BUILDING HIGH PERFORMING TEAMS

Skillionaires Podcast Episode 9

Premal Patel

[Premal Patel]

There's a lot of courses, there's lots of training, there's so much out there, I think there's too much content and a lot of the leaders and managers and CEOs of companies are a bit confused. Being really clear what your values are, never compromise on the values that you want to create in your business, never compromise on the values you want to create in the business because as a leader you have to set that tone and if you start deviating off your values, then everybody else will do the same. It goes back to your behavior becomes their behavior.

[Angela Thomas]

Welcome to another episode of ScaleNair, the podcast where stories stick and strategies scale and today we have Premal Patel with us who knows how to actually create teams and scale with personal attachment. Let me know what we can actually get here to know about the scaling moment with Premal Patel. Premal, how are you?

[Premal Patel]

I'm very well and thank you for having me today.

[Angela Thomas]

And you have a far way to come.

[Premal Patel]

I do, I've just come from London all the way to Dubai and actually been here every single month this year. So it looks like I'm slowly navigating my life towards this part of the world.

[Angela Thomas]

Well, that's a beautiful decision. If I'm looking at Europe, unfortunately, I like the forests much and the nature, but the security nowadays, it's a little bit more better here.

[Premal Patel]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, are there any other safer places than Dubai and the UAE? It's one of the safest places in the world.

And one of the happiest places are here.

[Angela Thomas]

One of the happy places and coming to happiness. It is something that you foster actually very much and tell us how you take this as a scaling point and what is it that you actually do?

[Premal Patel]

Yeah. So, you know, it goes back to I've done 30 years in the corporate world, worked with some of the biggest brands in the world across three continents. And I've led teams of over 200 to five people.

And now I'm doing my own business. And part of my passion has always been how do you make your team happy in the workplace? If you can create joy in the workplace, you'll have a more productive team, they'll deliver more for you.

And there'll be less of the complaints when you ask them to stay, you know, a little bit later in the evening, over weekends and whatever. So that was my sort of journey. And I sort of thought, how do I, how have I done this?

And how have I created some high impact, high performance teams throughout my years. And I started pulling this knowledge together and pulling it into a document, which then eventually has turned out to be my new book, which is Yanga Unplugged, which is your actions nourish growth ambitions, and all the techniques are shared in this book.

[Angela Thomas]

Wow, that is insightful. Everybody should have it. I bet we can put the link in the show notes of this podcast so everybody can have an access on to your knowledge and we pick your brain a little bit.

And how did you do it? So working in the corporate world is one thing that a lot of people admire. But with scaling other sites, businesses or other companies, teams, you have brought a big benefit to them.

The work situation or the team building situation in Europe, and especially in the UK is something totally different than here in the UAE. What is the biggest difference? Would you say?

[Premal Patel]

It goes back to humans are humans everywhere and people by people. So if you're a leader in a business, and you're leading a team, you have to role model the behaviors that you want your team to behave because their immediate role model is you. And this is where a lot of organizations, large, small, medium organizations, they get it wrong.

Because what they assume is, it's only the CEO who has to create the right behavior and the right culture. But it's everyone across the across the business. So if you're a senior manager, you're a manager, you're anyone who's leading a team plays a role in shaping that culture of that organization.

And when you shake the right culture, and people feel empowered and enabled to do really good work and excel in what they're doing, you're going to get a much product, a much more productive team, and people will be a lot happier. You know, so those businesses who have exceptional cultures and a really nice organizational culture, and I'm talking about culture that the teams help create, not just the leadership, you know, and it's not just values on the wall, you usually find a lot of companies, they'll say, you know, we have integrity, we have innovation, we are trustworthy. But those are things that should be in your DNA as an organization and as people anyway, why do you have to put that on the wall?

But when you have a slightly different set of values, like be yourself, or we're in it together, well being comes before work in the dictionary, those type of values, they start becoming more meaningful for the employees, because they feel you care. And it is about caring.

[Angela Thomas]

It is about caring. That's what you say. And it comes immediately to my mind, as well a question that has been asked on the conference that we got to know some few weeks ago, it was a big HR conference here in the MENA region.

And there was one question, what leadership technique do you have? Or what leadership style do you have? I believe it was.

And a lot of people said, masculine leadership, feminine leadership. And I was all kind of this disclaimers on what they leadership. So just tell us your opinion on having such a structured leadership, because one leadership style that I have, they never mentioned and I'm, I'm not really quite sure if I'm on the right path, or on the wrong path, or if it's even a path, but it's just my way to lead.

And I think there's a very beautiful way and gives me the possibility to grow my business. But yeah, with this whole styling things around the leadership, let us know a little bit of insight, what's your opinion about?

[Premal Patel]

Sure. What's your style of leadership?

[Angela Thomas]

Servant leadership.

[Premal Patel]

Okay. And look, for me, there's there are so many different behaviours and styles of leadership, every individual is different, and they're unique. So when you try and typeset people and say, you're in this box, it doesn't work.

It's just like when you have a product now for multiple customers. Most customers now, when they're buying something, they want something personalised. And they want to be served, as you're saying, they want to be served really well.

And they want to be known by the person. That's exactly the type of leadership you need to be you to know your employees. They're not just a number.

So there's a big movement. And there's been a movement over the last, maybe two, three years now, you see a much more coaching style of leadership, where leaders are actually going into the organisation, and working with the teams, and not just sitting in a hierarchical office somewhere on the top floor. You know, they're really walking the floors, they're working with in projects with them, directly rolling their sleeves up.

And that's what employees I believe in today's world want to see. They want to see who's going to go into no man's land with me when there's a problem with a customer or whatever, have I have the leadership got my back?

[Angela Thomas]

Very good.

[Premal Patel]

And that's exactly what you need to have you to protect and create a safe and a psychological safe environment, but also a safe environment for the for the employees to make mistakes and learn from the errors because mistakes are natural. Everybody makes them.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah. Now, when you come to the European market of workforce scaling, your teams is totally different. There we have, I don't know about UK much, but I assume it's the same like in Germany, Austria, that you have a lake of people who wants to work and who you can gain.

That comes not from the mentality of the people per se, but from the political landscape that has been fostered throughout these areas. And here you have to totally opposite. So how you bring your knowledge together and amplify it, apply it to the market here that you find different because people want to work here, right?

[Premal Patel]

Yeah. Look, I think people do want to work wherever they are. People are looking for work.

They're hungry. I've worked in the region 15 years, a few years back, and now I've come back into the region. And actually, what I found is there's some quite common traits of employees here.

I've met a lot this year who are really hungry to grow. They want to develop personally. What I think has been lacking quite often in this part of the world is that focus on leadership development and growth and personal development.

There's a lot of courses, there's lots of training, there's so much out there. I think there's too much content. And a lot of the leaders and managers and CEOs of companies are a bit confused as to where do I get the right information and the right training to have a good impact on my employees?

How do I support them? In the UK and a lot of Western markets, personal development and growth has been there for many, many years. And, you know, most often you have your performance reviews.

And as you go through the year, your managers, if they're a good manager and they excel in helping you grow, they will monitor and help you perform throughout the year. And they'll put you on programs. You know, there's a lot more leadership focus.

I see from what I've seen in the UK and across Europe, you know, I used to be in a company where I was sitting on the board across France and Germany, Italy and UK. So I saw a lot of commonalities, you know, in terms of people's ability to grow and the investment companies were putting in. What I'm seeing now is a real growth in some of that investment here.

But I think some of the tools and the solutions are probably not there to access. And they're not easy to access, you know, because what I see is a lot of programs are very, very expensive here. Because people think it's the Middle East.

So let's just charge a fortune for our service and our solutions versus what they do in the UK. And I think that time is coming to an end.

[Angela Thomas]

Very interesting. Coming to that training situation that you just explained, I have my own trainings, especially for also customer service and how to scale, you know, how to scale the performance of the team in revenue. And I find myself when I'm bringing my service forward, that I basically have there is no consciousness about the owner that could enhance the business or the performance of the team.

So they do not want to train, it's all so shallow, I feel. And they don't send their people much for trainings. And there's, yeah, if they don't perform, we're just exchanging them somehow, the market is so full, we can choose from the fullest.

And that is something that I find, wow, what's going on here is a fast paced on this mode with building up teams, and especially coming from different cultures, there's also that tonality to take in account. So how do you think this could be? Or what is your solution on it?

Is this also an end where owners cannot permanently exchange the people? Yeah, that's a scaling cutting point, I suppose. I'm interested on your opinion on that.

[Premal Patel]

So look, you're absolutely right. And I think it goes back to a lot of companies I've spoken to, you know, so I coach quite a few people around the world. And I speak to a lot of leaders of business.

Sometimes there's a fear at the leadership level that if they grow people too much, they think they're going to try and either take over their position, or they'll be ousted out, and someone new will come in because they've given them the skills. So quite often, there's a bit of a fear at the top of, let's make sure I'm protected in my position, and I can grow people, but not quite to my level. But what happens is in today's world, because there's a hunger for growth and a hunger for personal development, the employees, the sort of senior managers, the directors, they want to see how far how far can this company take me?

Can this company actually help me achieve my own personal goals, as well as the professional goals. And now there's a blurred line between personal and professional. COVID enabled that, you know, and now it's all about a life balance.

So if there's not enough investment coming from in, you know, from organizations, people are going to leave, they will find somewhere else, because other organizations will take them, because they want the talent. The challenge with losing your best talent is it now takes an average nine months to onboard a new employee.

[Angela Thomas]

Yes, and imagine how much loss this is.

[Premal Patel]

And so that nine months, you get very little productivity from that person. But it probably takes you six months to recruit the person. So you've already lost nearly two years of productivity from that role.

And then you have to ask yourself, if you've lasted for two years without filling the role, then why do you need to fill the role? Right?

[Angela Thomas]

Wow, this is insightful. Yeah.

[Premal Patel]

So why do you have to fill the role? Or is there another way of doing that task through AI or other tools and solutions? Because what's the point of recruiting someone after having a gap for two years?

Exactly. But the challenge now is a lot of organizations are feeling the pinch, because the employees are no longer waiting around. I think at one point, there's this huge fear.

And there probably still is in certain markets, certain emerging markets, there's still a fear of, I don't want to lose my job. So I'll just carry on. So the more pressure that comes from the top, they just accept the pressure.

Eventually, they burn out. Because they don't have the support structure or the training or the mental health to deal with that additional pressure that's coming. And the leaders will just keep adding more projects and more initiatives and saying, stay late, keep doing the work.

And a lot of employees will just carry on doing that. And they'll work weekends, they'll work all evening, they work 16 hour days, and eventually, they think they can cope with this and they burn out.

[Angela Thomas]

Wow, that's insightful. Yeah, burning out is such a big point of getting actually people into a situation where they are not protective at all, then you have to have a big responsibility, actually, of your leadership to cause this also, isn't it? And one thing I wanted to know about that, when you just said about they are fearing to grow them a little too much, so they're over them, then that's when you come in, isn't it?

And that's when you enable for them to get actually a bigger spectrum of view, how potential this limited mindset actually is for having a burnout or having a limited scalability.

[Premal Patel]

Yeah, 100%. Because you have to shift the thinking.

[Angela Thomas]

Yes.

[Premal Patel]

You know, at the top level, you know, and when you're talking about the top level, you're the C-suite table, you've got to get people to shift their thinking to think, you know, having more skilled, capable, empowered employees is good for our business. Yes. Because the more you empower someone, they will help your business grow and scale.

But restricting them, then you stay at a certain level, and it's really hard to grow. And you can't keep growing by keep recruiting new people, because the cost of recruitment now is so high, is significantly higher versus retaining top talent.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah.

[Premal Patel]

If you retain and look after your people, they will help your business grow. And I think one of the pieces of insights is that if you actually retain top talent, and over a sustained number of years, three to five years, you can actually 3x, 4x your profit.

[Angela Thomas]

Yes.

[Premal Patel]

And the other side of it is you start declining in profit when you are recruiting people all the time, because it's a process that never ends.

[Angela Thomas]

That never ends. And it is such a resource that you are actually giving out. And Premal, when you say that you keep the talent in house, and you wanted to enhance that, and you wanted to bring the people up, how do you convince the leader, the C-suite that you was talking about, about what is the biggest argument that you have, what's the biggest statement that you can give them for getting into that knowledge that you bring to these companies?

[Premal Patel]

So there's a couple of things. First, you have to shower them with insights and data of what's happening in the marketplace. So a quick piece of insight.

The UAE last year, over the last 12 months, has spent 2.6 billion dirhams on mental health support through medical services for employees.

[Angela Thomas]

No way.

[Premal Patel]

That's in the last 12 months.

[Angela Thomas]

Say this again.

[Premal Patel]

So the UAE as a market has spent 2.6 billion dirhams on medical services. So this is like medical support for employees who have gone through mental health issues because of work related pressure and stress. Wow.

Right. And that is a fact. Now, you go to...

[Angela Thomas]

Do you have a lot of leaders on a C-suite table sitting who understands really the number? Or this is just like flushing off like a slow toast?

[Premal Patel]

Yeah, I don't believe everyone understands the impact.

[Angela Thomas]

Because it's not caused by you have a family related issue. It's caused by work.

[Premal Patel]

This is a work related stress and work related pressure. That's what's caused the sort of the anxiety or dealing with stress. That's what it is.

So there's a 2.6 billion dirham fee and cost to business if you can help. And actually, the trend is going up. So right now, if we carry on the way we're doing and dealing with employees and dealing with situations around well-being and mental health, because, look, let's be honest, there's a big focus around mental health.

You know, it's there. We know, you know, AI is causing quite a lot. It doesn't mean that AI is a complete destroyer of mental health, but the volume of communication, the pace at which we have to work, the pressure to deliver faster and to do more with less is really becoming a pressure point now.

And then having lots of gaps in roles because you can't fill those roles for 9 months to 18 months adds pressure because those jobs don't go away. Someone has to do them. So they give it to the people who are left.

[Angela Thomas]

On top of what they have to do anyway. Yeah, on top of their day job.

[Premal Patel]

So some people are doing two, three roles, you know, and they accept it because they have this fear that if I don't do it, then maybe I get fired. Maybe I, you know, have to leave. And I've got mortgage to pay.

I've got rent to pay. I've got various things. You know, people have lives.

I think bringing some of this information and the insight to the table, at the top table, if you go to a company and if they realize they might be spending 30 million dirhams on medical support for their employees, and if they could reduce that by even 10 million, that's a pretty good outcome. When you have 90% of employees here suffering from some kind of work-related pressure, there's a lot to go after and there's a lot to change.

[Angela Thomas]

And that was making you come in here.

[Premal Patel]

And that's exactly why I, you know, am either sort of, I'm advocating this because it's such an important piece. Because if we can even reduce that 90% down to 80%, it's such a huge impact on productivity and the economy of this of this market. And what we're doing is working behind the scenes to see how we can crunch some numbers to really show that what we don't want is to get people who are feeling pressure, but then eventually go tip over the balance to become burnt out.

[Angela Thomas]

There's also something that we call not burnt out, but bored out. Yeah, not educating your staff or your team, not developing them. It's also being bored out, isn't it?

[Premal Patel]

You have to trust your employees. Because if you're a leader, you have to create a trusting, psychologically safe environment. So people can speak up in the room when the CEO is in the room and challenge his thinking, challenge his opinions, even the CFO and whoever else.

But if you're not allowed to challenge, then people start thinking, okay, I'm not going to share my good idea or share something. But that idea could be a massive groundbreaker or a game changer for the business. And what happens is when you don't enable and empower people to just run with their idea, give them the support and run with their idea, they get bored.

So this boredom threshold is really low now. Again, it goes back to we're all consuming a lot of content on various channels, you know, e-channels. Because you're consuming a lot, you're learning faster.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah, knowledge is everywhere nowadays, isn't it?

[Premal Patel]

And it's that knowledge and you start bringing ideas and thoughts to the table. But sometimes the leadership team are not open to it. You know, I was running a workshop just two days ago at Zaid University, in fact, on Sunday afternoon, and they had a hackathon for students.

And these students had some brilliant ideas, like absolutely amazing ideas. And what I saw slightly different, I've never seen this here, is where the leaders of various businesses, they picked on some of those ideas, and they're going to support those ideas to go to market. How inspiring is that for those students who are first-year grad students?

[Angela Thomas]

Wow, yeah, that's a totally other reverence frame, isn't it?

[Premal Patel]

Yeah. So I think as leadership and, you know, with us, the people who've got experience in different corporate environments, you know, how do you share something back now with the younger folks? Because, you know, they're going through a tough time.

It's a really hard, you know, when you look at the Gen Z population, it's a really tough time out there because they are educated, and they struggle to get into work. You know, some are taking one, two years before they can even get into their professional careers. But that one or two years after graduating has a massive impact on their mindset.

You know, how do you help them through and how do you help them grow as a company by either doing more internships and giving them chances to run some projects?

[Angela Thomas]

Yes, that's beautiful. Yeah, internships is some good possibility for everybody to dive into something and that they can utilize their knowledge. And that's what you say.

A lot of people doesn't utilize their knowledge or execute it. Didn't you say that's your that's your speech?

[Premal Patel]

How do you bring, you know, you've got some of the brightest minds in the universities, bring them into your organization over the summer period, over wherever, you know, even short stints of projects, and let them sort of, you know, deal with some of the real workers. And, you know, they learn from that they can learn fast, because how do you keep learning? And the one thing now I think we all have to do is you have to keep on going with the learning cycle.

Yes, you cannot stop, but it's finding the time. So part of what what I do out there with a lot of leaders is help them create the time because most leaders when you talk to them is everyone's busy.

[Angela Thomas]

Yes, yeah, I don't have no time. And I wonder what did they talk about? They have 24 hours themselves.

[Premal Patel]

Like everybody, we all have the same 24 hours. And it was I did an interesting exercise with one of my coaching clients the other day. And I said, he says, you know, I don't have any hours or whatever.

I said your 24 hours, my 24 hours, exactly the same. So we then split down how do you spend the 24 hours. So let's assume you do eight hours of sleep.

Okay, so that brings you down to 16. You then eat for maybe three hours a day. Okay, so that brings you down to like 13.

You might then do a bit of exercise for an hour, you do 12. And you break it and then you're working for another eight hours. Yeah, so you got four hours left.

Most people spend the other three or four hours. What do you think they do? Swiping social media?

Yeah, right. And everyone says I cannot create time. If you just reduced one hour of social media, you then have an hour, you have seven hours a week of your own time to do something different.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah, I that's some some big point in my calendar, a big point of where I leverage actually the power of my effectivity. I give in forehand, every minute in my calendar, a certain task. And that's when I am not falling short into going into this swipe mode where you suddenly have four hours left.

And I wonder actually why a lot of leaders falling for that. And I don't know why why is that but because everyone's got this fear. They are they got this.

[Premal Patel]

Well, I'm maybe being a bit too general. I think most people have got a fear of missing out on something. And what social media has done for us is giving us access to people to comments.

And people are looking for validation. I put a post out there, how many likes have I got? How many people have commented?

You keep looking for this? Yes, because that's what's being created. Yes.

But if you can walk away from that, for at least another hour a day, you create more time. Yeah, that time you can spend either reading or going out and seeing something different in the world. And you know, if you actually spent one hour per day looking at a new topic, just one topic.

Yes. But I think that the stats is one hour a day for three years, you become an expert in that field.

[Angela Thomas]

Exactly. I did that actually two years for AI. That was my topic, how to utilize AI.

And I did this and then I thought like, okay, the New Year's coming up, let's do something else. But I was just finding myself I was not ready yet with exactly that topic. And then I start continuing the third year.

I was like, yeah, I just need to, you know, choose and then I chose for literally three months trading on, you know, with stocks and so and I just felt so much that I fall back in what I had learned and created the momentum in the subject of AI that I just left the trading.

[Premal Patel]

And that's it.

[Angela Thomas]

I went back to AI and catched up.

[Premal Patel]

Yeah. And AI is evolving at such a pace. You have to keep learning.

There's so many tools now that can help you actually organize your business better. But there's so many of them. How do you know which is the right one?

[Angela Thomas]

And nowadays it is treated like a big video game. You know, you jump after this and then you leave out the effectivity by not making a choice or a decision. And coming to making a decision is actually something that I wanted to know from you.

When you create teams, you said five to 200 you created those scale of teams. On what point you have to when I'm now a small business owner, and also with the help of AI, I don't have to have so much manpower. But what is the time when I wanted to scale my team that I have to put a second level of leadership level.

So in my trainings, I have always when it comes to building up a team and scale over a team and labor work that I describe it as a carriage, a horse carriage. So you first start as a horse by yourself, you ride it as yourself, then you get the second horse to it. And then you need your horseman sitting on it.

And until you as an owner can go back in the carriage to work on your business and in your business, but when in your time frame or as your explanation is the right time to put somebody on the horseman and to have the second leadership level.

[Premal Patel]

So it goes back to having a really clear vision for your business. Because if you've got a vision for your business, you can't do everything yourself up to a point you should not Yeah, but up to a point you probably will to start with, but you've got to get into the discipline of mapping out roles and responsibilities. And as a entrepreneur or leader of your business, there's a role you play.

Yes, everyone has to roll their sleeves up and get things done. Because that's the world we're in. But eventually, you have to know what what are your what are your areas that you're good at?

A leader of the business is someone who has to do business development, the commercial side, the relationships, and I'll come to sort of human connections in a second, all the admin work, the finance, all the bits, I mean, I'm not great at the finance side. And I hate doing that. And I have to give it to somebody who's just good at it.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah, and like that, too.

[Premal Patel]

They love doing it. I've got this brilliant lady who's just does this work for me. And she loves her work.

She does it. She does it great. And it's taken off so much pressure off my shoulders, you know, now and I'm thinking, well, that's the way and I'm now building my team through more outsourced services at the moment.

And there's some brilliant outsourced services that you can actually use out there because there's qualified experienced people offering those services. But what you have to do is know at what point do you want to grow your startup? So first couple of years is really important.

At what point do you want to scale? If you want to scale, you need to get on the carriage, you need to be working on your business, you know, and not inside in the weeds, because you're leading and you're directing and you're setting the vision for the future. So you need to have trustworthy people around you.

And there are plenty of people out there who really want to come and help and support and it's just finding the right team, being really clear what your values are, never compromise on the values that you want to create in your business.

[Angela Thomas]

That's beautiful. Say this again.

[Premal Patel]

Never compromise on the values you want to create in the business. Because as a leader, you have to set that tone.

[Angela Thomas]

Yes.

[Premal Patel]

And if you start deviating off your values, then everybody else will do the same.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah.

[Premal Patel]

It goes back to your behavior becomes their behavior.

[Angela Thomas]

Yes. Oh, yeah, that's transporting. Actually, it's a transporting as you a good leader goes away, shows the way and knows the way.

And that's how it goes. And you get so much, so much actually a mirror from, from your employees.

[Premal Patel]

Absolutely, because they will copy you. They'll copy exactly your behavior. And the one thing you have to be aware of to grow your business, don't be scared to ask for help.

Because in today's world, where things are moving at pace, and really, really fast, doing something on your own is like yesterday's news. You have to do it together and in a collaborative way. Yeah, you got to find the right collaborative partners, people who will come with you.

And don't be, don't be afraid to ask.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah.

[Premal Patel]

And if you don't ask, then you're not going to get.

[Angela Thomas]

Exactly. Premal, tell me a little bit about the area here that you are coming from UK to UAE. So what is your goal, your own scaling goal with the UAE?

[Premal Patel]

So I'm on a mission.

[Angela Thomas]

Okay.

[Premal Patel]

And my mission is, you know, about two years ago, I did, I had my own coach. And I went through a lot of soul searching into my own, you know, after 28 years in the corporate world thinking, where am I going with this?

[Angela Thomas]

That is such a thing. When you have been in the corporate world, you just some kind of losing track on your own.

[Premal Patel]

I was just isn't it? I was like a machine. I was just running, running, running, running out thinking that I stopped and I had a brilliant coach in the US lady, who's been coaching about 50 years.

She's coached some wonderful people. And I got connected to her and we started talking. And she helped me set my purpose.

And without my purpose, I don't think I would be here today. So my purpose now is to inspire and improve the quality of life of as many people as I can.

[Angela Thomas]

Wow.

[Premal Patel]

That's my purpose.

[Angela Thomas]

And you know, this is so beautiful, because a lot of people are here just because of that. And then they fall into a trap of where they are running in the hamster wheel.

[Premal Patel]

And it's just like, and that's such a beautiful so my mission came out of this thing. Okay, what am I really passionate about? I'm passionate about helping people develop, grow, and succeed.

And so everything I'm doing now, so I've just, you know, we launched a brilliant product yesterday in the UAE. It's a first for the market, which is the Healthy Minds Club, which is a platform and an app. And, you know, I'm loving working with the people that have come on board.

There's companies now we're talking to who really want to care about their employees. And part of what I do is when I'm talking to companies, the first question I asked the CEOs or the HR directors is, do you care about your employees?

[Angela Thomas]

And what is the answer?

[Premal Patel]

And, you know, most have said yes, straight away. Then we start delving into Well, let's see how you do. Yeah, there's a few who have paused.

When they have a pause in that question. That means they're not sure.

[Angela Thomas]

Right?

[Premal Patel]

There's a bit of uncertainty. So those are the ones where the mindset shift has to really go. That has to really shift the dial.

And what I want to do is try and work with people. And it's not me, you know, preaching or anything to say this is it. What I'm doing is providing some tools and some foundations that can make their life a lot easier in this fast paced world to get behind how they can support their employees in an easy, in an easy way.

It's accessible, and it's affordable. Because I've gone away from let's charge the big the big dollars, you know, forever, let's make it really affordable for companies to get involved and take the support. And so it helps them, it avoids them creating the platforms, which they may invest, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars in doing that.

We've already invested in the tech, you know, we've invested in the platform. So it's there to be used and optimized.

[Angela Thomas]

Wow. And that's your personal scaling moment. So that's just beautiful.

We have to make a second session on that one.

[Premal Patel]

And it's about going, you know, there's, as I said, there's 80 90% of employees going through some kind of work related pressure. And they want support, but they don't know where to get it. And that's the thing that we're now we're bringing to market.

So that's what we launched yesterday. And the other area, my mission is to really think about, you know, what I've really loved doing is shaping organizational culture.

[Angela Thomas]

Yes.

[Premal Patel]

How do you really get under the skin and bring a common culture together?

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah.

[Premal Patel]

And so that's part of another stream of work that I'm working on to really think about how we I can help shape organizational culture, you know, in the UK, I did some brilliant work, you know, in previous organizations where we won awards for our culture transformation programs. So all I've done is taken those techniques. And I'm bringing that here and saying, anyone can do this.

But there's a process you have to follow.

[Angela Thomas]

Yes.

[Premal Patel]

And so I'm sharing that process and sharing the foundations around that.

[Angela Thomas]

I'm flashed from your deep diving mission. And not only because it does so much on the employee side, but it also does so much for the employer side. Yeah.

And it does so much for the clients and what we having employers as founders, it's just for the clients. And I really wanted to outline and yeah, that I don't know if you're right, if you cut this up, but I have to bring you together with Christian Kiefer, who was just here to have another interview, because he's just on the same mission, just on the customer side, having this now implemented. And there comes, you know, Angela through where I connect the dots together.

[Premal Patel]

But it goes back Angela to, you know, I said, I'll come back to human connections.

[Angela Thomas]

Exactly.

[Premal Patel]

And the one thing AI cannot replace is human connection.

[Angela Thomas]

Give me five on that.

[Premal Patel]

Right? There you go. It cannot replace it.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah.

[Premal Patel]

And it never will. And when you are face to face, talking about things around the table, important topics, yes, the energy is just different. It is versus online or versus, you know, hiding behind, you know, people are behind a laptop.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah.

[Premal Patel]

When you're in rooms, when you're in forums, when you're in networking with the right people and talking to them, that's where I get the most inspiration. And you learn from exactly like, and, you know, sharing a common knowledge or common challenge and working that through. Yeah, how amazing is that?

[Angela Thomas]

Very good. From tell me something. Yeah, I asked this every skill in there, because it's just a little bit private.

But although it shades out into the scaling moment of people, how do you manage or how? Yeah, it is actually, how do you manage to take your partner alongside of a growth business, a scaling business? So how does it work for Premal?

[Premal Patel]

Sure. It's not easy, you know, and changing, yeah, I swapped out of corporate career last December. So I'm still not even a year into, you know, entrepreneurship.

Yes. It's a tough one. Because, you know, if your partner will always be looking forward to that, you know, regular income, the regular stable side of it, you know, and coming in, and suddenly, you don't know when the incomes or the revenues coming in.

So it causes a few challenges, but you have to be able to talk to each other, you have to talk, it goes back to communication. Some of the things that I might say may not be liked, may not be accepted, but I cannot worry about that. If you worry as a business leader, you will go nowhere.

And you'll be going south fast. You have to take the worry and then embrace it and turn it into acceptance. And you move forward and your every day is a challenge.

[Angela Thomas]

You have to have trust.

[Premal Patel]

Yeah, your your partner needs to trust you in that process. That okay, he seems to got a plan. He's got he's got a vision.

Yeah, let's support and go. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

Yeah, that's just the way that's life, right. And when you're passionate about business, sometimes you're that's like a snowball that's rolling down the mountain and it's getting bigger. And you can't let go of that.

You have to keep going because that's where your purpose is. Exactly. And hopefully you can bring your partner or anyone around you, your family along with you to enjoy that journey.

Yeah, it's not always enjoyable. You know, sometimes it's a it's a tough, it's a tough situation to be in. But I love it.

I wake up every day. And I bounce out of bed.

[Angela Thomas]

I am.

[Premal Patel]

That's what I love.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah, that's so good.

[Premal Patel]

I love what I do.

[Angela Thomas]

And that is actually also some energy that you transport into your private life that being so vivid instead of, you know, kind of mental disturbed. Yeah, getting sick because in the corporate world, not finding your pace.

[Premal Patel]

And part of my sort of my life this year has completely transformed, you know, from corporate world to to start up business. And, you know, there are people in my life that I've had to move away. Yeah, you know, and I always go in and partly part of which I've written a chapter about energy drainers versus, you know, those energy boosters.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah.

[Premal Patel]

So I try and move towards where I'm getting more energy boosters around me, because they're the ones every day that will get you through those tough days.

[Angela Thomas]

Well, we hope the Skinner podcast is one of the energy boosters here.

[Premal Patel]

Yeah, 100%. But those energy drainers will be the people who will always be negative. And they'll be the naysayers and say, don't do this.

Or this won't work. Or that's a that's a rubbish idea, or whatever. But they've never tried it.

[Angela Thomas]

I think that's why also people like Dubai so much, isn't it? Because this is the positive selection of the minds that this city has some kind of vibration where in Europe it is very kind, they also look only to the negative part of the things.

[Premal Patel]

And that's exactly what happened to me in London with people I know who were saying, this won't work. Yeah, you'll be back in a job in a year's time or two years time or whatever. Yeah, the difference I feel here is everyone I speak to, they inspire me.

And I get new ideas and thoughts. And they're so super helpful. Yes, you know, and I'm thinking this, this market, the UAE has actually really encouraged innovation and business growth.

And this sort of togetherness to help each other and it is become this hub of the world.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah.

[Premal Patel]

And I believe this is the right place to be. I'm in the hub of the world. And, and, you know, from here, you can, if you can make it here in the UAE, I think you can make it anywhere.

[Angela Thomas]

I think so too. To make it anywhere. What is then your five suggestions and points of what you would actually have a success for somebody to watch after when they wanted to build their team?

[Premal Patel]

So number one is don't fear. Don't fear. Don't fear what's happening tomorrow.

Right? If you've got some idea, go for it.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah.

[Premal Patel]

Because that's number one. Second, the only person who has a limiting belief is yourself.

[Angela Thomas]

Yourself. Yeah. The limits are behind your ears or between your ears.

[Premal Patel]

That's it. It's in your own head. And you might try to convince yourself that everyone else is doing it, but it's you.

Number three, make sure you surround yourself with these positive energy boosters. Those are mainly people. Energy is the key.

[Angela Thomas]

And environment.

[Premal Patel]

Energy, there's two things you will never get back. That's your time and your energy. Once you've invested those, they're gone.

So use your time wisely, use your energy wisely. And then the fourth thing I would say is basically that plan, but don't plan too far ahead, because things are changing too fast. So when somebody says to me, I've got a three year plan.

I just don't believe them because I now plan in 12 week sprints. What can I achieve in every 12 weeks?

[Angela Thomas]

Okay.

[Premal Patel]

And I keep doing a year's plan every 12 weeks.

[Angela Thomas]

Yes.

[Premal Patel]

And I keep moving. And that gets me to move at pace. And finally, yeah, and finally, so I call it like a 12 week plan, basically.

And that's, and that's what I do. So at the end of 12 weeks, I then look at the next 12 months.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah.

[Premal Patel]

But every 12 weeks, I'll have a plan. The last thing I would say is don't worry. And just accept and embrace the changes that are going to come because there will be plenty.

But if you worry, you will worry yourself sick out of it. So you've got to think how do we how do you change worry into acceptance, the situations will happen, accept the situations for what they are.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah, that's true.

[Premal Patel]

And the final one, I'll say is number six is no one is going to save anyone.

[Angela Thomas]

So save yourself, save yourself. That's what that is my saying. Put the mask on first, like in the plane.

That's exactly it.

[Premal Patel]

Yeah.

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Very beautiful. I enjoyed this interview so much. Let me know what because I also ask this all the skill owners for our audience.

[Premal Patel]

Sure.

[Angela Thomas]

What is the book that you read the last time? And what would you recommend to our audience?

[Premal Patel]

The last the last book I read?

[Angela Thomas]

Yeah.

[Premal Patel]

So the last book I read was the courage to be disliked. Oh, so. So there's a book out there courage to be disliked.

And why I love that book is it gives you all the all the sort of foundation to go out and take bold decisions and decisions that might not be accepted by other people, but they're the right decisions for you.

[Angela Thomas]

Very good. Thank you for that learning out of the book. It should be in everybody's bookshelf.

Because if you don't care what is actually everybody else says, then it's also some, some kind of yes to you, isn't it?

[Premal Patel]

The challenge now, you know, just on a final point on social media is because we all look for validation. Everyone wants to be liked. Yes.

But being liked just because somebody's ticked the box tick the box doesn't mean do they really like you? Are they just saying that? And when you have the courage to be disliked, you start shifting the dial, you start making movements in a direction where others will hopefully start following.

But that will make you achieve some bolder decisions. And you take more risks.

[Angela Thomas]

If somebody wants to get in contact with you, because they wanted to scale and enhance their team show team performance, where would they find you?

[Premal Patel]

Well, if I mean, so I have my website. So Premalalpatel.co.uk, they can find all the details there. If they want my email address, happy to have it again, it's Premal at Premalalpatel.co.uk easy to find We're gonna put that for our audience in the show notes of the of the video and the podcast so they easy find you.

[Angela Thomas]

And also we're going to put the link to your book and everything that you give us for the audience to very much to be to be visible. And thank you for being here, Premal. It was wonderful to pick your brain and to find out what what is on your 12 weeks plan.

[Premal Patel]

You've seen 12 weeks time when I've achieved that. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

Really appreciate it.

[Angela Thomas]

So that was Premal Patel with a scaling strategies and a story that really sticks. And if you wanted to have more of this, you subscribe, please give us a review here and share it with somebody you really like, because they wanted to be very happy about an episode like that for them to support it to scale their own business. And that note, have a good day.