Episode 326: A Day in Manchester with Professor Damian Hughes

On Wednesday 23rd September I spent a full day in Manchester at a coaching day with Professor Damian Hughes, co host of the High Performance podcast.

There was no PowerPoint and no agenda. Just a flip chart and around twenty five leaders from schools, charities, the NHS, insurance, fintech, hospitality and more. Every one of them had turned up with the same problem as you: their people.

In this solo special I break down everything I learned and what it means for estate agency, including:

• Why "high performance" and "culture" mean something different to everyone in your office, and how to fix that
• The research on choice, and why giving your team a little control changes how they feel about the whole job
• The job application exercise that gets your team to set their own standards, and why English cricket could do with it
• Single loop and double loop thinking, and why cutting your fee is not the answer to losing a listing
• The five culture blueprints from Stanford's research on start ups, what football teaches us about each one, and which one your agency is running
• "Success leaves clues": the simplest way to build a winning culture in your agency next week
• Psychological safety, and why the best teams report more mistakes
• Radiators, drains and why it is better to have a hole in the business than the wrong person in it
• Why doctors interrupt patients after 18 seconds, and how long you let a vendor talk
• Bottom line up front, and the story spine you can use for every sale agreed
• What Damian did after the day that epitomises high performance, and why it should change how you follow up every valuation

Plus, with AI on everyone's mind, why the most important question is not what will change in estate agency but what will stay the same.

Transactions do not compound. Relationships do.

If you have not heard my conversation with Damian on episode 100, go back and listen to that too.