The Most Dangerous Place for Any Brand Is the Middle

In this episode of Breaking the Blueprint, Vinay and Iqbal are joined by Vimal Raj to explore what customer experience really looks like when it’s done properly, at scale, under pressure.

Vimal shares lessons from his career in aviation and service leadership, including what he learned at Singapore Airlines, why operational excellence should be a platform for humanity, and how organisations accidentally scale indifference as they grow. The conversation breaks down why speed and efficiency have become commodities, why the middle ground is where loyalty quietly dies, and why the most dangerous customer outcome isn’t dissatisfaction — it’s forgettability.

They also unpack the real reasons great experiences feel inconsistent in most organisations. It’s rarely because people don’t care. It’s because systems reward compliance over judgment, process over humanity, and speed over listening. Vimal explains why psychological safety is the foundation of service culture, why curiosity is a defining leadership trait, and why culture always shows up in unscripted moments of truth.

The episode closes with a powerful idea that ties everything together: stewardship. When people see themselves as stewards of customers, colleagues, and outcomes, service stops being transactional and starts becoming meaningful.

If you care about leadership, customer experience, service design, or building organisations people actually remember, this episode will change how you think.

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Transcript

Vinay 0:05

hey everybody. Welcome to episode two, season two of the Breaking the Blueprint podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. It's all about the things that we do to drive customers to come back to us time and time again through delivering great experiences and those memorable moments that drive loyalty, advocacy, and trust. I'm back with my trusted partner and co-host Iqbal. hello Iqbal. How are you doing? How's it going?

Iqbal 0:31

Yeah. Good. Thanks. Vinay. pleasure to be here. Of course, again, like it's been, it feels like it's been a while since we've done did this,'cause of the Christmas period and things like that. But,

Vinay 0:41

Yeah. which is a, lovely segue into our guest who's patiently waiting for us to finish our preamble, Vimal Raj. Thank you for joining us. and I met on LinkedIn, a couple of years ago now, I think. And we started commenting on each other's posts and we found that we shared, some similar views, but we also challenged each other with the way that we looked at things. and we got to know each other quite well. And, in fact, when I was in Dubai last year, we actually met up in person for a coffee. So it was nice to. Go from online friends to in-person friends, which, was, really nice. and, he's got a fascinating background, worked in aviation, and has worked with some great brands and organisations. But I won't steal this, Vimal, I'll let him introduce himself. Vimal, welcome to the podcast, and thank you for joining us all the way from Dubai.

Vimal 1:31

Thank you very much, Vinay and thanks Iqbal. Really pleased to be on your podcast. it's really an honor. I'm, from Singapore. I've grown up all over the world. Actually, over the last 25 years I've lived across, eight countries. So I bring a very different perspective to things. I bring a multicultural, a different way of looking at things. ever since I was a little kid, I've been the Boy who looks at people, look at people. So I don't know if you know what that means, but when something happens, everybody turns and looks, of course I'm normal, I look too. But then I very quickly look at the people looking at what's happening. Because for me, that drives my understanding of how do we behave? How do we, what are we looking at? What are we thinking? What are we feeling? What are we saying? why do people make the decisions that they do? And that's, personally, that's the kind of person I am. in terms of work, you could call me a facilitator, a consultant. I, have a portfolio career. I don't, it doesn't really matter what you call me, right? I don't think there is a single box that can fit everything that I do. but, I do a bit of consulting. I do a bit of training, I do a bit of educating in the university. My world is essentially all about, customer experience, leadership, operations, and so on. I work at the intersection of those three things because, I believe that if you truly wanna deliver an outcome, an experience that is memorable, that is delightful, that, people truly care about, then it begins at the top right with, leadership, and then it flows all the way down into how you're actually doing what you need to do. I suppose if, for the traditional folks who, who need a sort of a definition as to what I do, I really help to deliver world class operational performance. without losing the humanity that typically comes along with, what high volume, high transaction businesses engage in. So I hope you build world class operational loyalty, long-term value, not just for your customers, but also for your employees and for your business. I really learned to do this from my very first employer, which I think is. no bias, but the best airline in the world, Singapore Airlines. and I've stayed deeply embedded within the travel and aviation ecosystem ever since. and, today my clients work with me because I don't offer, there's obviously, there's theory, there's frameworks and all of that, but I move far beyond the theory and the frameworks, and I help translate those ideas into everyday behaviour that leaders, managers and frontline people need to do, need to engage in. and, so that's, that's what I do and how I do things. I suppose if you want a soundbite, it's, scaling efficiency without scaling indifference. So I was listening. Yeah, I was listening to your stories when you guys were introducing yourselves and, I think indifference is really something that happens when you. particularly in high volume environments, right? so I help to overcome that indifference and I try to help you scale the humanity and the empathy.

Vinay 4:58

that's, really nice. And just a, couple of things in what you said. I think interesting that the more and more, that I speak to in the customer outcome space, I won't say cx, but people that tend to lead that, one of the common thread, one of the common traits that I find is they're normally the good ones anyway. have a sense of curiosity. So your example of not just watching what happens, but watching the people watching what happens. think the job really is to look beyond the surface and, observe what other people aren't looking at. And to, find those that aren't that obvious and bring them to the surface. And I think that's a kind of skill and a way and a map a way that you look at the world, the map of the world that you have and your way to navigate that is, is quite interesting. So I think that's really a, that's a really common trait that I find across really great leaders that they have them. and, scaling without losing, scaling but not scaling in differences is also, something that really resonates with me and you saw, you heard it in our stories, and one of the things I often talk about is the worst place to be anywhere in the world is in the middle. You think about the classic NPS scale, you've got your promoters and your, detractors, for whatever we think about NPS and just using it To to articulate the point. the vast majority of those people in the middle, it's indifference. they'll come once, it's not bad enough, they're gonna complain and it's not good enough that they're gonna come back. They just, next time they're in the market for the product, onto a search and they'll go and find somebody else rather than you being their default. And I think that's the bit that we try to capture and measure. But before we move into the questions, it only, and I have shared an example of, experience over process and tech. And before we jump in, I just wondered if you had something that's happened with you recently that also illustrates that point.

Vimal 6:49

Yeah, I've got loads of examples. for me, every interaction I engage in with a business or with. Service personnel becomes further for my posts or for my thinking, right? So I've actually got two. Maybe I'll, stick to a travel example and then I'll move on to something with my, daughter. I, travel a lot for work and, there's this one hotel that I've stayed in five times in the last, I'd say probably three months or so. And what surprised me was I've become so used to the indifference. You go, you reach, you, you rock up to the reception counter you're checked in, you're given your key card, and then there you go. On the third occasion that I was there, so I've been there twice. On the third occasion that I was there, the lady at the counter actually said, oh, Mr. Raj. First time she's used my name, Mr. Raj, welcome back. Thank you for your loyalty to us. And mind you, I'm not, I'm obviously not at the base tier. I'm three levels up, right? Two, two below the top. And I was actually on my phone and I'm, I stopped and I looked at her and I'm like, oh, thank you very much. And she said, yeah, I, you were here two weeks ago and, how was your stay then? And, she was talking to me while, just click clacking. And then she said, for your loyalty, I'm gonna put you in a nicer room. the one that faces the mountains instead of the city. And I said, oh, that's really nice of you. She says, yeah, I hope you enjoy your stay because this time you're staying longer. something so simple, right? But what it brought home to me was the fact that the other two times and the following two times, nobody said anything like that to me. Obviously she wasn't there. so it's, this idea that you have a system that is giving you the information that this, I, was just here two weeks ago. You have my loyalty status. You have all of that, but. You're not making use of it in any meaningful way to create that connection. You're just looking at it. It's just information on a screen and you're just doing the work that you're doing, which is checking me in.

Vinay 8:44

that's a great example.

Vimal 8:45

Yeah.

Vinay 8:47

I know if Iqbal wants to jump in here, but it leads beautifully to the main part of the conversation was gonna into that, Iqbal did you wanna, looked like you had something to jump in with.

Iqbal 8:58

no, I, think it's, I always find this really interesting. I think a lot of this is, as you said, the information, like in that particular example, vimal you clearly, everybody's got access to information whereby they can have that interaction, that connection with you. But sometimes I think it's the type of people that you hire to deliver that service. people are very confident and comfortable.

Vimal 9:24

Yeah, absolutely. at one, one of the things that we used to do in Singapore Airlines, and then I brought into the other airlines that I work with and I consulted with is it is a very simple thing. most of us don't fly, we try to avoid flying on our birthdays or on national holidays, right?'cause it's a holiday and you wanna spend it with your family. But on the odd occasion that you have to do it, imagine the joy that you can bring as an employee. When you recognise somebody that, who, somebody who's flying on his or her birthday, and you actually wish them, you don't have to do anything grand. You don't have to give them a card or a cake or anything, but just, oh, happy birthday, Mr. Raj. I noticed today is your birthday. You have that information on the screen. You're taking his passport, you're looking at it, you know the date, but you're just not using it to create that connection.

Vinay 10:12

and it, it's interesting'cause we talk a lot about having systems and information in order to be able to do that. But even without them, the clues are always there, there's always something going on that enables you to, if you are observing, to take your example of curiosity. We talked about curiosity early on. If you are a person naturally has that sense of curiosity and observational skills, you can pick up moments like the story I was gonna share. people that have seen me speak at conferences will know, one of my, one of my key stories is I share a story about my nephew, years old we're in Barcelona and he becomes a Jet2 fan for life because something happens. It's a really human moment. And I'm not, I won't tell you the full story here, but, there was something going on. He was messing about the, Jet2 staff were, we're observing what was going on, observing me and him having interaction. And then I threatened to put him in the luggage halt because if he didn't stop missing about, that's what I was gonna do. the jet team member of staff that was there who had obviously been watching this thing unfold for a period. Something in her told her this was a good time for me to also jump in and contribute. So she jumped in and we was, when he was saying to me, oh, you can't do that, she went, oh, yes you can. And then this whole thing happened where we went along with this joke where we were gonna put him in the luggage hold, but he talks about Jet2 not because of the plane and the price and all of that. He's got no idea what the price. But that human moment not only created a, memory for him, but it created a story for our family to always go back reminisce on. and I've flown with them 11 times now, probably 12 now if I can't correctly, and every single time. the interesting thing is that this isn't a one-off. we were, you were talking about it's the people you employ. Lots of organisations have heroes in their organisation that can deliver those one-off moments, but to do it repeatedly. It takes a certain type of structure. Jet2 do brilliantly is every time they get the boring basics of excellence, But it gives their people a platform then to be able to put these human moments. And every time we've flown with them, time there's been something that's happened that's been a memorable human moment. Even not directly with us, but I've just observed them doing things with other people where I think, oh, that's really, that was a really nice touch. Or that was a great way. You just see it in their people. so I, I just think it's a, fascinating thing. And, just sticking on the other thing, one of my favourite books that I read, it's, this is published in the eighties. It tells you how old it is. It's a book called Moments of Truth by Jan Carlson. And Jan ended up being the CEO of SAS Airlines. And in his book he talks about the whole transformation of how he make it more customer centric. But he talked about, what he observed when he first went in and often in aviation, and I'm sure Vimal will talk to it. And in public transport where I've spent a lot of my time, can often focus on the chunks of metal, the infrastructure, the engineering side, the process of what we do, and we, and not pay as much attention to the other side of the coin. and Vimal, my question to you is, I mean you we were talking about this book and you, we looked at some of the concepts in there. was almost ahead of its time, right? In ma in many ways. so what's, so, so when you, when you hear about, when you hear about these kind of stories we've described about warmth in organisations, whether it's Lego, whether it's Jet2, whether it's, hotel that you stayed at, what's usually happening inside that organisation that enables. That to come through for people.

Vimal 13:43

Yeah, that's a great question, Vinay, because I think for, there, there's a lot of soundbites that we hear. There's a lot of PR there. There's a lot of statements that leaders make, but at the end of the day, it's the culture. That matters. It's the culture that drives your thinking and then drives your behaviour. And right off the bat, I would say the first couple of things, the, probably the very first thing that That enables any employee to do, to do something as special as what the Jet2 employee did with you, or, what happened in, SaaS with, Jan Carlson's. Leadership is psychological safety. Your staff need to know that they're not gonna be. Penalised for making a mistake or that they're not gonna be, held back for trying to do something extra, or that they're just allowed to think that they're allowed to be creative, they're allowed to express themselves, right? so psychological safety is a huge component of, of any great service environment. And then I, think the second thing, which is something that you're not really gonna hear a lot about because it's a bit, some people think of it as woo which is a technical term for, what I'm trying to say, is this idea that, we all have to have a higher sense of purpose. and it's very difficult for me to explain it. But, when you believe that you're working towards something that is bigger than yourself, bigger than the organisation, bigger than. Who you are and, that implies to you that you are working for something that is much bigger, more beautiful, more, more, important than your role on earth. I think when you have that higher sense of purpose that really drives you, it really stretches you, it's a secret that I employ in my workshops actually, that, when I, so the one line that I put in my workshops is. what I'm gonna talk to you about in the next couple of days is not work. It's, there's gonna be lots of theory and frameworks and ideas and, examples and so on, but really, all of these things are gonna help you in life as parents, as husbands, as friends, as, coworkers. And that just gets everybody to sit up because all of a sudden it's not about work. It's not about operations. It's not about my brand, it's not about my company, it's about life. And I'm gonna become much, much more valuable in my life to the people that I love. And suddenly that higher sense of purpose just enables you to just think differently to. To be creative and so on. So I think these two things are really at a core. there's lots of other things like, being part of a team and being appreciated and being recognised. all of those things you read about in all leadership books, but the, but I think that the two biggest things, psychological safety and a higher sense of purpose.

Vinay 16:31

I think they're, it's really interesting this, a model that I use, called the Six Human Needs. There are six universal human needs that we all have. There are four that are core, and then there are two that are more would say, more, needs of our, the spirit's purpose. If you, like to use an example. So I think you've got certainty, variety, significance, and love and connection. And I think that's, the role of the organisation that give you certainty about knowing what you're doing. You've got re, repeatable stuff that happens. You feel safe, but you've also got opportunity and variety in the work that you do. Significance comes from being recognised and being made to feel like you matter and that you're valued. And the love and connection comes from your colleagues and the support network that you have. And if you've got those four things, you're in a, you're in a pretty good place. And then when you have that baseline, you're able to then think about what's my contribution? What's my opportunity to growth? Those are the needs that then come mix. And I think that's a universally as human beings, we all have that. I've been lucky enough to have worked in a culture, I worked in my early banking days when I worked with a brand that launch you in the uk. had that in oodles. And I think when you're exposed to that and you've been in that kind of culture, it wires you a certain way that you can see that. And you often then, it's similar to the work that you do, and we're not go into organisations when you see the opposite, where people don't have that and how that's holding them back. it's, quite a, it's quite, I guess a challenge to grow to grow them back out of it and, inspire them to do that. yeah. I think,

Vimal 18:07

I tell you what it is, when you, see that, you realise it's not the people in the room with you. It's not that, it's the systems around them, it's the leadership that's guiding them. It's all of those things, right? And, then sometimes funny enough, you, stand there and you say, these are not the folks I need to be talking to. I need to be talking all to all the folks that are not attending this because they're the ones that have put the systems and the culture in place for these guys.

Iqbal 18:34

one of the key things, what I find is, like you said, is it's because people do genuinely, it's, it is just work for them at the end of the day. a lot of them will

Vimal 18:42

Yeah.

Iqbal 18:43

red tape or, all the restrictions and the limitations that apply to all of this. and sometimes people can hide behind that too. And I think it's easy to, It's it is an effort to actually do the things that, we, talk about when it comes to building those human connections. I, and sometimes I feel like people can quite easily just hide behind process as well, and it can

Vinay 19:05

Yeah.

Iqbal 19:05

an excuse. So I love that concept vimal, around having a high purpose and actually tapping into, how people can be more human-like with others when they interact with them. And that could be, as you say, your, helping you build better relationships with your family members, your friends, but actually just the, customers that you're interacting with. And having that kind of consistency, I think makes a massive difference. I think one of the things that we obviously, we'll be leaning into, is particularly in aviation, something Vimal you spoken quite a lot about is, that, building out a tinman organisation now, it's interesting you're talking about all of these human, interactions, how do you build that in a Tin Man organisation? I find that quite, interesting and in intriguing. I know we're gonna move on to other concepts like Octopus as well. I, and I've got some thoughts around how you could potentially combine the two, but yeah, we would love to get your kind of view on what, that is in plain English.

Vimal 20:07

Yeah, sure, sure, we, we move pretty fast from what Jan Carlson was talking about and what he did with SaaS, but essentially, the, Tin Man organisation in plain English is. What Carlson about what, 40 years ago now. If you think about it.'cause he wrote the book in 87 or 85. it's what he wanders against. So a tinman organisation is, at its core, an efficient, run organisation that is consistent, it's compliant, it has SOPs, it has well-trained people. it's, very organised, right? And, where it follows processes, it follows rules, it follows systems. There's a hierarchy. and a lot of this is actually very useful, right? Particularly, if you look at hotels, you look at highly regulated businesses in, in government, for example, in traffic, trains, aviation, safety and security are non-negotiables. risk is actually asymmetric in the sense that if something were to go wrong, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people are impacted. So there's a very, it's very, important to adhere to the guidelines and to the deadlines and to the, rules and the limits, right? there's regulations, there's, a, very clear need for compliance, not. Creativity. so that's essentially what a Tin Man organisation is. It's not bad, per se, it's very good, particularly for relevant situations. and, I would say that, these are the things that make an organisation function very efficiently, often, very effectively, quite predictably, which is all the great things that

Vinay 22:04

Yeah.

Vimal 22:05

You know that, the left side of the brain wants right in business.

Iqbal 22:09

Sorry. Go.

Vinay 22:11

I was, thinking as you were saying that, this might be a strange, analogy, but they're almost like, if you've ever, if you've ever been friend zoned by, a girl, it's almost like the friend zoned type organisation. You're reliable, you're dependable. You're, a nice guy. You're a nice person who sticks to the rules, who does things the way they're supposed to do it. you are that person that gets the phone call when they need a bit of help because you are reliable. But, stereotypically, there's the, bad boy or the, the person who has that little bit of character or something a bit different. That seems to get the, that teams get the attraction. But you are just there in the background. As Mr. Dependable, I'm probably revealing too much about my, youth here.

Vimal 22:59

I, did not think. I never thought this was where this conversation was gonna go, but, no, but, you're right. I, think I, it's, brilliant that you brought that up because I think it, it speaks to something that is inherent in all of us that we seek. The special, we seek the delight, we seek the, that little element of character or differentiation in a business, right? whether it's in a person or in a character or something. And I, think Tin Man organisations are, as you said, the dependable show, organisation that works. Unfortunately, we are in a world today where almost nothing. and particularly today in 2026, right? There is almost nothing that is, I've heard this phrase being used, it's called Post Truth. So it is almost nothing that you see anymore online, can you believe, right? it's, images, video, everything is generated. And, so you come to a point now where Tin Man organisations are great as long as everything else around them. Works as they should, but the minute you've got disruptions, the minute you've got challenges, the minute you've got somebody with a need that doesn't correspond to the SOP, you're in trouble.

Iqbal 24:20

Think that's the thing,

Vimal 24:21

Yeah.

Iqbal 24:21

With, what for, for me depends on the type of service you are consuming, as a customer because, when you are in an aviation situation, me, knowing that a tinman policy's been implemented means that I can depend on this. feel safe. And I think it, gives me a sense of safety. In fact, that's probably more important to me than having a good connection with somebody whilst I'm experiencing, I just wanna get to my destination safely. yeah. see, staff doing certain things, which means it, it comes sometimes at compromise to. The, connection I've got with them, I feel I'm, good with that because I know that at least they're doing their job, keep me as a customer

Vinay 25:06

Yeah.

Iqbal 25:06

I think a fine balance there, isn't there? You've got to prioritise the right things. Yeah,

Vinay 25:12

and really

Vimal 25:13

Yeah.

Vinay 25:14

great point, because we're not saying it's an, or you're not a Tin man or something else. You are. and if you go back to the Jet2 example, Jet2 have got Tin Man through them all the way through from start to finish. They've got operational excellence all the way through. They do safety. All of those things are there, what that then enables them to do beyond that because it creates that platform. What, I think we were describing with the hotel example and other examples that we might have talked about is, that organisation has people that will act on their own. Intuition and interest to do something in the moment as a one-off, but it's not repeatable. And where the gap happens is where that happens sometimes, but nobody else in the organisation's doing it. And actually you haven't even got the basics right, so you don't have permission. So it's all very well, bringing you on board, smiling, giving you free champagne when you're on the plane, but if they can't get you there safely, it's, an non-negotiable, right?

Vimal 26:14

There's an element of timing, right? you know how in e-commerce and in retail we love to say any marketing, frankly, we love to say, the right message to the right customer at the right time and, so on and so forth. I think tinman, when, you're at check-in, you're not expecting the flight to be delayed, you're not expecting problems to happen, you're not expecting for the aircraft to have technical issues, you're not expecting. God forbid to crash, you're, not expecting any of the negatives. You're just getting through a transaction. When you are in that particular situation, you could be Tin Man and that's fine. that's expected. It's, but it's nothing great. It's nothing special. It's not gonna help you as a brand, as an airline or as an airport, stand out in any way. You're just doing what you need to do right now. That's conversely exactly the type of situation where. You are, you are open to delight, you're open to surprise, you're open to joy, right? And that's the thing that so many of these Tinman organisations miss. So at that particular point, every other airline checking in the rows behind you, the rows in front of you, every other airline is efficient. Every other airline has the same KPIs that you have. You've gotta check in everybody by two, within two minutes. The difference is what is the difference there? What? What is the difference that you are doing with your airline at that time when nobody's actually thinking of the negative? So it's normal business as usual. That's the time when you can hit someone with delight.

Vinay 27:45

yeah. And thing's interesting. And we were chatting earlier on when we were prepping for the podcast, and one of the things we were talking about was how speed and ease used to be a delight moment. Like in the early days of digital transformation, when you got things, when you could go through a shopping basket in two clicks instead of seven. When you were able to quick, you were able to get delivery within 24 hours. Those things, those kind of things wowed you. They became points of difference. they're so replicatable by everybody, everybody has an app, most people have got digital platforms. Most people can get you delivery pretty quick. that, those points of difference and efficiency. Have now become, I guess less of a difference point for your products and service. And that's where the hu those human connection things add this whole, moments of truth or those special moments or interac, those interactions that drive, the loyalty and that future behaviour. because, speed in speed is now a commodity. It's, everybody expects it to, be done fast.

Vimal 28:52

Yeah. and I think you know that's a fantastic point, Vinay, because I don't believe, and, I know there are a number of other behavioural scientists who, say the same thing. Speed and efficiency is a temporary differentiator and a moat at best, right? Because the only thing that constraints your competitors or any other company from replicating speed and efficiency and effectiveness is really money often. and once everybody has it, it's no longer a differentiator. It's, no longer something that you can use to stand up. I like to say that in aviation we treat every, we tend to treat every passenger and every customer, and, hotels are the same and, lots of high volume organisations. And to your example at the clinic, anything that is high volume, we tend to treat everybody the same. So we assume everybody wants speed, wants efficiency, wants of the 20% that are different. What is important is for that person or the application, as it may be digital or human, to recognise the situation and the context that you are coming into the service scape with if you are coming in requiring extra attention, extra care, a different process that needs to be recognised and handled. The problem is we don't do that. We just assume everyone's the same, and you want speed and you want efficiency, and you want to get through the process.

Vinay 30:13

Yeah.

Iqbal 30:13

interesting. I think what I'm, I've been seeing in the last few years from a technology standpoint, a lot of Organisations have been trying to leverage AI to differentiate and, they've been trying to do that, but I think now it's become a bit of a level playing field. Like you said, everybody will always catch up at some point when it, when your focus is gonna be technology. I think where we're seeing kind of AI being utilised to combine both things that you've just mentioned of Vimal, is from a, from an AI perspective, is being able to surface the right knowledge at the right time with context to be able to Offer a bit of empathy really deliver that delightful experience because actually you've got information at the right time that's been surfaced. Thanks. Thanks to ai predominantly, but ultimately it comes down to people, doesn't it? you can have the technology doing all the great

Vimal 31:07

Yeah.

Vinay 31:07

Yeah.

Iqbal 31:08

it's making sure your people then use that information to, to deliver that experience.

Vinay 31:13

Right.

Vimal 31:14

Yeah, I, think there's not enough, so, there's, one aspect of it, which is ai. I completely get that it's important. Ai, for example, will tell you that, Vinay is calling up the hotline for the third time in the second in, in two days, obviously something's up, right? But there's a very important human element because, and, I just read this the other day, it says that you should use technology and AI to do the work that humans resent. we resent doing something repetitively. We resent doing something that is tedious, that is emotionally draining. AI and technology should be used to do that humans should be doing something that are, that becomes memorable, that makes you as the employee feel like you're really adding value to someone. And if you use that thinking, then what it tells you is that we should be listening, we should be watching, we should be understanding. One of the things I teach in my workshops is actually problem solving and decision making. And one of the decision making models that we use, without getting technical, is that all of us, right? Particularly those of us with more than 20 years of experience. We tend to default to the systems that we are used to, to the experience that we have, to the previous examples that we've handled. And so whenever someone is talking to you, there's a couple of things that happen in our brain straight away. We are not processing, we, listen to the 20% and then we make the decisions after that. So you immediately wanna classify any information that's being given to you about a challenge, a problem, a situation, and you wanna put that into a bucket that you can quickly recognise. And once you slot it into a bucket, in other words, you're making an assumption, right? You slot it into a bucket. Oh, I recognise that. And the last time that happened, I did this. This was the rule that applied, and so I'm just gonna apply it to you. Which is what happens 99% of the time, right? Because you're under pressure to finish that transaction. You're under pressure to just be efficient. And so you listen to 20%, you assume you go back to the decision that you made the last time, and then you blurt that out to the passenger or to, to the guest, and the guest just says, but that's not what I'm telling you. That's not what I'm, that's not what I'm trying to explain.

Vinay 33:23

yeah. so true. and, just so the culture part and the wraparound that we talked about is really important in that, we said just before it comes down to the people and the people you employ and that kind of thing, and the wraparound, and we talked about Tin Man, up until this point, and that develops a certain kind of culture. the other kind of organisation that you described, Vimal, was octopus, octopus organisations, which was different persona. So what's different in an octopus type organisation? What is it, what's different and what does that allow people to do that you can't do in a tinman organisation?

Vimal 33:56

Yeah. so first of all, these are not my terms. Yeah. This was from a Harvard Business Review article. they've done a survey and, so on, and they came up with the terms Tinman and octopus. my contribution to this is the third missing element, which we'll come to later, so Tin Men, tin Men organisations are organised com. there's no judgment. it's following compliance rules and so on. Octopus is obviously different, right? So with octopus organisations now, if you can imagine what an octopus is, it's a brain essentially with legs, right? Eight legs that are connected to the core, and they're going around feeling and adapting to the situation, sometimes even changing the colour, and just feeling their way around and understanding what to do. And that's exactly what an octopus organisation is. It believes that the world is fundamentally fluid. Expectations are changing. Situations are different. You need to localise, you need to adapt, you need to learn, you need to apply judgment, you need to often, you need to be creative. these sorts of things, right? So, that's in very simple English. That's an octopus organisation, one that doesn't. Command and control centrally from the core, everything. So it sets a central base for operations. I think coming back to your Jet2 example, that's, probably the best way, right? it's great operations, commanded and controlled at the core, with the, satellites, having the freedom, the psychological safety, the ability to be creative, to locally adapt and to respond to situations

Vinay 35:27

and that, it reminds me of, an, an analogy, I use a word, a phrase that I heard actually rather than analogy. Gill Scott, former England footballer, female England footballer, used a phrase called freedom within frameworks. your point earlier on Iqbal about, wanting to feel safe and wanting to be able to know that you're gonna get there and not have somebody do something that's not that way. Linking back to the psychological safety point that vimo made earlier on, the psychological safety is giving people that framework to say, this is who we are. This is how we operate. These are the things that you need to work within because look, no choices without consequence. you don't want people just doing anything and then compromising safety and all of those things. So you've got the framework of the outside.

Iqbal 36:11

Yeah.

Vinay 36:11

I think we, what I think we're talking about in an octopus organisation is, that you then create the environment where people are able to operate with freedom. Within that operational excellence framework that they have, the autonomy, training, education, whatever it is, Vimal I

Vimal 36:30

Yeah. Yeah. And, there, there's a great term for that. It's called distributed judgment, right? Not judgment as in, judge, jury executioner, but distributed judgment. you're, we are all there's lots of organisations that assume because we've got 20,000 employees, they, we can't afford to let anybody make decisions on their own. So we've gotta, SOP everything. We've gotta put, procedures for everything and rules and boundaries and so on, right? Whereas an octopus organisation is gonna say, listen, this is who we are. This is our vision. This is what we believe in, and we trust you. We are working for the customer, for example, we want, we wanna deliver as much value as possible to customers and, and. so on. And it's now up to you as the employee on the ground, facing the customer, wherever you may be, to apply these principles and these values in your interaction with customers. That's distributed judgment, right? So we trust you, that in these situations you have to follow the rules, safety, security, and so on. But in those situations, it's almost like there are no rules. There's guidelines and there's a vision, and there's a strategy, and there's a belief. But how that is

Vinay 37:47

Yeah.

Iqbal 37:48

you that the people, the freedom to be able to, to deliver the service based on what's going on in that moment. And I think that's what happens sometimes, isn't it, having the guardrail guardrails is really important. I was

Vinay 38:01

Yeah.

Iqbal 38:02

needs to be a third term and maybe Vimal, you'll, talk about this, is, this sounds to me like it needs to be like Octa Tinman or something where the middle parts, the tinman with, all these different arms and legs. so you've got your process in the middle, which you know, you can't deviate from, but you are on the edge the freedom to be able to, to, deliver that kind of great experience that that, you are trying to, your customers. Yeah.

Vinay 38:31

be. we, go into that, building on what you both said, framework in this, proxy for that is the culture. Yep. It's like parenting. We've all got kids. we can't control what our kids do all the time, but we instill them in a set of values and beliefs constantly daily our own actions to the way we behave, to the things we expose them to, the education we give them. And in an organisation is no different. The framework isn't the written down SOP or the written down structure. The framework is really the environment you've provided and what you show people. What good looks like is standards through behaviour, how you facilitate learning and coaching and put and development of individuals within your organisation. and, how you show up as a leader constantly is what creates that framework. I think that's the, I often see. People with posters in their office of str culture eat strategy for breakfast. And I took it inside sometimes because I'm like, I don't think you quite know what that means. a lot of the time it's, misunderstood, what that phrase actually means. And, culture is something you've gotta be working at all of the time, consistently, constantly to create that psychological safety moment that somebody can step forward and go, oh, I can see customers doing this. I've had training, I've observed this. I feel safe doing this. Let me interject in this conversation and become part of their story knowing that it's part of who you are in your DNA and it's gonna lead that kind of imprint.

Vimal 40:05

Yeah, it's, funny, but just going back to Jan Carlson, one of the things that he said, which, my, one of my favourite lines from his book is, we've chosen to be 1% better at a hundred things than a hundred percent better at one thing. And that speaks on so many levels to me. because a lot of organisations talk about focus, a lot of strategy talks about focus, where to play, how to win, what strategy doesn't tell you is how we are gonna do that, and how are we gonna operationalise that. strategy documents are very bad at that. They're centrally command and control the how, but the truth is that you've got to be able to move adaptively pretty much like an octopus, but much more, right? You've gotta be adaptive about how do you allow people to interpret within the guardrails, right? one of my favourite stories, which I recount in most of my workshops is back in the day when I was in SQ at some point, I remember our SVP, told us, he gathered all of us together and he told us, he said, look, under this new transforming the customer service initiative that we have, from tomorrow onwards, you don't have any limits on service recovery. And prior to that we had limits. Like we could only spend$50 and then the GM could spend so much and VP could spend that much and so on, right? But all the limits, the physical dollar limits were removed. And I'll tell you, our initial reaction was. Like how, but so suddenly the rules are taken away and you're left like grasping and wondering what can I, can't I do? And I'll tell you what happened. The next year, our service recovery budget actually went down. It didn't go up right? Because as, a very famous person, Spider-Man's Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility. And, and, that's what we did. We started becoming creative. And anything that we did, we justified it from customer, from a customer value perspective, right? And, as a result, we were very creative. We cared about the company more than we did previously because we had all this power vested in us. customers were happier. The company spent less money on service recovery. Service was better, operations was better. all round improvement by removing the rules, right? I thought that was,

Iqbal 42:25

That's

Vinay 42:26

Yeah.

Iqbal 42:26

That's a great example because you are putting trust in your people essentially, aren't you? You and you're showing that with action and actually knowing that trust has been given to you, has given you that sense of responsibility. just don't, I'm, surprised that it doesn't happen more often because you do see it the other way where, lot of organisations are trying to control people in lots of different ways. we're seeing at the moment with hybrid working, for example, it's slightly different. But in terms of, outside of the aviation industry where, post, post COVID, we're seeing a lot of companies, certainly companies that I'm interacting with, they're trying to get their people to come back in the office because, and that indicates a lack of trust. It's okay, we don't trust that you're gonna be doing the work. Away from the office. I, I've seen some really good examples. but what you've said there is, we don't see it that often in all honesty. Yeah.

Vinay 43:22

Yeah. I think, it speaks to that the human need of certainty equals safety. so if you think about in anything we do, whether you're trading stocks, certainty, you're trade, you want people, you want, I wanna know what people are doing in control. apparent feeling of control gives you certainty. Certainty gives you power,

Iqbal 43:42

Yeah,

Vimal 43:43

Yeah, I, yeah, I absolutely agree. I was saying this to somebody on, LinkedIn the other day, that, whenever you are asked for the ROI of cx, the only reason somebody's asking you for that is because they want certainty. It's a, cover my, behind moment because it means I've gotten the ROI, I've got some numbers I can put on piece of paper, because you notice, you as the cx, director or VP or leader will always have to justify what you wanna do to your CFO and to your CEO. It's never the other way around, right? They never have to tell you why they're asking you to do something. You just gotta do it. So you've gotta always provide some certainty because they can then report that and then they can hold you accountable. it's never the other way around.

Vinay 44:33

No, So you gave us a little teaser earlier on about the third missing piece or, Rick, I'll set you up beautifully for the third missing piece. And I'm just conscious of the, time, and this is a great conversation. The missing piece, Vimal. you've talked about Tin Man, you've talked about Octopus, but there is a missing piece of the jigsaw. What is it and how would you

Vimal 44:54

yeah, So, the way I look at it, Vinay, and Iqbal is, if, you look at Tinman and Octopus, they are organisational, operational concepts, right? So this is how, in terms of organisational behaviour, are you a tin man? Are you an octopus? But I think what we are forgetting is the people. People always make up the organisation. And so what I think is we need to move away from only organisational, development concepts into people mindset concepts. I call it. So my, my terminology for it is stewardship stewards, right? It's a, it's an old English term stewards would be, somebody that you hire to look after your property, your life, your family and, the people around you, right? So I bring this idea of stewardship, together with tinman and octopus because I think that's the missing piece where if we, in as individuals, as leaders, as middle managers, as frontline employees, if we take on this idea of being a steward, I think that's gonna help you in so many ways to do the work that you do. With the people that you're interacting with. So if you're a leader and if you're a steward, you're not only stewarding the business, and the assets and so on, but you also, you're also a steward for the people working for you. With you. If you're a middle manager, you, have stewardship both ways up and down. If you're a frontline, you've got steward. You've gotta, you've gotta be a steward for the people who need you, for the people who are coming to you for the transaction, for your customers, right? For your colleagues, for, service providers, third parties who are interacting with you. So I think stewardship is a really, powerful term. I think of it as a mindset. If you bring that mindset of being a steward, it's gonna guide you in, so many different ways.

Vinay 46:49

Yeah, really powerful.

Iqbal 46:51

Yeah, I do love that concept around stewardship. I think for me, my, my very first job, I had at Lords Cricket Ground as a steward. and, when I went into that job, actually, interestingly, I thought it would just be, showing people where to sit, that kind of thing. But actually they spent a lot of time training me on what being a steward means and the responsibility I have to ensure that every, customer coming in through the door, making sure that, we help deliver the best possible experience. And they, built that ethos into that, this whole

Vimal 47:27

Yeah.

Iqbal 47:27

around stewardship, right? It's more than just being a frontline person, but actually the impact that you have on people coming in, you are the first person they potentially see, and the impact that has and, it's always resonated with me throughout my career actually. And, you're right, stewardship comes at every level. not something I really thought about in that way, but,

Vimal 47:47

Yeah,

Vinay 47:48

Yeah. Yeah, it comes back to the, point we made earlier around culture and the role of culture in all of this. and I've long been a belief that the external experience that somebody has of an organisation is a reflection of what's happening on the inside. talked about it earlier that individual level, it's like going to the gym and working on the aesthetic looks that you have on the outside, but not eating well. And then your insides aren't great. You've gotta have both. Yeah. you've got to work on the inside. And often, most of the meaningful change and the meaningful improvement comes from working on the inside then reflects on, the outside. And so I think the role that culture plays, providing that environment where people can act in, in terms of stewardship built on, operational excellence, which is the Tinman Foundation. Those elements kind of layer. To give you that, to give you that thing to do, right? the pressures are there. Quarterly forecast, meeting a shareholder, you're in a really commercial organisation, shareholder, value on the outside. government organisation, the pressure from citizens for, what services you want, trying to make them happy. working within the confines of whichever political party you might be in power at that particular time. If you are, a not-for-profit, you are, battling against other forces. So whichever you are, a challenging thing to be. But I think what we've heard today is that, absolutely build a operational excellence, you need to create that environment where people then can step up and have those moments where they can act as the human, as a steward, in, in the, with that stewardship mindset

Vimal 49:35

Yeah.

Vinay 49:35

those moments that really matter.

Vimal 49:38

Yeah, I think, if it was easy Vinay, many more organisations would be doing it. So it's, it's, not easy and particularly for, aviation. hotels are a little bit easier. I think maybe even rail might be fairly similar to aviation, I think. we rely so much on third parties. It's not our airport. you work with government agencies, you work with third parties that supply fuel and provide services and so on and so forth. You've got the weather to contend with. You've got volcanoes that don't comply. You've got, political, things that happen. You've got the, there's a hundred things that aviation is exposed to, but at the end of the day. it's a mindset. Stewardship is a mindset. if an organisation, and if leaders do not adopt it, then behaviour is not gonna change because it all begins up here. So if you begin with the mindset, then you, have your Tin Man operations, like you said, as the fundamentals. You've got the octopus sort of practices that say, okay, this is where we are gonna have to comply and not use judgment. And over here is where, you've got the freedom, you've got the creativity to go and, adapt. And then ultimately, what should be your driving mindset. It should be the idea of stewardship, right? that, we will use technology to do the repeatable. We'll use technology to do the work that is frankly, boring and resentful to all of us. But it, it's freeing you, the human, to now look here, taste and touch and smell and, com and, connect with people on a human level.

Vinay 51:17

Yeah, beautifully put. was gonna ask you what the takeaway is, but I think you've summed it up That's a great way for us to, end the conversation.

Vimal 51:26

Yeah.

Vinay 51:27

having you on. If people want to find out more about you, where can they find you other than LinkedIn, website. what's your website address?

Vimal 51:37

so we, have an organisation, I run a business called Commercial Excellence Partners. so you can go to CommercialExcellencePartners.co. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm in Dubai. I'm, I, have this thing where I try to meet three new people a week. I think you remember me saying that to you, Vinay. and I still follow that I follow that advice for myself. So if you're ever in Dubai, anybody listening to this, just get in touch with me. I'll be very happy to meet you for a coffee. And you never know, that's how friendships develop.

Iqbal 52:07

Yeah.

Vinay 52:07

Yeah. Wonderful. listen, thanks again. We'll put all your details and links, in the description. if you've enjoyed this podcast and if you've enjoyed the messages in here, do let us know. it's always great to hear from people with questions, ideas, challenges. really open to that. If you've got any ideas about future guests or topics you'd like us to cover, let us know. And more importantly, if you've loved this, please subscribe to the show, whether you're on YouTube, Spotify, which or Apple Music, or whichever platform you're on, letting us know that you're following us and making sure that you get the very latest episode, when it comes out. So until the next time, for myself, Iqbal and Vimal, goodbye. and we'll see you next time.

Vimal 52:47

Thanks. See ya.