How Cross-Team Collaboration Unlocked 10+ Hours a Week with Jason Barnard
Join Jason and me for a discussion about building systems that work well for you and your team’s culture. Jason Barnard is the founder of Kalicube, an AI branding company. One of my favorite parts of this interview is the system he uses for cross-team collaboration.
You can get the Magnetic Systems Method (and other systems guides) to find issues before they become expensive problems.
Highlights from the interview:
- Mastermind system for cross-team collaboration
He describes a system of cross-team masterminds where employees from different departments come together to share problems and brainstorm solutions. This helps improve communication, understanding, and problem-solving across the organization.
Watch the 5-minute Systems Segment on YouTube
- Automation and efficiency gains from mastermind insights
An example is provided where the marketing team was able to automate processes after getting input from the more tech-savvy production team during a mastermind session. This led to significant time savings for the marketing department.
- Jason’s background and polymorphic career path
He shares how his diverse experiences, from economics to music to cartoons, have shaped his ability to think creatively and tackle complex problems, especially in understanding how search engines and AI work.
- Maintaining regular communication with team leads
He has weekly 30-minute calls with each department head to stay connected, understand challenges, and provide guidance, as well as a monthly all-hands meeting where everyone shares wins, struggles, and other updates.
- Intentional reflection time and setting reasonable daily goals
He describes a daily routine of spending 10 minutes in the morning reflecting on the day ahead, assessing what is reasonable and possible to accomplish, rather than creating overly ambitious to-do lists.
Learn more about Jason Barnard over at Kalicube. You can also connect with Jason on LinkedIn.
As always, if you have any questions or want to submit an amazing guest for the podcast, just reach out to me on the Systematic Leader website, and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you enjoy the interview, please take 30 seconds to rate the Systematic Leader podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!
Listen here: How Cross-Team Collaboration Unlocked 10+ Hours a Week with Jason Barnard
Published by: Systematic Leader. April 02, 2025. Host: Karl Staib. Guest: Jason Barnard, Founder and CEO of Kalicube.
Jason Barnard on Systematic Leader Podcast
[00:00:00] Jason Barnard: Yeah, I have a weekly, half hour call with each of the heads of the departments. So for me, that’s seven calls every Tuesday and I do them back to back in a particular order because I know what order I need to, to speak with people. And we go through the problems they’re having and the things that I need them to understand in terms of where we’re going. And those half hour weekly meetings are unmissable, uncancellable. Even if I’m in America and the time difference is horrible and I have to get up at six o’clock in the morning, I’ll get up at six o’clock in the morning. I will do it because I want to keep that consistency even, and even if it’s only a 10 minute conversation, because there isn’t much to say.
[00:00:48] Karl Staib: All right. Let’s dig deep to fly high. Hello, I’m Karl Staib and I have Jason Barnard with me. He’s the World Authority on Digital Brand Intelligence. Thank you for being here.
[00:01:12] Jason Barnard: It’s a delight. Carl, thank you for having me.
How a Creative Mindset Led to Data-Driven SEO Success
[00:01:14] Karl Staib: So we just did the five minute system segment and it’s fantastic and I know my audience is gonna love what you are bringing today. And one of the things that I find interesting about people is how they got started. And, and if there’s any impetus or you know, a, a glimmer of, oh, I did this as a kid or even as a young adult, that has really helped you realize. ’cause I think we have to use our strengths, but we have to tie it to purpose, right? We can’t just, you know, uh, people who are great bus drivers love the act of, you know, doing this service for other people. Is there a moment when you were a kid or a young adult that has kind of forged who you are and why you built the company that you have?
[00:02:05] Jason Barnard: Well, I’ve built three companies and they’ve been very different. Each one has been very different. And the, somebody once told me that my lonely childhood in Yorkshire living miles and miles and miles from anybody else, learning and figuring out how to occupy myself was one of the huge reasons that I then built Kalicube. And Kalicube has been an immense challenge. And a, and a, a really, really, really enjoyable challenge is trying or is figuring out how Google, how the algorithms of Google and AI like ChatGPT. How they think looking into their little brains and figuring out how they understand the world. And then how they take that understanding to answer your questions and solve your problems when you are searching or researching on Google or ChatGPT.
[00:03:02] Jason Barnard: And what the person said to me was that lonely childhood, making up your own games. I invented whole systems and games in my mind in a notebook. And doing that has given me a very, or maybe it came from there initially, an incredibly well organized mind. That’s very data sensitive. I’m very good at looking at statistics and data and understanding what’s going on underneath the hood, but with a huge amount of creativity because like I invented the games.
[00:03:35] Jason Barnard: And I think that’s what got me here. But in between building Kalicube and Kalicube Pro, it has 3 billion data points in a database that I built with an algorithm that sorts through it to figure out what Google and AI are using for information. Factual information about people and companies, and then figuring out what we need to do to shift their perception of that person or that company. And therefore how that person or company is represented and where they’re represented and how they show up in Search and AI.
Building Systems to Educate Search and AI Effectively
[00:04:08] Karl Staib: I love that. I think it’s, it’s so fascinating to hear ’cause I grew up in the country too. Miles away. Miles away from people. It was a dirt road until I was like 10 years old. And I too, I think have built systems inside my own head. I, you know, I, I had, I feel like a very large imagination. And I think, yeah, you know, as a leader you have to have this imagination and show it to people, show this vision, and have it come to life. And this is where I think, you know, systems are very important because too often this vision that we, that we have, we see it clearly, but we have to be able to communicate it clearly and communicate it consistently again and again. Like, you know, I think, a past guest, you know, so they’re the chief repeating officer because they have to make sure people hear it and not, you know, you don’t wanna say it in the same way. You want it to mix it up and, and show different angles as part of creativity. How have you, you know, is there a system that you’ve had that has helped you paint that vision for other people so they understand it and want to support it?
[00:05:29] Jason Barnard: I would actually say that’s something that I need to build is that system. One of my problems is that I keep moving forwards, which is great from a, a life perspective, and life is exciting and things are always changing and I’m moving forwards, but my team hate it. Because I’ll figure out a really simple solution to a very complex problem. For example, how to build a Knowledge Panel, which is the thing on the right, the information box on the right, on Google when you search on desktop. If you search my name, Jason Barnard, J-A-S-O-N-B-A-R-N-A-R-D, you’ll see a huge Knowledge Panel. So that’s one thing I figured out how to do. So you say, okay, this is what we’re doing. We’re building Knowledge Panels. Then I figured out how to manage the left hand side, which is all the blue links and the videos that show on Google when you search.
[00:06:18] Jason Barnard: So I added that and then I figured out AI. How, how I, how, how I can get ChatGPT to say, to be able to say, if you say, who is Jason Barnard, it will write an 800 word essay. That’s a hundred percent correct. And so my system is always to keep moving forward and figure out what’s the next step and when, it’s called Deep Seek, the chinese ChatGPT killer came out. First thing I did, download it to my phone, search my name on it, and it came up with a perfect answer. And so for me, I’m saying, okay, brilliant. What I have figured out in truth is how to educate, Search and AI, and it works for any of these engines because they’re all based on the same technologies.
[00:07:04] Jason Barnard: Based same three fundamental technology, Search, Knowledge Graphs, which are machine readable encyclopedias and Large Language Model ChatBots, like ChatGPT.
[00:07:15] Karl Staib: So.
[00:07:15] Jason Barnard: And they’re all using the web as the source of information. So if you organize your information on the web with a central hub, which is your website, you win the game with all the machines. Sorry, I interrupted you, but I really wanted to finish that sentence.
Building a Strong Feedback Loop for Team Growth
[00:07:28] Karl Staib: No, no, no. I, I was trying, because I think that’s fascinating because there’s an intersection of, okay, you have this grand vision, you are able to build these things, but then your team is like, wait a second, what’s going on? Like, and you said you’re, and I think this, this is so important to highlight because there’s probably leaders that are like, yeah, I do that. Right? And I think we don’t have this system of pausing and sharing or pausing. And asking for feedback of like, you know, what do you think the vision of this company is or where do you think we’re headed right now? Like, do you have a feedback loop in place for your employees?
[00:08:10] Jason Barnard: Yeah. Once again, the Chief Team Officer Mary-Ann, who organizes the masterminds, also organizes a year assessment. Self-assessment for somebody. Where was I last year at the same time? Where am I now? And then everybody after that gets together in a group and everybody gives feedback and then they give me the summary of that feedback in a meeting. So there’s a, a feedback loop, once a year, a big, huge feedback loop. But multiple times during the year, Mary-Ann will talk to different teams and different team members individually, and she gives me the feedback loop on how things are going in terms of people’s feelings and sentiment at work. Their motivation, their needs, problems if they have them. And that’s been really, really huge because what I’ve found as well is people won’t talk to me as freely as they will talk to her.
Wearing Different Shirts to Foster Open Communication
[00:09:01] Karl Staib: Why do you think that is?
[00:09:06] Jason Barnard: I think somebody said the red shirt scares them. So I’ve now started wearing a green shirt when I’m at work as the CEO. The green shirt is my CEO shirt and the red shirt is my public persona. But also because I’m, I’m the boss and being wrong, being wrong in front of the boss, however much I feel that I don’t make people nervous about that. It’s natural. However much I say to them, you know, it’s fine getting things wrong. We’re all just suggesting things and trying to move forwards. I don’t shout, I don’t get annoyed. I don’t, I’m not one of those bosses who, who criticizes. I’m very encouraging, but it’s always gonna be there that, that kind of, if I say this, I might look wrong or stupid or. And so having somebody who I trust a hundred percent, who everybody else trusts a hundred percent and wants and are happy to talk to, gives an amazing freedom of circulation, of information. And so when she does talk to me, she doesn’t say who said what? She says, well, here is a problem that we need to look into, or here’s something really cool going on that you don’t know about.
Creating a Balanced Leadership Approach: Encouraging Open Communication While Driving Vision
[00:10:17] Karl Staib: So I love this system and I think this is important to, you know, really draw some attention to, because I think it’s almost like good cop, bad cop, right? Like good, the bad cop is like, Hey, we have this vision. I’m not saying you’re the bad cop. I’m just like, yeah, just vision. And we’re, we’re working towards it and we’re, you know, and you, you, you’re always moving on to the next thing. And then there’s the good cop that’s like, no, let, what’s going on with you? Are you okay? You know, like, I feel like it happens in a lot of companies where they’re like, okay, I’ll take on this role. And it doesn’t, it’s not like specific, it’s not like, okay, I’m gonna do this role. You’re gonna, it just almost naturally happens.
[00:10:56] Karl Staib: ‘Cause the other person’s like, okay, they’re, they need a little support in this area, and I’m guessing your operations, uh, what’s her name?
[00:11:06] Jason Barnard: Mary-Ann.
[00:11:07] Karl Staib: Mary-Ann probably realized this and was like, okay, we need to get some feedback. Jason’s, you know, in his head, right? And like trying to create all these things. But you allow it, right? Because there’s probably so many bosses that are like, we just need to go ahead and get this done and that’s not healthy either. And there needs to be this balance. And you’ve created this balance. And you’re trying to strike that balance of like listening to people and you know, and as you know, bosses are tough to talk to. So how do you create that system that allows people to speak up and things are still taken care of and implemented based off of that feedback, which is fantastic. And I think that’s, you know, so smart.
[00:11:52] Jason Barnard: Well, actually a couple of years ago, I, I was really thinking anybody can talk to me, everybody can talk to me. I’m a nice, kind, understanding,mature, intelligent person and it took me a while to realize that’s however nice and mature and intelligent and emotionally aware I am, I’m still the boss. And putting somebody there who has those same skills and that those same qualities who is between me and other people has made a huge difference. Doesn’t mean to say people can’t talk to me and don’t talk to me, and don’t talk to me freely and honestly. But the difficult conversations, and the, the real heart to hearts are gonna be with Mary-Ann, not with me. And that makes total sense.
Mastering One Passion at a Time: Jason Barnard’s Journey from Music to AI
[00:12:38] Karl Staib: Are you, do you consider yourself more of, on the side of like, engineer, you know, and how you kind of problem solving? I, yeah, you know, I, I I guess there’s many different ways of, you know, introvert versus extrovert, right? And, empathetic, you know, versus somebody that’s, you know, is kind of driven by, you know, this. Do you consider yourself more on that engineering side?
[00:13:05] Jason Barnard: I think I’m a quite a dominant character. I am decisive and I move and I make things happen, and I don’t wait around and I’m very decisive. I’m also very outgoing and extrovert in public. I’m at ease on stage speaking or playing music. I’m a musician too, and that’s kind of given me that extroverted showman thing, and yet I built an algorithm that runs 3 billion data points to figure out how Google’s brain works, which is very engineering. And then I’m able to sit down with my friends and be empathetic and have a chat and sit down with my, the people I work with. And I think part of it is age, but part of it is the varied career I’ve had and the different things I’ve done because I had a music company, I was in a band. Then I made cartoons for children and I ran a, a global entertainment company where we made cartoons for kids, and now I’m figuring out the geeky Google stuff. So that’s kind of quite a broad spectrum.
[00:14:14] Karl Staib: Yes.
[00:14:15] Jason Barnard: But at the end of the day, if you said to me, what do you like doing the most? I like figuring out how Google and AI think function and answer your questions and solve your problems when you’re searching and researching.
[00:14:28] Karl Staib: I feel like they’re, is it poly, uh, polymorphic poly. Basically somebody that has multiple interests and can dive deep into them, but then pull out and then go in different directions. It seems like almost like your career is very, um, polymorphic in the way where you, okay, I’m gonna go deep into this, and then you pull out.
[00:14:49] Jason Barnard: Yeah.
[00:14:49] Karl Staib: And then you’re like, oh, wait, I’m gonna try this a little bit. That’s fascinating.
[00:14:53] Jason Barnard: And I think importantly, it isn’t doing five things at once. It’s doing one thing full out. Full on.
[00:14:59] Karl Staib: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:15:00] Jason Barnard: And then moving on to the next once it’s either finished or I’m moving on something else. So it was, it was, I was an economist first. Did that at university. Got a great degree with Statistical Analysis, then I became a musician entrepreneur, then I became a cartoon maker, filmmaker, music maker, and, entertainer. Then I became a marketer, and now I’ve become the CEO, founder, entrepreneur at Kalicube who’s built a mad machine that configure Google and AI, which is super cool. And I think one of the nice things is I haven’t left any of them behind because I’m still a musician. I play in the jazz club opposite in a couple of weeks, in a week’s time, in fact. So I’m still a musician. I still love making video, but I’m really focused on Kalicube and everything is in Kalicube. And, and how I can build it to truly serve people. I mean, it’s an existential question. How do these machines understand you and what do they say about you when you’re not in the room?
[00:16:10] Jason Barnard: That’s an existential question. These, these machines are having billions of conversations with people every day, and you are potentially in that conversation. What are they saying about you? Do you know? Probably not. Can you control it? Well, you aren’t controlling it because you’re not thinking about it.
[00:16:27] Jason Barnard: We can control it. That’s what we do at Kalicube, and it’s an existential question. How do you control what Google, Search and AI say about you when they’re having a conversation with somebody else and you’re not in the room?
Building Systems for Smarter Business Decisions
[00:16:40] Karl Staib: So it seems like a lot of your, what you’ve been able to do. So from statistics to music to video, which is all content, which is all content that’s going out on the internet, which then needs to be curated.
[00:16:55] Karl Staib: So we are feeding the algorithms appropriately.
[00:16:59] Jason Barnard: Yeah.
[00:17:00] Karl Staib: And then, so this is that system that you’ve built with your company, you’ve built a basically a system that helps curate how people do that.
[00:17:09] Jason Barnard: Yes.
[00:17:10] Karl Staib: So I’m curious then, you know, as.
[00:17:13] Jason Barnard: That’s really well put. Thank you.
[00:17:16] Karl Staib: Yeah. Yeah. No, and it’s, it’s amazing how we are all made up of systems. Like we, I listened to this more like a spiritual teacher but he’s like, you know, we’re making decisions based off of what’s happened in our past, right? And so if you see a snake and it almost bit you and then you, you know, or maybe it did bite you, right? And now every time you see a snake, your heart flutters, right? And now there’s this anxiety, there’s this stress. And, uh, but our careers are like this too. And as leaders, we have these things, and I think this is where self-awareness is so important. We realize that we’re making decisions based off of past experiences, and sometimes those decisions aren’t always good decisions because they’re based off of fear.
[00:18:08] Karl Staib: They’re based off of small amount of data that really hasn’t added up to making the decision that you should make. And so I’m curious, like,you know, and it seems like you do this as a team, but as a leader, do you have a way to, you know, a system that allows you to step back and look at, you know, okay, we made a decision, we’ve tried this that didn’t work.
[00:18:32] Karl Staib: Some sort of evaluative type process to like help the team grow. Like, Hey, we can’t do this like this anymore because I think this is where a lot of businesses struggle. You know, you find out something that works and then you not just go on autopilot, but you’re like, well, that works. Yeah. Now let’s tackle this other thing but you never revisit and say, well, how can we make this a little better? Because I’m a big advocate of doubling down on what’s working well and eliminating what’s not. And I find a lot of business owners just keep put, throwing more things on the fire instead of saying, wait, no, let’s cut that out and let’s go deeper into this.
[00:19:14] Karl Staib: And it seems like, like you said, your focus is, is, is one of your strengths. So do you have a system like that in place that helps you to review that?
[00:19:24] Jason Barnard: I would love to have a system in place. And now I’m gonna be thinking about it. What actually happens generally is when I’m on a long haul flight or a long train ride, and sometimes I take the bus, I took a bus to Milan, which is 14 hours.
[00:19:37] Jason Barnard: What I love about that is I’m just sitting, looking out the window in the bus and thinking, and that is generally when I can push everything through my mind and assess what the situation is. And I often come to the most helpful decisions or the most valuable decisions when I’m on a long haul flight or in a bus or in a train.
[00:20:01] Jason Barnard: And so that’s my system, but it isn’t much of a system. It’s just make sure I can’t actually work and I’ll sit and think about work and figure things out. But I had a, an interesting experience today, and it’s literally today. Which is kind of one of those ironies in life, is I spent a lot of money and a lot of time recording, scripting and recording 14 hours of video for an online course to explain to other people what I’ve understood about managing Google and AI. And I launched the course. It, it didn’t lose money, but it never made, it never really kind of took off. And I’ve tried several iterations. Number one was selling the course, then it was giving it away with access to our Kalicube Pro platform.
[00:20:50] Jason Barnard: Then we stopped the platform because the platform was too complicated for people ’cause they weren’t watching the videos, so they couldn’t make it work. And I have this 14 hours of courses and I was about to suggest to my team, let’s throw it in as a freebie with the book. And then I just thought sometimes you just have to let go.
[00:21:10] Jason Barnard: Sometimes you have to say, that course is brilliant. It’s really valuable, but it, it isn’t packageable with the business model we currently have, which is helping entrepreneurs with their Personal Brand online to make sure they control it so that it will drive business for them today. It will facilitate their career in the future and it will define their legacy in Search and AI.
[00:21:34] Jason Barnard: That’s our focus. And the course doesn’t fit in there because what an entrepreneur will do is say, well, I’m paying you to do it. I’m not gonna take the course ’cause I’m paying you to do it. Just go and do it while I go and look after my business, making lots of money. So the course doesn’t have a place in the business model that we’re now running and I wanted it to, but my emotional attachment to that course, because I put so much love and heart and creativity and knowledge into it has to be put to one side and I have to let go.
[00:22:04] Jason Barnard: And this afternoon, literally this afternoon, I decided to let go.
Stop Wasting Resources on What Doesn’t Work
[00:22:08] Karl Staib: Yeah. ’cause you’re like, what you’re saying is you’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and it just ain’t fitting. So why use that mental bandwidth up on something that just won’t fit?
[00:22:20] Jason Barnard: Yeah. And let’s not waste the team resources because if I said to ’em, let’s give it away with the book, they’d set it all up and we’d have it given away with the free book, would it have brought value to the company? Not really would it have brought money?
[00:22:32] Karl Staib: Or the, or the, the, or the customer, right? Like if, if they weren’t watching it before, would they watch it now, right?
[00:22:40] Jason Barnard: Well, I think actually the mistake with the course was that it goes into all of the incredibly interesting things. I figured out the tiny minute details that allow you to start controlling Google and AI.
[00:22:50] Jason Barnard: But most people don’t want to go that deep or they don’t understand or they don’t care or they’ve got better things to do and they want us to do it for them. And then I built this platform that does most of it automatically anyway. So now I say it like that, live with you. I’m thinking I shouldn’t let go of this months ago.
[00:23:11] Jason Barnard: So I’m sorry to the team, the time we were wasted.
Create a Thinking System to Spark Insights and Better Decisions
[00:23:15] Karl Staib: But this, I mean, this to me, this is why having conversations and digging into your systems is so valuable. And because you start to see things from a different perspective and someone just asks you questions and you’re like, okay, well how come you’re doing it like this?
[00:23:31] Karl Staib: And you already had this realization, but it reinforced the decision that you made. You probably are like, no, this is really the best way forward. So there’s this little bit of an aha moment of like, yeah, and this is, and coming back to your idea of like, these are the type of systems you can implement in your business to help you speed up those type of decisions faster.
[00:23:57] Karl Staib: And this is, I think are just opportunities for people to really, and when you do it, you, you find the patterns faster, right? Because if you, let’s say once a quarter, every six months you take a long bus ride or train ride. 14 hours, right? But those 14 hours, it, it, you’re, it is tiring, right? So you’re not, you’re like, well, maybe I’ll wait nine months for ne next one.
[00:24:22] Karl Staib: But then you don’t have these opportunities to, to be able to process and think like that, like you do. So is it, could you create a system around a two hour? Or a three hour type of thing that you could do more regularly that would allow you to process. And find these type of, oh, ’cause it reminds me, back to your childhood, you probably could just play outdoors and you’re just thinking and thinking and things are, but you don’t.
[00:24:51] Karl Staib: As an adult, we’ve got to-do list and we’ve got family and we got a responsibility. We don’t have that ability unless we make that a regular thing. That’s part of our, part of our system that we do every day or once a month or whatever. It’s Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, quick break. If you wanna learn more about how to make your business more efficient, save time, save money.
[00:25:14] Karl Staib: Go to systematicleader.co/guides. There, you can sign up for my email list, get the Five Points newsletter, and it’s gonna really help you. All right. Enjoy the rest of the interview.
[00:25:28] Jason Barnard: A hundred percent. Absolutely. In fact, I, I do actually take the bus one hour in and one hour back once a month. And it is hugely helpful, but it isn’t because I want to take the buses, ’cause I have to go into the local town.
[00:25:43] Jason Barnard: And I live in a, a village where everything is within walking business, so I don’t have a car. So I take the bus and it’s actually really, really, really good for me.
[00:25:54] Jason Barnard: Yeah. And
[00:25:55] Karl Staib: if you’re intentional with it, you’re like, oh yeah, like this is my time. I think it becomes much more enjoyable as well because you’re like, yeah, this is my time to think, versus, oh, I gotta take the bus ’cause I gotta do,
[00:26:07] Jason Barnard: yeah.
[00:26:07] Karl Staib: Dot, dot, dot. You know, all these.
[00:26:09] Jason Barnard: I actually enjoy it, which is delightful.
[00:26:12] Karl Staib: Yeah.
[00:26:12] Jason Barnard: So yeah, a hundred percent.
[00:26:13] Karl Staib: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:26:14] Jason Barnard: So my system is to take the bus. Brilliant.
[00:26:17] Karl Staib: There you go. Take the bus. Allow yourself not to have to be on your phone.
[00:26:22] Jason Barnard: Yeah.
[00:26:23] Karl Staib: On your laptop. You just allow yourself to think and process. I think that’s, that’s so important.
Implementing Regular Check-Ins and Appreciation Systems to Foster Team Communication
[00:26:29] Karl Staib: So, I, you know, let’s kinda shift a little bit. So as a leader, you have to help other people as well, and you have to help them, you know, really understand, you know, where they function well in the company. Do you have a, you know, a system around appreciation or around noticing things that people are doing so you can highlight it. So you can notice it, so you can learn more about what they’re doing. Because I, what I’ve, I’ve seen a lot of leaders is, you know, the, the ones that are proactive and it’s like it, they get regular emails or they get regular updates, or there’s a, you know, a call, you know, a rotation of calls that they have with different employees. Do you have anything like that in place?
[00:27:21] Jason Barnard: Yeah, I have a weekly, half hour call with each of the heads of the departments. So for me, that’s seven calls every Tuesday and I do them back to back in a particular order because I know what order I need to, to speak with people. And we go through the problems they’re having, and the things that I need them to understand in terms of where we’re going.
[00:27:45] Jason Barnard: And those half hour weekly meetings are un, unmissable, uncancellable, even if I’m in America. And the time difference is horrible and I have to get up at six o’clock in the morning. I’ll get up at six o’clock in the morning. I will do it because I want to keep that consistency even. And even if it’s only a 10 minute conversation, because there isn’t much to say, it’s fine.
[00:28:08] Jason Barnard: But having that regular conversation with the team leads is, for me, fundamentally important. And that’s been now a year. And it’s changed a lot in the way the company’s run and the how happy people are and how well the different teams are being run. And then we have an additional all hands meeting once a month.
[00:28:27] Jason Barnard: And we all get in the, the Roam, the, the, the virtual office room and everybody has three minutes to share their win, their struggle, and anything else they want. And so I get to hear from everybody on the team, and everybody on the team hears from everybody else on the team, you know, just something I’m really proud of, something I struggled with this month onto the next person.
Jason Barnard Shares His Approach to Prioritization and Team Communication
[00:28:52] Karl Staib: I love that. Is there, and, I am, I’m a big fan of prioritization. That’s, to me, it’s kind of my system’s brain. Do you have someone take notes and then jots down what they hear and then if something, if there’s patterns out of that, like you, you do, you do anything like that?
[00:29:12] Jason Barnard: Well, Mary-Ann, the Chief Team Officer runs the meeting and, and tells everybody when they should talk.
[00:29:17] Jason Barnard: So she’s the kind of centralized hub of information about how everybody’s feeling, how all the departments are working. So a very kind of, understanding the overall vibe of the company, let’s say. But in fact, what I do during the meeting is as people talk, I think about the different ways all this fits together because I’m the person who has the entire view. And so I’ll find myself with a, a notebook and a pen, and I’ll have five or six pages of notes by the end of the, the hour. And those five or six pages, some of it is things that I think, okay, we need to do that. Sometimes it’s I, oh, right, I can see that this is not functioning as it should be in terms of this other part over here.
[00:29:59] Jason Barnard: For example, marketing isn’t flowing sufficiently well into sales. Let’s fix that. So for me it’s really.
[00:30:05] Karl Staib: Do you share those?
[00:30:07] Jason Barnard: Sorry?
[00:30:08] Karl Staib: Do you ever share those notes company-wide?
[00:30:11] Jason Barnard: I don’t share the notes. I, I share my insights by suggesting what we should do, but that would be a, a good idea. But in fact, at the end of the meeting, I actually look at the notes and I just summarize them for everybody to say, this is what I got out the meeting.
[00:30:25] Jason Barnard: So it’s kind of my job at the end to say, well, here’s where we’re, and I, I also share my win and my struggle.
[00:30:32] Karl Staib: Okay. I love that.
[00:30:33] Jason Barnard: And I like, I like sharing the struggle.
[00:30:35] Karl Staib: Yeah, it shows you’re human. It shows we all struggle even the CEO. Okay. So two systems there, you meet with your heads that you said once a week.
[00:30:46] Jason Barnard: Yep. Once a week.
[00:30:47] Karl Staib: Once a week. And that helps you keep the pulse of what’s going on in each part of your company. And then once a month, you have all hands and everybody can share. Which I think is awesome. And it’s a great way to, allow people to have the floor for a little bit and talk about, you know, what’s going on and have feel heard.
Jason Barnard Reflects on a Hard-Earned Lesson in Separating Creativity from Business
[00:31:10] Karl Staib: That’s fantastic. I think that’s so important. Okay, so you have a, and usually, I, I don’t think I, I brought this up beforehand, so if you need a moment to speak, but do you have a leader from your past that you would like to thank? A coworker? A boss? A teacher that really, kind of changed how you view things or helped you build a system that you really didn’t think about before this person?
[00:31:40] Jason Barnard: Well, I’ve never actually had a boss. I’ve always been my own boss. I’ve created my own companies and my own work. So the only person I can think of who I would say taught me something fundamentally important is my ex-business partner, who, let’s just say the business ended very, very, very badly and we ended up on very, very bad terms.
[00:32:07] Jason Barnard: And what that taught me is business is business and making music and making cartoons for kids is making music and making cartoons for kids. And you can make money and business out of making cartoons for kids or making music, which were my two previous careers, but you’ve got to be very careful not to mix your emotion of creativity, which I had for the cartoons and the music with the pragmatism of business.
[00:32:36] Karl Staib: Interesting. Interesting. Yes.
[00:32:39] Jason Barnard: I didn’t want him to teach me that lesson, but.
[00:32:42] Karl Staib: But here we are now.
[00:32:44] Jason Barnard: Yeah, here we are.
Develop a Balanced Morning Routine: Prioritize Gratitude and Set Realistic Goals
[00:32:46] Karl Staib: That’s funny. Okay. So I think as I am looking back on our talk, you know, there’s, you know, we, we talked about vision. We talked about, you know, how your brain works and how you’ve, built things in the systems. Is there something that you would like to share to other leaders out there? Maybe something we didn’t cover, you know. Maybe a, a system that you haven’t place or something that, you know, maybe a little bit different that, that works well for you?
[00:33:21] Jason Barnard: The last couple of years, when I wake up in the morning. I just lie in bed for 10 minutes and in the dark with the shutters in the south of France, it’s all very lovely. So it’s completely dark, and I just think about the day ahead. Where am I going with it? What am I gonna be doing with it? What do I hope to achieve by the end of the day? What problems do I need to solve?
[00:33:51] Jason Barnard: And I suppose somewhere along the lines, how am I gonna feel at the end of the day? And one thing I’ve noticed is I have stopped being over ambitious for the day. I don’t have these huge lists that I never get to the end of because I haven’t managed to finish everything on my list in that day and frustrated because that 10 minutes lying in the dark helps me to assess in my mind what’s likely to be reasonable and possible.
[00:34:21] Karl Staib: Reasonable and possible. That is a really well to frame that 10 minutes, right? I, I think that’s a great system. I love that. Yeah. I’ve, I, I do, I sit in bed, but and relax.
[00:34:35] Karl Staib: And actually I, mine is, more about being thankful. And it’s just small things like thanking the covers or thanking my wife for my kids. But it would be good to tack on an extra five minutes and be like, okay, what’s reasonable impossible today? I think that’s brilliant. Thank you.
[00:34:53] Jason Barnard: I think I’m gonna tag on five minutes before to be thankful. So we can just swap. I might done 15 minutes.
[00:35:00] Karl Staib: That sounds good.
[00:35:00] Jason Barnard: Five minutes of thankfulness and 10 minutes of thinking about what’s reasonable and possible.
[00:35:04] Karl Staib: Oh, it’s so wonders for me. It’s one of my, favorite things that I’ve added to my, to my daily routine.
[00:35:12] Jason Barnard: No, I, it’s brilliant. I’m, I’m keen on that. Cool.
Where can you go to find out more about Jason Barnard?
[00:35:15] Karl Staib: Thank you so much, Jason. I’ve had a fantastic time. Where can people go to find out more about you?
[00:35:24] Jason Barnard: The best place to find me is on Google or on ChatGPT. You just Google or ChatGPT my name Jason Barnard. J-A-S-O-N-B-A-R-N-A-R-D. And Google or ChatGPT will tell you exactly where to find me on my website or my company website on LinkedIn.
[00:35:40] Jason Barnard: My videos perhaps my podcast maybe. And if you ask ChatGPT nicely, we will tell you my my life story.
[00:35:50] Karl Staib: Oh, Karl Staib here. Hope you enjoyed that interview. I know I did. There’s plenty more where that came from. There’s more to come. So subscribe, stay tuned, and if you want the latest updates, you can get the Five Points Newsletter at systematicleader.co.
[00:36:05] Karl Staib: If you go to that website, right there and there, click on the little upper right. There’s a little button called guides. Click on that and sign up. Love to have you. All right. See you in the next one.
