The one with the skydiving - Dara Kiernan author of “Freefall: Leadership Lessons from the Skies” E192

🎤🎞️What can a free fall teach us about business? “The one with the skydiving” with Dara Kiernan author of “Freefall: Leadership Lessons from the Skies” in CX Passport Episode 192🎧 What’s in the episode?...

CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

1:45 Dara's Perspective on Leadership and Customer Service

6:25 The Role of Personal Experiences in Leadership

11:42 Blending Heart and Business Results

16:19 The Influence of Skydiving on Leadership

21:56 Dara's Comedy Experience and Its Impact on Business

25:57 Dream Travel Locations and Personal Preferences

31:36 Taylor Swift inspiration for business and customer experience

35:56 Contact info and closing

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I'm Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport

Episode resources:

Dara LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dara-kiernan-kpi-consulting/

Web: https://kpiconsultingireland.com/

Freefall the book: https://kpiconsultingireland.com/book/

Transcript

Dara Kiernan: 0:00

I always say to people when they're in a panic, risk, have you pulled your rip cord yet? Have you time to think? Is there silence in your world, or there, is there still noise? Are you traveling at 100 miles an hour, face down, or are you just gliding through the clouds, customer

Rick Denton: 0:14

experience wisdom, a dash of travel talk. We've been cleared for takeoff. The best meals are served outside and require passport. Another new country for CX passport today, and it's one I'm actually kind of surprised that it hasn't already hit the list. Today, we get to head to Ireland and talk with Dara Kiernan, author of free fall Leadership Lessons from the skies. He's also an international speaker and leadership development consultant. Dara's career spectrum includes industries like financial services, it healthcare and local government, and he's got this reputation for improving processes, payments and performance. He's got the awards to prove it too. He's got eight industry awards since 2011 he himself has been honored with three Irish credit Manager of the Year awards and two performance improvement consultant of the Year awards in 2022 and 2023 he's got the hardware y'all this is real. Somebody knows what they're talking about today. But we could stop right there and go into the episode that's not enough beyond that corporate world. Darn has got a passion for stand up comedy that has kept him active in the Irish comedy scene for more than 20 years. He's also the founder of the gory Comedy Club. His mix of business acumen and humor brings this fresh approach to leadership and service improvement. So business leader, customer service, driver, author and stand up comedy, yes, yes, please. Dara, welcome to CX passport.

Dara Kiernan: 1:45

Thank you so much, Rick and what a wonderful introduction. I must say that that's the biggest surprise of this entire this entire conversation so far, you sound make if my wife was to hear that right now, she she would have thought she married a different person. Well, the brilliance

Rick Denton: 1:59

of this is you can then record this and just have it on auto loop inside your house anytime you want, and you're feeling a little low, just, Hey dear, remember, this is who I am.

Dara Kiernan: 2:08

I think you know, somehow when people have those, I think Matthew McConaughey does one of these audio tapes that people fall asleep to. I think that's what I'll play to my wife when she goes,

Rick Denton: 2:18

Well, let's hope that that's not how we want our guests to be thinking about this episode. I promise that you will not. CX, passport, traveler, need to fall asleep when you're in this conversation with dark because I he and I had the chance to talk it. Gosh, it's been a couple months ago, but I know when you and I talked then there were a couple phrases you had said that really intrigued me. One was we all tend to do the right things differently, and we all tend to do the wrong things the exact same way. What do you mean by that, especially in the context of customer service?

Dara Kiernan: 2:52

Yeah. I mean, you know, I realized that speaking to a lot of people in the US over the last few years, and especially I was at the the ICMI Conference, which is actually happening right now, as far as far as I know, but I was over there last year, talking at the event, and what I found, no matter what country I go to, we all do the same things, the wrong things, the same way. We make the same mistakes. And it's almost like there's almost like a predictability of mistakes, you know, we we allow external, external influences, I think, to prevent us from taking chances. Um, we use fear. Impulsiveness can fear is a big thing. Impulsiveness can be another mistake we made. Certainly in leadership, we allow, you know, perhaps metrics, too many metrics, too much financial oversight. You know, when, when, when our organization and our customer experience is is dictated to us by a CFO, we're going down the wrong track, you know, that's just doesn't, that just doesn't work. But we, I find, I find, like, I live in Groundhog Day when I go in to see clients, and it's the exact same things that we're doing wrong, you know, we, we condition ourselves with a different type of culture, you know. And leadership in itself is really, simple. It's it's about the core person that you are. It's about, you know, caring, it's about authenticity, it's about empathy. But we allow these other distractions to come in and overload us. I've been in businesses where, you know, two years in, and I'm sitting around a senior management table, and I'm thinking to myself, What on earth have I become? I've turned into this, I've turned into this crowd, you know, right,

Rick Denton: 4:50

right, you

Dara Kiernan: 4:50

know. And it, and I, you know. And I think we, a lot of us, do, and I think a lot of it is built into our own, you know, we all, we all suffer from, from imposter Central. Know, we, you know, we talked that only a few people do. Well, we all suffer from that. And when we go into a when we go into an environment where everybody's wearing their game face and they're different, that's where we we we do the same, and we turn into different people. You know, a big part about my book is about leveraging your personal experiences and leaning back on those personal experiences and staying true to yourself and and making sure you don't become that

Your CX Passport Captain: 5:29

This is your captain speaking. I want to thank you for listening to CX Passport today. We’ve now reached our cruising altitude so I’ll turn that seatbelt sign off. <ding> While you’re getting comfortable, hit that Follow or Subscribe button in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. I’d love it if you’d tell a friend about CX Passport and leave a review so that others can discover the show as well. Now, sit back and enjoy the rest of the episode.

Rick Denton: 5:55

You know, think of it when you describe that sitting in the room. I think back to when I was in the corporate world, which I exited seven years ago to do independent consulting work. Consulting work. And you think that internally, you're like, Well, gosh, I must be the only one that's feeling this way. I must be the only one that thinks, Why are we talking in business jargon? Why do we sell like bots? And yet, that's probably if there were thought bubbles above all of us, you'd see that same thought, and you wonder, why can't we bring that same humanity? Why can't we bring that same heart into leadership and into business?

Dara Kiernan: 6:25

Absolutely, and you know what more impactful now that we've all moved to a to a zoom or to a teams environment, now I find myself sometimes having speaking this business jargon to other leaders, and I'm looking at myself in the face thinking, what? And I'm thinking of more official words, you know, like, you know, you know, when you hear over here, when you hear the news, and you watch the police give it a or a guardian call them over here, and they talk about vehicles, and they talk about and you think, what isn't that? Isn't that just a car. Why we Yeah, I mean, you know, and we're looking, and it's these people who are observed things. Did you observe it, or did you just see it? You know? Like, what do you, you know? Why you use it? Why are you using this big words? You know,

Rick Denton: 7:14

it's so maddening. And, yeah, I like your point of the fact that we're doing it over zoom. Like, there's times that I have found myself looking in the string, going, who's that guy? I see my face and saying words and wondering so getting well, okay, so you're you're doing this consulting thing. You're in this consulting business. You're focusing on heart, you're focusing on leadership. You're focused on, probably trying to help people not speak in these kind of business jargon. Yet, there is a need to achieve those better results, customer results, employer results, tangible business results. How do you blend that, focusing on heart and leadership with getting tangible business results?

Dara Kiernan: 7:50

Look, one of the big things i i always say, I sometimes do myself out of out of work. I'm a very open and honest and trustworthy type of person. That's how I do when when you're an independent consultant, your your reputation is built on trust. Yeah. And one of the first things I always say to a business when they contact me, and specifically contact centers, I say to them, Look, the very first thing I'm going to do when I come into your business is I'm going to speak to your staff, I'm going to speak to your staff, and I'm going to listen to your staff. Have you done that already? And do you feel that your staff are going to openly, openly talk with you and tell you what's truly going on? Because this will save you a significant amount of money. You know, you know, you don't want to pay me a daily rate just to talk to the people you employ. But most of the time, the real gems, the real improvements, are sitting right there in front of you, you know, but unfortunately, as a leader, for whatever reason you've done. And maybe it's that's just game face that you have on, and maybe it's because you believe that there needs to be this gap between yourself and and your staff and and, and you're not comfortable with being too close to your staff because you don't know how to pull yourself back out again when the need, when the need occurs, and, and that's what I find most of the time is they've built too much of a gap. There's too much a wall there. And so when I go in, generally, all I'm doing is I'm facilitating the communication to come from the people on the ground listening to to what they know about their customers, to what their customers needs are, to the difficult issues that happen for the customer from the business, when the business keeps tripping over its own feet, but they just don't feel comfortable enough saying that to the leadership team, you, and that's what I do. That's I'm just I, it's almost like I translate two different languages. You don't you. You've brought

Rick Denton: 10:00

back a memory of mine, of Well, I don't care one of the worst clients that I've ever had, I'll just go ahead and say it. And I should have known in the first two weeks that that was a client that I needed to exit. And it was a contact center. Imagine actually a quite attractive building, two story building, but the agents were on the first floor, and then there was this very attractive staircase that went up to the second floor, and that's, you know, show up. Okay, hey, Rick, here's gonna be your office for the engagement. Of course, it's on the second floor. And I start by saying, okay, great. I'm gonna go put my laptop down. I'm gonna go sit on the floor and I'm gonna go talk to folks I saw a little discomfort about it, you know, maybe even a little disbelief, like, okay, yeah, you're gonna say that, but you're not. I go there and I do that for a week, and they're engaging with agents and just having conversation and building relationships. The next week, I came back, flew back up there, and I started to do the same thing, and a leader pulled me into an office, and I'm not exaggerating when I say yelled and finger wagged that Don't you dare go on my floor ever again. Don't you dare talk to my agents ever again. And it was one of those that it was such a shock that I didn't even know what to do with it. Now, of course, I've got the experience I would know what to do with it. And I tell them to go pound sand and walk out the door, that idea of the real meat is sitting there on the floor. That's the actual heart, that's the that's where that's been, that that's the real solution there. Have you ever had an experience like that, where you've had to say no to a client because they were unwilling to accept that the reality is there on the floor, the reality is you as a leader, need to be the one that changes.

Dara Kiernan: 11:42

Yeah, look, one of the very, very first things. So I'm a bit I'm a big leadership person. That's where my heart sits. I find myself in contact centers quite a lot, and I've built contact centers. I've transformed contact centers from the telephone on the desk to full omni channel solutions, and I've done all that. So I do get called into contact centers for for processes, for employee engagement, for all these things, for attrition, for all these things that they see are detrimental to their business. And they I on my very first meeting, they tell me all of these things that they're suffering with, and the one thing, thing I always say to them is, I'm going to look through all of these issues. However, there may be the possibility that you may be have a more I suppose your leadership could be a part of this problem. You're

Rick Denton: 12:45

being very delicate there. I bet in your head, you're thinking other words,

Dara Kiernan: 12:49

I don't think I could say that live, but I think it, you know, I always say to him, there is a chance that you're a part of this problem. And are you comfortable for me to come back to you and tell you that you're a part of the problem, because there's, there's a really good chance. And in my experience, what always dry, dry drag drags me back into the world of leadership and leadership development is because the leaders just don't see that. They don't understand that. And I come in for various different reasons, and I wonder why 30% attrition is happening in the contact center. And you you look around the corner and you see, you know, these people sitting in their their glass, glass offices and ivory towers. They don't speak to their staff. They don't even know what their names are. And you kind of think, hey guys, you know, you kind of got away with yourself. Here you have, when's the last time you spoke to a customer. So if the person says to me, this is not, you know, it's not an issue for us. There is something our staff aren't doing what we're telling them to do. There's a red flag, straight away. Our staff aren't doing what we tell them to do. The staff aren't the staff are causing these problems. There's all of this. I i Walk away, because the main reason for me is, is my reputation. So if I, if I, if I go into a business and they're not self aware enough to be able to take it on the chin and be able to work with me on these in these situations, and some of them are quite delicate. When I give the solution to them, they're not going to accept it, and they're going to blame me. So for me, it's not, it's not a good idea for me to go in on a in a role, in a contract, and walk away from it with them thinking I did a really bad job.

Rick Denton: 14:34

That's one of the benefits of being an independent right, as we can discern the clients. And we're like, Nope, this

Dara Kiernan: 14:38

isn't going to work out. I was at a I was a, there's a larger organization that for small and medium enterprises, and it's, it's just a group, you know, they have these meetings every now and again, and everybody gets about a minute to stand up and tell people what they do. And one of the questions I was asked that everybody had to answer was, what does your. Ideal Client look like, yes. And everybody had almost like a prepared and scripted response. And it was, oh, I want an International, a multinational. I want this, this, this, and this. And when I was asked I was about to do my scripted response, and I just thought to myself, you know? I thought to myself, no, do you know? I said, I'll be honest. I've worked with multinationals. I've worked with small businesses. I said, my ideal client is just good, genuine, nice people. I'm too old for this nonsense. I'm too old for playing these games and the politics. If you're a genuinely nice person with a genuine problem, I want to work with you. If there's an agenda, you know, find somebody else. There's plenty. There's plenty of consultants out there that'll take your money. I, you know, I just, you know, go, go to the, go to the, go to the big four. They'll, they'll lap all that up.

Rick Denton: 15:56

Now, okay, the fire tipped arrows are coming out. Yeah, dar I'd love to, like, that's some juicy stuff. I'd end right there, but there's way too much more that I want to ask you about. One of those things is free fall. I was not expecting a business book to be based on skydiving, so just start with what motivated you to write free fall?

Dara Kiernan: 16:19

You know, I I'm in leadership about 25 years now, and I have worked for some of the most horrific people and some of the most wonderful people in my time. And but what I did find when I started very at the very at the very beginning, I had no support. I didn't have a network of people. I I worked for a very large multinational company and, and I was the next man up, you know, somebody left. You know, you're great at what you do. You'll be then great at being the manager. And, you know, and there's no concept of, you know, people management, of people leadership is very different to picking up phone calls and speak to customers. You know, it's a totally different skill set. So I didn't have anybody to lean on or help or help me. And so what I wanted to do was I wanted something, something to help people experience what I experienced, but I wanted it to be relevant. And I wrote last year up to Christmas, I wrote probably half of the book. It was very academic, and it was very do this, do this, do this, don't do this. Watch out for that. And I read it during the Christmas break, and I thought, This is absolute nonsense. I just cannot sell this, you know, because, because it's just so boring. And I've read so many leadership books and business books, and they're just God awful boring, you know? So I have always, over the years, looked back at personal experiences that I've had and every issue I have dealt with over the years. I've always thought, well, if I was in this scenario, how would I deal with it as a person, as a, as just as a, as a human. How do I deal with this on a human level? And a lot of the times, you know, you go into businesses, and it's all about chaos, and it's, there's stress and there's pressure, and there's, there's, there's all these other external influences conflicting with your true self. And I always say there's a comment. I always say to people when they're in a panic, I say, Have you pulled your rip court yet? Have you slowed everything down, and are you now floating in serenity? Have you time to think? Is there silence in your world, or there's there's still noise? Are you traveling at 100 miles an hour or 120 miles an hour face down, or are you just gliding through the clouds, and you need to make your decisions when you're gliding through the clouds. And I thought by telling a story, maybe would help people. Would help the lessons resonate with people better. It would help them think, Well, I remember when that guy talked about when he free fell and when he made those mistakes, and those are the mistakes that I don't want to make, because in skydiving, It's life and death, right? You know, you know. And these guys are

Rick Denton: 19:14

not metaphorically, very, very literally, absolutely life

Dara Kiernan: 19:18

and death. And these guys are crazy people. And when it comes to, when it comes to game time, when the game face comes on, there is nothing more serious than what they do, and they take it seriously, and they and the whole, the whole persona changes, you know, do what we tell you, or you might die. Yeah. Now with business, it's not life and death, but it could be life and death of your career, when you make mistakes, when you make decisions, when you're you're moving too fast, when you when you you know I don't, when you're too impulsive, when you're too reactive, when when you know, when you just don't take that time for yourself to reflect and think carefully about your next move. That could be, that could be. The detriment that could be detrimental, because as a leader, as you know, you could be years, years, leading a great team, and then you do one thing wrong, and it'll follow you forever. And so what I try and do with free fall, I thought, if I just write a story, those lessons that I learned over the years will fall out of that. And they did. And it showed what I liked most about it after I finished writing it and I read it showed how I transitioned from probably quite a careless, irresponsible idiot, you know, to somebody who took respect, took a great deal of responsibility. I changed in my whole outlook, just jumping out of play, out of a plane. You kind of think, how could that do it? But it's just respecting the structure and the processes around it that changed my whole mindset. That's That's why I wrote it, yeah, and

Rick Denton: 21:02

what I like about that is it shows how many different influences there can be into the business mindset, right? You said there that, you know, jumping out of the plane has affected how you approach your business. You're, you're just kind of mental approach to things. There's another category that, long term safe passport travelers know that I've talked about that a while ago. I took improv classes, even did a couple performances on stage. I'm not improv by background, but I went ahead and did it. I didn't expect it to be input to business, right? They ended up being valuable business lessons and teaching me some of the most valuable business skills. So I want to talk about your comedy experience, even the ownership of the club and just being behind the mic in an open mic setting. What is that comedy experience in club operation been like, and how has it influenced your approach to business and the customer today?

Dara Kiernan: 21:56

It, you know, 20 years it was and I did it on a part time basis. So I continued my corporate career, but I also I at night time. I was standing on stages. I was then setting up clubs. I was I was, I managed one or two comedians as well that helped them with with, you know, some of their financial dealings and dealing with other agencies and promoters and such. When I'm asked about the comedy experience, and it probably comes from the promoting and the running of the business, the standard on stage is wonderful, and for so many different reasons, it's like, you know, it's black, it's white, a huge amount of gray. There are great times, there are dreadful times. There are just like, Oh my god. Why am I doing this? Why would I put myself through this? But all of those are forgot, you know, it's like, if you play golf, you know, and I play golf and I'm address, you know, I'm not, not great, but when I hit that great shot, I think, oh yeah, oh yeah, that's why I'm going to keep going back, you know. And, but I always say that the comedy business is no laughing matter, because it's a business, you know, and there is a structure around it. Doing it. I always wanted to try it out. I for years, I put it off. The first time I stood on stage was probably, I was at the age of, I think it was 30, and I'm now 54 and it's just phenomenal. Somebody asked me, Where do you see the connection between stand up, comedy and leadership? And as you already said, you found these, these correlations. The one thing I always say to people is there's one thing that a comedian and a lead and a leader have in common. And when you look at it and in customer service and customer experience, this is the way we should look at the world. We should look at the audience, and we should look at the customer first, and we should then see what, how our behaviors, how we manage our own behaviors and our own actions. So when a person comes to a stand up comedy show, they're coming in with one objective, and that's to laugh. That's it. And when an employee or a staff member comes to a job, they come with one objective, and that's to do a good day's work, obviously, to earn a living, for whatever reason, it is a thing that a comedian, a leader, has to do, and all they have to do is facilitate that need. That's it. And when somebody you know, a stand up comedy audience are are prepped and primed, and they're waiting to laugh. They just, just give me any excuse to laugh. Just Just do your job, you know, and if I set that environment up that is conducive to that, that allows them that I I've got to bring in a good comedian. I've got to be funny myself. I've got to start it off with a bang. I've got to allow their expectations to be met exactly to what they were hoping for. And it's the same in leadership. If I'm at an interview and I'm telling somebody how fantastic the business is and how fantastic. The management team is, and all of the development opportunities and the promotional opportunities and the career paths, if they walk in that door, and I'm a different person, I've sold it badly, and immediately their expectations have been damaged and have been and the reality is not what they expected it to be. I remember seeing an interview with Demi Moore, not so long ago, and she said, the more we try to make it better, the more we seem to make it worse, and the more we put into things, and the more effort we put into things, sometimes we cause more damage to ourselves. And sometimes leaders can be just they can fall over their own feet. They could try too hard. It's real simple. Know what your what your staff want, understand them, speak to them. They need you to meet them, support them, help them and let them get on with their work.

Rick Denton: 25:57

Dar, I love the fact that we've been able to link improv and comedy and entertainment insights into business, and it shows, just like skydiving, there's other inputs that come into business. With all those thoughts flooding at us, we need to take a little break here, and I want to invite you to stop down in the first class lounge. We'll have a little break here. Move a little quickly and have a little bit of fun. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Dara Kiernan: 26:20

The one place I absolutely loved. I went on a cruise a few years ago. I have a for my 50th birthday, when people go to Vegas and they go to I had a child, so we haven't done anything for the last few, last four years. And maybe it's the right time, at this age, you know, to slow down a bit and run after a toddler. But before he came along, we went to San Martin in the car in the Caribbean. Oh, do you know such a beautiful location? And I've been to a lot of places. South Africa is another great place. So I've been around Europe. I've been to the us quite a bit. But San Martin, you know, it was like, you know, and again, go back to the skydiving, it was like I just pulled the rip cord, and it just, you know, all stress. And I know I wasn't stressed on a cruise ship, but all that just fell from me when I got off the boat, and I just met the people, and I walked through, walked through the island. I walked around the island, I thought, and I only had maybe eight hours, and I just thought, I really thought, you know, I could be one of those guys. You know, there was ghosts, those people that they see on on these tick tock videos of people running up to try and catch a ship, as it say, in a way, I wonder what that'd be like, because that'd be nice here, yeah, I wouldn't mind doing that here. Yeah, yeah. Such a wonderful place.

Rick Denton: 27:45

Let's assume that you did hit the cruise and you're back into your regular world here. What is a dream travel location you've not been to yet?

Dara Kiernan: 27:52

You know? It's not a location. It's more of a I was thinking about this. It's not an actual location. And there's so many wonderful places I'd love to still see, but what I would love to do is just drive across the US. And every time, every time I go to the US, I go to New York or Orlando or Miami or Vegas, as we all do, or Seattle or wherever it happens to be. But I don't think you get a true feeling of the people, of of of the culture. And the culture in New York is not US culture, you know, it's just big city stuff. I live on the southeast corner of Ireland, and the culture down here is very different to what happens at Dublin, right? So I'd love to just spend time through the small towns. You know, go into a small town bar, they'll look at just how people are and talk to people. That's what I'd love to do, and someday I will, but that will be my dream. It's a neat experience.

Rick Denton: 28:52

There's a lot of space there, as I can attest to having driven many different regions across this country, there's a lot of space there, but it is. It is delightful to get out of the metro and see what's what the rest of it is. And even in places where there aren't the people, just what you're seeing from a beauty perspective is as well, you will experience a lot of different food. Certainly in certain places, you get a lot of fried sometimes you might get a little bit of others. But what in general, is a favorite thing of yours to eat.

Dara Kiernan: 29:18

I am real, real simple, you know. And I'm sure people have been on this show and they've talked about, you know, smoked salmon with caviar on the top of cream cheese and all that type of stuff. Give me sausages and mashed potato any day. Yeah. And real now, let's be careful about this, because chicken sausages are not sausages. And

Rick Denton: 29:40

what about Turkey not, not a turkey sausage. Guy,

Dara Kiernan: 29:43

they're like, it's not that's like a turkey tube and a chicken. Chew a sausage is purely pork, and don't put Apple stuff it in it. I don't put sage and onion. Don't do Allah, it's just pure pork. It's a sausage. Leave it alone, folks.

Rick Denton: 29:57

What about the other way? And maybe it's a turkey sausage, I don't know, but. Something growing up you were forced to eat, but you hated as a kid. Well, a

Dara Kiernan: 30:03

big, big part of the staple diet here in Ireland is bacon and cabbage. It's a huge thing, as well as Irish Stew and various other different cabbage is absolutely horrific. You know? It's one of these things that your parents always push Now, another thing is Brussel brussel sprouts. I don't hate them. Yeah, don't understand why they're there. Just no point. You know, you wouldn't know Christmas comes along, and if you didn't have a bowl of Brussels sprouts on the table, it wouldn't be Christmas. But nobody ever touches them. But you never

Rick Denton: 30:36

have to be exposed to Brussels sprouts, but you are going to be exposed to having to leave the first class lounge here, what is one travel item, not including your phone, not including your passport, that you will not leave home without?

Dara Kiernan: 30:48

I have absolutely no idea, and I asked my wife, and her answer is her, she said, How did I not see that? I said, How did I not see that? Answer? She says, yeah. I mean, if you're going anywhere, and if I do a business trip or something, you know, she'll say, you know, they're paying for the hotel room, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, they are. They're only paying for one seat in the plane. Okay, we'll pay that, but we'll pay for that, but I'm going with you, and that's it. Wherever you're going, we're going together and and I thought, you know, yeah, she's absolutely right.

Rick Denton: 31:36

Dar, that's one of the best answers. I think I've heard. I love it. Absolutely brilliant. It probably feeds into what I want to ask you about now. So we've talked about stand up comedy, we've talked about improv. I even saw something that you'd written about how the Taylor Swift experience as motivation for an article you wrote earlier in 2024 why is it that entertainment and pop culture continue to serve as this sort of business muse for you. You know,

Dara Kiernan: 32:05

I wouldn't be if I wouldn't be a fan of Taylor Swift's music. One or two her songs are catchy. I but I think it's how she holds herself and how she how she sells herself to her audience, and, in turn, her customers, right, how she does her marketing. And you know, everything about customer experience, for me is about how you make people feel. Our emotions are the most important part of our decision making when it comes to buying this product or dealing with this company or talking to that person and so on, and it's how she makes her audience and her customers feel, and the network and the this, the the community he has built around her product, and what she sells is just is phenomenal and and I never saw anything like it. A few years ago she came to Dublin, and it just wasn't as big a thing as when she came to Dublin maybe two months ago. I mean, you know, God help Travis Kelsey if he ever splits up at that girl. Because, I mean, I swear,

Rick Denton: 33:05

you know, he'll have to go in the witness protection program. Oh, he's gonna

Dara Kiernan: 33:06

have to, I mean, you know, but, and it was funny, because I heard Roger Goodell talking, and I think it was him talking about this whole relationship between Taylor Swift and trans Kalsi and the note and the spike in viewership and the increase in following of the NFL from that relationship is ridiculous, because she's brought all of that fan base into this new world that maybe for her first time she's experienced it. I don't know if she was a football fan before she met, met travels, but she just got a following. She's just got and and she treats them, right? You know, you know the stories. When she came to Dublin, she donated a significant amount of money to the homeless people in those type of support structures in Ireland, she's done this. She did a massive donation to clean up, I think, for the recent storms in Florida. I think so I saw that she gave bonuses to our truck drivers, you know, $50,000 for driving the truck like, right, you know. So she just knows how to look after her people. She knows how to look after her team. I reckon the employee engagement in her, in her team, it's just through the roof. Her customers are fanatical about her, you know, what she she could, I mean, you could, she could put out a single and it could be absolute rubbish, and it will be a number one straight away, without people even hearing it, because she's built that. And I think if we all she puts her audience and her and her, her customers first, and if we all did that, we would be. We'd all be a fantastic success. I look at my clients. I put my clients first. I always look at trying to provide a service that will put me out of work. That's That's what success looks to like. To me. Here's a solution for you, and now you don't need to engage me anymore. You don't have to keep paying me to to maintain it. I've delivered you the product, and now I go, Yeah,

Rick Denton: 35:23

I'm not a parasite that lives and hosts off of you forever. But rather, I get you healed and get you out into into the world.

Dara Kiernan: 35:29

I'm like, you know, I'm like, an a&e Doctor, you know? Now, my wife is a nurse, and thank God, she knows nothing about what I do. If I often say, if I had a heart attack, I'd be, I'd be okay. You know she's here, if she had one, you know she's in trouble? Yeah, I can, I could, maybe I could maybe write a strongly worded letter for the for how delayed the ambulance was getting to her, but she's not with some humor in

Rick Denton: 35:57

there. Well, that's, that's how I feel. That's how I feel. This conversation was there were some really strongly worded insights, like some really juicy, good insights, even some fire tipped arrows that were thrown there, along with a healthy dash of Fun, fun humor. Dara, I certainly enjoyed everything that I've gotten to learn and a chance to get to know you. If others want to know more about you, your consulting your book, what's the best way for them to get to know more?

Dara Kiernan: 36:22

Do you know LinkedIn is a massive is a massive thing for me. I do a lot of the stuff I do on LinkedIn and direct Kiernan is the name. My website is KPI consulting ireland.com and for the book, you could go directly to Free File leadership.com and that will direct you onto a website, but directly to the page. The book became a number one bestseller in the US three weeks ago in the leadership category. Maybe, yeah, I was delighted about maybe, maybe just, you know, in that little window, no more the leadership books came out. Maybe, I don't know what it

Rick Denton: 36:57

was, a phenomenal read and others. So I will get all those links down into the show note. And yeah, if you're ever in Ireland, catch a cat, make sure you you reach out to Dara as well. So, but you got those links there in the show note for you to connect and get to know more Dara. I did. It was a delightful travel through this Irish customer experience, improv, business acumen, skydiving, insert adjective here. Dara, thank you for being on CX passport.

Dara Kiernan: 37:30

It has been a pleasure traveling with you. Rick,

Rick Denton: 37:37

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. If you liked today’s episode I have 3 quick next steps for you Click subscribe on the CX Passport youtube channel or your favorite podcast app Next leave a comment below the video or a review in your favorite podcast app so others can find and and enjoy CX Passport too Then, head over to cxpassport.com website for show notes and resources that can help you create tangible business results by delivering great customer experience. Until next time, I’m Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.