15. Navigating the Future of Work: Colin Timmis of Xero South Africa Shares his Blueprint for High-Performance Teams

In this episode of Candid, we engage in a rich and insightful conversation with Colin Timmis, the country manager for Xero in South Africa.

Colin shares his comprehensive views on implementing Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), the significance of leadership in driving organizational success, and offers practical advice on enhancing personal productivity.

Through discussing his professional journey and experiences, Colin provides valuable perspectives on understanding macroeconomic factors that affect business, the importance of continuous learning and mentorship, and the strategic role of HR in nurturing a productive work culture. 

Additionally, Colin underscores the importance of balancing technical, managerial, and entrepreneurial responsibilities to optimise personal effectiveness and contribute significantly to the organisation's growth.

00:00 Introduction to Candid with Colin Timmis
00:52 Colin's Current Focus and Professional Growth
02:33 The Power of Reading and Learning from Leaders
15:30 Implementing OKRs for Business Success
21:35 The Practical Application and Challenges of OKRs
25:35 Exploring the Qualitative Nature of Objectives
25:57 The Solar System Analogy in Team Objectives
26:55 The Role of HR in Supporting Business Growth
28:00 Redefining HR's Role: From People Problems to People Experience
29:19 Leadership's Role in Culture and HR's Supportive Function
33:58 The Impact of OKRs on Feedback and Team Dynamics
35:33 Transitioning from Entrepreneurship to Corporate Roles
42:18 Embracing Entrepreneurial Spirit in Corporate Settings
46:32 Strategic Focus as a Country Manager
49:02 Effective Time Management and Leadership Insights

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Transcript

Grant Greeff: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Candid, where in this session, I'm joined by Colin Timmis, who is the country manager of Xero for South Africa. In this professional conversations format, Colin shares a wealth of insights into how to implement OKRs and what to really prioritize to ensure that teams adopt it, as well as HR's role in really driving true progress within any organization. And then finally, some practical tips on what you can do based on his experience as a country manager to be more productive with your time, to really pay attention where you actually are spending your time so that you can get the best contribution within your career as well as the organization. Colin, thank you so much for joining me. In this episode of Candid, we we're really gonna focus on the professional side, um, and more specifically your career thus far. For today, kind of where I want to start off with is what is currently happening within your professional career where's the focus and, and, and where you heading right now?

Colin Timmis: 1:01

Yeah, look, I mean, I'd say right now, um, the nature of our business, um, that I run has changed materially over the last sort of five, six years. And so, um, I mean, I feel like, you know, the business and myself in particular in a place where we're I. Getting prepared for the next sort of stage of growth. And so that means that I've gotta invest in myself and learn new things and, um, understand a much broader context and landscape than I used to in when our business started. And so right now I'm investing a lot of time in, um, understanding some more of the macroeconomic factors that affect our business, but also. Um, understanding how global business has done better. Um, and that unfortunately means spending a little bit more time in front of spreadsheets and, and my laptop, um, and doing business plans and OKR tracking and, and all those good things. But, um, it's a di it's a different type of conversation. And, and what, what is challenging sometimes is jumping from very technical, uh, work up to entrepreneurial and leadership type work, like being able to jump up and down in those two worlds on a, you know, every single day is. Um, is, is is challenging sometimes and so I'm, I'm intentionally, I think now trying to focus a lot more on the, on, on the leadership side and some of the, the drivers that, that make the business successful.

Grant Greeff: 2:19

So how does that look practically then? When, if, I mean, are you, you know, jumping on a subscription onto Bloomberg, you know, to understand what the, what the indicators look like? How, how, how would someone go about doing it based on if you were to experience share now?

Colin Timmis: 2:32

yeah. Look, the first, um. My, my, my first point of call is, is pretty basic, and that really is just reading a lot. Um, and so I'll be quite selective of in, in, in, in what I read. I mean, I don't read a lot of, let's say, mainstream media and news publications. Like I'll read books from people that I respect and try to understand, um, the principles and practices in those books. Like there's great books written, you know, even in the late 1970s, guys like Andy Grove who worked at Intel and started, you know, um, the wave of management, um, theory that we have now. Um, you know, guys like, um, uh, Ben Horowitz from Andreessen Horowitz. Uh, he wrote a great book called The Hard Thing About Hard Things. Um, so guys that have that, that, that, that write books that are really practical, that have got a lot of, um, almost, um, you know. Course material that you can take out, um, and sort of document yourself and, and apply it to your own, um, day-to-Day work. Um, that's, that's my first point of call. And so I read quite a lot. I read a number of books. Most of'em are not, I have to be quite disciplined because, um, when I go holiday, I read a business book and then I, my mind doesn't turn off, which is not great either. Um, and so I've actually tried to read the seminar, read a few. A few sort of, not fictional, but some biographies, which, you know, also, um, I mean if you've, uh, the lead singer of YouTube, Bono's got a great book out called Surrender. And, um, I mean, I mean I try to read that without thinking a lot, but, uh. It poses a lot of thoughts about your professional and personal life, which I really enjoyed. But, um, yeah, look, I start with books. I, I read a lot of books. A lot of business books, and that's honestly, um, what set me on the path that I'm on currently. Um, there was one book in particular when I was first working, um, in my practice called the e midwifery, visited by someone called Michael Gerber, and he unpacked the basic phenomenon of being a technician and manager and an entrepreneur and what their transition looks like. I've always gone back to books, um, to start with. Um, secondly, you know, we're just fortunate in our business, we're surrounded by extremely experienced and capable people. And so I do a lot of, um, my own discovery where I will go out and just, you know, read I. Uh, research papers or read presentations, or watch recordings of meetings, um, to see how people are interrogating data, using data making decisions, and what their thought process is like. For me, that's, I. You know, I don't have to be in those meetings, but I can, I can review the content and consume it. And for me, that's really, really useful. Um, and then sort of third, I would say I'm, I'm definitely trying to put myself in positions more now where, um, you know, sometimes a person can be, you can, you can hide, uh, away a little bit and, and, and stay in a safe environment. And so I'm definitely feeling, um, a bit more comfortable. You know, operating, um, with other individuals that perhaps I wouldn't have felt comfortable or intimidated by operating with. So I'd probably say those three things. The books consuming internal material that we have, uh, recordings of meetings and, and content and decks. And then thirdly, just getting around, um, other people in our business who I know are way more experienced and intelligent, um, than, than I am. And, um, and those learnings are just super practical because then I sort of summarize them, um, take out the best bits and I've got this. You know, there's accumulation of information and data, which I then decide like, how best can I apply this to my, to my day-to-Day work.

Grant Greeff: 6:00

I always thought that you were an exclusive books guy that you know, would go straight to the business section. Um. That, that you also kind of focused on that? I mean, for me, I, I've, I've maybe read a few, few fictions in my life, but, but not, probably not enough. Um, and so it's definitely the businesses, um, and all about business and as well as the, those biographies, those are definitely the go-tos for me as well. So

Colin Timmis: 6:23

Yeah.

Grant Greeff: 6:24

if we were to think then. In the context of books, I would say the learning there is very much along the lines of gaining a new perspective, especially from people that have already done it. Um, and, and just the, the way in which they approached it, and as you say, reading multiple amounts of books, you kind of gauge that there isn't actually the, the perfect way because there's different styles, approaches, acting strategies, and it just further emphasizes how much you just need to gain more awareness about what possibilities are out there.

Colin Timmis: 6:56

Uh, absolutely. I mean, um, uh, the hard thing about hard things, Ben Horowitz, I mean, you know, you read that book and you realize like most people have no clue. You know, like he's just winging it, making really tough decisions. It's traumatic. It's emotional. I. Um, and all the training in the world, you know, is not gonna prepare you for some of those situations. Like you can, you can do as many courses as what you want. Um, you know, those, um, I think what's true and what resonates is that those experiences are so real and, and so felt if you've been and ran your own business, you know what those moments look like and they're all consistent. Um, you know, he perhaps just deals with it more decisively than others. So, yeah, it's, um. Uh, it's a great opportunity to learn and, and in particular on, on topics that perhaps aren't as, as, um, as prevalent say in South Africa, you know, the SaaS industry. There's a lot of SaaS companies in South Africa that are well known, um, you know, that have scaled, that have built to that business model. So, I mean, one of the challenges I had was understanding the sales, um, methodologies for a SaaS business, you know, um, I had no clue. Um, I mean, I came from an accounting practice, you know, you don't, you don't sell anything there, you know, you just wait for people to refer you and that's it, you know? So, so, and then I go into this high growth SAS business, and I'm like. You know, there's no manual on, on how to do these things. And, And, so the first thing I did was I, um, you know, found a guy called Mark Bur, who, uh, wrote a book called The Sales Acceleration Formula, and he grew HubSpot from zero to like. And it was a hundred million, 500 million us, whatever the number was. And he literally wrote the Bible on SaaS sales methodologies and pipeline management. And if it wasn't for that book, I mean, I wouldn't know, you know, how to run a sales team. And, and so particularly when the industries I. Um, are not as well known and probably as well studied, and there aren't as many around to learn from other people and definitely not in institutions. You know, you've gotta find those reliable sources of information. Um, and the, the key is reliable.'cause a lot of, you know, we're obviously, you know, there's a lot of cowboys out there and, um, provided you validated the information, um, it, it's a really, really useful way to get a better understanding for, um, how you can build a business.

Grant Greeff: 9:13

So a lot of people listening or watching are gonna ask, okay, well, you know, I've heard about the 5:00 AM club. I've heard about, you know, reading lots, lots of books. But practically then, how do you make sure that you, that you are reading, that you're not just using the excuse of, you know, well I'm busy, you know, there's a lot going on. Like, what are you being intentional about? So that that is actually possible.

Colin Timmis: 9:34

Yeah, look, I struggle with this to be honest, um, because I wonder how much an entrepreneur should be motivated. Um. You know, um, like how many books do they need to read? Like, I sort, I sort of lean towards the theory that you are the art or you're not. And like, you don't need me or anyone to motivate you to read books. You know, if it's important to you, you'll make the time for it. Um, if it's not, you won't. I think there's far too many people that, you know, read things like the 5:00 AM Club and do all these programs out of theory because it sounds good, you know, so. So some people say you should do, but there's an innate like deep, um, core belief or drive, um, that makes other people do it. Where it's not about the consumption, it's about, you know, it's actually about the ultimate outputs and, and what's ultimately gonna be generated, which is never, ever really satisfied, you know? So it doesn't matter what you consume, that's where you're constantly consuming and reading and growing and, and stretching yourself. It's because it's a innate core value that you have. Um, if I think of some of the best. You know, entrepreneur news that I know, I think it's true of, you know, you read guys like Elon Musk's book or you read any of these top guys or even in South Africa, some of the, um, you know, some, some people that I know well, um, the objective is never. To consume the information. The objective is something far more aspirational and far bigger. It's, it's like a core need. They have, you know, to, to build themselves in a business. So, um, I mean, you can throw five, you know, bits of content, five books at, at five different people, and you'll probably get five different results. It comes down to like, what is your gift? What is your, what is your purpose? What is your passion? And, and, and if it's not, you know, just acknowledge it and that's fine. You know, the problem we have in society nowadays, I think, is that everyone feels like they have to be a certain way. You know, you, you have to be this, um, this, this persona, um, and be this go-getter entrepreneur. But like, if you don't want to be like, maybe it's not your design and you don't have to be, um, and you just gonna burn yourself out trying to do it. So, so yeah. I question how much motivation there has to be there if you don't want to do it. Like maybe there's something more technical where you can be an expert in a, in a particular field that's as valuable, but just. Uh, on a different side of the business.

Grant Greeff: 11:46

I really love that. I, I really love that because for me, first of all, just a quick experience share. With, with reading books, what I've found is I go through, through, through, um, like an oscillation or like kind of, I really go through six months where I won't read any book and then maybe I'll just be inspired in the moment. Um, you know, where I see a book or someone tells me about it and all of a sudden it, that becomes relevant and I can read that book within three days and, and all of a sudden, like you say, it's less on the input of books, um, but more on the output of what are you trying to achieve here? Is this. That you can gain motivation, that you can gain insight, um, and possibly even inspiration specifically on a, on, on a particular topic. So a hundred percent agree with you and, and if we take today's world. Um, like for the likes of a platform like LinkedIn, I think that if you're following the, let's call it the right people, or at least relevant people, those micro, the, let's call it the micro chapters that people are actually sharing when they're posting on LinkedIn. If you were to look at that for an entire year, more likely than not, you've probably read around three books because of the richness and directness of that content. And I think a lot of people, especially in South Africa, we. We, we are, I think from what I'm observing, there is now an adoption of, of LinkedIn in terms of like as a content slash news slash in insights hub. But, but, um, it's only just started in my view.

Colin Timmis: 13:10

Yeah, no, you're right. And, and it is, um, it, it, it is, you know, just back to your, your previous points around the timing of what you're consuming and when I've often picked up a book and put it down again and then. You know, picked it up a year later because it just, the content wasn't relevant at that time. And again, that's fine, you know, at the stage of growth that you're at and, and the, the pressures or challenges you might have or the insights you need, the timing of what you're looking at may be different. And so it's, um, you know, there's, there's this horses for courses, let's say. But you, I, I agree. I mean, there's the, I think the difficulty I like even I have is, um, is deciding what to follow, um, and then like why you're following it and. I mean, we're just discussing, you know, potential themes for some of our events this year. And follow was one of the, um, you know, the sort of ideas we came up with because we do live in a world where everyone's following something, but we're not really curating what we're following. And, um, there's some great bits of content and, and leaders who you can follow. But, um, ones just gotta be very, very selective and very guarded around what you choose to put into your mind because the search. To get to what you want is, can sometimes destroy you before you even get there. So, so like the damage done to your mind and your ears and your eyes, you know, by the time you get there, you're like, you're dead. That makes sense.

Grant Greeff: 14:35

I think the analogy, um, that I really enjoy is, um, like for something like a newsfeed, right? For, for whether, whether it be like Instagram, Pinterest or, or LinkedIn. It's literally like a LI library. And, and every single post is part of a book. And, and you can choose therefore and curate which books you wanna read based on the content creators, um, or, or pro, or let's call it company profiles that you're following. So, uh, yeah. And, and I, and I've definitely seen that, especially with YouTube, as you can end, uh, end up in a very d different space very quickly based on that algorithm. So I think a lot of people can resonate with that. Colin, if we, if we move then to. Another area that you, that, that you mentioned is around the fact that in, in your space when, when you're dealing with the level of intensity and the acceleration or exponential change, um, that the business or the industry is experiencing, um, I. You mentioned OKRs, which I mean for everyone listening or watching stands for objectives and key results. And for me, I'm a mass proponent of OKRs, and I wanted to get your perspective or your point of view when it comes to then why you think OKRs are so, um, effective based on your, your track record thus

Colin Timmis: 15:49

Yeah. Um, yeah, look, OKRs, um, if you want to understand the basics of OKRs, again, Andy Grove. Is the father of OKRs from Intel in the late seventies. He wrote a book called High Output Management, which I would recommend. It's still regarded as like the book on management, um, out there. Um, and a lot of his practices are, were deployed in Amazon and Google and all these great companies, apple, Microsoft. And then there's another great book called, uh, measure What Matters, um, about OKRs. Uh, I think it was written by John Doer. Um, again, it's, if you go back, you know, like Andy Grove, John Doer, uh, Ben Horowitz, I. There's, there's a very small pool of people that have influenced the world of tech, um, as we know it today. And there's probably like seven or eight of them, uh, John, er, Andy Grove, they're all on the same trajectory. And, um, I mean, they're all involved in, you know, Google and, um. And, and so OKR is like an absolutely critical part of a high growth mindset. Um, and a lot of the high, you know, the high growth, high outputs, um, sort of production or management theory that's prevalent in in a lot of tech companies and, and even in, in non-tech companies. And, um, the, the purpose of OKRs is to, is to measure what matters. It it is to. It is to, it is to check whether the inputs are producing the required outputs. Um, you know, Andy Grove talks about the responsibility of any managers to increase the production of his team. Um, and, and whatever that takes, um, is the production of the people under your control increasing or decreasing. And so OKRs are those measures. You know, you have a vision. Um, you have your operating priorities, and each of those operating priorities have underlying, um, objectives. So what is the goal and then the key result. So the objective and the key results are two different things. The objective is what do you want to achieve? But the key result is how is that measured? And it is always a number. Um, and so it's very, it's very binary. You know, you either achieve the number or you don't achieve the number. Um, and so even in, even in our business, and in most, you know, similar tech businesses, you know, you achieve a result by getting a hundred percent. Uh, if it's 99%, then it's orange, you didn't achieve your result. Um, if it's below 90%, then usually it's red and you, and you failed. Um. And so those are tracked, um, in most businesses, um, every month, and they're reported on quarterly. And senior leaders are held accountable, um, for their production together with sort of program managers to manage those OKRs. And the OKRs, if achieved, um, should enable the achievement of the vision or the objective of the business, which mean you should, should achieve your overall, you know, key results, your, your performance metrics. Um, and, and what, what I love about them is, um. It, it is not the, and it can sound very corporate-y um, you know, very like senior executive level Yeah. Yeah. It's very consultancy, you know, it's like guys come in, they give you all these numbers, but, but the real power of OKRs is in the scaling or, or the, or the laddering of the OK R down to every employee. Because every region that reports into the global business, there's a global set of OKRs, and the regional OKRs should ladder up into the global OKRs and the regional OKRs ladder down into the countries and ladder down into every individual person so that that individual person knows how I contribute, like the work I do every day. How does it ladder up into my team, into my region, into my, you know, um, in, in, into my reporting line. And, and, and so it gets really granular and that's what's so great about it is many businesses, you know, they add people, but there's no increase in the outcome. I. And so just as a simple example, our philosophy is every single person that gets added to our business, every single person will increase our production and output. And if it doesn't, then we have to reduce again. And so we make that choice like every three months and there's no, there's no world in which we just appoint people and just like believe that, you know, oh, we had a bad period and like maybe it will correct over a period of, it's like you've got a defined. Um, set of chaos you have to achieve. And by adding the person, you should be a, a step change in your production. Um. And so you should be getting more business, you should be getting more sales, you should be getting better brand. Um, everything should be improving because you've had another asset into the system, into the process. So why wouldn't, why would things not get better? You know, why would there not be more? Um, and if there's not more, like that's the very, very first sign that you've got a problem. Now, if it's one person, it's easy to fix. But if it's five people or 10 people or 20 people, that's how you end up, you know? Bankrupt. Um, it's a, it's a very small, so it becomes a little, I mean, I think Andy Grove wrote another book called The Only, the Paranoid Survive, which I, you've probably heard of. And it's so true. It's like when you're dealing with OKRs, I mean, you are paranoid because every metric is being measured and you are super, super diligent about the resources you have. And that are being invested in the corresponding output that has to be generated. Um, and that is what makes OKR so amazing. It's not a big corporate, um, you know, global, uh, parameter for managing a business. It is a, a very granular and, and, you know, um, very important method of choosing what you say yes to and what you say no to for every business, especially a small business.

Grant Greeff: 21:19

think that's spot on in terms of. Choosing what you should actually say no to. All right. Because I think a lot of people, they get, um, you know, caught up with shiny objects, especially in these days with all the technology and new features coming out and new, new businesses or offering. So I think that's spot on. And, and if I can even experience you here, where, where I've actually failed at implementing OKRs within an organization is when I've tried to do it. Um, for the whole organization at once. And so one, one thing, what do you think of this in terms of my learning is it was the fact that I realized I first had to do it at the management level, at the, at the senior team level, get their buy-in, get them used to it, say for like six months. And then once they were actually confident with it, then we actually implemented, uh, you know, to the rest of the teams within that.'cause my word it was, yeah, I, I mean, you know, it was a failure, but it was a lesson learned and that for me was the biggest lesson.

Colin Timmis: 22:15

Yeah, it, it's a massive challenge and a lot of, again, smaller type businesses, let's say, um, you know, these practices are, are, are prevalent in all larger companies. Um, but in a smaller business it's harder because there is a level of operational rigor required to manage OKRs. And even, even, I mean, it's, if you don't have an operations director. You know, or, or, or an owner who has the time to measure and track and report on all their cars. All it becomes is, you know, someone's full-time job to track all these projects, and that can in and of itself also become a problem. In fact, our, you know, our experience in our business now is that we've had to really. Make sure we do just enough of the OKRs and not too much.'cause we can't go to the level of larger regions. We've gotta have something that's palatable for our team because we, you know, we have a small team and we're lean and we don't have an operations director. So it's, it's us managing ourselves. Um. And so you've gotta write, you've gotta roll it out in a way that is relevant to the company. Because yes, otherwise your team are gonna look at these numbers and the first thing they're gonna say is, this corporates nonsense. I don't know why I'm doing it. So if you don't have the buy-in to complete, that's a waste of time.

Grant Greeff: 23:28

Yeah. And that goes into the fact that, um, first of all, in my view, I think we need to always make sure that people have, especially, especially at the beginning, um, they have an absolute maximum of, of, of three objectives. Because then you can have, let's call it three key results connected to one objective. If you've got three objectives with three key results for each objective, that's nine, that's nine effectively that you're having to manage. And I've seen it where people have like 10, which is just, I mean, I, I, I had a, a great, um, chat with the CEO of retail ability, Norman Dreman. And he even mentioned how it, I mean, he wasn't specifically talking about OKRs, but he mentioned how a lot of these businesses they come up with like. he says, even if the biggest business, you don't have the resources to even try

Colin Timmis: 24:16

Yeah. If you it out, it becomes, it becomes too many, you know? Even in our business, I think, I think globally we have three. Um, you know, so it's, it's like, because the problem as well is the reason they have 10 is because maybe you get five rights and you get five wrong. So it's actually a bit of a, a cop out because you don't want the accountability and the purpose of OKRs is accountability. And so, you know, the really honest businesses and the really focused ones have less, because if I give you one, you know. It's very clear whether you've passed or failed. If I give you 10, you could probably debate if it's 6, 4, 7, 3. Well, I did these right? I did those wrong. So the less the better. And I think three in terms of operating priorities is usually, you know, one, one sort of. Um, you know, one sort of main vision and then three, three or four operating priorities because under, I guess under underneath each of those operating priorities, you're gonna have initiatives that are gonna drive those priorities. You gotta measure all of those as well, so it gets super complicated, super quick, um, and you don't wanna lose people. You want to use it as a means to inspire and to drive accountability.

Grant Greeff: 25:23

Yeah. and I think Pro provide clarity and I think for everyone listening or watching, what, what I always find is that, so. Like you mentioned earlier, with key results, it's measurable. Um, for me, I always like to think of key results as, as, as quantitative. And then actually the objectives are actually qualitative. It's not necessarily numbers driven in the, in the objectives. Um, and, and then I think also in terms of that, another, another area that I always recommend, um, people consider is that you really focus then on. When it comes to how you articulate this to the team, you mentioned around how it drops, you know, throughout the teams. Another analogy that I've seen, or just an explanation is, um, seeing it as a, um, as like a, a solar system so that your specific objective doesn't have to directly connect to, say your direct report. It has to, from, from a business point of view, it has to fit in that solar system. So that's also another, again, I haven't necessarily applied that yet, but for anyone thinking of doing it, I think definitely consider, you know, the different, um, views to it.

Colin Timmis: 26:24

Yeah, it could be if you think in, in the terms of, um, like a sales funnel, you know, um, as long as your OKR is driving a part of the sales funnel, it's not necessarily driving that same part of the funnel, but it's driving a part of the funnel higher up, which indirectly affects one of the OKRs lower down in the funnel. Then that's still contributing to the overall health of the funnel. So, and that's sort of the solar system analogy I think probably is probably quite similar.

Grant Greeff: 26:53

So moving on to maybe a tangent here. Um, and, and another thing that I really think is, is always useful people, for people, especially if you're, if you're, um, leading teams, is the fact or the role of hr, because you mentioned it earlier on, you know, some businesses that don't have, um, certain, uh, individuals that could help with supporting. The one thing that comes up more and more for me is the role of HR within, you know, any organization. And more likely than not, HR possibly gets involved. When you probably at around 20 to 30 people, then it becomes truly meaningful in its role, um, in, in its separation, IEA person being, uh, accountable for it. So within your point of view for hr, what do you see hrs role is in an organization IE if I'm an HR manager. Um, or, you know, any type of position within the HR department in helping grow the business because there's such a negative, um, or based on my experience, there's such a negative sentiment around hrs role. Um, and, and I really think that it, yeah, it, it should be leveraged because it can add value.

Colin Timmis: 27:59

yeah. Um, look at, uh, in our business at Xero, um. And, you know, I think the positioning of HR and the language used to describe HR is, is first of all important, like at Xero we call HR px. So it's people experience, as you can imagine, at Xero, everything's got an X after it, you know, so we have wx workplace experience, LX learning experience, everything's an X. Um, so people experience, I think is a better word than hr. Like human resource management compared to people experience, like just, just the words you're using to describe the function, um, elicits a different response. Um, if I think of Xero's PX compared to hr, I think before you get into the actual functions or roles. What's most important is that you can't appoint any function functional head, uh, like PX or hr, and expect it to plug a gap, um, that's being created by the leader. Um, and, and very often HR is seen as the person who's gonna drive culture, uh, or the person is gonna solve people problems. Um, and, and I mean, we don't have a PX or HR person in our business, um, in South Africa full time. Um, our, our approach has been. That if we as leaders are demonstrating the right behaviors and treating people in a way that we'd want to be treated, then you probably have less of a need for HR or px. And so that's been the primary focus, um, is in making sure, and I think that's true of any business, if, if the leader or the founder or the people or the person that people look to. He's not setting a great example. He's not creating a great culture. No HR person's gonna come in and fix that. And very often that's what happens. The leader creates a dysfunctional environment. You know, he's not really a leader. People don't really wanna follow that person, you know, or they do wanna follow them, but they just lack the EQ to be able to support and enable the staff, and they've got no desire in building culture. So then they just plug in an HR person and make that their responsibility and. I don't think that's their responsibility. Like it's not the job of HR or PX to build culture and to drive the overall, you know, sort of values of the business and to embody those values that's embodied in the leadership. So from from my experience, like working at Zero for the last few years, that's one thing where. You know, I've definitely reimagined what, uh, and how important, um, you know, PX or HR is, and, and, and to your point, it's, it's, um, it's easily the, it's, it's, it's easily one of, if not the most important parts of the business. Um, so much so that, you know, we are compensated as leaders on our. Um, on our feedback from our teams, the 360 degree feedback, and, and we, and we serve our teams every two weeks, I think it is, um, every two weeks it gets five or six questions. And we track a thing called ENPS, um, employee net Promoter Score, um, every, every, every month, uh, per team, per report. Um, and you are remunerated based on that. So while you might be a salesperson getting commissioned, if you're a sales leader, you know you're gonna get comped also on, um. The feedback from your team. Um, and so one of the, like, one of the massive benefits we have, and that enables the growth culture, so the indexing on OKRs and, and high outputs, that can be a very tiring environment as well. It can be a very draining environment because it is, it is very binary. There's no room to move. You know, people with long stories don't usually last very long. So, um, you've gotta create an environment that's that's supportive of that. You know, and, and so sometimes there's this dysfunctional environment where you've got this HR that's functioning as almost like a, a disciplinary, you know, slight culture enablements, plug in the gaps of the leader, as well as a very ambiguous performance, you know, one, once a year annual review, you know, like it's a 1990s type of thing. And, and the two just don't gel. It's just a, a mud environment. What I. Um, and which I think more, you know, I'm amazed when we even meet with some of our accounting partners that they don't employ this, but it's just the, the importance of using your, your HR or PX person to. Not to build the culture, but to, um, to support the culture and to support the efforts of the leaders. Um, and to compliment and to provide opportunities for it to be expressed and to grow and to, and to develop. So it's, I think it's about how you approach it and it, uh, there's many companies that, yeah, you know, it's not about. Benefits and or just about that and benefits and, you know, medical aid and kickoffs and all that sort of thing. It's about, um, creating channels that where the leadership and values built by the, by the leaders, you know, can reach the team and can be supported and uplifted and made to last like a lot longer.

Grant Greeff: 32:54

I think, you know, around that HR role from the support. I think that's the key word because, you know, I, I've been in a very, very big corporate at pick and pay when I did my articles and like kind of medium sized businesses as well, and. I think the, the, the role of hr then, if it's more positioned and then described, whereby the fact that every management person or any person in that, uh, position, um, where they have teams reporting to them, they need to understand that they should own and drive the, you know, the, the culture of the business, but use HR to support in possibly administering, administering quite a lot of. Things like, for example, getting that ENPS score out, um, um, arranging the meetings with regards to your OKR, uh, feedback session. So it's like that, that project management slash administration to support management in, you know, continuing the progress and, and, and, and, and, and the nurturing of the culture. So fully agree with that supportive role. And, and then I think. Um, again, con creating that connection to OKRs as a consequence of effectively implementing OKRs. Um, you mentioned feedback there. You have to have like, you know, every two weeks or so or so feedback because when the key result, figure is say not being, um, you know, kind of is not changing. That's the whole point of OK is then to begin the, the feedback loop of going, okay, wow. What's happening? What actions have we done that haven't been working? What experiments have we tested that, you know, the hypothesis has been, uh, disproved or something like

Colin Timmis: 34:29

yeah. No, exactly. And then that's when things will start going off track, you know? Then the pressure increases. And, um, you know, people get forgotten and, and, and the reasons for the failures, not that they are always, is always an excuse, but they could be extenuating circumstances to why something hasn't been achieved. And, and very often that's when HR gets involved to try and, you know, fix things. So like, absolutely, like the people score in your business and how your team is doing is critically important and it's owned by the people either. Again, it starts at the top, like if you don't have, if you don't have a set of values around which to align. Like, how do you work, uh, how do you treat each other? Um, you know, you hear stories of, you know, people who shout in offices and send snotty emails and like, just foreign to me, we, we just don't see that. Like, people don't, don't behave like that. It's just not, it's not the way you treat anyone, you know? So, um, when you've got that in your business or your company, it's not gonna end well and HR is not gonna be able to fix that.

Grant Greeff: 35:32

A hundred percent. If we now jump to, to another topic of, of the entrepreneurship side of things, because I think you, you know, from, from what I've seen on LinkedIn, you spent, I think it was around 12 years as an entrepreneur first, um, a tax business that you started, and then real time accounting.

Colin Timmis: 35:48

Yeah.

Grant Greeff: 35:51

And in that experience of being an entrepreneur, talk to me about the facts or. So let rephrase this. So there, there is a massive narrative or that romanticizes entrepreneurship and, you know, there's a business called Beauty on Tap as an example that, that I've covered in a, in a business spotlight. And, um, mat, Melissa, Melissa, who is the founder, she had a, uh, a role at an investment banking business. And only after, I think it was only after like more than four years of her. Um, having this business that she started on the side, beauty on tap, gaining a lot of traction, did she then move so she didn't kind of start the business from scratch, you know, leave the job. She actually let it grow first and then move, and I think that story isn't, um. Told enough around the fact that you don't always have to just take all the risks and you know, the kind of, you know, be on the front cover of the, of the magazine. But at the one percenters for you, in as being an entrepreneur now, moving then into a space where you, working in a business, you know, in a management, in a business, at a management level, how has that transition been?

Colin Timmis: 36:59

Yeah. Um, I mean, the only reason, I mean, this is the first job that I've had, um, to be honest, because when I, you know, after I finished my articles, I worked for a very short time, um, at, at a small, at a small, I think a financial advisory or brokerage. And I, and I started up an accounting department there. Um, and after about two or three years, like, you know, things weren't going, I mean, they were going well for me, but I just felt like, you know, I wasn't being looked after. And so I decided, well. Let, let, let me sort of go on my own. And similarly to the story you just shared, you know, I had a little spreadsheet and I figured that there were probably 8, 9, 10 clients who, you know, probably would, who would probably move with me. And, and they did. And, and that's how I started out. And I did that for, um. I think seven or eight years, uh, probably eight or nine years. But it was traditional accounting practice type work. And, and I, I'm not a natural accountant. Like I'm not a very good accountant either. Um, but you know, the debtor book was growing. It wasn't a great business. Uh, it was a great business. We got lots of leads within, lots of, it was growing all the time, but just not in a healthy way. Just was hard work. Um. And, uh, so eventually when we, we made the move and changed and I became a zero accountant or partner, that's when everything changed. And I probably became way more entrepreneur. Like I took the risk of converting our practice from being traditional to being cloud-based and no one at the time was doing it. And, but I just felt like that was the absolute right thing to do. Um, and I've been involved in one or two other businesses as well, um, over the years. When I got the chance to move from being a business owner to working at a company, it wasn't that big of a change because actually when I started with Xero, um, I started as a contractor. So they just gave me a T-shirt and said like, okay, like see what you can do. And I just went around the country and, you know, met people and met firms and got lots of emails with Xero, sculpt with the Z and, and all of that sort of thing. So I did that for two years. And so I was being, I was still effectively running my own business, you know, I was getting paid a contractor's fee. A couple of, uh, paid rate per hour, um, for the week. Uh, which when I think back was like, it was massively risky. I don't know why I did it, but, um, I just felt like the right thing to do. And then, um, after two years, then they said, okay, well let's, we'll set up a business, you know. Um, and even then, I, I didn't really meet, uh, with a lot of people globally. I worked independently, so we didn't have a team. It was me and one other person. Um, and so we just went around the country seeing people trying to, you know, speak to practices and accounting bodies. So it, it's been very entrepreneurial. They, I think what's the, the key defining, um, factor has been that it hasn't felt like working in a business. I feel like I'm running my own business, um, because the, the business globally has given. Um, me the space and the resources to do basically what I want to do. Um, and so, you know, even in some of the stuff we've built, I mean, I can tell you stories that might, it seems like super risky, but, um, they've, they've given me a lot of rope. And so, um, that, that's, that's what's probably made it feel not like, um, I've ever had a job really. I still feel like, you know, I can make all the decisions. That I need to, um, and, and that's what's been so amazing is when you work in a, in a, in a company that's so well structured, they're willing to do that and, and, and back, uh, back you, you know, to build a business with which we've now done, and now it's very different and now it's expanding. But, but to be honest, now's the time when I feel like, okay, now I've, you know. Now I'm working in a big global corporate business, but actually it actually sits quite nicely.'cause I, that's actually what I want. I'm, I'm actually interested now at this stage of my life in, in learning those newer things and, you know, sitting in meetings with people who have worked at Google and Amazon and Microsoft and Lyft and booking.com and, uh, you know, Uber and, I mean, it's like, where are you gonna get that experience from? Like, do I want to go back now and, you know, try and open up a restaurant franchise? Or, or, or. Build some app, like, no, thank you very much. Like I'm more than happy learning from, uh, like the best in the world. Um, you know, people that have worked with the founders of, you know, major companies like Google and I'm in a room with them, it's like, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's really, really it, um, it's, um, yeah, really, really insightful and useful. So very, very, very, very rewarding.

Grant Greeff: 41:17

I, I really relate to that because for me, you know, having had my own business while I was, you know, studying and, and, and, and doing my articles when I made the first now to go to, um, you know, where, where I was previously, um, before moving into this new role, I think moving into a place where you, you're, you're not gonna be, you know, let's call it the final, you know, the final boss or, or, or have the final say, you know, kind of at that macro level. Funny enough, it allowed me to focus a lot more because as an entrepreneur, you know, you're accountable for everything in the business and, and, and everything at the end of the day does land up on your desk. Um, you know, if, if, if it needs to. And, and I think for me, that has been quite refreshing is being able to, in a role, really focus then on, on, on, on crafting, whether it be the skill sets and the experiences so that you can just. Kind of accelerate that learning and, and specialization say within a specific area. I know if you've kind of experienced the same thing or. Okay.

Colin Timmis: 42:18

Yeah. and, and, and, um, look, I I mean, I think the, the, the way people are employed. Is changing. You know, the expectations on an employee in profitable growing companies that people want to stay at, um, is, is evolving. Um, and people are being allowed to take, um, more control and be more responsible and accountable. Again, coming back to the OKR environment, if that's a type of business. That you're running, you actually need to employ people that are capable and willing to take that responsibility. And so, you know, it's very possible, um, to find yourself in a company when you're employed and getting a fixed salary, but you're still entrepreneurial. You know, you're still able to really hone your skill and become, you know, responsible for something because you're not being micromanaged and treated like a child. And having a, a review once a year where you get like a random increase. You don't really know how, where it comes from. It's, it's like the, the place of work is changing, you know? And, and if it's not, those companies just won't do well, not because of their business model, but very often because they can't hang onto the people. You know? And like everyone talks about the remote work thing, and I mean, I think that's a bit of a, a red herring, like the real issue is the underlying culture that you have at the business. Like makes the whole remote work office work irrelevant because it's what underpins the values of the business. That's what's the most important and, um. You know, are people motivated or not? And I'll just share a little anecdotal, not anecdotal story, but a true story. We've got someone who's leaving our business now, uh, end of the month. Um, and he's going off to go and start his own business. Um, he started a business on the side, um, and that's doing really well in a completely different field. And like, we're like amazing man. Like he did really well here and I started new business and I were like, cool, how can we support? You do need any advice? And I set your business up, you know, and it's just like, hey.

Grant Greeff: 44:09

Do you need an

Colin Timmis: 44:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, a hundred percent John. No, I'll give him a little discount, but, um, but, but, but, that, that, that's like the mindset. It's, it's, um, it's, you know, if, I don't know, I can't remember where I read it, but somebody once said that your only job as an employer is to prepare people for their next job. You know, people are never gonna stay with you forever. And so your job as somebody who employs is to skill them up and make them so capable that in the next role they're even more happy and even more profitable. Um, and, and very often our mindsets are very different. It's very, you know, myopic in that we're like, that's my resource to deliver my outcomes and they must work for me. Again, that's like an hr, like a weird, you know, non OKR environment where actually you'd be like, here's a person who's committed, valuable, who's. You know, responsible. How can I invest in this person that one day when they do leave, which they will, you know, everyone's going to leave. And if they don't, you've probably got bigger problems. Um, but like, how do I prepare this person for their next role? You know? And if you have that mindset, like that's just a way more, um, that's just a way happier environment for everyone I think.

Grant Greeff: 45:17

In my, in my, um, uh, event business, we had a value celebrate progress even when it's uncomfortable. And it related very much to that example where progress can happen inside the business or it can, can also happen outside of the business for people's career. So, um, I think, yeah, a lot of businesses that celebrate that progress, even when it is outside the business, I mean. It does. If, if you have that, that, that purpose around truly creating value within the community, within the country, as an example, like you, you should want people to grow and, and, and kind of export, um, all the skills and the learnings and, and, and create the ripple effect effectively as a consequence of using your business also as the springboard.

Colin Timmis: 45:57

Yeah. And, and I mean really, and it's a, it's, it's a hard truth to, to deal with, but if you've, if you've properly built your business, you know, it should not be dependent on one or two people and whether they stay or whether they go, you know, if you've. Built a business that has got proper scalability and processes and systems, and, and you, and you've, and you've worked on your business property, then it, it shouldn't have that much of an impact. And if it does, you know, then it was doomed. Anyway, so yeah, I,

Grant Greeff: 46:29

If we look at a fi final topic,'cause I mean, you know, the time's flowing here. So, but if we look at a final topic around, um, your role right now as the country manager for South Africa, I think if that's still the, you know, still the role based on what I've been seeing, um, what, or. Where are you spending your time as a country manager for South Africa of a global business? Like, you know, there's a lot of people now on the team. Uh, there's a lot of things happening elsewhere, but where do you actually spend your time and prioritize that time?

Colin Timmis: 47:01

Um, yeah, so. I mean, I spend most of my time with my primary team, um, which is the team that runs the functions, uh, for the South African business. That's, that's the majority of my time. And, and the focus of that time is on making sure that, you know, there's no challenges or blockers, um, in people's ways to doing, to doing their work. And, and then thirdly, to giving them input into into how they can be successful as well. In achieving what they have to do in our OKRs or our plan. So that's the majority of my time is around, you know, uh, giving that input in that direction, but also setting our US up, um, probably doing some work that I shouldn't be in a more of like operations, uh, type role. We are making sure that we're, you know, doing things we have to, uh, with the current team. Um, then I, I'm spending an increasing amount of time with our, our global teams. Um, we, we actually also look after Ireland and, um. The Middle East. And so while those are small teams, you know, that's, uh, there's some new things on the horizon there. And so it's probably spending a, a few bit more time with, um, you know, senior leaders globally and understanding, you know, global strategy and, and plans, um, and development. And then I. Probably thirdly, and lastly is technical. So, you know, I still get my hands dirty in terms of, um, how we build product. Um, you know, our, our marketing plans. Um, you know, any brand work we're going to do, um, you know, presentations and content, making sure that our messaging is on point, um, that we're crystal clear in what we want, you know, our customers to do. Um, so there's a technical aspect where, you know, one would think that in a. In a while that might, you know, drop away a bit, but it's still a very, very important part of the business because, um, getting in front of our customers, um, you know, our, our co-founder Gary Turner once said, a, uh, it's very Dan a desk is a very dangerous place from which to run a business and you've gotta be in front of your customers and. And so we still have a sort of requirement to be in front of our customers, often doing events and, and speaking and understanding like, what is going on? Where can we support? So there's that technical aspect. Um, so actually now that I think about it, if you reverse it round, it fits perfectly into that technical, managerial, entrepreneurial, uh, thing that, uh, old Michael Gerber spoke about. So technical. You know, building products, getting in front of partners, doing talks, getting messaging right, management of my existing team, um, inputting operational priorities, making sure that's done. And then third is leadership and entrepreneur, which is more with our global teams. And actually, I color code my diary in those three brackets. So I've got three colors for my diary. What, like, what's technical? What's. What do I deems managerial and what's leadership? And then I can, you know, run reports and just get a view from my week on, like, why am I spending so much time in the weeds this week, you know, all this month? Why am I, why am I spending so much time just doing leadership? Am I losing touch with my customers? Um, and those are the three buckets, even my notebook. Um. Um, when I've got ideas or thoughts or I'm, you know, um, doing any planning, I just have a notebook and my notebook has three categories, leadership, managerial, technical, and I fill those buckets. I put people's names next to the side if I need support. Um, and that's how I measure, measure my impact and try and just keep a balance across all three, all three parameters.'cause if you're too much on the leadership entrepreneurial side, you know, then I become like some, you know, office guy with the filing cabinets and a pa. And I've like, got no idea. You know, that's not my vibe. So, you know, wanna make sure that it's balanced.

Grant Greeff: 50:24

Yeah, I think that's, that's a great gem to leave everyone with practically for them to now go, go, go and do because, um, on both Microsoft Office as well as Google Workspace in terms of their calendar features, you can color code every single meeting in the most easiest way. And, and, and they've got reporting now on where you're spending your time based on that. So I a hundred percent. Challenge or encourage everyone listening or watching to go and do that, to start doing that no matter where you are, so that you can start being far more conscious about where you're actually spending your time and how much of your time you're spending there. So, um, thanks for sharing that, Colin. Thanks so much. I mean, this was, uh, a fast paced one. I really enjoyed the, the, the, the actual rhythm. Um, and I know a lot of people are gonna enjoy the insights, the, the practicalities that you've shared today. So thanks so much for joining me and, uh, yeah, wishing you be, wishing you the best in the, in the next financial year.

Colin Timmis: 51:15

Awesome. Thanks so much. It's been great. Thanks Grant.

Track 1: 51:19

I.