 Pink and Keith Urban with one too many on BBC Radio Gloucestershire, with John it's coming up to 25 minutes past six days, music on the way from the Happy Mound days. And yeah the new one from Demi Lovato coming up for you as well. But now it is time to catch up with my co-host at home tonight and it's Jeff. Hello, I'm Jeff and I'm your co-host from Cheltenham this evening. A fun fact that you might not know about me is that I've always been able to control my hiccups so I only ever get one and then I can stop them. But will Jeff be able to share the knowledge with us tonight? Useful tips on the evening show. Hiya, Jeff. Hey John, how are you doing? Yeah, I'm good thank you, how are you? I'm really good. How's your Wednesday been? What have you been getting up to? It's just another Wednesday really isn't it? They all sort of blend into it. You have to look at the clock, don't you, to see what day it is. Oh yeah. They're all pretty much the same these days but not pretty good. That's good. Look at the clock, look at the calendar, you know the year. I think it's all the same blending into one. Thanks so much for joining us on the show. Let's go straight in with your introduction then. You are incredible at controlling your hiccups. It's a talent that I'm very proud of and very grateful for but one that I haven't been able to pass on to anyone that I care about. Unfortunately they still suffer. Oh I thought we were all going to learn something tonight with you, Jeff. That would be a money maker I reckon. If I could bottle it and teach it then I think that everyone would like to be able to learn that skill but I haven't been able to so far. Okay so talk me through your technique then. There must be something when you get some hiccups do you think this is what I've got to do to get rid of them? Well the only way that I can explain it is that I genuinely just think about stopping them. I breathe in as much as I can and then I swallow and then hold my breath and then they're gone. Wow there we go. It's simple isn't it? It's just that simple. When did you discover that you had this incredible talent? I've always been able to do it. I can't remember not being able to do it to be honest. So this is the thing. I bet people do ask you to try and share it. So have there been moments where you've tried to pass this on and it hasn't gone so well? No it's just the family and they don't really ask me to anymore. I just laugh at them and tell them they should just stop and they get a bit angry so I stop now. Well there you go. I mean it's quite a niche skill isn't it Geoff? How often would you say use this talent of yours? At least weekly. Do you think? Wow. You're quite afflicted when it comes to hiccups aren't you? Once a week. Wow that's amazing. Okay so let's talk a little bit about you and the podcast. Or should I say the pubcast which we might hear a little bit of earlier on but later on. Just tell me a bit about this then for those who maybe didn't hear me talk about it a little bit earlier on in the show. Yeah so I'm an agile coach and so that means I go from company to company trying to help them basically change the way that they work. And I've got a few allies that I work with now and again one in particular a guy called Paul Goddard who I've worked with for close on 20 years now. We often get together after work often in London or different places and just sort of debrief the day really even if we've been at different places or the same place. And as sad as we are no matter what we talk about the conversation always seems to somehow come back to work. And we just thought after a while why not just stick a recording device on the table in front of us and just record our conversations. Just for no other reason than for our benefit just to play them back at some point. And Paul had the idea of putting it out online and apparently people seem to enjoy our not drunken ramblings but certainly ramblings over a pint. Now this is I think it's a great idea and also what a fantastic opportunity to just go to various different places. I was looking at some of your episodes a little bit earlier on. Do you know how many you've got now Jeff? Well we've got up to about 115 that are actually live and we've done a few more sort of special that aren't out on the actual pubcast stream as it were. We've done for sort of private audiences if you like so we're getting on for about 125 I reckon. Okay so you know we'll come on to talk about the last 12 months and how that's maybe changed what you've had to do but actually 115 episodes. Are they always in a different location? We have gone back to a couple so the first episode we did was at the Tavern in Chelten which a lot of your listeners will know. And shortly after that there was a fire which closed it. Now that wasn't anything to do with us but not long after that we went to another place that had a fire after we'd been there. So we started to wonder but when it reopened we thought we should really go back so we've done two there. And we have a sort of local haunt in Bristol where Paul and I and a couple of other friends used to work just around the corner which we've been to a few times because it's nice in the middle of us. Paul lives in Wiltshire and I live in Chelten obviously so Bristol is quite a nice place in between. So we have been to a couple of places more than once but generally speaking we try and find somewhere different every time. But you know when we're talking about different places every time. Apart from the old Fugeth that's an awful lot of drinking establishments isn't it you've visited now for this. All for work John, all for work. Well yeah obviously all for work but actually what a fantastic opportunity to go out and find new places and kind of just absorb them and record stuff while you're there as well. Yeah and a lot of these places they've got a history you know we've been to Britain's most haunted pub and all sorts of different things. So yeah you pick up a little bit of history and then somehow that weaves into what we do for a living. Yeah that's great and then generally then when you started putting these out there what was the reaction like to begin with? Well we were genuinely surprised. We thought what's the worst that could happen because basically we're not inflicting this on anybody. They have to actually go out and search for it. So you know if you come across agile and beer and that's in your search terms then generally you're going to like this kind of stuff. So the comments we got were actually one surprise we had was tell us more about what you're drinking. So we had people who were interested in what we were talking about but also wanted to tasting notes. Now neither Paul nor myself have what you call a sort of distinguished palate. So we've had to learn to develop our descriptions of what we're drinking a little bit more over the years. But yeah generally speaking it was just interesting conversation. It was a lot less because we don't script any of it obviously we just have to genuinely talk about whatever is on our mind and see where it goes. And so that kind of real thing with the pub noise in the background people felt like they were there. They were eavesdropping on a conversation between two professionals who were friends. And you know that's the thing isn't it when you're there and having those conversations. It must have been lovely to then you know something which said we started out kind of for ourselves and then to get this sort of reaction. When you started to see some of that coming in and asking you for your tasting notes and various other things what was that like when you got that sort of positive reinforcement as to what you were doing. Yeah it was cool. I mean we probably wouldn't have stopped anyway because we like going to the pub and chatting but what we then ended up doing was we started doing live episodes. So we're streaming on YouTube and we have people sort of calling in and asking us questions and joining in the conversation. We have people posting us questions in advance and things like that. We did live episodes in pubs with audiences where people would turn up and sit around and watch us talk which was a little bit strange but pretty cool. So yeah it really grew. So we'll come and talk a little bit more later on about being an agile coach because I'm really interested in this. Let's briefly touch on the last sort of 12 months or so before we break for a bit of music Geoff because I imagine this has seriously affected getting out to pubs to put the podcast together and to get you recording. So when the first lockdown hit last year what did you do when it came to the podcast? So obviously we couldn't go out which was a little bit of a dent but what we did was we set up what we called the social distance in where we invited people who regular listeners just they could just join us on a Friday or a Wednesday after work for just a chat and a few drinks that probably not as much. Work conversation more a bit of just staying in contact really and just keeping each other going through what was pretty difficult time for lots of people. So it was good for us to stay in touch with people. I think it was good for everybody else to stay in touch. So yeah it was different from your shed or from the garden or whatever. But it was changed as good as rest so it was quite cool. I love the idea was it the social distance in did you say? Yeah. What a great name inviting people in and so you literally did it from sheds and various you know wherever you could get to to make it sound a little bit different Geoff? Well my shed is my office basically. Yeah we had a baby two years ago and my office next when I worked from home I couldn't really have that next to the baby's office. The baby's room sorry. So I basically converted one of my shed in my garden into where I that was my office. So that was my bar if you like and Paul had his downstairs office in his home in Wiltshire and people were just calling in from all over the world to join in and have a drink with us. Brilliant. I love the idea of this bringing people together which is what we've needed. We'll come on to talk about you know it could be exciting as you could be sitting outside a pub again from next Monday potentially. So we're just going to break for a bit of music and we'll come back and we'll keep chatting Geoff in a few minutes time alright? Cool. It's Happy Mondays with Step On on BBC Radio Gloucestershire with John. Hello. Music coming up from Demi Lovato some tire crews on the way for you as well now though. And it's time to return to my co-host at home tonight is Geoff who's in Cheltenham. Hey Geoff. Hey there. Hey so look before that song we were funny a lot about the agile pub cast then which is you and your friend and you said you know what we're just going to go out. We have chats and we ended up recording them and people really liked what we did. Now it's called the agile pub cast because you said you're an agile coach is that right? Yeah. So what does that mean? So it's nothing to do with flexibility for a start. Okay. So the other confusion that you get is that I'm also so scrum is a form of agile and I often get confused with rugby coach but it's nothing to do with rugby either. Right. So it's to do with how organisations get their work done basically. So traditionally your organisation is very much hierarchically focused so your leaders at the top tell people what needs to be done those people go away and do it. Your customers tell you what they need. You build something that they hopefully want and everything works out lovely. But over the last 20 years or so that's been less of a reality because things become a lot more complex, a lot more digital, a lot more fast changing. And so we need to do a lot more of what we call inspecting and adapting and actually empowering the people who are at the front line to figure things out rather than try and analyse them in advance. So I help organisations change their leadership models so that the people who are actually doing the work make a lot more of the decisions and manage themselves rather than expect to be managed by a manager if that makes sense. How does it work then? You brought in to kind of look at stuff and go, right, this is a suggestion I would like to make and I imagine sometimes maybe those suggestions might not go down that well if you've got the leaders at the top who think actually I quite like being the leader at the top here. Well, so you're right there, it is a bit on the face of it is quite threatening for people of traditional positions of leadership because they got to where they are by being the expert and making decisions. And now we're talking about opening up decision making responsibilities and empowering teams and a lot of these leaders are asking themselves, OK, so what about me? Where do I add value? But those people are absolutely ideally placed and have the skills to shape culture, to change organisational processes. So these self-organising teams aren't fighting against the system because the processes that we've got in place in our organisations are all geared up to actually help us work the way that we always have done rather than the way that we need to now. So these leaders need to change those processes, they need to enable, they need to support, they need to encourage, they need to coach. So what we mean by that is helping those teams and the individuals within the teams be a lot more confident in solving their own problems. Because we've got a lot of muscle memory, right? If I've got someone who's historically told me what to do when I face with a problem, the natural response for me is to go and ask them what I should do. We haven't got time in our organisations to basically push things up the chain of command and back down again. The people at the front, the customer face, need to be able to make decisions there and then and they need the confidence to be able to do that. How did this all come about, Geoff? What did you do before or how did you get into this? Because it sounds quite niche but actually quite clever really when you say it like that. Well, I mean it used to be quite niche. So I was a project manager at, should we say, a national telecoms company. Right. And what we call our cycle time. So the amount of time it takes for us to actually deliver something that our customers asked for was on average about two years. And what typically happened at the end of two years was we would deliver something that was asked for in the contract. But by the time we delivered it, two years had passed and actually our customers didn't actually want that anymore. Or they hadn't really very well understood what they did need in the first place because they didn't know what was possible. But they spent two years worth of money and time with us. They didn't end up with anything that was really what they wanted. So it was kind of added a necessity really that in order for us to be able to compete as a big institution against a lot of these small nimble start-ups, we needed to be able to shorten our cycle. So ask our customer what they want. Find out they don't know what they want. Give them what they don't want quickly and cheaply. And then work out how we can then change that to what they do actually want. Okay. Yeah, really interesting. I've never heard of anything like this before, Geoff. I've never met someone who does what you do. So I think it's fascinating. You're going to be with us throughout the show tonight. So we'll chat again a little bit later and we'll talk more about the podcast. We'll talk a bit more about the job as well. We had the last 12 months as maybe affected what you do when it comes to work as well. So we'll just have a bit more music and we'll be back with you again a bit later on in the show, Geoff. All right. Nice one. Tonight it's Geoff who's co-hosting the show from home in Cheltenham. Hi, Geoff. Hey, John. How are you doing? Yeah, fine. Thanks. Are you okay? Yeah, brilliant. Good, good. So where are you co-hosting from tonight? You mentioned your office being in a shed earlier on. Are you there or are you somewhere else tonight? Yeah, I'm just in a shed in my garden, Geoff. Have you still got the dregs of the sunshine tonight? Probably not. No, I mean it's not dark yet. But no, it's a pretty cloudy sky. Go on then. Give us a little virtual tour of the shed. Well, it's quite nice to be honest. When people join me on a Zoom call, they describe it as a log cabin, which is a bit grand. But I have got a heater in here, a wood burner, which is nice. Oh, yeah. So yeah, it's a sort of pine building with a couple of windows facing onto my neighbour's shed. Oh, lovely. Imagine in, like, do you remember that TV show Christmas lights? Who's got the better shed? You're the neighbour. It's like a little competition at the end of the garden. Do you think you've got the better shed? I think, yeah. You've got a log burner, Geoff. Have you used the log burner recently? It's been quite cold. I have, yeah. I have to come out here early in the morning, stick a few logs on and then get back in for a cup of tea while it warms up. Because, yeah, it's icy, isn't it? Mine is still something. It's crazy. Yeah, I know. Especially after all that warm weather we had. Now, look, you mentioned the shed earlier on because we were talking about the agile pubcast, which has been going. So how long is it since you started this now, Geoff? Oh, you see now Paul's the one with all the dates and the stats, but I'm going to say about four years. Okay, so we're looking at about four years and you mentioned you've got more than a hundred episodes. And, you know, things have had to change. You mentioned recording still, but obviously not in the pub over the last 12 months. But, you know, Monday, this could be quite exciting. Have you got any plans to get out to an outdoor venue at any point soon? Well, we were going to, I was going to go and travel to see Paul because I still haven't given him his birthday present. So we were going to do something from his garden, basically, before the pub's opened. But he's taking the time off. So, you know, he's on holiday. So the next pubcast, I think, is going to be a couple of weeks time. Right. Yeah, where we're going to go to Bristol. Paul's on the hunt for a beer garden in Bristol that we can use. Oh, that's nice. And you mentioned, you know, some of the places you've been, you live in Cheltenham, you mentioned the Tavern was one of the first in Cheltenham. So various other places across Gloucestershire as well, which you've enjoyed recording in? Well, we've been at, see, I always refer to them as the old places. I have to think the Butler source is what it's called now. Oh, yeah. It used to be when I used to go there. I was just thinking when you were talking about the sun just got me remembering. You know, one of our first early episodes, we were on the riverbank in Porto. And it was just glorious, absolutely glorious sunshine. And yeah, now I'm stuck in my shed. We did the wild beer Tavern before it went. Try to think some other places we've done here. That's all right. I mean, it's just good. You know, it's just interesting to hear because you must have such a great time. We talked about some of the history and, you know, getting out to see various places by the end of the podcast. Does it start quite well? And then the sort of four hours later is a little bit less coherent. Well, again, Paul's amazing at keeping me on track. As you know, you've got to break things up for the listeners. So people can, they can listen to us ramble for a little bit, but we don't have the option of putting in songs every now and again. So Paul, so we've got to keep it to 30, 40 minutes, Jeff. Then always we're going to lose people. So yeah, we'll do a good 30, 40 minutes and then we have to wrap it up. And that's that's usually pretty good. That's that's about the time it takes us to drink a pint and then we'll go and get another one. So that's good to me. Well, look, you're going to be back with us again a little bit later on in the show. So we'll catch up. Thanks for introducing some of the tracks as well. I appreciate that. It was good fun. All right, cool. We'll catch you later. Yes. Tonight is Jeff who's been with us throughout the show tonight co-hosting from the shed in the garden in Cheltenham. Hi, Jeff. Hey, John. Hi. Is the log burner going at the moment or is it sort of tailed off now? No, it's tailed off now. It's the residue of the heat has just left it a nice ambient temperature for this evening. Oh, nice. Look, thank you for joining us on the show tonight. We found out what it means to be an agile coach, which is something you started. And you said there are other people doing this now, but also the agile pubcast. We heard a very short snippet of this earlier on. Would you mind if we perhaps hear a little bit more about what you get up to? OK. Great, here we go then. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another edition of the agile pubcast. This time Paul Goddard, Nigel Baker and myself, Jeff Watts, got together in Bristol. And we found an interesting new place called the Bristol and Bath Room Distillery. This place had a massive still where they made their own rum and a load of mini stills upstairs where people made their own. See, this sounds quite dangerous to be honest. Making their own rum, you've got stills, you're there with some microphones. It does sound like an awful lot of fun, but I imagine there's quite a lot of work to get it all together as well, Jeff. Well, we try and keep it low-fi to be honest. Genuinely speaking, we just put a dictaphone in the middle of the table. I mean, we have sort of upgraded the equipment over the years, but we've found that actually the simple stuff is generally the best. So, yeah, there's a little bit, to be honest, there's more effort in the remote pubcast when we're not in the same place than when we're in a pub together. So we've put a little bit of pub ambiance in the background, stitched that in and trying to get the two audio levels to sync when we're in different places. That's a lot harder than when we're just sitting around the table. Also, a distinct lack of stills and various equipment, I imagine, as well around you when you're in the shed, unless you've got your own little brewing empire going on. Not that I could admit to you on live. Now, look, if people want to go and find out a little bit more about the podcast, perhaps here's some more of what you've been getting up to. Jeff, where is the best place to do that? Well, my website's inspectandadapt.com, and you can pretty much find anything from there to do with me. Or if you put Agile and pubcast into any kind of podcast provider, then you won't really be confused by lots of different options. We're pretty unique in that regard. Brilliant. And like you say, people might want to find out more about being an Agile coach and some of the work you do as well. They might have thought, I like the sound of that. So the website's the best place for that as well, Jeff. Yeah. And do you know what? There's quite a few of these free meetup groups, which hopefully will be starting up again in person soon as restrictions ease. But there's a couple even in Cheltenham. There's one called Magic, the most agile group in Cheltenham. And they meet up at Pub's as well. And it's this sort of networking after work thing where people can share what's going on at work, hear some speakers, basically find out other people in the local area who are doing the same kind of job with them. It's pretty cool. Great. All right. Well, thanks so much for joining us on the show. And we'll have to stay in touch. Let us know if things go with the podcast, and we'll catch up again very soon, Jeff. Yeah. Maybe we'll do a live one. That'd be great. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for joining us. And yeah, we'll get something in the working. All right. Cheers, John.