 Good evening. Good evening. Cheers. You've got ice in your drink. I have a summer, haven't I? Summer months. Got a cool down. So, what have you got? I can see where you're dressed for summer. Shorts and tea. I am on very casual tonight. I'm looking at the camera here for our video viewers. I look a bit scruffy. Did you wear that to work today? No, I didn't work today. I was working at home. I was doing paperwork today at home. But here we are in London Village. In a pub called The Princess Louise, which boasts about never having updated its interior decor since 1891. I can't believe that though. We're upstairs in the dining room and that wallpaper is never over a hundred years old. I'm sorry. Really? Maybe it's just certain parts of the decor. The carpet. Certainly the furnishings downstairs look a bit more original. It's probably the same layout. That fireplace looks old. Yeah, fireplace maybe. It's got a kind of men's Uranus. Uranus are listed. Heritage listed. So they can't move them. They can't change them. They can't adapt them? No. I've had a look and they do look old. Do they? Marble. Marble. Good quality stuff. They don't make them like that anymore, Geoff, do they? Currently not. We had an electrician man at home recently and he was trying to fix an extractive fan in our downstairs toilet. Done well for myself, got a downstairs toilet. Yeah, and he said, I think we were talking about this extractive fan. It's not broken. It's just he had to rewire it when he was putting a new light in. I said, I'll go for it. I'll go for years. It's probably part of the original house 1963 I think it was put in. He said, I'll go forever with that. There is a lot of truth in the statement. They don't make them like they used to. Part of our throwaway culture. Cheap, cheap, cheap. Cheap and replace it. Things are not built to last. It's kind of a throwaway culture, isn't it? I was asked about... I was in a taxi. I thought, I had a taxi today. It was somewhere. Somebody asked me what my thoughts were about the fast fashion industry, such as things like ASOS and places like that. And they were, in many ways, they were at the forefront of the agile movement. Making the value chain of clothes much shorter and leaner. But they're getting a lot of stick, aren't they, about the effect of the environment. And the human aspects of the lifecycle, I think, they're getting a lot of stick about. I saw Sarah publish a statement today saying that by, I'm going to say 2021 might be in 2025, something like that. All of their clothes are going to be sustainable. Whatever that means. So there's a lot of pressure on that. And it's tough, isn't it? It's tough. The pressure on the whole lifestyle. And in the supermarkets, the pressure on the price, they squeeze the local farmers, which encourages bad practices, which encourages pesticides, which makes it harder to get good yields, which increases the pressures again. It's a vicious cycle. It's not introduced in technical data into the product cycle. And we're probably going to go full circle on a lot of this stuff. So a lot of families as well. And something my daughter came home and asked me the day is that she wants to go back to glass milk bowls to have milk deliveries. She goes back to that? She's had that? No, but she doesn't realise. Because obviously they're doing a big thing about single-use plastic at school, so they're trying to cut down that, be a bit more wary of it. I think a few more localised kind of dairies are starting to offer that service. And I think it's going to get a lot bigger. Milk delivery. Imagine a place where you get your food brought to you on an electric vehicle in recyclable bottles brought to your doorstep. That was 40 years ago. Exactly, exactly. It was a milk float. Not just milk either, orange juice, eggs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how we got into that. No, weird, wasn't it? That's Australian Segway. Segway is one of my favourite words. It's one of those words that somebody tweeted this the other way. I think it was Dave Grant tweeted about this the other day. Granty? Yeah. About one of the words you didn't realise was spelt until quite long through your life. So I didn't realise it. I always put a picture of Segway as someone that I was around on. Yeah, you've probably seen that written more. Yeah, and that's what I blame it on. Anyway, what are you drinking? We haven't done that bit, yeah? No, true, true. Well, we've been in a couple of these types of pubs before. It's Sam Smith Pub, where they have their own... It's quite a limited... Is it a limited choice? It's quite a lot of beer, I think. It's just... Yeah, there's more than one lager, there's more than one ale, there's more than one bitter, there's more than one cider. But yeah, you don't get your standards. No, it's a bit... It's all a bit different, isn't it? Yeah, their own, which I kind of like. Which, yeah, I suppose it's no traditional, isn't it? Yeah. Anyway, so what am I drinking? I think it's called double four. It's double fermented. Yeah. I don't really know what that means. Four, I think it's four percent, so maybe it's just... I guess that double fermented means it's been fermented twice, but I can't understand what that means about why that's a good thing or why it's a bad thing. It's like triple cooked chips, isn't it? Maybe it's, you know, that kind of gastronomy. You see, I kind of understand that, but I don't understand the double fermented. But it makes chips sound more attractive. Yeah. So double, this isn't just single, it's like Mark's expensive. This isn't just regular lager, this is double fermented lager. I mean, it's smooth, it's light, it's a bit fizzy, creamy head. It's refreshing, it's a nice beer to have after a long, hot walk, you know what I'm saying? It was a ten minute walk. Hang on, I'm not saying I had a long, hot walk. You could have let that to the imagination of the listeners. They didn't need to know that. So, yeah, what about you? I've got, unsurprisingly, it's a cider, but it's pear cider today. Well, that's not a cider then, is it? What it says here is sparkling pear cider. Which is called? Perry. But I thought you could still class it as a cider. Probably. But yeah, it's very nice. It's very cold, like a cold drink in the summer. It's a nice refreshing drop. That's a nice ten minute walk. Yes. It's raining. Yeah, it is raining actually. But no, it's very nice. Apparently though, it's brewed in Yorkshire in a small independent British brewery. It doesn't say, I assume it's the Sam Smith, the old brewery. Tadcaster. So you can't really say it tastes like apple juice. You're going to have to give us a better... Tastes like pears, mate. More in depth. Tastes like pears. Yeah. When was the last time you had a pear? Today, just now, drinking this. No. I don't know. I generally... I don't eat... I don't like pears. No, I'm not fond of pears. I'm just quite wary of pears. If I had to cut a fruit... Out of your diet. Out of the world. Out of the world. Yeah, I'd cut a pear. Would you? Yeah. It's not hard. It wouldn't be higher on my list. I can't think of many fruits that I know. I like less. Really? Yeah. I don't like pear flavoured sweets. Not on a pear drops? No. That's not even real pear flavour. It's like artificial pear flavour. Yeah, they can't even do that. Anyway. Anyway, off to my fruit rant. The digress. Talking about rants. I was in the middle of a... found myself in the middle of a rant. This week. Recently. I was showing these this week. Where? On Twitter. On the Twitter sphere. Yeah. A Twitter feud. Yeah. And someone will find the fantastic. Can't say anything these days, can you? It's got to be prepared to have a debate. What did you say? And who did you say it to? So, I tweeted. You said quite an excerpt. A very short excerpt. From one of my books. And it said, Nobody is inspired by a sin. My great scrum master is my infectiously positive. Yes. And optimistic. Yes. And they embody the art of the possible. And they role model the values and principles of greatness. Yes. So that was what I'd written. And that was what I'd said. Meant to be a bit of a... I suppose there's a bit of a... point of reflection. Yeah. Maybe some people with inspiration are a bit of a... Okay. Let's be positive today. Yeah. Glass half full. Kind of tweet. And I was met with a lot of... backlash, I suppose. A lot of people disagreeing with that. Very strongly disagreeing. In what way? So, the first thing was about... I should probably read them out. Name and change. But it's going to test my memory. Because a lot of this I think is how you interpret things right. So people read that and interpreted within it. Yeah. They put their own perceptions on it. Some of which perhaps I did. So it would be interesting for me to see better people listening to this. What I interpreted from their tweets. The first one was effectively saying interpreting infectiously positive and enthusiastic as a happy clapping yes ban. Yeah. And saying how someone who's always positive and overly enthusiastic and un-genuine. Ingenuine. Yeah. Enthusiasm is demotivating. So kind of almost suggesting that I'm... We're implying that I'm suggesting that that's what I should be. Yeah. When in fact what I'm thinking is looking at a situation as well there is a way forward. No situation is hopeless. Yeah. No situation is beyond recovery. Yeah. And it probably is more helpful to think of how you can move forward and what you can get from it than thinking about how it's gone wrong. And if you're looking for a leader then you're probably looking for someone who's positive. I'm saying. Well I think also if you're looking for change if you're looking for to... And by definition projects are change aren't they? Regardless of what they're doing. Yeah. If you're looking to build something you're looking to change something. So to go from one state to another. In my opinion. And I'm agreeing with you but in what... Maybe you should maybe... Maybe because it will be a pretty boring but public aspect. Alright. Okay. I'll go with that. Right. I disagree. Yeah. Okay. So well we can't be positive all the time. Right? No. We can't be positive all the time. And sometimes a very serious situation you've got to take... You have to take a glass half empty viewpoint. Yeah. Look at all the worst case of what could happen. Yeah. I tried to add a little extra context to my 140 character statement. Yeah. And saying how I think there's a difference between cynicism and a cynic. Alright. Explain. And I think cynicism is a valuable trait. Yes. Because if you can adopt a cynical mindset, cynical approach it allows you to identify risk. It allows you to identify all the ways things can go wrong. Being naive and making silly mistakes that could have been easily avoided. But if you are a cynic then... Does that mean you're constantly... Yeah. ...means it's an unalterable state? Yeah. And I think people, there are people who wear that as a sort of badge of honour. Yeah. You know, I'm a grumpy old so and so. Yeah. And I think that in my experience they don't tend to make great team members. They drag people down. Whereas being able to step into the mindset of a cynic and be cynical for a while is very valuable. So I'm trying to make a differentiation between being cynical and being a cynic. What about people that can't help it? I think everyone can. I don't know about that. I think, I think, I think my mother, right, certainly... I'm pretty sure my mum doesn't listen to this pubcast. So I can be brutally honest then. Cheers, Mrs. Jean. Cynical... What is a cynical... What is the definition of a cynic? Well, that was an interesting thing, actually. I don't know if I'd be able to bring this up. Because I don't want to label my mother a cynic in actual fact she isn't. My mum, while you're doing that, my mum is just a very, very negative, has a negative outlook. Especially in her later years, has had a very negative outlook on most things. It's, and... And just seems to naturally fall into looking at all of the problems that might occur in daily life. I don't think, and I don't think, the reason why I said that is I don't think she can help it. I just think that's how she's wired. And I don't even think that she realizes how much she does it sometimes. Well, that is an important final statement. Because if she doesn't realize she's doing it, she might not realize the consequences for her and others of doing it. And if it's unconscious, then it's not making a choice. Whereas if she was conscious of it, she was able to see the consequence of it. She may then make a choice to try something different. We do point it out to her. We do try and point out the consequences to her, but she doesn't... I think she's aware of it, but she finds it very hard to change it. So somebody tweeted me a definition. Is there a universal definition of this? Yes, there is. The quote is a definition from, let's say, the Cambridge dictionary. I see that as a definition, but I don't think that's necessarily a universal decision. But then maybe I'm being picky about that. So the definition that comes up when you Google it is a person who believes, a person who believes that other people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons, an ostentatious contempt for ease and pleasure. Right. When I wrote about cynicism, I wrote about it from the point of view of looking at things as glass half empty. Assuming negative intentions of other people rather than assuming positive intentions. The natural state of finding despair rather than joy and fulfilment instead of happiness. Finding all the... focusing on all the things that went wrong rather than things that went well. That wasn't what that said, was it? No, no, no, that's what I'm saying. That was what I was thinking. I think that all traits are valuable. What I would say to use your mother's example there, I would say her cynicism traces out a balance. I'd say it's overdone. Whereas in the past she's got some value from that. I think she's missing out on the potential value of being able to step out of a cynical mind. And awareness is the first step. Is she aware that she's doing this? Does she see any value in changing and being able to adopt a different mindset? So I think to answer that, I think she is aware of it. But the second step in that is regulating. I don't think she knows how to adjust it. So knowing how is the third step. The middle step is really important in that. Does she see any potential value in regulating and experimenting with something different? There's potential step one and a half which is are there some examples where she isn't cynical? Even what? It's what it is to label people as constantly. If there's one type of situation where she isn't, we can look at what is it about that type of situation that encourages different responses, different processes. And we can perhaps magnify that and leverage that for others. So yeah, it's difficult in there. I'll throw another spanner in your works. I think, again, to play the devil's advocate here, I think it can unite people in cynicism. And I think maybe we're a little bit biased because I think it's quite a British thing as well. I think we are naturally, we tend to common struggle that kind of idea that we're in this together and it's all shit and we've got to fight it together and we're all kind of... Yes, that kind of... And I think we're a little bit... We take an element of pride in that as well that it's easier perhaps sometimes to bitch and moan and complain and almost feel that you can gain friends who've got that common struggle rather than trying to... It's sometimes harder to lift people up. Oh, it's definitely harder to lift people up. And I think there is a right fear about this idea that happy-clappy, everything's amazing when it's not. That's a right fear, it's a just fear. The bonding together I think is valuable, I think it's a good thing and we often call it the siege mentality as well. So yeah, everyone's against this, everyone's out to get us and it makes us feel stronger and brings a bonding. But it does create defensiveness and that sort of hunker down, you lose your creativity, you lose safety, you don't feel safe to try things because they're expecting to fail. And I remember we mentioned him before but the guy that we call Ian who was probably one of these most cynical people that we've ever worked with who openly said to me, yeah, everything's shit, Jeff, but I'd rather fail with what I know than what I don't know. Just assuming that failure is going to happen is not even worth trying. And was that true then that he failed? I know he perhaps wasn't in a leadership position but did people tend to get rallied behind him or did people tend to move themselves away from him? So he had been in the organisation longer than anybody else and he was still at the same grade that he was at when he entered the company. He hadn't progressed and he was quite bitter about the fact that he hadn't progressed but nobody would follow him. There was no reason to follow him. Why would you follow him? Because that's a different... There's nothing to follow. Bitterness is a different thing, isn't it? So bitterness for me is a different to cynicism. Bitterness almost suggests that there's an element of jealousy or envy from what someone else or something else or the company is doing or another individual is doing. That's different to just out and out everything's shit. So to me that's bitterness of the world. Yeah. And I think there's... It takes a bit of time to get there. I wonder if it's previous... Is it nature or nurture? Do you think it's a trait people are born with or do you think it's something you build? Do you think cynicism is something that grows on you? I'm not really qualified to answer that very well but I'll give you my opinion which is that I think some people are more prone to, for example, depression and that has an impact on your mood. And that's kind of a genetic thing, I believe. But I think the environment is a massive part of that as well. If you're brought up in an environment where your parents are very negative and very cynical you role model people that you see as leaders in your life and your parents are leaders, like it or not. So I think... So we came from a company called British Telecom where there was a history of... Well, let's be honest, there was a history of... failure is a strong word but... delay and kind of changing initiatives and constant flux that can be quite unnerving. I think that can have an impact on people's bitterness. Bitterness at the company. In terms of... then it becomes a struggle against their employer for many people in that company as well. And it's a kind of that siege mentality. We've got to look after ourselves there because no one else is looking after ourselves. I'm not going to go that extra mile for the company because they've never gone the extra mile for me. So I think that's united a lot of people that we used to work with about the common struggle in the pub like now moaning about how difficult life is and work is. And I think it does grow on people. Certainly, maybe it's... I'm not qualified enough to say either but certainly with my mum, I can talk about my mum and it's something that's changed with age, I think. Yeah. It's something that perhaps she's struggled with more as she's got older. Yeah. I think that's quite normal. You do tend to see more... as your life experiences grow, maybe. You do tend to see more failures and the failures tend to hurt more and they tend to stay with you longer than where you've been let down by people or fate or luck or whatever you want to call it. And I think that those stay in the memory and so you'll have just more of that tally chart or be longer. I'll give you a different example. This is to do with me. I've got an Achilles problem, right? Okay. In my leg. Don't really know how I did it. I've got a physio mate who had a look at it and he thinks it was through... Get this. He thinks it's through overuse. Me, running too much. But what does... I use the phrase get me down. What brings me down is the length of time it's taking to get better and that has an impact on me personally. My outlook, my... Everything seems like as I'm getting older. Everything seems like it's taking longer to do. I think that brings you down. That kind of allows this negativity, this business to grow. Certainly within me. Definitely. I think so my... Impatience maybe? When you get... So I was listening today to a podcast, the Bad Ass Agile podcast. Yeah, yeah. He was talking about getting into funk and trying to get out of the funk. Yeah. I think it's quite important to realize when you are in a funk and get out. I think that's part of this from Masters Rock. Yeah. We bring this all the way back to the reason I first wrote it a long time ago. Is that changing an organization is hard. It's difficult. You can't see the end of the tunnel. You have to do... You have to almost take a leap of faith in a way. You have to look at yourself and reflect and improve and move forward. And that's very difficult. And there's going to be some bumps along the way. And it's quite easy to focus on those bumps and think, you know, this is never going to happen. We're never going to see the end of this. We're never going to get there. But if you've got... If a strong master can't keep that sort of positive attitude, you know what? It will be okay. Yes, it's difficult. Yeah. You're not blind, stupid, naive optimism, but real pragmatic optimism. Yes, it's difficult. And it will get better. If the scrum master can't do that, if a leader can't do that, then we've got to know them. There is just no chance of success. And that's part of their role. A funk and negative attitude could be an impediment to them. Yeah. Put it that way. Having said all that, they're only human. And as you quite rightly said in your first argument against me, you can't be positive all the time. No, you can't. So when you were a scrum master routine, and you weren't feeling particularly optimistic or positive, what did you do? I don't know. I'm trying to think now. I think I used to... I'm quite... I work quite a lot of other people as well. So I might take myself out of that situation. I'm trying to think of a perhaps a more recent example that... Where was I? It plays a huge part. I consciously... I don't know why I was confused with the story, but I basically just switched everything off in terms of closing my laptop, turn my phone off. I think I went out for a walk or something. I was outdoors. And I was consciously trying to look around for stuff to distract me. So it was something I think my daughter said at the time. And that element of realism that... You know what? There's bigger things at stake here. Because when it's something in particular that's getting me down, my kids or my home life, my family environment, just take stock for a minute and think, hang on a minute, you've got a lot to be positive about here. There's a lot more going on than just that particular issue. So trying to widen my perspective consciously is what I try to do now. I can't honestly remember if I used to do that before, but that's what keeps me... Oh yeah, we all have bad days. We all have days when we feel like you've got at the proverbial one side of bed, but I think I just try to realise that there's more at stake. And even when you've got negative experiences at work, there's still a lot more... There should be a lot more other things going on that you can draw energy from, whether it's people or whether it's just environment, a different environment, different experience. I think that's quite, personally, I think that's quite important. That self-awareness, how do I recharge myself? How do I replenish myself? How do I realise that I am in that place and I need to step out and look after myself? I use the phrase, fit your own oxygen mask before you fit out. Because you can't have it with people, if you don't have it yourself, if you don't have a good place. You haven't got energy to give. Yeah. So, how do you do that as a scrum master if you're the one expected to do that? Well, you have... In most places, there's more than one scrum master. Yeah. So, having that community, having someone that you can... Even if it's just bent, just get it off your chest, nobody has to do anything, just hear you. Yeah. If it's going outside, get a walk-in touch with nature. If it's shut off, go and have a bath, if it's good for a run, whatever it is, if you know what works for you, then you can engage in it. I've already said this before. My wife's got a... I won't go into this whole story behind this, but my wife's got a punch bag in the garage. So, when things get really stressful at home, I'm sure it's nothing to do with me, but when things get quite stressful at home, I'll have to say, this isn't the reason why she bought the punch bag, because it's for fitness and stuff like that, but she's got a pair of boxing gloves in the garage, and it's particularly if... I'll blame it on the kids. If the kids have been running right all day or if they're particularly difficult, she used to... When my kids were really little, she'd just lock herself in the cupboard or something and scream at the top of her voice, step out of the room and scream, because screaming is quite therapeutic, isn't it? Kind of, and we tell my boys, if he's hurt himself, or if he's angry, go and scream into the pillow, or go and punch the pillow or something like that, just to try and get that... get that energy out of you, and then you can... Cold shower works as well. I'm starting to get more and more fans of a big fan of cold shower. I know a qualified and likes laughter therapist. Right, okay. He teaches you to laugh that, and use that energy to turn that laughter... turn that energy that would have been a scream to you, into exaggerated laughter. Yeah, deliberate laughter. Yes, whatever works really. That's good, yeah, yeah. So when I look back at that tweet, and obviously we all have responsibility for the messages that were going out there in the world, I was directly taking it from text. So if I was going to change it, I'd have to rewrite the book, I suppose. But would I change that? I suppose in an ideal world I probably would. Mainly because I do encourage people to never use the word. Never. Never. Or always, or nobody, or everyone. And I, myself, use the word nobody. Nobody is inspired by a cynical. Well, there you go. So I would say most people are not inspired by a cynical. Well, especially you're not. Correct. But I'm not sensitive to the population. Yeah. And it was somewhat of a generalisation. I still believe somewhere in the region 99% of people aren't inspired by a cynical. What about someone like Brian Clough? Would you say he's cynical? He was cynical? I'm trying to think of very outwardly... I mean, we are really splitting our audience down to a very small portion here. Who knows, Brian Clough? Not many people know Brian Clough. I'm trying to think of a fairly iconic, yet more dour, cynical manner. The fact that you can't really think of one very easily. No, I know. I suppose there's a lot. I think the public, or maybe the person in the media is very different to how they deal with people on a day-by-day basis, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, Alan Sugar's. Yes. Alan Sugar is a good example. Lord Sugar. Again, would that translate to our international audience? Maybe, probably not. Alan Sugar is the former. I don't think he's... Is he still in charge? Is he still of Amstrad? He's a fairly big media mogul in the UK. He comes across as very cynical. He has a persona of belligerent, grumpy old boss, but very successful. And at the top of his game commercially and as a business thinker. He basically was the Donald Trump version in the UK version of The Apprentice. I would like to see out of 100 people, we surveyed 100 people. How many of them would prefer to work for Alan Sugar as opposed to Richard Branson? That's a great question. Maybe we should Twitter poll that on our agile podcast. Let's do that. So we'll do that, where after this goes out we'll put that Twitter poll out and we'll see what people think. Nice. I like that. Yeah. So all else being equal. So the job's the same, the location's the same, the pay's the same. Everything's the same. The only thing is you would be working for one of those two people. And we'll tell you in a later podcast what the result was. Good place to stop, I think. That's nice. I'm a bit slow on the old pint tonight. I'm sorry. Glass half empty and all that. Nice work. Cheers, mate. Cheers, everybody. Cheers.