00:00 Pim Roelofsen: Welcome to The MedMen Show. Today we are talking about getting out of the stands — at scale. 00:06 Andy Whyte: Woo hoo! Is it that time of year again? 00:07 Pim Roelofsen: It is. Yeah — SKO. All these different naming conventions for it. But we know what it is. An Old MacDonald's farm-esque kick-off — E-I-E-I-O. What's your favorite letter to put in front of the kick-off? 00:19 Andy Whyte: I think the G — for GKO, go-to-market kickoff. Yeah. But I don't really care about the name. I care about what happens there. 00:30 Pim Roelofsen: Late nights? Free bars? 00:33 Andy Whyte: No! Well — maybe a little bit of that too. But it does happen at an event like this — the fatigue is there, the energy, maybe jet lag. And yet it's one of the biggest investments the company makes to kick off the year in a powerful way. Obviously we joke — but we've seen the brilliant ones too. So typically we do see some really, really great kick-offs. But occasionally I've certainly been part of one as an individual that's not so great. So — what, for you, differentiates a good one from a bad one? 01:17 Pim Roelofsen: I think the good ones are where there's hands-on stuff happening. A good balance between presentations and keynotes, and where you actually get to do things yourself — to bring what you find there into the real world you operate in. But I think that has two sides. Because on one end, the event is what it is. And this may sound contrived — but the way you show up as an individual can be a very conscious decision. And that's why we say "get out of the stands." This event has been put together with a lot of resource behind it, and the amount of value you get out of it is directly dependent on how you decide to show up. 01:53 Andy Whyte: I'll be honest — I've been to SKOs where I'd optimize the agenda for as much free time as possible. In a place like Vegas, yeah. But I know you very, very well — probably better than most — and I know that is not your natural approach. So for me, that tells me the organization I was part of hadn't pulled on your craving to be part of something really special. And I think that's a really, really clear part of this. The onus doesn't just sit with the people attending the SKO — it has to be an event where people feel like they've been brought together, they're bought into the company, they believe in everything we're doing, and this is their chance to get together and make the next year the best it can possibly be. That's a split responsibility. It's as much down to the individuals as it is to the organizers. And the organizers hold a lot of responsibility. The way we approach SKOs with our partners is: how expensive is this? Not just the travel, not just the hotels — but the people in that room. Even if you hosted it at head office and everyone lives nearby, it's still extremely expensive. Every minute multiplied by the minute rate of everyone in that room — not just their cost to the business, but the opportunity cost. If they're not there, they're out selling and creating revenue. So every second at an SKO should count. 03:30 Andy Whyte: Let me tell you a story that is the complete opposite of this. I once worked for an organization — and I'll say it was Oracle — and we had a European kick-off in Madrid. I bet some people have been to this hotel. It's a massive hotel complex, but it's also fenced off — you can't get out. It felt a bit like a low-security prison with nice hotel rooms. Anyway, it was a week-long thing. But on the Friday there was nothing on the agenda. A few of my colleagues said: "I'm going to change my flights — there's nothing on. I'm going to go." But me being perhaps a little bit different — people call me different things — I thought: no, you can't leave. The itinerary says you have to be here. And there's a big surprise for you. 04:24 Andy Whyte: So what started happening was people began saying they were going to leave, and they announced: "There's going to be a big surprise on Friday morning." I got excited. My mind started going — maybe Larry Ellison is going to fly in, because his entire European sales team is in this hotel. Or Mark Hurd, or Safra. And so we got excited and went into this massive auditorium. I'm bearing in mind I've been away all week, I miss my kids and my family — it's been great, I'm bought in, but it's an extra day. Hope it's worth it by this point. And they say: "Reach under your seats." My mind is going — maybe it's iPads? And I pull out — I kid you not — a pair of marigold rubber gloves. I'm looking around thinking: is this a joke? Where's my gift? Everyone's got gloves — all different colors, but everyone has gloves — and we're told to put them on. 05:31 Andy Whyte: A few of the leaders came out. Now — if you're into this sort of thing — if you wear rubber gloves and clap your hands together, it makes a much louder noise. And that was it. The leadership team came out, they mimed to some song, we all had to clap at the right moment — and that was the Friday. So this very long story probably just illustrates that they'd clearly booked the venue, run out of ideas, and someone thought: we've paid for the last day, we can't have people leaving. And somehow this happened. I like to think maybe the rubber gloves were a backup plan — because who can find 3,000 pairs of rubber gloves at short notice? Anyway — I digress. We are certainly not doing this for our event. 06:25 Pim Roelofsen: Certainly not! But that's the point. And that's why you came away thinking: what was that all about? Think about what would have happened if they'd got everyone back earlier, even just catching up — so that when they got back to business on Monday, they hit the ground running. That's the point. It's as much on the organizing team as it is on the individuals turning up. But tell me about the mindset you think individuals should have. 06:54 Pim Roelofsen: Yeah — I think, to reflect on what you were saying: of course the event has to be there. And you want to do something that connects to both what's happening before the event and after. Otherwise why do the event? It shouldn't be something in isolation. Creating clarity around the purpose of the event is really important, so that people can show up matching that urgency and energy. Because I've seen situations where leaders say: "Let's just make sure we attend enough sessions because the team put a lot of effort in" — and it's almost like you're doing it for the sake of it. No — that's not what this is about. 07:36 Pim Roelofsen: So when we say "get out of the stands" — if you've been to an event like this, you can picture yourself sitting in the audience. I certainly can from my time at Cisco. Massive stadium in Vegas, for example. You sit in the audience and you can be comfortable, listen a bit. But there are moments where you can lean in and give energy. And that is what you want to do every single time. Because when you go back into your territory, you will get more out of the event. I've experienced this firsthand — where I decided for myself: OK, I'm going to be here anyway. So for the sessions I'm attending, I'm just going to match the investment. Not necessarily out of respect, but to make sure I'm getting out what's there in terms of potential. 08:57 Pim Roelofsen: And this can be in a workshop setting. The team is putting together a workshop designed to help you do a better job when you go back home and into the field. Why not take advantage? Even in the events we've supported, you can see people showing up in different ways. Some with hunger and energy and excitement — and the output of something like a metrics map, where teams create an M1 story, directly correlates with the way they were showing up. And I'm going to stick my neck out here: from my experience, I have never seen somebody not show up in those workshop environments in a way that didn't carry through. The person who sits there passively, not participating in the group settings, not working through the interactive sessions — that stands out like a sore thumb. That's someone who isn't bought into the direction you're going. And if they're not bought in, they're tactically slowing you down. Dead weight. 10:25 Andy Whyte: And so it comes back to your point: are you in the stands? Are you sat there just watching and waiting — thinking about the free bar, what's for dinner, how long is left in this session? Or are you thinking: I'm bought in, I can't wait to get into next year and get rocking? If the company has got it right and set the scene so that's what the momentum should feel like — you only want the people who want to be on the field, not in the stands. 10:46 Andy Whyte: But there's one thing with that — what we typically see is a team putting the event together who can do a tremendous job. But then how does the leadership team show up? Because if a leader is sitting there passively, that trickles down to the rest of the team — and before you know it, you're a negative force multiplier. So leaders who see that happening with one of the individuals — it becomes their responsibility to pull them in, make sure their behavior changes. But first by setting the example themselves. Because they should be an extension of the direction the company is setting, the event that's being put together. Otherwise none of this will work. 11:41 Pim Roelofsen: I'll drink to that. Cheers! 11:43 Andy Whyte: Cheers!
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