Reboot002_Dont_Want_CEO Welcome to the Reboot podcast. I'm Dan Putt, one of the partners here at Reboot. I could not be more excited about this show. I've known Jerry for almost seven years now, and without a doubt, can say that my work with him has had a profound impact on my life. In this show, we're opening up the couching couch to the world, bringing everyone in on this conversation around this work. We're here to showcase the heart and soul of authentic leadership, and to inspire more open conversations around what we consider the most important part of entrepreneurship - the emotional struggle and hopefully opening up some heart along the way. We are extremely grateful that you have taken the time to be with us, and look forward to this journey ahead with you. Now, on to our conversation. The human self has a nature, limits as well as potential. If you seek vocation without understanding the material you are working with, what you build with your life will be ungainly and may well put lives in peril; your own, and some of those around you. Faking it in the service of high values, is no virtue and has nothing to do with vocation. It is an ignorant, sometimes arrogant attempt to override one's nature and it will always fail. Those words come from Parker Palmer in his book, 'Let Your Life Speak', which really is a Reboot favorite. Duncan Morris, by any measure, had achieved a great deal of Page 1 of 36
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What if I don't want to be CEO? With Jerry Colonna and Duncan Morris
Duncan Morris, by any measure, had achieved a great deal success as co-founder and CEO of the international, 60 employee, online marketing agency – Distilled.net. And yet, something always felt off for him. At our bootcamp in June he was touched and challenged by a question from Jerry: “What if you could truly understand who you are, and lead from that place?” In evaluating this question, a new question emerged for Duncan: “What if I don’t want to be a leader of a company with 60+ people?” In this conversation with Jerry, hear how exploring these questions has ultimately changed his work, his company, and his life
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Transcript
Reboot002_Dont_Want_CEO
Welcome to the Reboot podcast. I'm Dan Putt, one of the partners here at Reboot. I could not be
more excited about this show. I've known Jerry for almost seven years now, and without a doubt,
can say that my work with him has had a profound impact on my life. In this show, we're
opening up the couching couch to the world, bringing everyone in on this conversation around
this work. We're here to showcase the heart and soul of authentic leadership, and to inspire more
open conversations around what we consider the most important part of entrepreneurship - the
emotional struggle and hopefully opening up some heart along the way.
We are extremely grateful that you have taken the time to be with us, and look forward to this
journey ahead with you. Now, on to our conversation.
The human self has a nature, limits as well as potential. If you seek vocation without
understanding the material you are working with, what you build with your life will be ungainly
and may well put lives in peril; your own, and some of those around you. Faking it in the service
of high values, is no virtue and has nothing to do with vocation. It is an ignorant, sometimes
arrogant attempt to override one's nature and it will always fail. Those words come from Parker
Palmer in his book, 'Let Your Life Speak', which really is a Reboot favorite.
Duncan Morris, by any measure, had achieved a great deal of success as co-founder and CEO of
the international, 60-plus employee, online marketing agency, Distilled. And yet, something felt
off for him. At our boot camp in June, he was touched and challenged by a question from Jerry.
"What if you could truly understand who you are and lead from that place?" In evaluating this
question, a new question emerged for Duncan. "What if I don't want to be a leader of a company
with 60-plus people?" In this conversation with Jerry, hear how exploring these questions has
ultimately changed his work, his company and his life. Now, on to our conversation.
Jerry Colonna: Hey Duncan, how are you?
Duncan Morris: I'm good Jerry, and you?
Jerry Colonna: I'm very, very well. I'm just back from sabbatical and um, and I've had a good
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summer. And as you know, we sort of re-launched my coaching businesses,
Reboot, and it's really quite exciting. So um, before we jump in, why don't
you give us a little bit about what Distilled is and what your role has been and,
what you want to talk through today?
Duncan Morris: So uh, me and my co-founder, who happens to be my best friend of about 20
years now, Will Critchlow set up Distilled about ten years ago - just under ten
years ago. We started off doing web development, building small websites for,
kind of, tiny clients. Um, our first ever sale was the hairdresser at the end of
the road. And that has grown from there. People wanted to know how to
appear on the search engines, Google particularly. We grew into, kind of, an
SEO business and then, the last few years of being that - the - the SEO
industry is in a funny, um, transition period. And we're - we're kind of, riding
that. So these days, we call ourselves more of an online marketing company,
um, helping companies of all size, get found in Google, produce creative
they're proud of, that help them attract customers. Um, a whole range of
things, but broadly in the marketing category.
Jerry Colonna: Okay, and - and uh, ten years doing this, wow! That's amazing!
Duncan Morris: Yeah, it's been fun. Um, ten years ago, I couldn't have dreamed I would be
here. Yeah, it's only when you look back and think that these things get put
into perspective sometimes. So you kind of, you can ignore all of the troubles
we have had and just go, well, ten years ago, I would have absolutely taken a
position we're in now, um, makes all - everything worthwhile.
Jerry Colonna: And how many employees do you have now?
Duncan Morris: Uh, just over 60.
Jerry Colonna: Wow! It's a big company.
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Duncan Morris: It is, it's um, made more complicated, or at least management made it more
complicated by the fact we're in two countries; so we're in the UK and
America, and in multiple time zones. So we're in London and Seattle, at the
two extremes. So there's only an hour of overlap, which makes it hard.
Jerry Colonna: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think everyone underestimates the - the complexity of
managing multiple locations. Even though things like Google Hangouts and
Skype make it easier to connect, it's still - you've got the time zone problem
and you've got the multiple office problem which is always an issue. So -
Duncan Morris: Absolutely, and I think you lose the - I think they call it the 'water-cooler
chat', you lose that - the ability to get to know people on a personal level,
which I think, makes a big difference when you have to work with them. Um,
you find yourself - it's much easier to work with people when you know - you
can look them in the eye, or you've seen that they're in a bad mood that
morning. Um, and you know that whereas someone in the - um, in another
office, it's much harder to get that kind of context around why they are saying
what they are saying or, all of that sort of stuff. It does make it hard.
Jerry Colonna: Let - let - let's jump in. What is it you wanted to talk through today?
Duncan Morris: So, um, I've actually, um, after going on the boot camp that you, um, went
through a whole bunch of thinking and with um, lots of chats with Will, I have
actually stepped down as CEO. So I have been CEO of Distilled for the last
five years and have stepped down and taken up a kind of a two-pronged role, I
guess. A chairman role, um, and also a - back to my roots, I'm coding. So NO-
R [Unclear 0:06:00] and just writing some codes. Um, Will has taken over as
CEO so there has been a bit of a transition there. And yeah, it'll be great to
talk about that transition, the decision making, um, at the future.
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Jerry Colonna: Mmm, wow! It's it - that that - that's a big shift. You said you made this
decision after you attended the boot camp and you know, and we did the boot
camp in June in Tuscany. What was it - what happened?
Duncan Morris: Um, well so the week after boot camp, I went on a holiday with my wife and
my son. Um, we spent a [Unclear 0:06:36] where we were camping, I think.
And just spent a bunch of time - I was on my own, and I guess for some of it.
So I had time to think. We went on walks, that sort of thing. And one thing
that you said on one of the days at boot camp had just stuck out in my mind.
We were talking about um, diving into the wreck, kind of, radical self-
enquiry, working out who you are. I think the phrase you said was something
like, "What happens if you could really understand who you were and lead
from that place?" And the more I thought about it, the more I worked out that
who I was didn't really want to be a leader, certainly not of 60 people with all
the challenges you talked about; like the multiple offices, the time zones. That
was something that - it was just really, really draining for me. I was
[Technical difficulty] as spending five years trying to be someone I'm not, and
that's just tiring. Um, so it was that realization that I didn't really want to
[Unclear 0:07:39] it and I ought to be much happier, um, I'd be much more
fulfilled doing something else.
Jerry Colonna: Wow! You know, just hearing you say that, I mean, it moves me profoundly.
Um, you know, you - you referenced diving into the wreck, and that's the
Adrienne Rich poem, in which she sort of - she likens the exploration of an
undersea wreck with really an excavation of who we really are. And, one of
my favorite lines from that poem is, "The wreck itself, not the story of the
wreck", all right, "Not the stories that we tell ourselves about our lives and the
- the things that create us, but this - but our life itself" and it sounds like you
went on a - on a fairly profound existential journey to, kind of, discover who
you really are.
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Duncan Morris: I think so, yes. Um, I'm not sure I understand who I am yet, but um, yes. It
was - it was definitely a journey. And it's hard to know like, I've been
speaking to people and they've been saying, "Well, who knows what we'll be
like in two years. Do you think you'll regret it?" And I have no idea how to
answer that. But all I know now is I feel amazing. I - I wake up every morning
refreshed and energized. And I think more importantly, I go to bed as not
feeling exactly the same. We, me and my wife, we recently - we just started
watching 'The West Wing' again and there is an episode at the end of series
one, I think it's called, 'Let Bartlett, be Bartlett' or something like that. And he
goes - he's talking about um, of all the staff are teasing him because he woke
up really energized. And the - towards the end of the episode, he says
something like, "I really did wake up energized this morning." Um, and then
he's like, but I never seem to go to sleep energized. And it was exactly the
same for me. There were days when I woke up and I was ready to conquer the
world. But when I put my head on the pillow and shut my eyes, it was always
kind of a relief. The day was over, it's a relief. And then, maybe I would wake
up energized even the next day, um, maybe I wouldn't. But these days, the last
few weeks, I've been going to sleep raring to get up the next day, kind of, full
of ideas of what I want to do. I've worked later than I used to, um, I get kind
of, lost in code, lost in what I'm - kind of, what I'm doing, lost in the
excitement. And yeah, it's been life-changing. Um, and long may it continue, I
guess.
Jerry Colonna: Wow! You know, uh, there are - there are instances when working with a
client or working with someone else just sort of blows me away because there
is a truth - there is a profound truth in what they're saying, and I feel that. You
know, I am connecting back to two things: one is the name of that episode
was, 'Let Bartlett be Bartlett', and your statement that for five years, you
weren't really being your authentic self. And, you know, last night I did
another talk, and as usual, you know, I sort of opened up and sort of midway
through, just sort of revealed some stuff about my own life and where I am in
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it. I explained to the group that what I came to understand is that if I - if I live
from an inauthentic place, there is a direct correlation between that and
depression and stress that if I spend my days and my - the hours of my days,
um, pretending to be someone I'm not, no matter how skilled I am at it, there's
a cost. And I think you're going to bed at night exhausted, and waking up
exhausted or conversely, going to bed energized, and waking up energized is a
reflection that for whatever length of time we're talking about, right now in
this moment, this is what you needed to - to really be yourself.
Duncan Morris: Absolutely. Um, and what popped into my head, um, other things we talked a
lot about at boot camp, was being present and, I think that - that energy, that
energized has translated into my personal life as well. Um, so I've got a four
year old son who starts school in a week actually and uh, two weeks after I
went to boot camp, something that I - I'm sure it's going to turn out to be an
absolute nightmare, but something that at the moment - at that time was
absolutely magical, happened which was Edward, for the first time in
probably ever, walked round the bed. So my wife sleeps closest to the door of
our bedroom. Edward walked round the bed and woke me up rather than
waking my wife up because for the last few weeks, I have been really, really
present with him. I've been playing - I wasn't put in the same room as in
playing, but checking my email, checking my phone, I put my phone in
another room, I turned it off. I was crawling on the floor playing Lego - he
loves playing Lego farms and zoos and all sorts of things and - yeah, he woke
me up and I just remember thinking um, that was the most magical thing ever,
because he had chosen for me to go down with him that morning and so that I
could play with him. And that's continued; like 80% of the time he wants me
to read him stories at night. He spends a lot of the time with Suzie, my wife
and he always used to want her read stories. And you can understand, but
yeah, it's - it's such a joy, it brings a smile to my face that he chooses me, I
guess. And again, that's all down to the stuff that we talked about at boot
camp, being present um, and it - probably one of the biggest life changing
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things that has happened, like the CEO switch is being - is probably what has
caused a lot of the energy change and it's caused what - has caused the energy
level to be better. But the thing that I'm going to remember, the thing that in
five years' time has going to have made a massive difference is playing with
Edward, playing with my son.
Jerry Colonna: You're going to make me cry.
Duncan Morris: [Laughs] Yeah that will serve us right. You have made me cry plenty of times
at boot camp. So -
Jerry Colonna: [Laughs] You know, it um - the image of Edward coming to you and waking
you up and wanting to be with you, and - and, you know, what I'm not hearing
is him choosing one parent over the other, but him choosing both of his
parents. You know, expressing a desire for his Dad and not just his Mom, or
his Daddy. Because at four, that's what you are. And - and he uh - I'm just
remembering some of the things you've shared about your own journey. Your
physical challenges as a result of some of the stress and tension and your own
relationship with your dad and, you know, what I'm seeing is a man choosing
to be a man in a way that's best for him. Does that resonate?
Duncan Morris: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you mentioned my dad, because one of the
things um - one of the things that gave me a massive amount of validation
when I was um, kind of deciding whether staying as CEO was an option, um, I
rang up my Dad and we - we talk - I mean, I see him regularly, it's not like
we're um, not like we don't talk. We're close, we just don't talk, if that makes
sense. Um, and I rang him up and said, look, I'm - I'm not sure CEO is right
for me, it - it's hard for all of these reasons, what do you think? And he just
said, well, you probably didn't know this about me because I probably have
not told you but, that happened to me. I was - I happened to - he was CTO at a
certain company, um, I just walked into HR one day and said, "Look, this isn't
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for me. Um, you're finding me a new role, or I'm leaving." Um, and he said it
was the best thing that ever happened to him. And suddenly, I got that extra
validation, and like, I got a bit closer to my dad as well. Like we had - we had
a conversation about something that probably happened when I was 10 or 15,
I'm guessing. Um, but he just didn't really talk about it at the time. And, yeah,
that was a massive validation for me. Um, it was an - uh, yeah, that makes
sense and, he did - he echoed what a lot of people have said which is one of
the benefits of running your own company is that you can choose what you
want to do in that. Um, and if you're not happy, then that's crazy. It's crazy
that you've designed a company, designed a role for yourself within your own
company where you're not happy. Um, and yeah, I mean, we've probably only
spoke for 10 minutes, but it - it was probably the most we - the most we'd
spoken or the - we'd spoken of the most substance for a long time. And it was
a big validation for wanting to make some changes and, yeah. I'm not sure
what would have happened if he just said, no, stick it out, you'll be fine, tough
it through. Yeah.
Jerry Colonna: What a gift you gave each other.
Duncan Morris: Yeah, absolutely.
Jerry Colonna: You know, to connect and - and I'm recalling times in which I would - I
remember when my father lost his job. I told you that story. And, you know, I
was 10 at the time and it so profoundly affected me, but it was really only
recently that I began looking at that experience not through the lens of a 10-
year old boy, but through the lens of a 40 or 50-year old man, thinking about
what it would be like if I were in his shoes. And one of the things that I think
you and your dad did was empathetically reach across the generations in the
time and really share the experience of being a man and having to face these
sort of choices. And what was it like to learn that that had happened to him?
Not the validation for you.
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Duncan Morris: Yeah, I guess it made it seem normal somehow. Um, I think it - it also - it was
a bit of a shock, um, like my dad is actually in a - does a very, very similar
role to me. He's very, very technical, he programs, he's all of that everything
that kind of, is me. He's very similar. Um, we share a lot of traits like, I don't
like the label 'introvert', but we are both very um, private. He - he comes
round to my house and sits in the corner and he has a conversation in some
senses, but um -sorry, I've lost track of where I was going.
Jerry Colonna: I was asking you about how - uh, what was it like hearing that that experience
is similar and you had said it was kind of - I mean, the word that popped in
my head, was it kind of normalized it. That is, you know, you could relate to
what - what he had gone through.
Duncan Morris: Yeah, and it was probably one of the few times that I could actually relate,
even though the roles we have are - on the surface, look very similar. Um, it
was the first time that I actually, it's the first time I remember um, kind of,
understanding that he had gone through similar things like, his work for him
was always this big um - it was always a big part of his life and I think,
looking back, he did that absolutely for the family. Like he had a - a important
job. He was - he spent a week out of every month in America so he wasn't
always there. So work was a massive thing because for a week out of every
month when I was growing up, my Dad wasn't there. Um, but it kind of puts it
into - yeah. It - it did. It just made it normal. It made it feel like we - we'd
gone through something similar. Like my travel was nowhere near - I go to
the States three-four times a year, um, I would cry relatively infrequently,
which will be a surprise to you given boot camp. But um - but the one time
that I always feel closest to tears is when I shut the door and walk out of the
house to go to the airport, and leave Suzie and Edward on the doorstep, kind
of waving and blowing kisses, and generally embarrassing me on the street.
Um, it's the one time that I've got tears in the corner of my eye, because it's
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just hard and - kind of, you reflect back and actually realize that my dad had
to do that once every month and it must have been really hard for him. And I
never really saw it from his position. I guess, looking back, I just always
remember at times, not the times he wasn't there, but that there were times he
wasn't there.
Jerry Colonna: When you were a kid, how did you feel about those times that he wasn't there?
Duncan Morris: It's not so - to be honest, it's not something that I have a strong memory of, I
have memories from my - my mom always tells the story - when I was at um,
early school. So I was probably five or six, we had to write a diary every
morning. We had to spend ten minutes writing a diary and um, it's - I think
this diary must have got sent home somehow. And I wrote in the diary, uh,
'my dad came back today'. And the teacher just put at the top, 'thank God for
that.' Um, and it's always been that kind of - that joke is like, clearly I was
different. Clearly I was grumpy or a troublemaker when he wasn't there. Um, I
think my dad had been away for an extended period of time, that time. But it's
not something that stands out from my childhood, but um, that - that it clearly
affected me. There are stories about what I was like when my Dad wasn't
there. Um, yeah I'm - I'm not sure. I wouldn't - until now, I never really
thought of it as a big part, or a big influence in my life, but I guess, it is. Like
it - it was probably was a long period of my life and it probably did influence
me in ways I don't really understand.
Jerry Colonna: You know, one of the things I've - I've come to understand about my own
journey in becoming a parent, one of the things that I had to, uh, really grapple
with was the way in which my over-identification with my children would uh,
affect me. So when I was of - a younger venture capitalist, a young venture
capitalist and I would travel often, I would often have that tearful goodbye
which I would hold on to and not actually share. Uh, telling myself that I did
not want to upset my kids. And in those moments, I think what was happening
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to me was that I was both the parent and the child in the same moment. That
is, I was reliving the feeling of watching say, my mother and my father leave.
At the same time, as I was the parent who was leaving, I was both the
abandoned and the abandoner. And it was confusing. Um, I think what
happens to us is we get into, you know, that early parenthood age where we
are not quite, no longer a child and we're not quite fully a parent but we're in
this sort of in-between state. We have the capacity to empathetically feel what
our kids are feeling, and to begin to feel what our parents felt. And I think that
it's in that empathy that we have that opportunity to begin to heal. I know,
again from myself that once I began to internalize what was it like for my
father to have lost his job and, in my instance, for me to see him cry for the
first time in my life. I no longer saw it only as a ten-year old boy, frightened
that his father was crying, but I saw it as a man who was frightened about
caring for his family and being the breadwinner. And it shifted the experience.
It shifted the memory, and it made me feel closer to him. Unfortunately he had
died, by the time I had reached that conclusion. He died when I was 30 and I
never really got a chance to tell him that I understood. So, I'm going to be a
little paternalistic with you my friend. You can just say to your dad, at the risk
of making him feel all uncomfortable because he's British, that you
understand that what he went through.
Duncan Morris: Now it's - what you're saying is resonating on a - on a slightly different level
as well. Um, I - I am sports-mad and I remember growing up always wanting
my dad to come out to the garden and help me catch, help me learn to be a - I
was going to say slip fielder, but you guys don't watch cricket. So that will
make no sense. Um, but, um, like come and play hockey with me, come and
play soccer with me, come and play this, come and play that. And I remember
him - like he clearly did. I remember lots of - in fact all my - most of my
happiest memories are when we go down to - we went to play cricket and he'd
come down to the net so and - and, yeah, a lot of my happiest memories are
playing sports with my dad. But I also remember the times when he said no, I
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can't come and play that with you now. I'm going for exactly that now with
my son, that he just always wants to go and play tennis or swing ball or soccer
or hockey, field hockey. And it's - I kind of love it, this is the child in me
wants to go and play with him and then at the same time it's like, oh but I've
been playing swing ball with you now for two hours, and I really want to just
go and have some time on my own and - I start understanding what my - like
you said, it changes the memory of when that happened when I was a kid.
Um, and you start seeing it from both sides that actually my dad went a long
way out of his way to drive me to the local cricket field so - I don't know how
often it was, every weekend to go and play in the nets with me. And that's -
that was a big ask of him, especially because I've got three sisters who were
also demanding his time and, yet it changes the memory. It absolutely does.
Jerry Colonna: So here`s a thought. When you were 10, and your father said no, was there
anything that he could have said that would have made that no, easier for you?
Duncan Morris: Um, I don't know, is the short answer. Um -
Jerry Colonna: Something like, perhaps, I can't right now, but I will tomorrow, Duncan. And
then live up to that. The reason I ask is, in - in this switching of identities,
using empathy as the currency, you get to not only give Edward what he really
needs, but you get to give yourself what you needed when you were 10, by
giving it to Edward.
Duncan Morris: Yeah.
Jerry Colonna: Because the - the truth of parenting is that we're not always going to be able to
make - to -to meet our kid's needs and we're not always going to be able to
discern whose needs are actually being met in that moment. But I have found
over time, and it took me a long time to understand this, that if you take the
time not only to be present, but to actually communicate from your heart,
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from that same place that I called you to lead from, you can deepen that
relationship. And even if you can't get on the floor and play Legos, you can
still give him what it is that he is looking for, which is actually not Legos, but
a feeling. And the feeling is -
Duncan Morris: Yeah.
Jerry Colonna: - my father loves me and will be there for me.
Duncan Morris: Yeah.
Jerry Colonna: Does this make sense?
Duncan Morris: Yes, it's just - like he's at that brilliant age where he's an amazing negotiator -
Jerry Colonna: [Laughs]
Duncan Morris: - because he'd say, 10 minutes [technical difficulty] okay, no 20. And then
you say, okay, how about 15? And he says, no 30.
Jerry Colonna: [Laughs]
Duncan Morris: Um, [technical difficulty] quite understood negotiation and then you get into
that - I don't know whether 'cool to be kind' is perhaps not the right phrase, but
um, I'm not very good at saying 'no' to him. And part of it is probably kind of
what we're talking about now, that actually I just need to get better at saying,
not now, maybe tomorrow, or in an hour or yes, I can do it in a minute now.
Jerry Colonna: Not maybe, not maybe. Not maybe in an hour, or not maybe tomorrow.
Definitely.
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Duncan Morris: Yeah, definitely.
Jerry Colonna: Alright, so it's structure, it's container - It's not unlike, what we talked about at
the camp in terms of being a leader, it's - it's giving him clarity. It's giving
something for him to hold on to. So, you know, one of the things I used to do
is take out a calendar with my kids and say, okay, daddy is going to be back
on this day, and I'd point to the Thursday. Right, and then I'd mark on the
calendar, you know, some red mark or something like that, so that they can
look at the days and say, okay, this is what's going on. Or sometimes I would
tell them what cities I was visiting. So they - so they had a sense that I wasn't
just disappearing but I was going to some place and I was going to come back.
You know, my therapist once taught me the power of peak-a-boo. I don't
know what you call it in the UK but --
Duncan Morris: Okay.
Jerry Colonna: So one of the reasons why peak-a-boo is so powerful for a parent and child to
play, is that in peak-a-boo - and it was a British psychologist who really
explored this, D. W Winnicott; in peak-a-boo, what the parent is teaching the
child is that the parent can go away, but the parent will come back and
learning that the parent or the CEO, or the leader, or the dad will come back,
is just as important as any other feeling that we can get. Because the anxiety
that gets induced when the parent disappears is so profound that really the
resiliency that we want to instill in people is - is the ability to self-soothe by
knowing something of what the future will hold. So, if you just hold that
image of peak-a-boo, I go away but I come back. I go away, but I come back.
Very powerful.
Duncan Morris: I [Unclear 0:31:43] that's one of the ways that I struggled as a CEO or as a
leader is, people would come with hard questions, I wouldn't quite have an
answer to them, and my natural tendency is to kind of stew on things, or to
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mull things over until I'm kind of really, really certain. And quite often, you
don't get that. Like, I remember reading, 'once you've got to 70% confidence
in a decision, you're probably wasting time getting much further.' Um, but that
made me really uncomfortable. So, quite often I would get to most of the way
to an answer, but never get confident enough that I could kind, of tell people.
So, I can see - yeah, people would kind of, ask me something, I play peak-a-
boo, but I wouldn't come back; they'd have to come back to me. And that's
one of the things I was trying to push myself to get better at, which is one of
the things that was so draining about being someone you're not, for so long is
like, there's just lots of small things like that. Um, in any given day, it's not
that it's so tiring, it's just that doing that constantly with lots of different, small
things you want to get better at was just draining um, yeah kind of.
Jerry Colonna: I think the linkage you have just made is - is profound, it's brilliant. Um, yes,
there is a quality. I mean, I'm thinking of a client now, who in his, uh,
performance review - he's a CEO, one of the feedback or pieces of feedback
that he got was that people would email him and his replies would be
inconsistent. Sometimes he was instantaneous, and sometimes he would take
weeks and weeks to get back, if at all. And they never really understand so if
you use the peak-a-boo analogy, what's happening is, 'sometimes mommy and
daddy come back, and sometimes they don't.' And that's really, really
destabilizing. But if you simply said, in those instances, "I know you sent me
an email two days ago, I know I promised you a reply, I'm still mulling it
over; I will get back to you." It's kind of like - going back to the peak-a-boo
analogy, it's kind of like, opening the hands and showing that you're still there,
but closing them up again. And even more, if you give the employee, if you
give the other something to hold on to, "This is what I'm working on, I'm
struggling to get to 100% percent. I don't like speaking when I'm 70% sure."
Now yes, great, in an ideal world, you make a decision when you're 70%-80%
sure, yes but not all of us are capable of that, and certainly not in all decisions.
But if you give the other something to hold on to and communicate, then you
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are addressing their underlying feeling which is as important, maybe even
more important than actually giving them the answer to the question that they
asked you.
Duncan Morris: Yeah, what I'm thinking now is it's - it's amazing how a lot of these problems
seem so simple, like when you talk them through someone like yourself, and
then you start - I think this is one of the demons I'm going to have to face in
the future is, did I give up too early? Um, should I have just worked a bit
harder at - there is a somewhat - not necessarily easy answer, but there is a
very concrete answer to one of the traits I struggled with um, and like, in some
senses, leadership, being CEO in any sort of thing, it - none of it - it's not
rocket science, it's not hard. It's just continually doing the right thing and um,
yeah, at some point, I might have to face the 'did I give up too early?' 'did I um
- could I have toughed it out?' but right now, it's not something I'm worried
about because I've - like I said, I feel so energized in not having to do all that
stuff, being able to be myself, I think.
Jerry Colonna: Yeah, I -- I'm going to - I'm going to amend something that you just said. I
think it is hard. I don't think it's complicated. I don't think it is as complicated
as our anxieties make it out to be. But I think it's incredibly hard. You know,
I've been lately doing this talk called, 'Being Fierce', which is about speaking
truth and saying what needs to be said and uh, it's really hard. That doesn't
mean it's complicated, it's - it's just hard. The reasons it's hard, are
complicated but the action itself is straight forward. And - and with regards to
the doubts that creep in, unfortunately, and this is also hard, no one can really
say - we can't A-B test your life. Right? We can't say, what does Duncan look
like if he decided not to stay, not to give up the role? And what does Duncan
look like if he did? So the best that we have is to go on what our experiences
are right now. And, you know, when I was learning to be a coach, one of the
things I struggled with was - and I would talk to my supervisors with, about
would be - well, I don't know if this is working or that's working. And one
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supervisor used to say to me all the time, well how did the client feel? And I
said, well they felt better, and they got clear, and he said, well then it worked!
[Laughs] You know, and in this case, you're both the coach and the client.
And, you know, I remember that you have somatic expression, that sometimes
you have stomach problems. How has your stomach been?
Duncan Morris: With one exception, much better. Um --
Jerry Colonna: Yeah, say that again. I had a feeling it was going to be that way. [Laughs]
Duncan Morris: Yeah and there's a whole bunch of stuff in that as well, but I think one of the
reasons it's better is - well last night is the first night I went - hockey training
has come back. Field-hockey again, not ice-hockey, which isn't a girl's sport
by the way, just for all the Americans listening.
Jerry Colonna: [Laughs]
Duncan Morris: A very, very good man's sport. Anyway, let's move on.
Jerry Colonna: [Laughs]
Duncan Morris: I - I bought myself a bike and I've done a couple of um, trips out on the bike. I
don't know who invented cycling up-hills, but they need to be shot.
Jerry Colonna: [Laughs]
Duncan Morris: 850 runs, like, it's all tied in. I'm doing things that would naturally make my
body more resilient to that anyway. But I think that is because I feel more
energized. I can get home in the evening, and I'm energized or I've got
motivation um, like, the house has never looked as good as it um, as it does
right now, because I've fixed a whole bunch of stuff that's just been bugging
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me for ages. And it's just like, well now I'm going to fix it. Um, I've got the - I
actually have the time to do it as well. I took some time off, um, but I think it
was more - it was more important than just the time. It was the motivation to
actually make things better. And, yeah, it's all related. And actually, the one
time when my stomach, um, didn't play so well is when I went out for drinks
with Will, the new CEO, my best friend and probably drank more than I
should have. So it's entirely my own fault, and probably nothing to do with
how I was feeling, just the amount of alcohol that was consumed.
Jerry Colonna: Yes. Yes, I - I - I would - I would second that, you know, the - the 'Being
Fierce' talk that I do, I talk about how I learned to ask myself the question,
what am I not saying that needs to be said, in response - and I was taught that
by my therapist in response to my ongoing migraines. Now my migraines
haven't disappeared; there is no question about that, but they went from once a
week to once every three or four months, which I will take any day of the
week, you know. Um, it's a profoundly different experience, you know. Life is
a profoundly different experience. Um, the other thought I had was that, it -- it
still amazes me the degree to which - so I do it myself - the degree to which
we separate the inner and the outer. And - and, you know, when you first
described, well, you know, I'm exercising more, so that's probably having an
effect on the internals. Yes, it probably is. And yet, as you - as you noted,
you're more energized. By shifting the inner landscape, you shifted your
ability to deal with the external landscape. All of a sudden you have "more
energy", which means you will then exercise more, which then reinforces
what's going on internally. This is why, you know, the work we talk about,
whether it's rebooting your leadership or rebooting your life, which is our
tagline, is really about looking at both the inner and the outer, simultaneously.
You know, I like to say that if - if transformation happened only by cognitive
awareness, no one would smoke, no one would over-drink or over-eat or
gamble away their life savings because we all know that that's not good
behavior. The problem isn't changing the externalities; the problem is shifting
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the internal landscape. The problem is going back and diving into the wreck -
Duncan Morris: Mm-hmm.
Jerry Colonna: - and saying okay, what actually is going on for me? That radical self-enquiry
part. And, you know, you've done that. You know, I am so admiring of your
bravery. You know, you opened up both at the camp, but afterwards. I mean,
you did the work. And, you know Duncan, I don't know, I mean I don't know
if you'll ever be a CEO again. Uh, I thought I would never be a CEO again
and here I am being CEO. And, you know, I've got three partners, and they
look to me for things and, I was complaining last night, it's like, I'm a lone
wolf. What do you mean you actually have to look at my calendar and make
decisions about things? That's not fair. And yet, here I am, doing more than I
was ever able to do before. Things like this podcast, things that I wanted to do
but really didn't allow myself to do because I didn't have the time. And now, I
have time. So, I don't know if you will ever be a CEO again. You might, I
have a feeling though, that you are not going to go back to being the way you
were as a father, or a husband for that matter. So - so what's next for you in
this journey as you transition? Are you - um, how is the business doing?
Duncan Morris: The business is doing well. Um, I think, whether it's me stepping down, I
think a change of leadership has done it a - perhaps not a world of good; I
mean, it's just another one of those demons where the more credit I give to the
change in the business, the more credit I give to Will, the more it makes me
feel like my role was kind of - that I was the fault and there's - there's a
balancing act there. But no, business is going well. Um, still things that we
need to work through. And I guess, I started off by saying that the industry is
going through a bit of a transition; we have to um, make that transition as
well. I think that's going well, but it's hard; there's people who, um, who - who
joined us when we were a very different organization to the one we are now.
Um, but no. I mean, I think we are set up for all the exciting things we want to
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do. Personally my journey, I think I'm going to continue to work with Will.
We probably get to work better together in a slightly different role. Um, we've
- we've had a ton of conversations and I think this puts us up the -- the way
that keeps our friendship as strong as it can whilst keeping the business as
strong as it needs to be. Personally I'm going to - I'm working with our R&D
team. So I like sitting in the corner writing code, which I need to be a bit
careful of. Oh, I don't want to permanently just be the bloke in the corner that
no one really knows what he's doing. But right now, I'm absolutely loving it.
Um, one of the reasons I feel so energized, I'm doing something new every
day. You're saying, you can't split test - you can't A-B test life. You can A-B
test when you're writing code and I - I love that kind of - that very, very quick
validation. What I did this morning either works or it doesn't work. And if it
doesn't work, there's probably a line in a log report somewhere that tells me
which line is broken, and it's very easy to go and fix it. Whereas, if something
is not working as a CEO, you have to - you just don't get anywhere near the
same level of information as to what went wrong, or how to fix it. So, I'm
loving that kind of, very quick feedback loop. Um, I'm loving getting back to
actually why I started Distilled. Um, when Will and I started, I uh, sat at my
desk all day writing code. I was writing websites, um, I did computer science
at University, um, like I've been a coder as long as I can remember. And for
the past five years, I haven't really written a line of code. And in the last two
weeks, I've written like, loads and I'm absolutely loving it. So um, yeah. I
think my journey is just going to do that for a bit, and hopefully do that for as
long as I feel like, and add value whilst doing that.
Jerry Colonna: Well that - what a wonderful story. Will you stay in touch with me?
Duncan Morris: Absolutely.
Jerry Colonna: You know uh, it's such a pleasure and delight to connect with you on this and,
to get caught up and - and see where you are and, uh, I may be coming to the
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UK. Uh, it looks like I'll be in at least in Dublin in November and we may put
some events together either in London or Dublin. So, I'll definitely reach out
to you and - and -
Duncan Morris: Yes.
Jerry Colonna: - say hello, and see if we can grab a cup of tea or something.
Duncan Morris: Yeah. And if there is anything I can do, let me know.
Jerry Colonna: I will, I will. It's really a pleasure.
Dan Putt: So that's it for our conversation today. You know, a lot was covered in this
episode, from links, to books, to quotes, to images. So we went ahead and
compiled all that, and put it on our site at reboot.io/podcast. If you would like
to be a guest on the show, you can find out about that on our site as well. I'm
really grateful that you took the time to listen. If you enjoyed the show and
you want to get all the latest episodes as we release them, head over to iTunes
and subscribe and while you're there, it would be great if you could leave us a
review, letting us know how the show affected you. So thank you again for
listening. And I really look forward to future conversations together.
[Singing]
“How long till my soul gets it right?
Did any human being ever reach that kind of light?