NMP Live Meets award-winning motivational speaker, Nigel Risner. In our exclusive interview Nigel explains his programme 'It’s A Zoo Around Here', how to TTTTF (tell the total truth faster) and ‘The Impact Code”.
Watch the full interview or read the transcript below.
In conversation with Nigel Risner
Which topics do you speak on?
The four key topics that I speak on are Motivation In The Workplace, Communication In The Workplace, Leadership In The Workplace, and the best one of all, How To Tell The Total Truth Faster.
Now, this is a tough program because what you are actually asking people to do is really share what’s going on in the organisation, and finding out if your staff are actually willing to tell you the truth. 90% of organisations I work in probably don’t know the real reason why their company isn’t working effectively. So, they bring in consultants, that ask the same question that I ask the staff, which is why aren’t you working more effectively? So when staff and the senior directors tell the total truth faster organisations soar.
When did you first realise you had a talent for conveying a message?
I don’t think I ever knew I had a talent in conveying a message. I kept being asked what were some of the secrets how I run a very successful business, and I started my business when I was twenty, bought my partner out when I was twenty-six, made millions by the time I was thirty, lost millions by the time I was thirty-two, and I think that when people started asking me what were some of the lessons you learned, and I just shared as a friend, people said you should tell more people.
And then I happened to meet somebody, one of these real sliding door moments, who said another speaker has just pulled out, would you be available for 45 minutes? Because I didn’t know how important that meeting was, I was awesome. I think if I had known how important this meeting would have been I would have nervous and over-prepared, and all I did was share from the heart ten basic principles to success.
Most of us know what success is; it’s whether you apply it. So I think that for the last 18 years I have been blessed by having audiences that want to learn, audiences that really want just one step up without standing on chairs and doing a ra-ra session, because that doesn’t last.
Can you summarise the zoo analogy you use in your presentations?
So for years people have used Myers Briggs to do personality profiling, and I have a real issue, always, with anyone that gets profiled because they come out as a lemon or a driver and I always ask the audience “does anyone know what my style is?” Baring in mind I might have been talking for 15 – 20 minutes, and nobody can tell me what my style is, but they will very clearly tell me what their style is.
So I decided how can I come up with a system that could not only help people communicate, but if they understood what being an effective zoo-keeper was, that if they could manage the animals in their camp, they could manage the animals in their workplace, they would become a zoo-keeper and then they would feed the animals the right food.
If you talk to people in their language, the old Dr Doolittle thing, you would be amazed at the response. So I spent five years developing my programme ‘It’s A Zoo Around Here’ to help people effectively communicate better, collaborate better, and have more fun in the workplace.
What is The Impact Code?
About ten years ago I was asked to write a book called The Impact Code, which is really my life’s work. So, if you really want to succeed in business you’ve got to create an impact and it breaks down in to six key categories: you’ve got to be in the room, you’ve got to model off the best, you’ve got to be passionate, you’ve got to take action, you’ve got to communicate well and you’ve got to trust the process.
If you just impact, without taking action, that’s great, you’ve got presence, and if you take lots of action but you don’t have presence, that’s like being an octopus on rollerskates; you go a lot of places but you don’t get anywhere fast.
Have you had to overcome adversity within your business life?
I have spent my whole life having disasters and massive success. Having run a massive successful finance company, I started with £12.80, had venture capital come into my business at £3million and then losing it all and becoming a minicab driver in my Bentley. And using those lessons I now work in many companies, I have worked with the likes of Sainsbury’s, Beaver Brooks, BP, where we have had some real issues at a strategic level, in turning them around, in how to communicate effectively, and most importantly, engaging people, if you engage with staff then you get the real results.
How do you teach established businesses to work more cohesively?
One thing that I have spent my life doing is getting a major organisation, that thinks they have got all the answers, but doesn’t really have all the answers, otherwise they wouldn’t have brought me in.
Nearly always I get told, “it’s our culture”. Companies don’t have a culture, people in organisations have a culture. So, when you share that this organisation does not have a culture issue, but the people in it do, and you look at the senior team and recognise that most of them don’t communicate, most of them don’t tell the total truth, most of them don’t understand the personal needs of their staff, and most importantly, the probably have never done 1:1s with some of them, and when you teach the basic stuff, and it is called forward to basics, you get the basic stuff right and how we start the business that you can grow companies.
But when you try majorly magnify a whole business and make them fantastic overnight it never works. Simple steps and going right back to basics.
What do your workshops involve?
What I love doing, even though I enjoy doing a keynote presentation, and doing my showcase speech, I do a 45-minute show. It’s great, but the promise is a bit like a Chinese meal, ten minutes later you want a bit more. What you really want is what I call an in-depth meal where I get to play and interact with the audience by challenging them to question their already answers.
So, instead of questioning and answering their questions I’ve questioned their existing answers. So, often I will do a workshop based on my speech, anything between 45 minutes and 2.5 hours and especially after lunch when nobody wants to do it, and play with them on the sense of what are the games we play at work? Play games and instead of worrying about how the game is played, is watch how they play the games. When they get the evidence of how they play their game and they translate that into how they run their business, the evidence is such that people can identify why and how their businesses don’t work, or why they do work.
Beyond a speech or workshop, do you offer in-house consultancy?
I think I am lucky that I love doing a keynote, but what I really love is when they invite me back to say “can you help us take this forward into the organisation, and to the other ranks?” Not necessarily higher or lower, but just across the board.
Because if you have one motivated team, and you have got eight other teams that have got to interact with them and their not, what happens is you have got disharmony. So, I like working with clients I’ve already worked with.
This year, and this is going to sound like bragging, 76% of all of my clients have invited me back in-house.
How would you describe your presentation style?
I think the reason most people book me is because of my energy on stage, the interaction on stage, but probably my no-nonsense approach.
I honestly believe that today people want what we call entertainment. They want to be entertained, but they want some value, they want some take home, they want to know they can implement it immediately. So, everything that I share has a message, has a meaning for them in the room but has a meaning for when they leave the room for them, their family and their business.
I’m really an inclusive speaker that’s going to share a message that can be lifelong learnt.
What’s the best reaction you’ve had following a talk?
I think the best response I have ever had from a conference, and I have had two, one is a guy who was in prison reading one of my books, The Impact Code, who said that by listening to one line of my book he realised he couldn’t continue the same behaviour, and he is now out there being a speaker on his own. So, that’s kind of cool for me.
But the best I have ever had is a young kid who was 17, who heard my message and decided at that moment in time he wanted to become an Easy Jet Pilot. Seven years later I get a phone call, “I’ve got my interview with Easy Jet, can I come and meet you I just want to know a couple of questions”, and honest the truth is four years later I am on the plane when I hear the names “This is captain Olly” and I nearly died because I knew exactly who it was.
Whilst I have had thousands of recommendations, thousands of testimonials, those two still tell me that even though it didn’t make a difference that day, lifetime it’s made a considerable difference.
What is your biggest passion or motivation in life?
My biggest passion has always been the same thing - to inspire and empower people. It sounds a bit crass and a bit woolly, but when I watch someone leave a room thinking ‘I’m never going to do this again’ or they are now going to start doing this again, I have done my job.
I’m responsible to the audience, not for the audience, and my job is to make sure I deliver something they can do, implement, change and if really it affects the company as well that is a bonus. But, I love seeing people walk out with a smile, they go back to their wife and family, or husband and family, and say ‘you know what, from today I want to communicate better”. Then I’ve done my job.
If you're interested in booking Nigel Risner you can enquire online, email us or pick up the phone and speak to one of our booking agents. For further information about Nigel, private performance details, testimonials and video clips, view his profile.
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