Episode 127 · 12 September 2024 · 55:40
How to Lead Gen Z, according to Millennial leaders Paul & Amanda from MAP
How to Lead Gen Z, according to Millennial leaders Paul & Amanda from MAP
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How Paul started MAP at 27, riding the cloud accounting wave
Amanda's first interview — in a co-working kitchen
Growing from 3 to 34 people and the struggle of getting technical work done
Train your managers — building leaders from within
other#management-training#leadership-development#internal-promotion
Why MAP built a bespoke employee survey with Leanne
The first survey results that changed everything: 'We would rather know than not know'
Paul's ambition, the acquisition story, and integrating a new team without bulldozing their culture
Looking back — what could have been done differently and becoming a victim of your own success
How to lead Gen Z — the key lessons and final thoughts
Show notes
How to Lead Gen Z, According to Millennial Leaders Paul & Amanda from MAP
Episode 127 — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) sit down with Paul Barnes, founder and Managing Director of MAP, and Amanda Wilcox, Operations Director, to unpack how a Manchester accountancy firm grew from 3 to 34 people in 11 years — and what leading a Gen Z workforce has taught them along the way.
MAP isn't your average accountancy firm. Serving exclusively the creative and digital sector, they've built a culture that puts people first, embraces flexibility and autonomy, and treats constant improvement as a way of life. But as Paul and Amanda reveal, scaling from scrappy startup to structured business comes with real growing pains — from developing young leaders from within to navigating an acquisition that didn't go entirely to plan.
This episode is part of our Thursday interview series, where we showcase organisations doing amazing things to create strong workplace cultures.
🎙️ The MAP Story
Paul set up MAP 11 years ago at the age of 27, right as cloud accounting was taking off. Rather than competing as another generic accountancy firm, he made a bold call: niche down exclusively into the creative and digital sector. It worked. The firm grew from a team of 3 to 34, becoming a go-to for agencies looking to scale.
Amanda joined as one of the first employees and has been there for over a decade. She remembers the early days of building everything from scratch — including her interview, which took place in the kitchen of a co-working space.
🏢 Culture Above All
What makes MAP different? They prioritise culture over everything else. Paul and Amanda walk us through how they built a workplace that embraces flexibility, autonomy, and constant improvement — and how they keep a largely Gen Z workforce engaged and motivated. Their approach includes a bespoke employee survey developed with Leanne, designed to ask the questions that actually matter rather than generic engagement fodder.
🌱 Challenges of Growth
Scaling from startup to structured business isn't easy. Paul and Amanda share how they navigated the transition, including developing young leaders from within, learning to have difficult conversations when someone's no longer the right fit, and the acquisition that taught them hard lessons about cultural integration. Their honest reflection on what they'd do differently is worth the listen alone.
💡 Top 3 Takeaways
Train your managers. MAP's Leah-esque catchphrase is real: investing in management capability early is the single highest-leverage move for a growing team. Young leaders don't emerge ready-made — they need deliberate development.
Ask better questions in your surveys. Off-the-shelf engagement surveys often ask "too simplistic questions." Working with a business psychologist to build a bespoke survey meant MAP got answers they could actually act on — even when those answers were uncomfortable.
Rather know than not know. When survey results revealed issues, MAP's instinct was to lean in, not look away. The willingness to hear hard truths — and let the team explain the results themselves — built trust and drove real change.
🔗 More From MAP
- Website: wearemap.co.uk
- Paul Barnes on LinkedIn: Paul Barnes
- Amanda Wilcox on LinkedIn: Amanda Wilcox
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
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Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why?
Al ElliottHubSpot connects it all—
Leanne Elliottevery interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more. Nice.
Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Hello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning psychology podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Leanne ElliottMy name is Leanne. I am a chartered psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner. We are here to help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures. Yes, we are. It's Thursday today. This is our regular Thursday interview series. If you'd like to hear stories about how organisations big and small have built amazing workplace cultures, then our Thursday episodes like today is definitely right up your street. If you'd like to keep abreast of the latest news and love a good agony aunt or And, and we had a conversation last week. Anyway, a workplace surgery, then you will love Tuesday's episodes too. This way we bring you the weekly news roundup, our September segment, which at the moment is called New Voices, and of course our world-famous weekly workplace surgery where I put your questions to Leanne.
Leanne ElliottBut on to our guests today, and we do have some absolute superstars for you. Paul Barnes is a founder and managing director of a Manchester-based accountancy firm called MAP. Amanda Wilcox is the operations director and Also one of the very first employees just over 10 years ago. There's a couple of interesting things about the way MAP does things. Firstly, they are accountants, but don't judge them for that. Um, they only work for the creative and digital sector. Quite early on, Paul took the decision to only serve this niche, and MAP is now the go-to firm for growing agencies.
Al ElliottYeah, instead of concentrating on like the, the normal stuff like charts of accounts and boring annual reports— sorry, accountants— MAP is the finance partner. For these agencies, they leverage Xero, which is the cloud accounting platform that we use here, and are much more like, like a financial director than someone who presents tax returns. They're also quite unique in the industry, and they put workplace culture above anything else. With the help of Stuart Brown, the chair, they are growing rapidly and have gone from 3 employees to 34 in just 11 years. Now, full disclosure here, they are clients of Leanne's, but we haven't brought them on here to shill our company. They have an amazing story and a unique outlook on building teams that we thought you just had to hear.
Leanne ElliottYes, I absolutely love working with these guys and the entire team at MAP because they just get it. They understand why culture is important. But more than that, they actively want to hear what is not working so they can do something about it. And that level of integrity is just chef's kiss. So the team is made up, interestingly as well, mainly of Gen Z, which brings its own opportunities and challenges, as Al found out when he interviewed them. So let's go and meet Paul Barnes and Amanda Wilcox and hear how MAP got started.
Al ElliottMy name's Paul Barnes. I set up MAP 11 years ago. Um, that's what most people, I guess, in business know me for. I had worked for a number of accountancy firms between leaving university and setting up MAP, and then at the young age of 27, set up my own firm, um, during the rise of cloud accounting technology, if you like. So never looked back, 11 years in, and obviously we'll tell you more about the story of MAP today.
Leanne ElliottI'm Amanda Wilcox, I'm the Operations Director at MAP, and I've been here for just 10 years. It was my 10-year anniversary the other week. Um, I've done lots of different things in my career up to this point in time, worked in retail and imports, but stumbled across Paul at a networking meeting, and he was talking to me about wanting to start his own business. Um, and then The rest is history, really. I've been at MAP ever since.
Al ElliottSo Paul, take us back to the beginning. What you said, it was 11 years ago. How did you start MAP? What happened? It was really weird, actually. I used to work on the High Street in Levenshulme, uh, near Manchester, and I worked for an accounting firm there. And it's like a fishbowl, so it was all glass windows. It was meant to look like a shop front, so you'd literally get like walk-in trade, which is weird for a professional services firm. And would have all sorts of walks of life, you know, people at different stages in the business, different types of businesses. And, um, more and more people, business owners, were coming in and asking, have you heard of this Xero thing? And obviously started to research it. I was like, what's going on? Why are business owners telling me as a qualified accountant about accounting technology and getting excited about it? So people often ask, you know, whether it was always in my blood or in my desire to set up a business. And the truth is it wasn't. Looking back now, I think I that, you know, I was designed for it. I think I suit it, I enjoy it. But it was never my intention leaving uni, it was never my intention going through my qualifications, post-qualification. I never really saw myself being a business owner until that started to happen. And then I saw that there was enough interest in something that I could get up to speed with very quickly and be able to give value in. And I could either try and convert the existing firm that I worked at into the vision that I wanted and the opportunity that I saw, or I could start and do it on my own and, you know, uh, start from a blank slate and build it how I wanted to. And I, I just started to get really excited about build my own brand, build my own processes, recruit my own people, and doing things exactly the way I want to without any limitations. So, um, once you qualify, you need 2 years of experience to get your practicing certificate, and the day before that 24 months was up, my application was off in the post to get my practicing certificate, and I was handing my notice in that day, um, and setting up on my own. So, um, that was the start really, and it was about being able to use cloud accounting technology to be able to get much closer to our clients. So I always say that unfortunately when you're leading a portfolio of clients, you can't be in their business every day physically, but you can be in their finances and in their accounts every day thanks to cloud accounting. So that was the real opportunity, is how can we have visibility of lots of different businesses at any moment in time using live data? And then the niching came soon after that as well, because I knew that the cloud accounting bandwagon was only going to gather more and more pace. And Amanda, you started a few months when— after Paul had got things off the ground. So what was your experience of seeing the company from its— basically its birth to today?
Leanne ElliottMy interview with Paul was sat in a kitchen area of a co-working space of a building where he was, um, working from at that time. And I remember my first day I came in and it was like a 2-person office, and I sat down on the desk and he was like, right, so I'm off for meetings and I'll see you later. And I was like, And just had to figure it out. It was— everything was new. They'd already started to put some processes in place, so every time they did something, they would put a process in place, but everything needed building out from day one. It was like a blank slate, and it's something I hadn't experienced before in businesses that I'd worked in previously. They'd already been established, so you came in and everything was there, and you just picked up a how-to when you were away, but it was figuring out what the best way of doing things was every time you was doing something new for the first time, and making sure that that was documented and made consistent moving forward. It was brilliant, really. It was like a breath of fresh air, you know, not being restrained by Lots of hierarchy and different people making different decisions. You know, we had a lot of freedom in the early days where we needed to make decisions quickly because we were a fast-moving business at that point in time, and it was great to be able to discuss something and make a decision and move on to the next thing that needed to be tackled. It was really exciting to be part of it. I remember Paul's speech, similar to the one that he did at the start of this, about his reasons behind why he wanted to set up MAP and And it was infectious. You couldn't listen to that and think, no, that's not for me. It was something that was intriguing, and I knew that if I didn't take the opportunity, I would always have regretted not doing it. And 10 years down the line, I don't have any regrets for doing it.
Al ElliottCan you just tell us, first of all, give us context. It started off with you and Amanda, Paul. How many people have you got now? And secondly, tell us, what challenges did you have when you were building that team? Gosh, so we've got about 34 people now. And that's spread across basically main office in Manchester that we've had for about 8 years now. So we have about 25 people there. We have 4 people on remote contracts. We made an acquisition last year, which we can always come back to, and that was based on the South Coast, but the team are all remote. And then the remainder of the team, 5 others, are based in the Philippines.
Leanne ElliottWow.
Al ElliottUm, and we've been doing that for about 5 years and built a team there. So that's where we're at now. Initially, we wanted to be able to get people with, you know, a relative amount of experience and skill, because although I said before that I didn't really see myself as a business owner, quite early on when I got started, I got the bug for it and I got hooked on everything to do with entrepreneurship and It didn't take long for me to realize I didn't want to be an accountant anymore. I wanted to hire and develop really good accountants. And to this day, I've never done a set of accounts at MAP. I don't know how I got away with it, but I guess I was lucky with deadlines and things that I was able to recruit people quickly enough to avoid me having to do a set of accounts. So it was getting people to come in that could do the work straight away. you know, to a reasonable level. Um, and then, as Amanda said, we built the processes between us with my vision, with Amanda's organization skills, and then with the, you know, the skills and expertise of the people doing the work. So initially it was about getting those people that could hit the ground running to a degree. And then the idea soon became I'm not going to say, you know, it was always this vision from day one because I didn't expect 11 years ago we'd have a 34-person company. Um, I thought it— I thought we might have, you know, single figures by now, um, is, is the truth. So eventually we came to a realization that we're going to build the business on youth, and we can come back to that. As we started to reach a level of scale, um, and maturity and a sizable team, One of the biggest challenges was finding the right role for those people that we'd brought in early, keeping them happy and them giving value to the business as well. And as they started to see other people coming in around them, they suddenly weren't the superstar number 7, you know, of the team anymore, and they had other people that were playing the same role as them. And that became a challenge for us to to deal with. The challenge of that, I think, like reskinning, like we needed a MAP version 2 at a point in time. We had to transition from startup to grow up, and some people could do that and made that transition, and they're still with us today. And some people didn't like it. They didn't like— obviously Amanda talks there about the, what I call the scrappy, uh, scrappy startup culture that we had.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottAnd it was fun and it was exciting, but to achieve our vision, we had to develop and mature as a business. And that was for some members of the team, but it wasn't for others.
Leanne ElliottWe have always been really forward-thinking, you know. We started with cloud accounting, and that— our team don't know any different. Um, but at that point in time, there was— the majority of the accountancy practices were old-school practices, so very traditional, where you sit behind a screen and you are just churning out sets of annual accounts, and there's not really that interaction there with clients. So, it was really difficult trying to find that needle in a haystack of the right people with the right culture to do that job. But as the business grew, and we'd brought those people in, some of the people became reluctant to do the technical work because they were more of a personality, and wanted to spend more time talking to clients and building those relationships.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottWe— it was a struggle to then get the technical work done because they wanted to go off in this direction and we needed the technical work, which is kind of what led to the offshoring in the Philippines, um, and that team, because they are just behind the scenes and they do just do the technical work. Yeah, it was really difficult when there was people that had been with us from the beginning and having that realization that they, they probably weren't going to be on the journey going forward. It might be something that gets touched on later with more of the survey results, but I think a big realization that me and Paul have had over the last couple of years is the reality that not everyone's going to be with you till the end of the journey. Do you know, it's like a bus analogy. Do you know, people get on at different points and get off, and they're valuable for that period of time, but—
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottMaybe not necessarily forever. So you take what you can get from them at that period of time. They take from us what they can get for that period of time, and then they move on and do something different, and we continue moving the business forward. So it did require a, like, a mental shift for me and Paul, because up until that point it was very emotional. Do you know, when people left, we took it very personal that they were leaving us. and maybe not necessarily just the business and moving on with their career. Um, whereas we're a little bit more level-headed now with those, um, changes that happen in the business. Something that Paul and Amanda have embraced from early on is developing young talent. A very large majority of the team is Gen Z, and although both Amanda and Paul are the millennial generation, they recognize that they'd still need to make some changes to appeal to the younger workforce.
Al ElliottIf Leah had a catchphrase, it would be train your managers. And at MAP, both Paul and Amanda have fully embraced this. They discovered pretty early on that the secret to great teams were great managers, and they spent quite a bit of time and trial and error finding the management structure that was the right one to help develop and empower this younger generation of accountants. We're going to rejoin the interview now where they both explain how the management structure has evolved and how they nurture these younger employees? I said earlier on in the conversation about the fact that we wanted to bring people in who could hit the ground running, and then later on we'd start to build the business around younger people. Through that journey, you know, the long way around that journey, we did try to hire a couple of more management-level people who couldn't just hit the ground running from a, you know, a services perspective, but could actually help us to better run and manage the company. And that didn't quite work out for us. And when we looked at it, we, you know, we're— I think we're quite good at being reflective and not just jumping to conclusions that hiring experienced managers doesn't work. That's not how we felt, because we knew that we could have just been unlucky. The next hire could have been brilliant. But when we looked at the time and energy that it takes to find somebody like that and the cost of a recruitment agency and the notice period and the chances of them then being a culture fit with the existing team and coming in and, you know, managing people that have been there for 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years. Overall, we concluded that the better path for us was going to be to develop from within. As I say, for those people to come in and manage people that are 8, 9, 10 years longer than them but are actually 5 or 10 years younger than them and less experienced and less qualified was difficult because of the reasons that were said. You know, we've brought young people in who within a few years are absolutely phenomenal at what they do. You know, they're top-notch at the area that they work in. So then for somebody to come and review their work and manage them when they're self-sufficient was difficult. So the leadership problem then became, how do you create managers and leaders out of people that have never managed or led. And again, we went a long way around it. We tried certain people internally who we felt that they should probably move into those positions, and they felt that they should as well as part of their career development. But then it was a bit, you know, square pegs in round holes. And I don't regret it because we observed and we sort of had 2 casualties and one success out of it. But even the success, which was David, um, we both recognized that he was happier being a client-facing person, and we were asking him to do that alongside trying to be a manager leader in the, in the business. So it's, it's, it's been a journey of, you know, learning and trial and error, but also not being afraid to— rip it up, um, and, and reverse decisions as long as you have, you know, good conversations with those people. But I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a massive fan of— I like people to be brave and push out of their comfort zone. I don't want them to be doing things that makes them clearly unhappy and it's just not suited to their personality. So when you recognize that and you recognize it together, it's about having a mature conversation with that with those people about where you've observed they probably fit better in the business. But it's a 2-way conversation. It's not, this is what I'm now doing. It's, this is what I've observed and this is what I'm thinking. What do you think? And we've had, I think, 4 people now that have gone and set up their own business after leaving MAP, which is fantastic and great, great for them. And Great for us, I guess, from a pride perspective and how much we've played a part in their career. And you can't hold people like that back. It's recognizing that one of the hardest things that Amanda alluded to before is, oh, we're letting that person go. I thought they were amazing for us. They were amazing for us for a period of time, but that tenure is—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al Elliotthas gone, that then they're no longer the right, the right person for us anymore. So we've really landed on like a leadership of me, Amanda, and Stuart as non-exec. And then we've got middle managers who more and more over time are coming off the tools and more into managing their area. And we've put in the right support structure around them with, with Leanne and with Amanda and with Stuart to help them to move into that role and to learn the skills that they need to be able to do it because they were previously technicians. But you can't force it is what I'd say. You have to find people that have got it within them. Some people like to just be fantastic technicians and that is great. We need those people. And some people realize that they prefer to manage and develop others. So Will is the obvious example. Will now manages the largest team in our business. He manages 11 people, and the average age is probably 19 and a half. Many people would hate that responsibility and they would run a mile. And we asked Will the question, look, we're conscious here, we're building a bit of a beast here. Which way do you want to go with this? Because he had become technically qualified with ACCA.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYou know, his peers were all managing a nice little small portfolio of clients and developing the technical skills and implementing the stuff that they've learned through the qualifications. You might want that, Will. And he said, no. He said, I get my fulfillment by developing and managing young people. It's like, great, that's— we want to build a strategy around that. So off we go. Well, let's talk about that, Amanda, in terms of Will, because I know that when in conversation we've had before, Will has come up as an absolute super So, the research that Leanne did came up, found that leaders who are strong at relationships had the biggest impact on the team. I sense that Will is very, very strong at the relationship side of it. What is it about him that makes him such a great leader?
Leanne ElliottEveryone refers to him as like the dad of the team because he's not old by any stretch of the imagination. He's in his late 30s, but he's got young kids. He's just genuinely a really nice person, very empathetic, which I think is really important when you're a manager. He randomly started his career at MAP as an apprentice himself, like as a mature apprentice, I think is the right technical terminology to use. So, he experienced a little bit of what apprentices experience when they come in. Obviously, it's not as extreme because Will had got work experience before he came to MAP. He'd done multiple different things and had the life experience, whereas typically when we bring in a new cohort every year, they've come straight from college, in some cases straight from school. But he understands that journey, he understands some of the challenges, you know, that they're going on, and he can really empathize with those people and support them. They feel heard and listened to, you know, if they're worried about stuff. He'll listen, he'll try and offer advice, and sometimes it's not work-related stuff, you know. These are young adults, you know, they're 18 years old, most of them, when they start at MAP, right? They've got limited life experience as well as the technical skills, so it's not just developing them as technical individuals, you know, they need both sides. And Will is that parent figure, I think, just embodies that, support and care and empathy that they need to feel safe in an environment. You know, I think it's a scary move for a lot of people, you know, coming out of college or school and going into your first professional job, and they need to feel safe in an environment. You know, he's put initiatives in place where they can make mistakes safely, so there's no repercussions if they make a mistake early doors. At MAP, we don't treat apprentices like you hear people talking about apprentices, that they make brews and they do the low-level stuff. That's not the case at MAP. They come in and they, they contribute in from day one. They have a couple of weeks where they have training and they go through some certifications, technical stuff that we need them to do, but then they're straight on it. They're doing technical work, they're reconciling bank transactions, but it's done in a safe space. So they're doing it, somebody else is checking it after them, but they're actually physically doing the job that they should be doing. And it's because we've been bringing in apprentices for 7 years now, and Will has been a big part of that for those 7 years. He's got the experience of what works well and what doesn't. Every year we sit down with the cohort that had just started, we give them like 6 months to bed in and figure out how things are going, and we sit down with them and we ask them for their feedback on how their experience of joining MAP has been. So, from a technical perspective, was there any more training that they needed? Did they have all the tools that they needed to be able to do the job? Did they get the right support? If they could change anything, what would it be? And we make those changes so that the next year's cohort has a better experience than the one before. We've been doing that now for 7 years. So the cohort that we're going to be bringing in in September has got a massively improved experience than poor Sam, who started— he was our first apprentice. But it's important to do that. It's important to empower those young people early doors because that's what we need later on down the line. You know, we're building skills in those people to make them into great accountants going forward. Like, we're not— and it's that analogy that we've talked about with like the bus— we're not expecting every single person that joins MAP as an apprentice to still be with us at the end of their career, but we want to make sure that part of their journey with us is the best that it can possibly be to allow them to stay with MAP longer term and go in the direction that they want, or to go on and do something different. somewhere else. So it's making sure that they've got the skills there, and Will's built all of that out. We've got, uh, like a training process, we've got a scorecard now, so there's like 100 points on this scorecard and they get scored. And we have quarterly reviews with the team, and Will sits down with every single one of his team on a quarter to do, um, a quarterly development check-in with them, but he also has monthly check-ins on like a smaller level, and they get scored against a scorecard. So, as they're technically developing, their salary gets increased to recognize the extra value that they're bringing to the business. They get rewarded because of it. So, it's really working with those young people, and Will's been able to develop that mechanism and manage it. And me and Paul have very little input on it really, um, and very little issues come back on it because he's got it working so well. After this short break, we're going to learn exactly how Paul and Amanda measure their culture and why some feedback they've had in the past has genuinely devastated them. Did you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network.
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking. And you're not going to say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s— the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Leanne ElliottThe audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless. Seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. We've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well. It is. It's such, it's such a good show.
Leanne ElliottSo of course you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys? I am.
Al ElliottGo and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in. Welcome back. Now, Leanne has worked with MAP for a few years and seen them grow to a team of 34. Now, MAP decided to use our own RX7 tool to measure their culture. As I said at the beginning though, this isn't an advert for RX7, although you're very welcome to buy it from us if you want. But if you, like our guests, think that an off-the-shelf employee survey tool just isn't going to cut it, then here's confirmation that you're not alone.
Leanne ElliottWe'll rejoin the interview where Al asked Paul and Amanda why they chose to develop their own bespoke survey tool.
Al ElliottYou chose to work with a business psychologist, which is my wife and co-host Leanne, and then she developed a bespoke tool for MAP. I'm curious, why do you just— why did you want something that was bespoke rather than just an off-the-shelf survey? There's plenty of things out there where you could just go and pick up for like £4 a month per employee. I think a lot of it came from the employees themselves. Like, they felt like they were ticking boxes and answering questions just to be part of a survey rather than things that were relevant to them. So our team got to a level of maturity where, you know, we can talk about it more as we go on, but they start— they've become very self-sufficient and very wise where a lot, you know, they give us honest feedback. And the feeling was is that there was You know, surveys for the sake of it, poll surveys that spat out questions that sort of made you realize, oh, this is just a, this is just a box-ticking exercise. There's not a lot of thought into this. This is not, this is not Paul and Amanda. This is not MAP. This is just a survey. So I think generally it was that. And then secondly, there were questions specifically that we wanted to answer, and we wanted somebody independent to ask them, um, around the time it was It was during the COVID bubble, if you like, and the hybrid working question mark. So we wanted to put some questions in there, but we wanted to be quite smart with them as well. And I don't mean deceiving, I mean smart with them. Like, if you just ask somebody, what do you prefer, working remotely or working in the office? It's not a very smart question, it's too simplistic. So we would ask questions like, Do you think the younger, inexperienced members of the team benefit from you being in the office? And how much time do you think they would benefit from you being in the office? Is it 1 day a week, 2 days a week, 3 days, 4 days, 5 days? So we put questions like that and made a much more comprehensive survey to be able to dig into each of the areas and do them justice rather than just—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al Elliottyou know, ask what I felt were too simplistic questions otherwise. So there was a lot of thought between ourselves and Leanne that went into, right, what, what are we really trying to get from this? What are the questions we're really trying to answer? And then ask them in a smart way that got us to that point.
Leanne ElliottWe'll always remember the first survey that we ever did with Leanne, and one of the results that came back was the perception that we put profit above people. And me and Paul would Devastated is an understatement when we heard that, but it's about understanding that's their perception, and that doesn't necessarily equal the reality of the situation. But how do we bridge the two things together?
Al ElliottAnd we took a move after the second survey to get that explaining actually done by the team rather than us. So, when Amanda came up with a concept there, we might think, oh, that's because they don't They don't know that we use salary grading structures, or they don't know that we're doing this, or don't know they're doing that. Whereas actually, you speak to Tim, oh no, no, that's not what we meant. We meant this other thing. So what we've done is we've put it back on the team this time to create a little focus group for them to expand on the outcomes of the survey and to get really clear on what they mean, and then to also look at the solution as well. So rather than us coming with our Capes and, you know, the superheroes solving the problem. It's to ask them to not only solve the problem but to actually better identify what the problem is in the first place. Because you can still, even if you ask 100 questions and they're really deep questions, you can still jump to the wrong conclusions. So they've got to take the time now to develop what those problems are and to help find the right solutions to it. And then this is what I think upset me and Amanda so much, is because we're so We give so much autonomy to people and it's very rare we say no to anything. It's like if we knew what you wanted, the reality is we're just going to say yes because you're all doing an amazing job. We're really happy with the culture and a lot of it is maintaining what we've got and we trust you. So you let us know what you want, come to us and let us know what that is. And 99 times out of 100, we're going to say yes because of the people that we've got. It's very unlikely that anything silly is going to come out of that. I think this is such an important aspect of doing any kind of work like this is that you are going to, you're going to hear some tough things. So for someone who's about to embark on this, um, not necessarily RX7, but any kind of getting feedback, what advice would you give to them if they're worried about getting this tough, honest feedback?
Leanne ElliottYou are going to get it. But I think our— we've settled on we would rather know than not know, because at least if you know, you can do something about it. So, you hear the term, like, quiet resignation. You know, people are miserable sometimes, sat in their jobs, hopefully not at MAP, but a lot of people are really miserable, and they don't have the outlet to be able to be honest about how they're feeling, and the things that are making their job a challenge. If you are brave enough to give your team that format to be open and honest about how they're feeling, Yes, some of it will be tough, but at least then, you know, if you don't know, then you can't help and you can't make improvements. And then you're just always going to be chasing your tail of people leaving, you're going to have to recruit, and you're never fixing the root of the problem. You just stick your plastering over it and hoping for the best.
Al ElliottI think that's the case in entrepreneurialism generally. Like, the best entrepreneurs I see are— they are seeking the risks and the weaknesses in their business. They're constantly in sales mode talking about how good their business is. They're, they're interested in the detail and they're interested in the perception, not just the reality, as Amanda talked about before. So, you know, you might say you've got a great culture and you, you always put people above profit and you believe that, but it's the nuances of like what— why people are giving those answers rather than the answers themselves. Because if you focus on the answers themselves, that's when you start to get emotional about it. And you feel that you're being hard done to because, you know, we knew that that wasn't the case. But it's then digging a level deeper and saying, okay, what can we understand where that has come from? And it could be something really, really tiny. You know, it could be a word that you're using or a report you're producing or something that you're doing that you could just change in an instant. And that's why I think once the surveys are done, you need to go a level deeper and understand what's behind those answers. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottPaul is ambitious. That is evident when you spend more than 5 minutes with him. And what he doesn't mention is that whilst growing MAP, he also spun up a startup that he ultimately sold for an undisclosed sum. But reading between the lines, I think we all might have an idea. Whilst it is undisclosed, it was not insubstantial. And last year, they found an opportunity to acquire another similar business, but there was a real danger that by trying to combine 2 separate businesses, and separate teams could undo all the hard work they'd put into building the culture of MAP. So Al asked him how he merged the 2 companies and what challenges he found.
Al ElliottMy understanding was that you acquired another company, acquired a team, and then you— did you integrate them directly into MAP? Have you kept them as 2 separate companies? How did all that work? So yeah, it was an acquisition in East Sussex. We— people often ask whether we were looking for an acquisition. And I was always open-minded to an acquisition, but I didn't spend a lot of energy on it because the likelihood of us finding another accountancy firm that uses Xero, which we use, and specialize in the digital creative sector, that's the right size and the right price and wants to sell, like, there's a lot of asks there. Particularly when Xero has only been in the UK for 11 years. There's not many firms that specialize in digital creatives, and most of them are run by young people who've still got many years ahead of them. So it was a— it was an opportune moment when I got the message to say that this business was, was potentially available to buy. Um, to answer your question practically, for the first 12 months it's 2 separate entities, and then they'll merge into one entity. And that was just to try to make as little change on top of an already massive change. From a perception perspective for those clients. From those clients, if you work with a small business accountancy firm, you've probably got a relationship with the founder, you've bought into the founder, and therefore in their work, in their mind, it's a big change. So then for the next 12 months, we wanted to limit how much more change there was and keep things like pricing and software and processes and people as much the same as we could. So it— the business was called Laygoam, and it became— Laygoam is now a part of MAP, and that's a 12-month transition that only finishes this September. And then at that point, it's all, you know, completely one entity and one brand, and that name disappears. But we wanted 12 months to be able to sort of pacify those clients and let them know that, you know, we're not—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al Elliotthorrible people that are coming in, bulldozing in to change everything. And we bought that business because it's good, because it works, got good clients and good people and good processes. And so it's a gradual process. And also, the mistake a lot of acquirers can make, I think, is feeling like they've got the answers, um, and they've got the better systems and the better processes and the better brand and all the rest of it, which I think is really naive. Because just because they're a small business, there are things that we're learning from them.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al Elliottthat they do well. So, it might be that we change certain things as the acquiring business rather than we force that change upon them.
Leanne ElliottWe did lose some of that team quite early on, which then had repercussions on our Manchester team because the workload had to get spread out and somebody had to do the work, which we hoped wouldn't be the case, but knew that it was a possibility. We'd been down to meet the team, before the deal was done, so they knew us from that experience, so it wasn't like they were told and they'd never met us before, but it's still a massive change, you know, we're perceived to be this bigger business from Manchester and you just don't know how that's going to play out for you, so we did lose some people, it did have—
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottwider repercussions on the wider team. But it's been slow and steady, I think, from the team perspective as well. Paul talked there about the clients, but from the team perspective, it was a similar story. We didn't want to rock the boat too early. Like, they've all stayed on their original contracts. Nothing's changed in terms of their setup and how they operate and how they do things. They were Really self-sufficient before, so it was easy for me and Paul. Sussex is a long way from Manchester, like an awful long way. So, because they were really self-sufficient, we've not had to spend a lot of time down there, because they didn't spend a lot of time with the founder of that business previously. So, it wasn't like they were used to having their hand held by the owner before, so that didn't need to change once we took over. And like Paul said, we're a really competent team, able to service the clients and do the work to a great standard. So, we didn't need to have to change a lot of stuff early doors. It's just been tweaking processes as we've gone along, and just trying to gradually bring everything together into, like, a one team. It makes it slightly easier because we've already got a remote team. In terms of the team in the Philippines, they all work from an office and they are all together, but it's on the other side of the world. And so, we've been used to that setup for the last 5 years. So, having a team of people that are based down south is a similar setup to what we had in the Philippines.
Al ElliottIs there anything looking back that you could have put in place, or you could have changed, to allow the transition to be better From the point of view of your current team? Yeah, definitely. That came from the fact that we— it was really logical to us, you know, we were building— we were buying a business that already had a client base and already had people and processes in place, and we would— they would just carry on doing what they're doing. And don't worry, guys in Manchester, you're not going to be affected, which was great as a plan A. But when 2 of the people, which is 40% of the team, left post, post-acquisition. Um, one was sort of already out, out halfway out the door anyway because she was going traveling, and then the other one went to set up her own business. So, uh, what we had said to the team in Manchester, we could then no longer carry through with because we had 40% of the work which now needed somebody to grab hold of, and we couldn't wait to go and recruit and, you know, wait 3 months of notice periods and all of that when there was clients that had just found out that this company had acquired that business. We didn't have time. We needed to be able to provide excellent service straight away from people we can trust. So we basically had to just take time to explain to the team in Manchester that, you know, we're sorry, that it's not that we'd lied to you. It's not that actually it is going to affect you. We've not told you the truth. This is circumstantial. And so there was a little bit of PTSD there, I think, from when we'd lost people in the past and we had to spread the work over existing team. And the reason that's so stressful is because, one, you've lost, lost staff, and two, you're worried about losing other members of staff because you're going to burn them out because of all this extra work that they've got to do. So that was a challenge. But the bigger the team that you've got, the more you can spread that workload rather than one person goes and it all has to go to another one. And you've got one person doing 2 people's work, so that was easier, but it was also just easier because we've got a better team of people that understand that things don't always go to plan, and they just rolled their sleeves up with us and we got through it together.
Leanne ElliottOne of the challenges that we did have with that time is we kind of became a victim of our own success during that period of time. You know, we've got a team of people that are really mature, think as like a business owner, you know, making business and commercial decisions. And so they started to do work on clients from Largham and were asking questions like, why are we only charging this amount of money? We shouldn't be charging this, we need to be charging that. And so we were having conversations with our Manchester team around, I know that that's not what we want to be charging, but this is— a decision that we've made to hold fees for a period of time. So, that was a challenge through that period of time, just to try and steady the ship and say, we know that this isn't right, it's not going to carry on forever, but we need a period of stability when we don't change loads of things for the clients, and we will review it and deal with it in time. But yeah, there were a lot of questions asked around pricing. Paul's journey is pretty incredible, and like most people with a story to tell, he's been talked into writing a book which is out very soon. But he's taken quite an interesting approach to becoming an author.
Al ElliottFirst and last book, by the way. Um, it's been hard, it's been hard work, and I'm definitely not cut out to be an author, but it was my way of being able to formalise our methodology really into long form. So as we said, you know, when I started this, this book, 10 years in business, 10 years of blog posts, social media posts, training books, emails, Google Drive folders, how can we distill all of that down into something that helps a prospective client to better qualify themselves in or out of working with MAP? I often see it and other people talked about it being like a much stronger version of a business Business card is just, you name a number, give people a book instead. And that's the idea, is the book will be a gift. It's not a revenue generator. I'll be giving away as many copies of the book as people will accept taking from me. And the reality is, I think, with writing a book, is that most people will never buy it. And most people that buy it will never finish it. But even if no one ever read it, and even if no one ever bought it, it gives you a position in the market of, this is what we do. And people very quickly recognize that that is your area of expertise, which, as I say, qualifies people in, and it also qualifies people out. So the idea is to have more quality qualified leads coming through the door, because if you're not someone who's interested in financial maturity or personal development, Yeah. What we now call financial confidence as well for digital agencies, then you're going to rule yourself out very quickly. If those terms resonate with you, you might read a bit of the book and get in touch, or you might read the book and make a lot of improvements in your business. And then I'm delighted because that's made, made a difference to someone. It comes from this idea that we talk about performance in business, you talk about financial performance that comes from financial maturity. If you do the right routine things well and do them over and over again, you have got a much better chance of being successful in business.
Leanne ElliottSo there it is, how to lead Gen Z from senior leaders, business owners, founders, management teams that are actually doing it and doing it incredibly well. That is the story of MAP. And, and, you know, from a, a personal point of view, I'm really excited to see where they go over over the next 5 years, the next 10 years, the next 20 years, and what it all has in store for the, for the team. Half of me can see them becoming this huge company that takes over the accounting world, and the other half believes that they'll stay intentionally small, perhaps even opening up something like an academy for apprentices, or maybe a training centre for managers who want to nurture young talent. And I really hope they let me stick around to keep working with them, especially when they're, uh, they're world famous.
Al ElliottYeah, if you want to learn a bit more about MAP, and I'm sure you do, then go to wearemap.co.uk or go find Paul Barnes or Amanda Wilcox on LinkedIn and go say hi. Tell them you listened to this interview. Tell them you loved it. Before we go, here are some parting words of wisdom from Paul and Amanda. There are probably thousands of listeners nodding along at your story of growth and the challenges with culture. I was going to ask you what advice would you give them, but I want to actually change that slightly. I want to ask both of you, what advice would you give younger Paul and younger Amanda knowing what you know now? That change is inevitable. I said earlier that, that reskinning of MAP that we had to go through, you can't avoid that. There has to come a point where what you were doing or the people that you've got, you need to sort of park it and realize that it was right for a period of time. It's not necessarily because you've got used to it you think it must be right, but it was just right then. It's not necessarily right for what, what's next on your journey. So that idea of moving from startup to grow up and starting to— I, I don't think we have many regrets. Oh, I'll speak on my behalf, not on Amanda's behalf, but I don't have many regrets about what we've done and the, the timings that, that, that we've done things. So even if I was speaking to myself back then, it would probably just be more about like Being ready for it, like psychologically, and expecting it rather than trying to do it differently or try to avoid it. It'd be more about the mindset, I think. Nothing stays the same, and see everything as a journey with different cycles, and don't be afraid to change things. You know, things that you thought were the best things since sliced bread and were going to be amazing forever, one day you might need to rip it up and do something different.
Leanne ElliottSo, mine's very similar to Paul's. It is that mindset shift. I think early doors, things felt a lot more emotional because it all felt like a personal attack. Any negative thing felt like it was personal. It's not. The saying that you hear people say, it is just business, is true. And you've got to learn just to park that and box it and know that it's not a personal attack on you. It is just part and parcel of business and the journey that people professionally go on and the journey that a business goes on. Probably from a more personal perspective, I suffer a lot from imposter syndrome. There's been a number of times where I felt like maybe I wasn't the right person to be doing the role that I was doing and to move forward with the business. But here I am, 10 years later, I'm still doing my job.
Al ElliottOne other thing I would like to encourage out is just that young people can be amazing. I think there's such like a narrative at the moment that it's all about entitlement culture and young people are not the same as we used to be and people don't work as hard and All of that sort of stuff. And that may be the case statistically, like there may be not as many, um, hungry, hard-working, career-orientated young people as they used to be, but they're still out there and we continue to find them every year. And we're very fortunate and built a partnership to enable us to do that. But if you can build a business based on youth, it's, it's so exciting, like watching young people, because the rate of development is so quick and they're so humble about it. Because they appreciate us as much as we appreciate them because of how we're helping them develop as well, rather than that they're coming with all the answers. I go into our office now less and less frequently, and when I go into the office— and I'm not saying this to be humble, genuinely— a lot of the time I think, I don't need to be here. Like, not that I've got nothing to do, because you create work for yourself, don't you? And there's always tinkering you can do, there's also things you can do to work on the business. But I walk into an office of people who have got smiles on their faces, they're hardworking, and they're genuinely really good at what they do. That is, for me, the, the most fulfilling thing. And there's no egos there, there's no people that have been there and done it elsewhere and they're coming in and trying to bulldoze things down. They're ready to listen to mine and Amanda's vision, and they're ready to help us to execute that. And as Amanda said, she's, you know, she's been one of those people as well. She's just gone from Strength to strength. And what you might be able to find elsewhere in terms of experience, in terms of done what you want them to have done and done it in a bigger business and all that sort of stuff, is way outweighed by loyalty and adaptability and, and, and hard work and, and the values fit. Me and Amanda have yet to argue in a living— and there's nothing wrong with disagreeing, we've disagreed. We've yet to have like a cross word in 11 years, which considering how chaotic I am, how organized Amanda is, is crazy. Yeah, so very fortunate that I've got a team that I'm very proud of that I get to see develop all the time, and they're pushing the business forward without me. Like genuinely, I say to Amanda all the time, sometimes you'd think this is their business, um, a lot of the time and not mine, the passion that they put into it. And I'm not sure you get that with people that have been there and done it in other businesses because they've not got the same— they've not had the same journey where they've been through the development of MAP with us and it matters to them. Um, and that's what I'm, I'm most proud of. So the, the number one thing I would encourage other people is don't just give up on young people because you've had a bad experience or you made it down the pub tells you it doesn't work. There are fantastic young people out there and you can make it work. Um, you can, you can find very committed, loyal, and talented, hardworking people out there.
Leanne ElliottLike I said, they just get it. And it's been such an— such a privilege to even have played the smallest part in their journey and, and see how they have created such an awesome, awesome workplace culture. Guys, Very proud, absolute privilege. If you want to learn more about MAP, then go to wearemap.co.uk or find Paul Barnes or Amanda Wilcox on LinkedIn and go and say hi. A reminder, if you like to hear stories of how organisations big and small have built amazing workplace cultures, then every Thursday we bring you an amazing guest with a great story.
Al ElliottAnd if you want to keep on top of all of the latest news in the workplace and you love a good Agony Aunt segment and you you liked last Tuesday's episode, then you'll like next Tuesday's, because every Tuesday we bring you more of the weekly news roundup. We have September segment, which is called Fresh Voices. I think I said New Voices last time, didn't I? Fresh Voices. And of course, our world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery, where I put your questions to Leanne. I believe you had something to say. You're about to interrupt me, love.
Leanne ElliottI'm sorry, I thought, I thought you'd about to finish. I was gonna say, in talking mistakes, I was listening back to, um, I think it's when we were teasing Ed Williams, and I said that his Um, his co-founder Jamie Lang was off of The Only Way Is Essex, which I think might be one of the most offensive things I might be able to say to Jamie Lang. So apologies. Made in Chelsea, of course. Anyway, um, we're gonna go before we put our foot in it anymore and get even more aggressive comments on our YouTube channel. Do subscribe though, stay around, see what happens, see how, how Steve comes back and puts me down in the future. Um, if you're on audio, hello my friends, you're my favorites. Um, click, click that follow button, subscribe, whatever it is on whatever app you're using so that every episode comes to you every single week. 2 episodes even. Follow us on socials, drop us an email, hello@truthliesandwork.com. If you have any ideas for shows, for guests, anything at all, uh, let us know and we'll, uh, we'll see you—
Al Elliottwhat day is it?
Leanne ElliottSee you on Tuesday.
Al ElliottSee you on Tuesday. Bye-bye. Bye. Love you. Bye. If you'd like to keep more abreast of the— her— abreast.
Leanne ElliottBreast.
Al ElliottI did that again.
Leanne ElliottBoobies.
Al ElliottThat's one for the outtakes. Is it a twinkle? Is it a sparkle?
Leanne ElliottThere you go.
Al ElliottSay whatever you like, my love. Half of this podcast's yours.
Leanne ElliottThank you.
Al ElliottThe first half, because that's what people listen to. Academy for Apprenticeship. Almost had it. You almost nailed that.
Leanne ElliottAnd I hope I'll still— sorry.
Al ElliottIs it your eyes?
Leanne ElliottStop it.
Al ElliottThe segment, and you like today's episode. Do that again, Al, because it's not today's episode. And if you like to keep And if you like to keep your head on top of your shoulders, then—
Leanne ElliottThat's where I like to keep it.
Al ElliottYeah, yeah, that's probably a good place to keep it. Because we've got the Agony Aunt segment, we've got fuck knows what. Jesus Christ, Al, how is this so difficult?