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Doug D'Aubrey

Doug D'Aubrey

Founder and Managing Director of Executive Training and Consultancy (ETC), UK business consultancy, and host of the Business Made Smarter podcast.

Sep 30, 2026

12:29
No, a
12:30
job description needs to be identified as to exactly what you want them to cover in terms of what's their areas of responsibility.
12:38
What are the duties you want them to do? Because if they don't know what they're expected to do and they're going to come in and try and help you, then what you've got is you've got to help them.
12:49
And to be fair, nobody wants a helper.
12:53
It reminds me of that scenario.
12:56
I think it's on a number of reels now.
12:58
You know, when you're a driver and you get married, you get a little helper in the car.

8 MINS LATER

21:13
What does that look like?
8:48
I mean, there aren't any universal KPIs where you just go, I'll just use this framework and parachute it into my business.
8:54
Every single business is unique.
8:57
Yes, there are going to be some general ones that you can always use.
9:00
And I can run through some of those general ones, which I will do in just a second.
9:04
But you have to identify what those key performance indicators are for your business, for what you're doing.
9:12
And one staff member may have numerous different KPIs because they're doing lots of different functions.
9:18
Small businesses, we do lots of different functions.

11 MINS LATER

20:40
Yeah.
3:02
we know what's happening
3:04
we know we're going to go into work and we're going to do this and we're going to do that we're going to use this system we're going to use that system and when this needs to be done that's what happens and when at the point of that needing well then you know sarah's going to come over and do this bit and So even when you have personnel change where somebody new comes into the team, it's like, oh, well, how are they going to be? And what's going to happen? Are they going to take my job? And there's a whole fear factor around this new person arriving when actually they've been moaning that they're overworked and they need more help.
3:36
So, yes, well, I'm glad somebody else is here, but is it going to work? Is it going to help me? Is it going to be a hindrance? Is it? So the whole concept around not knowing what's going to happen is a fearful thing for human beings.
3:52
So our survival mechanism, nature says, we need to know what's going to happen.
3:58
We need to know what's next.
3:59
We need to know what's coming around the corner so that we can survive and we're not putting ourselves in danger.
4:07
So that's a real fundamental basic with every single human being.
6:52
Yeah.

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