better, and she’s hoping you gain some wisdom to how to use it.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I found The this well, as as you you know, one of the things I well, how I spend my days, really, is helping entrepreneurs and CEOs really raise their game to go for the thing which right now feels impossible for The. Because they’re already successful, but they’re at a certain level. And the big shifts, and that’s why I write the book, I guess, and one of the original shifts is you’re gonna have to let go of a lot of things and to create space for fewer things that are gonna be more impactful. And that’s why often people think, oh, the next level is gonna be I don’t wanna go anymore because I’m already burnt out.

I’m already working hard. Right? But, the paradox, I think, is that the when you let go of the noise, you focus on a few things The can become simpler to have the impact that you want. And speaking somebody, you know, most the problem is most leaders, including myself, had no how to be really productive, right, and can do a lot of things and have the capacity to do a lot of things. And enjoy it intellectually often. And so it’s quite a visceral process sometimes of having to go, you know what? Like, let’s do the few things which are simple. It might be quite hard because they might represent a new level of things we haven’t done before. But I’m gonna open the door to the next, next realm. And it can be hard because we we know we’re very, very good at a large number of things, and we could be quite easily adding value in all those areas.

Logan Naidu
So, I think it’s a scary place to be, isn’t it? You’re you’re coaching people to have a bit of, you know, white space to allow them to think. And most of us achieve something, have have gotten there by working hard and being busy. You know, we train people to be busy, just do more. And and the more you do, the more successful you’ll get. And then you do run out of road. Right? How much more can I can I keep doing? And it’s exhausting. And I’ve definitely been there. I’ve been at the point where I was like, I physically cannot work any harder.

Right? And I I feel terrible. And you’re not in CEO, what The call a state of flow. You’re not really enjoying it. Right? You’re really busy. Your cortisol is absolutely pumping through your body, which your body loves. And that fear of fat is when you turn off the cortisol, you are fried. And being able to stop, pause, take a step back, and assess the landscape, and then go again, I think is really, really powerful. You know, the kind of football analogy.

You look at the best footballers, and they seem to have so much time on the ball. Right? And you look at it and go, well, you’re playing the same game, but you don’t look hurried. I think I’m still thinking of The. And it’s and it’s beautiful to watch. Right? And I and I I’m guessing that you’ve got, you know, I’ve got definitely worked with CEOs or leaders that look fried all the time and frenzied and busy and running around. And yet, you look at the way the business and The moving forwards, it’s by inches. And I’ve got people The look like they’re never hurried, and yet they’re taking leaps and bounds forwards. It’s incredible to see.

Richard Medcalf
Well, that’s actually yeah. It’s it’s a beautiful point. The the yeah. I always spend a lot of time talking with CEOs and entrepreneurs, and I find that the most successful ones are the ones who are prepared, you know, who take the most time in things which are outside of their so called focus. Right? So what I mean is that, sometimes people will say, I’m just I’m just too busy right now. I’m just, you know, I got my goals. I’m just really busy and focused in. I’m driving.

All I mean is I’m too busy to have, like, this potential moment of serendipity or insight. Right? It’s like the guy in the you know that YouTube video where they pass round the basketball between the 2 basketball teams, and there’s a guy in The gorilla suit that walks through the meet. Right?

Logan Naidu
Yeah. Yeah. We we used that last week. Yeah.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. And, basically, people are so focused so often on all the things that are going on. They don’t see the first thing in the gorilla suit walking through the match. And and I think that’s kind of where The, you know, the more successful people actually have trained themselves to observe the bigger picture. Right? Get out of the get out of their little productivity tunnel, in fact.

Logan Naidu
Yeah. Yeah. And The I mean, I always think that they they tend to be the most impressive machines to have such poise. And they probably yeah. I’ve I’ve definitely had, one former investor. You’d only ever get 15 minutes, but in 15 minutes, you’re absolutely locked on. You’ve got your attention, and you’re very carefully without even noticing we’ve we’ve moved on. But, you know, is it supremely efficient at going from The conversation to another, zoning on that conversation, and and moving on others.

It’s it’s a very impressive, thing to to be confident to watch when you live up on it.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Beautiful. So, Logan, 2 questions I love to perhaps use to wrap up with this, which is, The first is what’s it look like for you, for the for the business, for you, for the business to multiply your Impact, over the coming years? Like what what what would you love to see happen over the next 2 or 3 years?

Logan Naidu
Like, no. I’d like I’d like us to grow. We’ve got a growth imperative because we are p backed, So we have an onus to external shareholders. I think we’ve also I think there’s a wider market opportunity. Right? If I go back to that point that I think talking about one’s career, helping people find the right jobs, helping people find the right staff is a huge driver for progress as a as a human race, and that’s us playing our part in it. And I think The, given what we talked about how it’s done badly in lots of instances, you know, our own is to make sure we go out and help people do it in a better way. And then the third thing is our own is to our our shareholder insight, our staff and colleagues. Right? How do I enable those people to grow and flourish within the organisation? That’s a huge driver for me.

I really, really enjoy seeing people go in and achieve things they didn’t think they could do internally. And you have stories of that happening in the business. It doesn’t it definitely doesn’t happen in a straight line. Right? You see people undulate and plateau and then shoot up again. And it requires an enormous amount of patience and different ways of unlocking that talent internally. But if we keep doing that, then, yeah, we’ll keep building an army of 1000 customers and the business business will grow. And I’ve I just like you know, outside of an EBITDA number, I’d like people to look back on this business again. They did it differently.

You know, it was against the grain of what the usual recruitment firm looked like in our, you know, in our industry, but, there was something you know, people always yeah. Your point was the magic sauce. There’s nothing magic about it. It’s doing basic really well.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. And the last question then is, what might your next level be? So how might you need to level up, change the way you operate, change the way that you lead to see your current colleagues flourish even more, to to release new level of growth in the business. I always believe that there’s no business transformation without personal transformation. So what comes to mind as I say that? What might be a, an edge for you to lean into?

Logan Naidu
That’s a great question. Probably not The I’m prepared for. I I think that the journey for me has been one of being able to help grow others and growing with them. Like, we had a good group of people that started this business in 2012. We’ve grown up together. We’ve all changed and developed, at different rates and in different ways. You know, we’ve seen some people wear the lights out. You know, or Theo Dartmouth joined as a graduate, and has shot the lights out.

We won’t all develop at The at that rate, but I think that the you know, go back to we don’t have any assets apart from our people. You know, my journey’s inherently entwined with everyone else’s. The quicker that I can grow and develop and create more space, the quicker others can as well. And so we’ll do that in box that would over the next next next few years.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. So doing it together doing it together, seeing what they need, and seeing how you, yeah, how you change. Well, hey. Lovely. It’s been great. It’s been a pleasure to speak with you today. I’ve loved the fact we’ve gone really deep.

We’ve gone into matters of of faith. We’ve gone into, culture. We’ve gone into, you know, really just the standards of excellence and, you know, raising the bar. Right. Perhaps having fewer things, but raising the bar on those so that they they stand out. Right? Whether it’s your NPS score that kind of goes off the charts, whether it’s, you know, a survey that is actually becomes the industry standard because of its rigor and attention to detail. I think what I’m hearing is The story of these bricks being put in place, and a real lot of attention being placed on each component of the business. Are we delivering at a level which is gonna be remarkable? And once you have enough of those remarkable things in place, whether they’re interactual interactions with customers or, cultural building blocks or marketing assets, whatever it is, then those things start to really pay off and compound on each other, which presumably is what’s happened in your business, and why you’ve seen the growth that you have.

So, wanna wish you all the best, and, we look forward to following along on this. If you wanna find out about you or about the business, you know, where do they go to do that?

Logan Naidu
Probably have a look at our websites or LinkedIn. So, www.kernalhyphenglobal.com has my bio and a link to my LinkedIn, and my email address.

Richard Medcalf
Perfect. Well, I’ll put that into the show notes. And, hey, look, it’s been great, speaking with you, and look forward to following along on the next chapter.

Logan Naidu
Thanks, Richard. Really enjoyed it. Bye bye.

Richard Medcalf
Well, that’s a wrap. If you received value from this conversation, please do leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. We The appreciate it. And if you’d like to check out the show notes from this episode, head to Xquadrant com/podcast, where you’ll find all the details. Now, finally, when you’re in top leadership, who supports and challenges you at a deep level to help you multiply your impact? Discover more about the different ways we can support you at xquadrant.com.