I gave a presentation to the 2015 International Clean Conference on our use of Clean Language and Systemic Modelling at Amphora

1. Clean Business
Simon Coles
CEO and co-founder, Amphora Research Systems
simon.coles@amphora-research.com

2. This Presentation
Will be on my web site on Monday
Provided under Creative Commons “Attribution Share Alike”
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
(“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”)

3. Clean in Business
• About me
• My problem
• My journey
• What we do now
• The Impact
• Anecdotes
3

4. About Me
• Co-founder and CEO of Amphora Research Systems
• I realised that building the company was more
interesting than running it
• Now
• 50% time on Amphora
• 50% time on helping other people do what I did
• Just started. Not sure what will happen
• Better than taking up golf
4

5. My Company
• Niche software company focusing on Record
Keeping software for R&D Scientists
• Privately held, bootstrapped (no external finance)
• Over 12 years old, profitable, no debt
• Customers all over the world, mostly in North
America and Europe
• One of the few (the only?) surviving early vendors
in this space
5

6. My job, as a CEO/Founder
• Codify the “special sauce” that led to the
company’s founding, in way that others can do it
• Construct a company that can execute the special
sauce sustainably and profitably
• Create a culture which creates more “sauce”
• Build a life for myself, which includes an
environment I’m excited to work in
6

7. The Results
• This isn’t my normal style, but for completeness…
• Revenue per employee well above industry norms
• Cashflow stable for the foreseeable future
• I don’t really have to do much except manage the
culture
• Sick days almost non-existent - apparently a key
morale indicator
• Most people who have left want to come back
7

8. Clean in Business
• About me
• My problem
• My journey
• What we do now
• The Impact
• Anecdotes
8

9. My Problem
• Too many entrepreneurs aren’t
• They just build themselves a job
• Rather than a company
• “Work on the business not in the Business” - “The E-
Myth” and others
• So many people end up trapped
• Worse than being an employee
• All your assets in a job
• You die a little bit every time you walk in the door
9

10. More Problems
• My business is software
• We don’t have many “things”
• It is all about people, how we work together, and how we interact
with the world
• Success criteria
• Employee engagement
• Collaboration
• Productivity
• Creativity
• Sales
• Passion
10

11. http://ThePsychicCEO.com
“Apprenticeship Patterns” by Dave Hoover and Adewale Oshineye
“Software development is composed of two
primary activities: learning and
communication.”
11

12. Question to Ponder
• There’s plenty of conventional wisdom about
optimising thing-based companies
• (Lean, Six Sigma, accounting, ERP, etc.)
• I’ve had sustained almost aggressive criticism from
business coaches for spending what I have on
optimising my people-based business
• The business world is so screwed up!
• There’s sustainable competitive advantage…
12

13. Clean in Business
• About me
• My problem
• My journey
• What we do now
• The Impact
• Anecdotes
13

14. The Journey
• I was working at New Information Paradigms (NIP)
• One of the team involved in Caitlin Walker's first
Clean in Business project
• There are videos around of a very young me!
• At the time I was running a division which became
Amphora
14

15. I’m in Chapter 3…
(I’m almost famous!)
• The NIP work is written up in
Caitlin’s book
• In it, I developed a metaphor
for our product
• Really helped us identify the
adoption and architectural
issues inherent in this new
market
• Useful both internally and also
for external discussions
• Still relevant to us
15
From “Contempt to Curiosity” by Caitlin
Walker

16. Many Years Later
• Many years later, I'm running Amphora
• Needed to get other people to do what I did in the
sales process
• I’d realised I’d been doing Clean all along
• Clean for the Sales people
16

17. Kept Going
• Clean was hugely useful in the sales process
• Started to be used elsewhere
• Then we got into Neuro Profiling/Diversity
• Just because it was interesting
• Turned out to be really interesting
17

18. A Note on Part Timers
• There’s a lot of talent out there that also has family responsibilities
• Advertise a job with flexibly school hours working and you get
them queuing at the door
• Works well for us as we’re very international
• It isn’t just about the hours
• Understand the stresses and strains, encourage discussion
about family issues in the culture
• Watch for confidence issues, “Baby brain” for returnees
• Ensure they aren’t disenfranchised (easy with today’s gadgets)
• Having a Clean Culture really helps resolve any issues caused by
part time work
18

19. Clean in Business
• About me
• My problem
• My journey
• What we do now
• The Impact
• Anecdotes
19

20. What we do now
• 4-legged stool of sustaining activities
• All mutually reinforcing
• Will focus on the 3 Clean-related ones
20

21. 4-Legged Stool
• Clean Language
• Neurodiversity
• Life Coaching (now Clean-based)
• The Essence Foundation Course
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22. Essence Foundation
• Not really part of the Clean world
• 3-day weekend in London (and other cities)
• Nice introduction to self improvement
• Can be transformative for people
• Very useful when everyone in the company has been through the
same process
• Helps people become
• Comfortable in their own skin
• Much more open
• More aware and respectful of others’ internal world
• http://essence-foundation.com/
22

23. Life Coaching
• Been doing it for about 6 years now
• Before we re-introduced Clean
• Helped us bring Clean-based initiatives in
• Available to everyone
• Confidential, any subject
• Hugely useful, but unquantifiable!
• Have recently switched to Clean coaching
• With Marian Way
• Seems to be more powerful than normal coaching
• Using Clean in this context has benefits elsewhere
23

24. Neuroprofiling
• We started to get interested in how people’s brains
work
• Turns out this is fascinating, and hugely important
• Working with Caitlin and colleagues we
• Gave everyone an IQ test and produced a profile
• Used that to explore how individuals can work at
their best
• And how the rest of us can help
24

25. Neuroprofiling
• Turns out that everyone is different, especially
when you have different professions
• Hugely helpful for everyone
• Raises awareness when talking with external
parties as well
• Significant impact in software design,
documentation etc.
• Helps us be more productive, and more
harmonious
25

26. Neuroprofiling
• It is very common to have conversations about our
various strengths and weaknesses
• We can spot it in other’s too
• Tellingly, there’s a real push to profile new starters
as quickly as possible (from both sides)
26

27. Unexpected Stuff
• When you are using your brain in the way that is most natural
you have a lot more fun
• Asking someone to do something in their “Neuro sweet spot” is
like asking them to be paid to do their hobby
• It’s no burden to swap activities between people
• e.g.
• Some people love organising stuff, get real pleasure out of
bringing order to chaos
• Some people really enjoy reading and summarising
• Some people love finding the one number that’s out of whack
in a spreadsheet of financial detail
27

28. Q: Risk of people being
typecast
• When we Neuroprofiled people, was there a risk of them then being
defined by their profile, and restricted in what roles/tasks they perform?
• Answer: Not really
• Everyone is in the right jobs, they are all well qualified and
performing well
• This is about understanding ourselves and each other better
• The Neuroprofile doesn’t really tell you what someone’s real-world
capability is, more how they use their brain to get it
• With this knowledge, we can easily help them be more effective and
happy with small little changes
• If you want to know what someone is capable of… look at what they
do in the real world!
28

29. Q: Example outcomes of
Neuroprofiling
• Don’t give X big spreadsheets of lots of numbers
• Can easily understand the concepts, it is the presentation which
makes it hard
• Split into 3 less dense spreadsheets is much more digestible
• Don’t expect X to research and summarise large blocks of text. Y
is much better at that (and enjoys it).
• X’s Verbal is so high he really can talk, think 3 steps ahead, and
resolve the technical issue - at the same time. But don’t ask him to
read notes while doing it.
• Y really needs to pre-plan things because they can’t think on their
feet so well, but that means they are very insightful about strategy
etc.
29

30. Caution
• If you’re starting all this from scratch I’d do
Neuroprofiling last
• It needs Clean as an exploration tool
• It needs a Clean culture to ensure people are
treated with respect and curiosity
30

31. Clean at Amphora
• What we mean by Clean
• How we explicitly use Clean
• Everyday examples
31

32. What we mean by “Clean”
• We do Systemic Modelling - we’re about groups and teams
and common endeavours
• Sometimes Symbolic is relevant but we’re careful to
delineate
• Even a little bit of Clean is good
• Just respectful communication
• Sometimes we use structured tools
• "When you're working at your best..."
• "For this to go just as you'd like, you'd be..."
• Infused into the culture
32

33. Explicit use of Clean
• Anything where we need to be curious
• General rule is anyone can ask anything about
anything as long as it is phrased as a Clean
question
• This is a surprisingly powerful ground rule
• Keeps us curious (rather than in contempt)
• Excellent team working
33

34. Clean Setup
• “If this was to go just as you’d like…”
• Before any activity which involves more than one
person
• Sales meetings
• Interviews
• External meetings
• Really helps bring out a common understanding of
expectations, roles, etc.
34

35. Sales
• Sorting out sales is the key to growth and profitability
• We typically are in a complex sale (buying team needs to form)
• Selling something the prospect hasn’t bought before (we’re solving a latent
problem)
• Sales needs to guide prospects, rather than convince
• Help them understand their problem and company
• “Soft” sales approach
• We manage the business for the long term
• If we do the right thing by prospects and our customers they’ll reward
us
• This is a hard skill set and attitude to hire
• But it is paying off now, huge amount of referral activity
35

36. Clean in Sales
• I’ve always naturally used Clean in sales
• Did Clean before I every really did sales
• Didn’t know how to sell, so just talked to them
• Really very effective
• BUT only if your business culture supports it
• Most sales cultures are manipulative
36

37. Clean in Sales
• Train all the sales people in Clean
• Will sprinkle it in to the sales conversation, emails,
etc.
• We’ve also modelled me to understand what I do in
demos
37

38. Recruitment
• Recruitment is the hardest thing we do
• We’re not only trying to pick the right people
• Also trying to set the foundation for success going
forward
• Clean
• Is a tool during the interviews
• Is something we want to make sure they are happy
with
• We try and do everything in the Interview process that
might cause concern later
38

39. Recruitment Process
• Recruitment Consultant - screen
• First Interview - looking for attitude/values
• Second Interview - looking to simulate skills
• Onboarding
39

40. Recruitment Consultant
• We've finally found an excellent Recruitment
Consultant
• They actually meet us, and the candidates
• "I've met someone who would be really great for
you"
• Generally this industry is a cesspit - Austin Clark
are awesome
• We’ll interview anyone they recommend
40

41. First Interview
• 1 hour, with 2 of us
• We are looking for reasons to have them back for a 2nd interview
• And we’re also trying to put off people who won’t fit
• This is about the person and their attitude towards life (not skills)
• CV is sort of useful as a talking point ish
• We’ve had complaints - this is a feature, not a bug
• Clean Components
• Start out with
• “Why?”
• “If this interview would to go just as you’d like, it would be like what”
• Sprinkle Clean in as required - ~25% Clean Questions
41

42. Second Interview
• Looking to realistically test skills and attitudes
• Half a day
• Variety of exercises tailored to the job, and also the
candidate - what are we concerned about and
need to check?
• Want to set the foundation for a successful job
• Apparently our 2nd interviews are rather
unconventional
42

43. Second Interview
• Always done in the main office, and everyone has a
role (even if not visible)
• We’ll ask them “When you’re working at your best”
if not asked before
• We’ll give them a 5 minute introduction to Clean
• They will then ask someone “Amphora is like
what?”
• Plus some other job-specific exercises
43

44. Q: Example of Clean
Interactions
• Sales issue being discussed, a techie joins in the conversation
with a clean question which leads to a new product resolving the
sales issue
• Techies are excellent debuggers!
• Clean gives them a voice
• Manager makes an “opaque” decision which no one
understands
• Instead of allowing the confusion to continue, Clean Questions
deployed to challenge/clarify in a non-threatening way
• Turns out manager was unconsciously using a variety of
additional considerations in the decision
44

45. The Branding Project
• We hired a lady with proper marketing experience
• Realised we needed a rebrand
• Got a proper grown up agency in
• Did it the traditional way and got nowhere, results were
terrible
• Had Caitlin in for an emergency metaphor session
• Got more done in 45 minutes than 1 day with the traditional
approach
• I still re-watch that video to re-centre myself
45

46. Clean in Business
• About me
• My problem
• My journey
• What we do now
• The Impact
• Anecdotes
46

47. The Impact
• Culture
• Collaboration
• Sales
• Strategic competitive advantage
• Scale limitations?
47

48. Culture
• Huge amount of mutual respect
• Very enquiring, thoughtful culture
• People are open about personal issues which
might be affecting them, and understanding of
others
• Customers like us, which in turn increases morale
and makes my job as a manager easier
48

49. Culture
• Systemic Modelling prevents bitching
• I’m sure Clean experts can bitch Cleanly
• We can’t :-)
• People will point out when norms have been violated,
they’re quite attached to it
• Generally
• If you’ve got the right people
• If there’s some disagreement, that’s interesting
• Hidden in the disagreement is a valuable insight
49

50. Collaboration
• Lots of cross-discipline collaboration
• Even between roles where you wouldn’t expect it
• We can make lots of tradeoffs
• Sales problem solved with a technical fix
• Accounting issue resolved by a change in sales
practice
• This happens all the time, very quickly
• Lots and lots of discussions in the moment
• Very few “meetings”
50

51. Sales
• Very problematic working with “Experienced” sales
people
• But that’s OK because that skill set is declining in
effectiveness rapidly
• Prospects and customers really like working with us
• We get good customers - which makes supporting
them a pleasure - which makes running our support
department fun
51

52. Culture Beats Strategy
• Culture is the only long term competitive advantage
• It isn’t the technology you have, it is how you take
that to the world
• Our competitors can’t compete effectively because
they can’t copy our culture
• Clean underpins our culture
52

53. All in one Room
• We used to have remote staff
• We don’t any more
• Don’t need them (thanks to The Internet)
• We get huge amounts from everyone being in the
same place
• We do encourage remote working for work/life
balance reasons
53

54. Scale
• Having us all in one room won’t scale to large
numbers
• But that’s OK because we don’t need to
• Organisational design is for maximum 20 people
• That’s all we needed to exceed our wildest dreams
• So we just need to find the right 20 people, and
help them succeed
54

55. Clean in Business
• About me
• My problem
• My journey
• What we do now
• The Impact
• Anecdotes
55

56. Interesting Stuff
• External Consultants
• Families
• Some can’t handle it
56

57. External Consultants
• Won't use Clean, even when pre-warned/required
• This has happened more than 4 times already
• As a result
• Annoys everyone
• Get the wrong outcomes very slowly
• Fear this is unsolvable, so I'm starting my own
• Problem is most consultants have a business model built
on manipulation
57

58. Last Week
• Some tricky issues with an external consultant
• Showed how hard it was to work with someone who
hasn’t been Clean trained
• I intervened to ask the consultant some Clean
questions to break the dynamic
• Consultant was expecting me to be in command
mode and was rather put off when I wasn’t
• Interesting that’s the most tension we’ve had in the
office for years and years
58

59. Families
• Helped our family relationships
• e.g. your wife isn’t being obstinate, that’s how her
brain works (and vice versa!)
• Helped us be better parents
• More insight into how people learn
• More openness in allowing children to explore
how their brains work
• Clean questioning is excellent for talking with
Children
59

60. Some Can’t Handle it
• Clean creates a transparent, collaborative, healthy
culture
• The 3 other legs of the stool support that
• Some people have ways of getting on in the world
which can’t work in a Clean culture
• For some people the cultural gap between work
and home expectations causes friction
60

61. Summary
• Clean helped us clarify the product
• Clean helped us sell the product
• Clean helps us work together
• Neurodiversity helps us understand each other
• Neurodiversity helps us get the best from ourselves
and each other
• Regular Coaching settles everyone and helps
resolve issues before they become issues
61

62. Summary
• If you want a miserable workplace, avoid Clean
• If you want a happy, empowered, joyful workplace -
give everyone the gift of Clean Questioning
• If your company’s success is based on Knowledge
Worker productivity
• You’ll have a lot more fun
• You’ll probably make more money as well
62

63. Take Home
• I have tried lots of things to improve my business
• Ideas, consultants, advisors
• Most have been a waste of time
• Clean has been by far the most impactful and cost
effective of them all
• Plus, it has improved all our lives generally
• More than happy to tell other people this
63