#8: How to treat employees like adults

Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/8-rob-stokes-treat-employees-like-adults

Rob Stokes is an investor, entrepreneur & speaker who is passionate about business and education. He sits as a non-exec Director on the boards of BrandsEye, Openbox, Happy Flats and CloudOne.mobi.

Rob founded the digital agency Quirk in 1999, one of South Africa’s earliest, most award-winning and now largest digital agencies, with five offices across Africa and in London. The company was acquired by WPP in 2014 and then became Mirum Africa in 2016. Nowadays Rob heads up Red & Yellow, the Creative School of Business (they are also the new co-organisers of DisruptHR Cape Town).

Inspired by books such as Maverick by Ricardo Semler and How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams, Rob grew his successful startup Quirk on the principles of treating employees like adults; giving them the freedom to work flexible hours & measuring their productivity through performance and output rather than ‘face time’ in the office.

“The world has changed a lot and keeping those outdated mindsets is a disadvantage.”


Timestamp notes:

0.25 — Rob chats about his concept of Juniors & Giants, as well as the parallels with Ricardo Semler’s book Maverick.

6.50 — Input vs Outcomes when it comes to work & attracting talent.

9.50 — Rob’s learnings through managing people over the last 10 years.

15.37 — Rob’s recipe for success: Skills + Motivation + Expectation = Success

18.35 — More books that have inspired Rob: Mindset by Carol Dweck

23.00 — Podcasts Rob listen to: The Knowledge Project, Tim Ferriss.

24.11 —  Reach Rob on the interwebs: Twitter, LinkedIN, Facebook