Ben Pointing, COO of Loyalty Lion

Speaker: Ben Pointing, COO, Loyalty Lion

Ben Pointing: So, I've been working with Pete in an advisory capacity for a couple of years now and hope to continue working together for many, many more. I guess a key question is what has kept Pete and I working together over the last few years. And yeah, for me, a few cool things stand out. So I'll cover three of those. I'll cover three of those now. The first is clarity of thought, which has been present from the very first session that Pete and I had together and through all of the weekly sessions that we've had. ever since then. The majority of decisions that I have to deal with are not black and white, they are gray and no matter what shade of gray, problem, that I've brought to Pete over the years, he has always been able to elevate the discussion and shine a really strong bright light on the grayness of the decision and has always helped move me and the company towards bringing a resolution to a specific situation. The second thing that really, really shines through when working with Pete is his intellectual curiosity. And there are so many different ways. I could take a stab at talking about this. But picking just one, I think it's the fact that with Pete, when he doesn't know the answer, he's happy to say, I don't know the answer. He's never in a rush to look smart or just repeat some trendy bit of information or a framework. from LinkedIn. Not knowing the answer doesn't scare him. And in a perverse way, I think he actually enjoys it. I can see him getting excited about the prospect of thinking about the problem. And what I like about that is, it's two things really. The first is, it means I know when Pete's given me an answer, it's well reasoned, it's been thought about with a great deal of care. It's not just given to me off the cuff to quickly close out our conversation. I've also come to learn with Pete over the years that if he doesn't know the answer straight away and we're not able to work to an answer on that particular call. I will probably get a lot of late night whatsapp messages a week or two later, often with a fully formed framework that's come out of his thinking on the topic. So we normally get there in the end. The third reason that I've been working with Pete for the two years that I have and plan to continue on in the future is really around trust. I know that I can say anything to Pete with the confidence that it will go no further. Over the years, I've had Pete have direct and unsupervised access with my CEO, with all of my direct reports, and sometimes even some of their drop-down reports. And I just know that I can trust Pete with that level of access and still have really safe conversations with him. I also know that when doing these recommendations, we, you know, we all default to the power of three and we've, I've given you three reasons why I would strongly consider working with Pete - clarity of thought, intellectual curiosity and just trust, but I am going to put a cheeky fourth reason in there. And for me, that is fun. Over the last two years, Pete and I have had to deal with some really thorny topics and really not fun topics. But turning up to the sessions has never felt like work. I've always felt lighter at the end of the sessions. And so, yeah, that is my fourth reason for continuing to continue to work with Pete. Closing out, I would say, if you are considering working with Pete and the team, at the very least, it should be a serious contender.