Shared Training and Enabling Our Humanity with Antony Thompson

Dane Greoeneveld: Welcome to the Future of Teamwork podcast. My name's Dane Groeneveld, CEO of HUDDL3 Group, and today I have a former Royal Marine turned tech co- founder at Loopin, Antony Thompson. And I did check that before the show so I got it wrong. But Antony Thompson, welcome to the show.

Antony Thompson: Thank you very much for having me, Dane. It's an absolute pleasure to be here and I think we're going to have a really good conversation. So yeah, I'll let you get away with it.-

Dane Greoeneveld: Absolutely.

Antony Thompson: ... I'lllet the Thomas go.

Dane Greoeneveld: Thomas, shocker. I'm distracted because I was just watching Australia go up one nail against the French and then go down two one by half times, so my brain's frazzled. You don't expect Australia to come out and score the first goal against France.

Antony Thompson: Yeah, it's just like an extreme dopamine and then just complete loss of it straight after. Yeah, got it. Yeah.

Dane Greoeneveld: Yeah. That's it.

Antony Thompson: Dumb.

Dane Greoeneveld: That's it.

Antony Thompson: Yeah.

Dane Greoeneveld: It was like world class and then it looked like watching my son's 11- year old team bounce the ball around. There you go. You and I have had a few interesting conversations. Antony, one of them surrounded Lympstone, where I've played a bit of rugby down in Devon, and you did a lot of your early training. But hopefully we'll jump into that in a little more detail. But I'd love to hear your story and I'm sure our listeners would like to hear your story of your early experiences with teamwork and what's brought you to where you are today as a co- founder.

Antony Thompson: Yeah, 100%. 100%. I mean, I think it's where we are today is an evolution of everything that's happened as most people are. But I think what's probably different and not overly common in the tech space is somebody who's done sort of 10 years in the Royal Marines. And fortunately my business partner as well has done 10 years. Ben, he's 10 years in the Royal Marines as well. And so age 19, I was finding myself in the wrong crowd, needed to change my values. Well, needed to find people who shared my values. And I found that within the Royal Marines. Funnily enough, when I walked into the Armed Forces Careers office, I was actually looking to become a Royal Navy diver and there was a big corporal behind the desk and cocky, arrogant, sort of 19, 20 year old, he shouts across the desk. He says, " Oh, do you reckon you could do five pull- ups?" Me just inflate my chest and say, " Yeah, yeah, sure, I can do five pull- ups." Do the five pull- ups. And he goes, " Well, do you fancy joining the Royal Marines?" I said, " Yeah, I do actually." And I took the papers home and a few days later back in there. And that was a transformational time for me. That was something that was extremely hard. That was where I really began to learn about being a team, a real true team player. Whereas I was quite heavily in sports when I was growing up. I was a swimmer and classic destined to be in the Olympics. I don't know if I was, but I was certainly doing really well at sort of that county level. And it was a very individual sport, and the only person you consistently had personal bests, and that was really all you that mattered in that world, just to be your personal best. And when I joined the Royal Marines, it was about having that personal best attitude, but then you shared that amongst your peers as well, and you started to begin to get into this mindset, which was one in, all in. And it was something that was consistently drilled into you throughout training to the point if you messed up in training, you would often sit on the side and watch the rest of the troop, rest of the recruit troop carry out the punishment. And you all had to bear a witness to that and they-

Dane Greoeneveld: Ouch.

Antony Thompson: Yeah, that's rough. That's rough to watch that thinking that you inflicted that pain on them. So yeah, I did in total 10 years in the Royal Marines. A lot of it was spent in intelligence. I finished as a left tenant, I got medically discharged, which was a real crushing moment. I remember that. It was a huge personal defeat getting medically discharged. And it was at the time when I was having the actual downturn of me being in the Marines was at a time when I was having my second child and the job prospects were really poor. I must have done something like 256 job applications, multiple iterations of CV. And to find myself in a place where I was unable to translate my value to the workplace. And that was a really difficult period. So I was unemployed for seven months in that time, and then I eventually found myself in a consultancy world. Crossed my values or didn't cross my values, didn't sell out, so moved to a different consultancy and that's at the same time when I started coaching, and I started a coaching consulting company with Ben. And funnily enough, we had met each other on LinkedIn and that was the time where we both had an individual little coaching company and it was a little bit of, hey, what's he doing and what's he doing? We got together on the call and sort of three and a half hours later we thought if we join together with the values that we have and the ethos and the belief of where we want to go, then we really might stand a chance to do something pretty incredible. So we did that. We created the coaching consulting company with some really big names, delivering big programs as well to four and a half thousand people to HSBC. That was a huge, huge program that we delivered. Working with then Facebook, working with NVW. And of course things were just about to really, really go into the stratosphere and then COVID happened and bam, it was like business model is completely interrupted. Everything's online, forget all the physical interventions that you were doing, it's time to rethink your strategy. And that was a time when we doubled down on our three sort of core problem areas, which were teams didn't trust one another. Managers were completely overworked and overwhelmed about which lever they need to pull for their people each day. And then the third problem area was that big businesses are using lagging indicators to create people strategy and then wondering why they fail six months in, 12 months in. And then they're getting consultants to try and patch up the problem. And actually we saw real opportunity to create something that was able to identify leading indicators, and that's really where we are today. And that's fundamentally what Loopin is, is creating much better, much richer data sets to be able to use in the future. Improving that data quality so that you can get real time and also a better predictor of the future. That kind of brings up the last 14 years or so. That's where we are. 15 years maybe.

Dane Greoeneveld: Yeah. It's a great introduction. I've got so many questions. I didn't realize you and Ben hadn't come through the Royal Marines together. I didn't realize you met afterwards, even though you'd both had that same journey. Well, same journey through an organization, obviously different pathways. That's really cool.

Antony Thompson: Yeah, big time. I mean he will really hate me for saying this, but he's what we would've called a Sprague. So he was younger. He came in after me. And when I was out in Afghan the first time, he was just rotating into the company that I was in. That's the strange part about it. Of the entire Marines of 6, 000 people, we were in the same troupe, in the same company, probably two weeks apart from one another. So this is of all those people within 30 people, we just swapped in within two weeks. So it was like that touchpoint 10 years before it actually came to something. So that was quite remarkable. But no, no, we didn't know each other at all. Would we have been friends? No, probably not. No, I'm kidding. No, we really hit it off post. But this is the kind of interesting point about teamwork is that if you share a commonality, if you share and you go, do you believe what I believe and I believe what you believe, and you go, yeah, well that's a really strong basis for creating something and creating a really powerful creation or business or project or just something to really get moving in that. And I think that's a really key fundamental is do you believe what I believe and vice versa. I think that's a really strong thing to look at when considering teamwork.

Dane Greoeneveld: Yeah, I like that. But I assume that now at Loopin if someone misses delivering a feature or a piece of work, you don't make them sit and watch everyone else do burpees and press- ups, right?

Antony Thompson: No, just take them for a mud run instead. No, I'm kidding. No, no, you're quite right. But you raise a really, really good point is that for the world in which we came from and then implementing that translation of being able to know what to say, know what to do, how far do you take this? And I found myself at points completely in reverse, if I'm really honest. And that's been a really weird place to be in terms of very light touch. And actually it's kind of like, where do we operate in the spectrum? This is Marines and this is the really, really soft approach, and of course it's somewhere in between.

Dane Greoeneveld: Yeah, that's interesting. So when you say reverse, what would be an example in the business context at Loopin where you're like, I know what I believe in, but I'm operating differently because of the players, the objective, whatever it might be?

Antony Thompson: I think I've had to almost relearn the skill of backing myself when I'm asking for things. I'm going, I think it should be done by now. And the person, because I'm not a specialist in that area, I'm looking at that specialist and they're telling me it can't be done within a certain timeframe. I'm going, but I think it can, and they're not saying anything. And that has been a real, I suppose, failing on my part really to identify that early enough to go, yeah, okay, so I'm not going to get exactly what I want then. And I'm pretty sure that's BS on this end. And again, trying to land it somewhere in between. It's that sort of medium approach, isn't it? That moderation, yeah. Moderate your weather.

Dane Greoeneveld: Yeah, that is interesting because I guess when you think about, and again, I never did any time in any branch of the military, so I've always looked on with a great deal of admiration and respect for the way that you all come through your training and learned your jobs. And I know there's a lot of different jobs. But when you think about how codified, how disciplined a lot of the jobs are in the military and then in civilian world, how abstract ethereal some of the jobs can be, it's harder to then back yourself and drive that timeframe and have absolute confidence that this is what it should take to do that.

Antony Thompson: 100%. You become the SME, the subject matter expert in your field. And of course then you can take all of those qualities and then you go into tech, which I knew almost nothing about. Naively, I went into tech, I'll caveat it with that. And I didn't really know anything about it. And that's frustrating, but I think the difficulty is I would love to have done more before I started. But when you were in it, you're kind of then going, oh my God, suddenly everything else is so busy. I've now got to learn. And have you ever seen Wallace and Gromit? Where he is on the back of the train-

Dane Greoeneveld: Yes.

Antony Thompson: ...and he's laying the track as the train's going. That's what it felt it's felt like for a long, long time. So yeah, it's been really tough.

Dane Greoeneveld: I don't think that's unusual. Other tech founders that I've met, including those that have come out of big engineering roles for big brands like a Google or whatever it might be, I think everyone kind of faces that laying the track as the train's coming down or building a plane mid- flight or however they like to build that analogy. And there is a lot of imposter syndrome out there too, because people are doing... They're making big leaps. It's hard. It's really hard. And these leaps are not necessarily configured to a roadmap of, well, it's natural that you're going to take this much time to learn these things. That people are always out there creating these bold leaps in the development of their product, their business model, their customers, whatever it might be.

Antony Thompson: Yeah, you make a really good point there. When you go into the Royal Marines and you do your 32 weeks of training, you're given 32 weeks of schedule. But one of the techniques which was shown really early on, and this is pretty much by some of the other recruits who are like five, 10 weeks, it's kind of like this internal 10 week recruit. Oh my God, I can't wait to be at 10 weeks when you are week one. So you listen to what the 10-weekers say, and they go, " Yeah, cover up your 32 weeks and just have your week, just have your week by week." And you know exactly what you're doing week by week. And you can tick it off hour by hour, 0600 or 0500 in many cases down the bottom field, do an exercise, and 0700 breakfast, 0730 this. And it's so scheduled and so precise. There is none of that in the tech world. Nothing. There's no 32 weeks of clear direction on where you're going to go. You can't hide anything. You just go, " I think we're going to do this today, let's go with it." And that's been a really hard thing to adapt to. I think anyone who's come from a very, very structured organization to go into it and try and attempt to feel comfortable in that scenario, it would be a challenge. I would argue that they're probably lying if they're like, " Yeah, just a breeze." Just smashing through it. So I'm not sure they really are.

Dane Greoeneveld: No chance. No chance. Yeah, it is, it's funny how that plays out. And when you think about the implications for teamwork, for building that morale, for building that shared, I believe what you believe, do you think, looking back on that military training, do you think that everyone going through a similar 32 weeks creates that baseline in a way that corporate onboarding, corporate orientation maybe doesn't?

Antony Thompson: Yeah, and if you don't meet the standard... So here's the thing actually before I bring in standards. Standards and what you're doing, standards really underpin your ability to do that. So you've got to have really high personal standards and during that 32 weeks you are almost beaten with a stick. Obviously not physically, but you're beaten with the values stick. And it's not just values on the wall. They are values that are etched everywhere and they are etched into every part of what you do and the way in which as you offer in terms of some other aspects about drilling in the one in all in mentality. That value base and the reminder of those values is something that you don't get in the corporate world. You don't get in the real world as I like to call it. But those values, let's take the Royal Marines values which are excellence, integrity, self- discipline, humility, and then you've got courage, determination, unselfishness and cheerfulness in the face of adversity, which underpin those values of the marines. So there's almost like a commodity spirit, which it's called, which is you are this, you are somebody who's courageous, determined, you have understanding, you have cheerfulness in the face for adversity. In order to be able to be excellent, have integrity, have self- discipline and have humility. It's kind of-

Dane Greoeneveld: Got it. So it's the behaviors reinforce the values?

Antony Thompson: Exactly. Exactly. And that is something that is so hard to achieve. So hard to deliver in the corporate world because everything is on time. Everything is money. Where do you get that? I would say very few places. Maybe one or two, but very few places actually achieve that. So we've got to try and think about more innovative ways in able to achieve a similar outcome. And when it comes to teamwork, one of the things which I've particularly found when hiring is be very, very honest in your job advert. Be very honest, be really articulate about what kind of environment these people are going to be stepping into. Because the moment they step into an environment, which you've almost described as it being something completely different, the expectations don't marry up and that's when the dislocation happens and you are kind of looking at each other across the table going, " But I thought you." And the other person going, "But I thought you." And that I believe is where a big portion of toxicity can really stem from-

Dane Greoeneveld: Totally.

Antony Thompson: ...is that mismanagement of expectations.

Dane Greoeneveld: That's an interesting one. I haven't heard it framed that way, but if I just play back what I heard, we were talking about obviously the benefits of a very structured training environment, but then you quickly jump to, if you can't do that, be really clear on the environment. And a lot of people talk values, a lot of people talk job description, job design, but environment is actually something that you can measure. And I guess that's a good segue into Loopin because the way you described Loopin to me earlier was an AI and data analytics platform that really helps you focus on people and drive out those three core problem sets so that you can be more on the leading indicators than the lagging indicators. So you are really looking at environment first and foremost, and then putting a programmatic approach, response, understanding around the environment.

Antony Thompson: 100%. There's something which I read, got years ago, and it was talking about how cultures within a lab only grow because the environment is set to the precise humidity, the precise temperature, the precise this, the precise that, the dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And it's all of those almost external factors which allow the culture to grow. And in some ways, I have a really binary mindset and I just think, " Okay, well it's not in a lab and we're not trying to create cultures, but you are trying to create a culture and I've got an office and how do you put those environmental elements in to create a great culture?" And so that I think really resonates with what you were talking about there in terms of it is almost those hygiene factors around it. I'll give you an example just slightly deviating, but I spoke to someone quite recently within the last few months talking about going for a sleep therapist. Because I've not been really sleeping that much and I'm kind of think about going for a sleep therapist. And they turned around and they said, " Well, just before you do that, just check your sleep hygiene." I said, " What do you mean?" " Well make sure you don't have coffee five hours before sleep. Make sure you don't eat a massive meal two hours before you go to bed. Half an hour before you go to bed, don't scroll on your phone. Don't have caffeine or whatever." It's all of these contributing factors. And they said, " If you've got your sleep hygiene right and you're still not sleeping, go see the therapist." And this is the real problem that we have within the workplace now. And I had this conversation with someone from a very big tech company I mustn't mention, but they said, " Oh, don't think we need Loopin because we've got therapists on call." I said, " I really need to challenge that." I've really got to challenge that because I said, " If we're putting everyone straight to a therapist, when actually they just need this intermediary piece, this intervention, which is so mild, the hygiene element, if we're doing that bit and we can get that bit right first and that's still not preventing that person going on a path of burnout or a path of bad wellbeing or whatever it might be, then we end to being with therapist." So you give the therapist upfront, you're not doing that bit. You're not looking after that culture, you're not looking after that...

Dane Greoeneveld: There's no reinforcement either because yeah, you walk out of the therapy session and it's like, " Great, I need to do this." But who's holding you accountable to it? Who's helping put the, like you said, the sleep hygiene or whatever it is, workplace hygiene, health, fitness hygiene, who's helping you put the basic building blocks together?

Antony Thompson: Exactly that, and that is one of the main reasons why we created Loopin fundamentally was to create an environment. Say, " Look through data we can get a much better picture of what's going on." But what you can't do is if you do only do this fire and engagement survey or a Friday pulse or whatever it might be, just this single point in time. And if there's too much variation in the questions that you ask and you ask them at the wrong time, it's still very subjective, the responses. And data shouldn't be subjective, it should be objective. And you should be able to collect enough of the data to then go, " Are we actually looking for the natural fluctuations in a person or are we looking for the trends which indicate an underlying problem which we then can have an effect on. So is this department feeling shitty today?" Can I say that?

Dane Greoeneveld: That's perfectly good English.

Antony Thompson: If they're feeling today, are we going, Oh my god, we need to have an intervention. Let's do something." Or are we saying, " That's okay, but if that happens 4, 5, 6, 7 days in a row, then we've got a problem"? But with the current methods that we have today, we wouldn't know that because the data isn't strong enough. It's not rich enough.

Dane Greoeneveld: Yeah, I've got to say that resonates with me in the home life too. So I've got an 11- year- old right now. And I love to coach him and kids sports in general. I learn more from the kids coaching them than I think they learn from me on baseball or rugby. But it's great. But with my son, and I find it with this generation in general, they show their emotions a lot more. When I was a kid, I wouldn't cry. We didn't cry. Something would have to be really bad to for you to cry because your dad didn't cry and you didn't see other boys crying very much. But these guys, they haven't even lost the game. They've gone down in innings having carried a good lead in and now you see tears in eyes and they're just so charged. Now I have a real challenge there because I'll address the emotion in the moment. It's probably more my problem than it is my son's, but I'll jump in and be like, " Why are you so down on this? You had a great hit in the two innings ago and you're going to go out there and you're going to do this." And then when I can't shake him out of it, I then overreact. And I feel like that's part of my learning as a dad and as a coach. But I'm pretty sure through this COVID period, we've seen a lot of companies overreacting to some of the emotions that their people are naturally going to be feeling with what we've gone through. And so your approach with Loopin in and objectively looking at that data over time and looking for is this a pattern setting in and not reacting, surely that helps you to overcome that manager being overwhelmed, because they don't feel like they have to put every fire out. They're like, " What's actually happening here and how should we start to approach it with a more intentional, structured and less urgent approach?"

Antony Thompson: 100%. If you think about why we become overwhelmed, we become overwhelmed because there's a series of questions that are unanswered. And when we just start loading in more questions that are unanswered, we're going, " Oh my God." I'm sitting in the control room, there's all these levers and I've just got no idea which one to pull, because I've got no answers. And through data you can get a lot of answers. And equally, if you look at the data again objectively, and you look at the data which you have, and then you equally look at the data that you don't have, that is also fascinating. So we've got a team who is a little caseload from Loopin is we had a team that was checking in, two teams that were checking in out of three. Reds, oranges, greens, what you'd expect. And then one team who was half the team were checking in anonymously and half the check team weren't checking in at all. It tells you something. It tells you that you need to have an effect in that area. Wow, what a great way to find that out. Now I think, and I'll be honest about this, if we would've implemented Loopin 10, 15 years ago, the default answer would've been, fire the manager, straightaway. Not the right answer and not where we are today. And we have a real opportunity. This is where I have a lot of faith in who we are as humans, is we have that ability to go, again, let's not fire that person. Let's investigate. Let's support that manager. Because fundamentally they're there for a reason. They've done something to get themselves in that position. There's some stuff going on that they probably need some support with. And so, one of the things which used to happen with my corporals when I was an officer, it was was get them back in a room. So you've got two high performing corporals and they're doing everything with their section. You've got one underperforming corporal. Instead of going, " Fired." What you do, you say, " Right lads, you two get in a room with smudger over there. Have it out. Understand what's going on. Learn peer- to- peer, 360 peer- to- peer learning." Within two, three weeks you can see the results of that moment in time where they share it and they go, " How do you do it? And how do I do it? Well, I do it like this." And, " Oh yeah, actually that's a much better way of doing it. That's where I might be going wrong." And you have that option for that knowledge share between the three of them, which now you fundamentally get a much stronger entire troupe. The classic saying you're only as strong as your weakest link. But once you plug that weakest link by encouraging peer- to- peer support, suddenly you've got everyone mobilized towards the common objective in a much more higher state of performance. And that's really the objective. And fundamentally with Loopin, you can do that as well. Because identify, it highlights an area.

Dane Greoeneveld: Yeah, I think that's very cool. And it's a great way to learn in teams where there's not... Let's be honest, we've all been coached by a superior and superiors aren't always great at coaching. They tell you what you should be doing. They don't ask you why you're doing what you're doing. But when you're there in a peer group, you're more likely to have an honest conversation with those other two corporals, because you're not going to get chewed out by your boss for saying, but I feel like this or challenging them as a learning moment. So I think it's doubly important for the learning opportunity as well as the team fabric that comes with it.

Antony Thompson: 100%. 100%. And then what happens once you have that intervention, you then kind of have that agreement. Not written down, it's not any of that. It's an agreement between one another, you go, " We've now shown you the way, now the standard is set and if you slip the standard again, that's a problem. That's where this isn't going to work." So you've got to be kind of going back to my point earlier about the standards, really do underpin the success of any team and we have another saying-

Dane Greoeneveld: Let's jump-

Antony Thompson: Go for it.

Dane Greoeneveld: Well maybe you are saying will help. Let's jump back to that because I liked when you talked about going back to the training. The military training, that these values weren't just on the wall, they were etched into the practices and the behaviors. So what would an example of that be in the military training, is my first question I guess?

Antony Thompson: So fundamentally, if you probably ask any Marine, the most important value is integrity. And integrity is, we had a saying as well, " Integrity is like your virginity, you can only lose it once." And it's so true-

Dane Greoeneveld: Yeah. I love it.

Antony Thompson: ... whenyou really, really understand that and you go, " Well, you've broken the trust with that person because you've fundamentally lied about what's happening." You won't get that back or you have to move with mountains to get that trust back. And so I think that integrity. And examples of this, you would be encouraged to tell the truth even though that truth is going to get you in so much pain. If you bullshitted your way through it, you'd be kicked out. Seriously, that is how serious it is. You'd either be put back like four or five troops, which no one wants, no one wants that. Or you're marked. Unfortunately, you get marked as a person that you can't trust because the worst thing to happen is on the battlefield where you have someone that you can't trust. And that's what it's all geared towards. It's all geared towards this higher objective. When you are on operations, that's when it really matters. All of this that we do now is contributing to you becoming that person who the person to your left and the person to your right can count on you to get that job done because the trust is there and the integrity is there. And so it's values like that, which everything else is then born. So your excellence, that's why you do kit masters, a thing called kit masters. You lay out all your kit, it's all clean. It's so painful and laborious. It's horrible. I used to hate kit masters and I was distinctly average at them. I'd always leave a tiny little pine needle in my shoe or something like that. I don't know what it would've been, but I would have got severely punished. We used to have this thing that we'd go into the jacuzzi and the jacuzzi was this horribly cold muddy pit and you get thrashed around in there for a little while. As you can imagine, it was nothing like a jacuzzi.

Dane Greoeneveld: No. That sounds miserable.

Antony Thompson: But I think those values. And really this is the bit is being accountable to those values and seeing everybody else around you being accountable and saying, " If that's not happening, we are willing to call it out." That is one of the biggest things that I have learned, particularly running a business as well. Is if you have that environment, if you have those people within your team who are willing to call it out because it's in relation to the higher standard or the higher value, you are onto a winner. And tolerating that, what's the great saying? "Whatever you permit, you promote." And I think that is a great saying as well. When you think about that, you go, " If I just let this slip, hey, that's what I'm about." And it unpicks itself over time.

Dane Greoeneveld: It's fascinating. You referenced earlier about growing cultures in a lab and we had Garry Ridge, the former CEO of WD- 40, he was on the other day, a fellow Australian. And he's a brilliant guy on culture and he's got his new business on Learning Moments, funnily enough. But he talked about the Petri dish and how you build culture. And he talked about the formula for good teamwork, the formula for good culture being values plus behaviors times consistency. I think what you've done really there in explaining that permit what you promote or promote what you permit, sorry, and helping team members be willing to call it out, that exactly I think what Garry was trying to point towards in driving this consistency around the behaviors, the values, the standards. And that's definitely a theme that we're seeing with a couple of other guests, but I really like the way that you draw that example, whether it's from kit masters or otherwise, from your time there in the Royal Marines. It's very cool. So with that in mind, let's jump deeper back into Loopin because I'm still fascinated by the new platform. Where is it that your existing product is taking you towards, you talked about capturing the data, who's checking in and capturing that data in a very objective way? How does that let your customers come in and start to determine where they can pick up some of the team learning or programmatically apply some different approaches in that team to start driving more consistent behavior, more consistent experience for all of those employees?

Antony Thompson: So how we've built Loopin isn't a standalone platform. It's purposely designed to integrate into where the person is, their digital HQs and the Slack example there. So built it on Slack. Eventually we'll be on Teams. And we didn't want to create another platform where people are now switching and toggling to go and check in on over here. So that's one part of it. But the fundamental idea behind this check- in is to make it easier, to give a value back. We've leveraged that social connection to give a people a place where there's almost that async water cooler for the individual who's using the platform. So I can share kudos, I can share support. I can see what my teammates are up to in the moment if I choose to. Because we've built almost like a trifecta business, we haven't really wanted the person who's submitting the check in. And this is a really key piece. It's a check- in, not a checkup. That is a big, big difference. So this check- in is we are not intending for them to actually have to spend lots of time on Loopin, it's just a quick check- in, 10 seconds of my day. That data processed by Loopin platform is then displayed in a very usable way. User- friendly, good UX. Great UX, actually, to be given back to that manager to be given back to the exec to go, this is what's happening. And through the regularity of what we are gaining in terms of those data points, we can give you a better prediction about what's happening 30, 90 and 180 days in advance through that algorithm. And I suppose in terms of, again, this is kind of drawing from those... Everything is drawn from the experiences that we had within the Marines. When I spent 5, 6, 7 years in the intelligence part of the Marines, we would have multiple different sources. And as the intelligence analyst, you would have to create this layered intelligence picture to go, " Now we fully understand what's going on here is the course of action, here is the recommendation." And those course of action are displayed as trends. Those course of actions are displayed as what we think is going to happen through a set of criteria that we've created. And the AI and the ML is learning that over time and getting better, getting smarter. And then our recommendations are in the form of notifications to the manager or to the executive. Or even now because of one of the AI, we've got duality of the AI, to give back to the person to say, " Actually here's a curated piece of content for you because we understand what's going on in your life. Go do this thing." And it's a very simple statement. It's a very simple action request. Go and interact with so- and- so because they are at this place now. Go and go speak to this person. Go and read this article. Go and read this or watch this video. 60 seconds, 90 seconds, whatever it might be. And this is the key thing which I see so many platforms not doing, is making whatever the person experiences on the platform relevant to that person. Relevance is something which I think we will see trending in the coming years within technology through the use of AI is being able to be more relevant to the individual. I think it's a great thing. I think it's an amazing thing. And this is where we really start to grasp what technology can actually do for us in the workplace as opposed to sitting across the desk unnervingly at it, looking at it going, " I'm scared, what's it going to do?" We're going, " Actually, okay, if I just do this, things get a lot better for me." And there's that almost that compulsion for the person to submit the data, because the managers are doing it as well and the directors are doing it as well and execs are doing it as well. Because they're in their little teams. They're in their-

Dane Greoeneveld: Yep. And if they're having-

Antony Thompson: ... littlesupport bubbles as well.

Dane Greoeneveld: So if they're having very relevant data to where they're at based on their check- ins, is some of the stuff that they're being recommended will be very personal, and then is there a baseline that the whole team's seeing? How does that play out for the team environment?

Antony Thompson: So what we didn't want to do was that when you submit your data, when you submit anything, say do it on social media. Say do it on Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever it might be, and you type in there and you go, " Feeling pretty rubbish today." And you send it out of the world. There's a real problem with that because there's no actual connection with those that matter. Those that mean something to you and you mean something to them. What you will get is you will get a load of superfluous likes or comments or things with minimum care. The careometer is at an all time low. So what we didn't want to do within Loopin was create something whereby you are distributing how you are feeling to the entire company. No, what you are doing is you're distributing how you're feeling to those team of eight, team of 12, that's about it, 12, 15 is probably the maximum number per team, so that they understand you at a more human level. I think is the real key aspect here is-

Dane Greoeneveld: Interesting.

Antony Thompson: ...that you understand each other at a more human level and therefore you go, " Oh, you're a human, I'm a human. Actually, we can make this thing work." That is the basis of the understanding between one another. You go through shitty days, I go through shitty days, but I'm not always like that and I'll be here for you when you are like that and you'll be here for me when I'm like that and when we're both on top of it, we're winning. We are heading towards it. We're both focused, we're smashing down the targets. We're smashing the targets?

Dane Greoeneveld: Yeah.

Antony Thompson: Smashing down targets. We are hitting our goals, we're hitting objectives, we're hitting our AKRs. And I think it's being able to see that through a mechanism whereby you can go, " Ah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Yeah." It's being able to see it. And this is the problem with surveys is you never see the data displayed like that.

Dane Greoeneveld: No, you don't.

Antony Thompson: You just submit the data. Five questions, 10 questions, you go, " Oh well that's gone into ether." I don't know. Maybe someone will do something with that at some point. I'm so tired of surveys.

Dane Greoeneveld: A lot of people are saying they're so tired of surveys. A lot of people are saying, " Hey, the company surveys me. We tell them what we think they could do better. They come back and tell us what they're already doing great and they don't really address the do better pieces." They're like, " Oh, we're glad to hear we're doing great on these things." But then there's no discovery and learning on how we're going to move the other stuff forwards. So I think a lot of people, particularly post COVID are just feeling like surveys are really just a way for the company, talking about lagging indicators, a way for the company to say we did really good at this, but not really talk about the forward- looking objectives.

Antony Thompson: And I think there's never been a more important time for us to be able to understand people within companies. The future of work, this is why I'm here as well. This is why you are here as well, is the future of work is evolving to a thing I don't think even we can really fully comprehend what it's going to look like in the future. But there's one prediction which I will make and have made multiple times is that I believe we have to understand each other at a more human level. Because fundamentally, the pace of AI, the pace of machine learning, these advancements in automation and artificial intelligence are so quick and so big, the magnitude of those changes are that if we don't begin to gain that emotional connection, ie the emotional intelligence piece, then we are going to lose our relevance in the workplace. Because guess what? All of those jobs are going to be replaced by AI and robotization and automation. And so we've got to create an understanding between us as humans. The bit that the inverted commas,'robots' can't do, that we can do. And so therefore the teams of the future, they'll be understanding each other much more openly, their emotional intelligence will be higher, thus their trust will be higher. Therefore, when trust is high, there is lower unnecessary communication. We don't need unnecessary communication. We need direct communication. And fundamentally we're working on very creative projects, very creative businesses that are really turning the dial for us as humans as opposed to just going, " Oh, well we gave it a good shot and technology took over."

Dane Greoeneveld: Yeah. It's funny you've mentioned that. That saves me from asking one of my questions on your hope for the future of teams. And I love the way that you talk about the need to understand each other more at a human level. And what's interesting is, again, what I'm hearing here is that whether it's your technology in Loopin or robots or whatever else, technology's becoming part of the team, so that it can do the work that's not human and help us understand each other. Just the little check- ins, that's technology being a team member. That's technology being like this little golf caddy that instead of saying, " Here's your nine iron for today." It's saying, " Hey, Bob down the hall's having a rough day. You might just want to be cognizant of that in whatever you're going to discuss or cover with them."

Antony Thompson: 100%. I really love the way that you put that. I think becoming an additional team member. And that's really, if you can create a piece of technology, that's an additive. Not something else that takes a lot of time to do. Not something else that is time consuming, like, that's not a good piece of technology.

Dane Greoeneveld: Yeah. No, I agree. It's got drag.

Antony Thompson: That will offend a lot of people. That will offend a lot of people, but that's not a good piece of technology. If you can create something which is such mild intrusion, such mild time consumption of the day, but equally providing extreme value in a different way, that's a good piece of technology.

Dane Greoeneveld: Yeah. No, I agree. Well, that excites me. The time's flown by. I'm definitely-

Antony Thompson: Has it?

Dane Greoeneveld: ... going to have todo another demo. Because just some of the topics we've talked to today help me think about problems I'm trying to solve in my own teams, and I know my customers are having the same problems. If I play back some of the key themes, I love the three problems that you're addressing, employee level of trust, managers being overwhelmed and moving from lagging to leading indicators on the data. I think every company needs that to drive their people forward. I love the way you explained the way that the values were etched into the behaviors and the consistent patterns of behaviors in your time in military training with the Royal Marines. And I thought it was really cool the way that you also talked about the fact that we, in companies, whether it's a tech startup or any other business, we don't have the 32- week schedule that you know where you're at and what you're boxing off. We're having to learn to work together in much more open, vague, abstract environments. Hence, with all of the change. You talked about we're living in a time where it's never been more important to really care for the people in these companies. So I'm really excited about what you're building there at Loopin. I've learned a lot from this conversation and I'm really pleased, really excited that you are out there doing the work you're doing. I'm sure it's already landing with great impact. But that you're definitely, definitely striving in a direction that we're all going to benefit from in the future of teamwork.

Antony Thompson: Amazing, amazing. I mean, I've thoroughly enjoyed it and pretty surprised at the time. I felt like we had loads of more time left, but I suppose it's a good thing, right. But no, thanks so much-

Dane Greoeneveld: It is. It's really good.

Antony Thompson: ... for having me on today.It's been great and I have thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, so thank you very much, Dane.

Dane Greoeneveld: No, you bet. And how can people find you if they want to come and do a demo of Loopin or talk to you about some of your insights and philosophies? What's the best way for them to track you down?

Antony Thompson: Well, I'm very approachable on something like LinkedIn. But if you want to go the old school route, and I say old school route, if you want to go the direct route go to letsloopin. com, that's letsloopin. com, and click on one of the buttons which takes you somewhere to a demo or to speak to somebody or one of the intercoms or something like that. But yeah, there's plenty of ways to get in touch for sure.

Dane Greoeneveld: Wonderful. All right. Well, thanks Antony, I'll look forward to connecting soon, before Christmas no doubt.

Antony Thompson: Cheers, Dane. Thank you very much.

Dane Greoeneveld: Thanks for the time. Cheers.