Right, it's business or bullshit quiz time with entrepreneur, mental, and investor, John Stapleton, in the hot seat.

Now we're going to do our favourite part of the game, it's called business or bullshit.

Bob, as we like to call it.

Okay.

And we're going to read out some terms and you have to tell us whether you think it is business or bullshit.

And you can talk about it if you want to talk about it, or, you know, we just move on.

D, please cue the music.

Uh, are we ready?

Let's begin.

Office nap pods.

What is an office nap pod?

Well, I think they're a fantastic idea, personally.

Um, apparently there are, you have a little pod in the office where people can go and nap for a good 20 minutes.

Team building exercises.

Oh yeah, no question.

That's that's great.

That's good.

Uh, business.

I mean, I mean, lots of talk about it.

You got to get right.

But yeah, the concept definitely flexible working.

Yeah, I like that.

Thanks for working.

But what does it mean?

You know, I mean, flexible working is a throwaway term.

And then you find it means all sorts of stuff that I actually don't think it means at all.

But thanks for working.

Yeah, which which bit which bit should it mean?

Well, I, I think, you know, it's all it's still about performance.

It's still about delivery.

It's still about making things happen.

Right.

And if you can demonstrate you can do that.

better or certainly as good as you need by coming into work or working nine to five.

And, you know, people have all sorts of commitments.

I think if people feel happy, they can keep up with their other commitments, family commitments, travel commitments, all the things you want to do and still contribute.

Performance wise, it's just as good, if not better, to everything they need to in terms of achieving their goals in their role, I'm all for it.

Very good.

Paradigm shift.

Hmm.

I'm not sure.

I think it's a concept that's thrown around a lot.

Paradigm shift.

You know, suddenly all your woes are going to be solved.

And you don't have to deal with those problems.

No, the world is about dealing with problems, and you just gotta face up to them.

I think, you can try to say paradigm shifts, it's gonna be sometimes evasive and avoidable.

Is that a long way of saying bullshit?

Yes, I think he's saying bullshit.

No, no, he's coming to his conclusion through logical breakdown.

Yeah, bullshit.

Okay, bullshit.

Very good.

Hot desking.

No, it's fine.

Hot Desk is good.

Welcome to be.

I think people like that sense of location, I guess.

But, but that's kind of like you have your desk and you have your, you know, your spouse's photograph and you have your pot of plant Bullshit.

No, sorry.

You, you gotta focus on what you have to do, which is your, your laptop on your phone and sit in Starbucks.

Crack on.

Crack on.

Pivoting.

Okay, I'm between two minds on this because I think it's an overused term.

So there's a lot of bullshit talked about pivoting, but I think coming through what we've just come through in terms of uncertainty and particularly lockdown and COVID allowed people to pivot in a really meaningful way.

Yeah.

Uh, so, and it's part of business.

Yeah.

I, I, I think sometimes it's bit, it's a bit of a get out.

I'm, but a pivot means you just screwed up, uh, by the way, that's wrong.

As long as you've learned from it and you're gonna do something better.

So let's leave it on the, on the, on the business side.

Business side of the fence.

Okay.

Uh, business plans.

Yeah.

Crucial business plan.

You don't have a plan.

How are we ever gonna actually implement anything?

Diversity quotas?

No, don't.

That's bullshit.

Blue sky thinking.

Yeah.

So long as it's done slightly.

Contradictory.

As long as it's done with your feet on the ground.

Blue sky thinking is so important.

I think it's really, it's all it's business.

It's really important to carve out time to just do thinking.

But with your feet on the ground, so practical blue sky thinking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's got to be relevant to your business, to your challenge, to the opportunity that you're trying to seize.

But what I'm trying to say is we're so focused on performance and doing things that we fill up our daily lives and time with doing things.

We don't give ourselves that 20 percent of blue sky thinking time.

Which, if we did, would be revolutionary.

Yeah, yeah, just a step back from it.

So, on balance, it's business.

Very good.

LinkedIn.

Yeah, I like LinkedIn.

You like a bit of LinkedIn, yeah.

I hate every other social media platform with a vengeance, but I like LinkedIn.

Ballpark figures.

I think when you're getting, yeah, no, that's fine.

I think you have to have ballpark figures to start a conversation and then you can suck into the detail.

So, ballpark figures, okay.

MBAs.

Here.

I always almost did an M B A once.

Did you?

So glad I did.

Yeah.

. Bullshit.

Bullshit.

I did go to business school and I did study business.

I didn't do an M B A, I did an M B ss.

So, uh, I, I'm qualified to tell you how much bullshit MBAs are on in office fitness classes.

Oh, complete bullshit.

Low hanging fruit.

I think that's another way of determining what your priorities are, what you're going to do first, because it's the obvious thing for you to cover, so that's fine.

Wheel houses.

I don't know what it means, so it's bullshit.

Very good.

Mandatory office birthday cakes.

Complete bullshit.

And, and, and, do they do them the same in Ireland?

We've worked out that everywhere else in the world, the birthday boy or girl...

Get cakes for the rest of the office.

In the UK, you have to buy cakes for the rest of the office.

What do they do in Ireland?

I've no idea what they do in Ireland.

Uh, but in Germany, uh, yeah.

Oh yeah, let's do Germany.

Oh yeah, it's all about, yeah, it's all about, uh, it's important to recognize everybody's, uh, Birthday.

Yeah, which is fine.

Hi, birthday, good.

Or, or, let's go to the pub afterwards for a quick drink and celebrate, right?

Uh, universal basic income.

Uh, too many words.

Bullshit.

Uh, what does that mean?

Everybody gets a, um, a basic income, whether you work or not.

Oh, right.

Bullshit.

Meeting agendas.

Uh, absolutely critical.

Otherwise a meeting is not a meeting without an agenda.

Getting a bunch of people together to talk about something?

Meeting agenda?

Is a chat.

Is a chat?

Yeah, that's fine too.

You can use that without a meeting.

Not only do you have a meeting agenda, but you have a pre read for people to think about the agenda and come prepared and contribute and go then.

And implement.

So, meeting agenda's great.

It is nice when people prepare.

So there we have it.

Brilliant.

You scored, uh, 376 points.

Out of 1, 025.

Uh, you thought you did very, very well.

A big thank you to John for joining us this week and we'll be back next Tuesday with a brand new episode.

In the meantime, have a great weekend.