Great strategy won't save you - execution will - #72

Speaker A: Welcome to the Consulting Pulse, a podcast by cemap. CEMAP is an operations and intelligence platform purpose built for consulting firms. Let's dive into today's episode. Hi everybody. Delighted this week to be joined by Helen Johnson from Fluxium Consulting. Helen, why don't you give us an intro first and then we can get into today's podcast.

Speaker B: Wonderful. Uh, yeah. So I am Helen from Fluxion Consulting. My business helps organizations turn process into progress. That's uh, that's the strap line. So I typically work with organizations where growth has outpaced operational structure. So my background is in operational leadership, not actually traditional consulting. I've worked for 15 years across recruitment, professional services and I've always been fascinated about that gap between ambition, um, and execution. It's like what you want to achieve, now you actually make it happen. So as I see it, and I have seen over my years in business, businesses rarely struggle with having ideas. You mean they've got all the ideas in the world, all the ambitious things that they want to do, they've got the ambition. What they actually struggle with is making those things repeatable, consistent, scalable, sustainable. So I typically work with businesses that are ah, looking to scale, ah, preparing for investment or exit, looking to introduce new tech, um, or even just that their current ways of working have outpaced where they want to get to.

Speaker A: We are speaking the language to many of our founders and leaders in this boutique space who you know, are ambitious, they're trying to grow their business. Um, you've got a, um, really relevant and interesting background before you entered consulting in adjacent fields that no doubt you can bring to the table. Why don't you share a little bit about a potted history of how you've got to, where you've got to.

Speaker B: Yeah, so as I say, worked well, started out life in recruitment, which I think teaches you a lot of different things. But you're a salesperson, you're an operator, you're a, you mean a marketeer, you're a bit of everything in recruitment and quickly go into management positions. And um, ultimately I was a commercial director and I've been an operations director. So I've sat at those two critical seats where strategy, strategy, what are we doing, where are we trying to head to? But I've equally sat in those seats and thought firefighting, day to day, need to get that done, need to work with them and got lost in that myriad of day to day knowing full well that I'm then not working on the business. And I think it's that journey that I've been on where I've been in those seats a few times and I've thought how many organizations need that, need that strategic thinking but with the ability to deliver and that's where the fractional model or having somebody to come in and um, consult but not just from a consulting here's strategy document, here's a PowerPoint, here's a list of a million other actions that you can add to the million that you've got sat there. But genuinely to work with leadership teams, with founders to help them on that journey and help them execute that. So fluxing was born out of pain points that I'd seen and thinking right, somebody needs to come in and help these businesses and help them see the wood for the trees and help them execute those plans.

Speaker A: What's the tipping point between having built a really great corporate type career going through the ranks and being part of a leadership team to then now your own consulting firm working with others in professional services space?

Speaker B: Yeah. Difficult from a uh. You mean what was the actual catalyst to do it? I think you mean woke up one morning and thought why not? Um, but, but I suppose there was an element of going I can keep sitting in these seats and keep going through these frustrations or I could help organizations to, to get through that pain point and really help them scale. And um. And I think you kind of get to a point in your career when you go I want to see more. And I think when you're in one business that you have to be, you have to put some blinkers on, you have to get your head down into it and, and get on and do. But the joy of working in a consultancy is that you can see, you mean the bigger picture and you can, you can see great ideas and you can see how organizations do it and you can, you mean use those to blend your ways of thinking and Yeah, I think I just wanted, I was hungry to see you mean what other organizations do and how I can, yeah meld those things together to I suppose shape myself as much as businesses because I think it's, yeah it's important to keep learning and that was I suppose an opportunity to do it.

Speaker A: Love that. Um, what would you say have been some of the key milestones sort of on the operational side of your career?

Speaker B: Yeah. Ah. So I think I've obviously built multiple recruitment operations. You mean I've seen, seen a lot in that because like I say it's, it's, it's a ever adapting market. Is, is recruitment I actually a milestone which was a complete Segue from recruitment. I helped a national training organization to put a um, model in to get effectively a network across the country. And we built that business from scratch. So it was literally an idea and, and I worked build a business in the business and that really gave me a huge insight into not just how you effectively build a franchise product, which is what we were doing, but building the whole thing. So working through how we built the financial model, how we built the training itself, how we sold the product and all of those things. And that was a, I suppose a milestone in my career because it was so different to what I'd done thus far. Um, and taught me a lot of, lot of different things. But since coming into consulting, so I've been at it 12 months as an independent consultant and I've spent that 12 months developing an ISO 9001 certified operating model for an organization. We literally received um, certification last week. And that it was far more than ISO9001. It was governance, it was the operating model, it was knowledge management, document management and the quality system itself. And that was a real step forward for me because again it was, I've never dealt with ISO9001 until then. So that was a whole different way of thinking and a different structure to work towards. So that's, that's been a, you mean a 12 months piece of work that I've come out and gone well that's new, that's something to add into the uh, into the locker and the results

Speaker A: of that, if you can share because that sounds probably something that plenty of our audience are uh, getting towards or considering because you know, you probably built the business to a certain point, got some operational muscle and then like really need to embed. There's a few things in there that make me think about the different stages of a consultancy's growth and hitting that a bit more sophisticated level of maturity. You then need those and so if you can share some insights into that, that would be really interesting.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's the bit, I think what, what gets you to a uh, 2 million pound turnover business doesn't get you to 10. And it's, you mean, it's not mean to say that what you did to get there was wrong, you mean? And businesses particularly founder led organizations, they do, they build quickly and they add a lot of exciting things in, they do a lot of different things. And I think when you come to put in an operating model that has some more formality to, gives you an opportunity to really look on it and say what do we need now? And what do we need for the future? So it's saying, how are we doing those things? And I think what this particular organization has seen through the process has gone what you, what you think you were doing is not necessarily what you were doing. I think that's one of the big things is when you actually go to write something down and say, okay, how do we operate? You write it and you go, well, I wish we did that. Um, and that actually is the future proofing piece, because that's going well, if we did that, that and that, we could do this quicker. Or if that joined in with what they're doing over here, we could do it that much quicker. Or we're all looking at the same metric from different angles. Could we not look at it together in a communal type way? So it's the beauty of going through that process is saying what's worked so far? What are the bits that you mean have potentially got a bit clunky or we've started repeating. Um, and also a big. Is what information is sat with particular people. And uh, I'll wang on about this all day, but it's that spof thing, single points of failure. And I think you don't realize as you grow in a business how much info is just sat in people's heads. And you mean they're great heads and they are, you mean, valuable parts of your business. But if you want to scale, people need to know that stuff, that, that information needs to be locked down. It needs to be owned by the business, not by the people in it necessarily. So it's, it's getting that continuity of information to flow through a business. And I think that's, that comes at a point. You mean. And I think on reflection, in the businesses that I've been in, that's sometimes been the blocker that there's been. It's bottlenecked around particular people, be that the founder, be that the operations director. Uh, it's, it's that they, they know what they're doing and they haven't necessarily disseminated that knowledge and information to the rest of the team. So bringing in an operating model that's got a bit more structure is a real opportunity to do that and put some focus on it.

Speaker A: We find that a lot because these businesses have, have grown through some of that, like, ambition, found a spirit that gets you to a great place and therefore everything operationally is almost followed in their wake, but, but moved along and organically rather than maybe being looked at with like a level of intentionality. How difficult is it though for you when you're working with a firm to bring attention and uh, shed some light on some of these things that maybe they feel are like core parts of almost their culture. Um, because operations can be like a little scary, particularly to very creative or um, fast moving people, because they just think barriers, process roadblocks. So talk to me about how you actually overcome some of that in a business.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I think it's helping them understand that link between strategy and execution. Because leadership teams know where they want to go and they know what they're trying to achieve. And it's all those millions of decisions, the behaviors, the, the structure that will stop them getting there. And I think it's, it's getting them to understand that bit is what are the, and it's, it's not just processes. You mean, I love a process, but it isn't just that. But it's going what uh, are, what are we trying to achieve? What do we want people to be accountable for? For who's going to um, own these things? How are all those things aligning and getting um, them to I suppose, see that that's the route to success. And if you look at things, if you lay things flat, so to speak, and you say right, what do you look at as a department and look at it on that granular level and say, what are the key things that you're trying to achieve and what are you looking at week to week, month to month, month? And how are you using that to continually improve? And when you ask that end question, that's a lot of the time where people go, oh, um, what, what, what do you mean? I just look at it and then I tell people they're not doing enough or they're doing too much. But rarely, um, but it's going right, so that information that you're gathering, what could you do with it? How can you use that to evolve? And when you start thinking about that, they go, oh, right, that's, that's, that's got likes because that's, that's helping me do better or helping me make more revenue or whatever their department's doing within the business. And that's operations. And that's when you talk about, okay, so what are the methodologies for looking at continuous improvement? How do people share those ideas? How are you tracking those things? So it's, it's not backdoor at all. It's, it's looking, but it's not going to. What do operations look like? What processes have you got written down? Because like you say you immediately turn people off. Um, I mean, let's be honest, it's not a sexy subject, um, but it's helping them see that they are the enablers for success in continuous improvement. Having structure, having governance, having measures that are meaningful, having clear ownership on things are operational structures that help them achieve success and help them deliver on the strategy. So yeah, it's getting them to see where they're going and then realizing that the ops is the, are the building blocks to get there on that measurement

Speaker A: piece that's so relevant. Um, have there been, well, two part questions is like, how can firms ensure that what they're doing translates into measurable outcomes? And then if you've got any thoughts on this, have you got any examples of like, where a slight change in what's being measured or how people perceive it has really worked because there might be like a really tangible outcome that somebody listens to. This goes, right, um, I'm trying to change sales or business development or delivery or whatever it might be and can listen to your insight and maybe make that change in their business.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I mean, no pressure on the second part of that question of what's the biggie? But I think thinking of in process improvement, it's not about creating documents. I think first of all, just making that clear to people. Yes, documentation can matter, but it only actually matters if it helps people work more consistently or make better decisions or reduces friction in some way. So again, going back to starting with outcomes, what are we trying to achieve? So looking at, ah, customer experience, efficiency, quality, margin, capacity, what are the outputs, what are we trying to get to? And then helping organizations work backwards from there. So what are the delays? Where are we potentially risking quality or losing quality? Or where do people struggle to make decisions? Where is it unclear? Where's that kind of blocker? Where they can't get the action that they want? Or equally, where do we get stuck at an individual? Because when you actually get that bit right, there should be fewer handoffs, people should be able to make quicker decisions, improve customer experience, all of those different bits. So it's like good processes. It's hard to explain, but good processes kind of make success easier to repeat because there's like building blocks in place. So when one of the actual, it's one of the ISO things is you have to have quality measures for ISO and generally speaking, you mean you need them built around standard things like customer success. You mean our customers happy? Have they got good feedback? But I think one of the key ones, getting all organizations think about Is employee satisfaction as part of that as well? Because if your employees are happy and your employees. You mean if. Can feed back to you and feel supported and feel the manager through change and all of those wonderful things they will ultimately deliver for your customers. And I think when you ah, and you mean it's, it's working with organizations to say how do all those measures interweave and interconnect to get you to your strategic goal?

Speaker A: So on the people one, would that be like an ENPS type score? Um, yeah.

Speaker B: I sometimes think NPS is ever so slightly too rigid as a scoring mechanism in that particularly if you're a consultancy that works with a small number of clients, your NPS score can go up and down overnight if it's a handful of businesses. I think looking at that general measure, I think when we measure anything is keeping the measure simple. You mean 1, 2, 3 metrics. Anything more than that just muddies things. But equally responses are really important. If you're looking at client success and place. You mean employee feedback. You've got to look at how many response you're actually getting and are they the same people every time and actually challenge yourself on why those same people are responding every time. Because sometimes your quietest employee, quietest client is the most disgruntled. So it's again thinking you mean response rates alongside the measures as well to make sure that they're truly meaningful for a business. Because I think sometimes you just go, yay, it's a high number. Um, but if response rates have been, have been small, it's not a good. A true measure would be fair to say.

Speaker A: Are there any structured processes that you will often use or recommend? I'm thinking popular ones like Lean, Six Sigma, Agile.

Speaker B: Yeah, um, I'm not formally certified in any of those genres and not through not wanting to do them or looking to explore them. But I think I sometimes feel like businesses want to put a label on something to say that they've, they've got or something. And I think when you are Mitsubishi, you mean that makes sense because you're a huge organization and you need that and you need that consistency of, of operating model. And obviously they've got amazing principles like reducing waste, improving flow. You mean all of these, you know, things that you can hang your hat on and say they're all great things, never knock them for that. Personally, I don't implement any methodologies religiously. I like to cherry pick the parts that, that work for the business that I'm in or the business I am working with. And I suggest that other organizations do that as well. They borrow the bits that are relevant to where they are on their journey. I think if you go to swallow the rule book on um, on um, Sigma 6, it's a big, it's a big thing to swallow for a kickoff. Um, but it can be too much and too soon I think as well. Like everyone talks about agile, it's like, yeah, we just seen a handful of things. Yes. And people just think it means less processes. But you mean true agility is about, it's not about having a lack of structure. It's about having just enough clarity to make sure that you've got the ability to move quickly and move in an agile way. So blending methodologies is more I'm about. And I think it's again starting with what's the outcome for this organization? What resource have they got to deliver on this? Because again, there's no point in implementing a fancy dancy structure that's got lots of arms and legs to it and nobody being there to execute it or them not quite understanding it because they haven't got the capacity to do that. So I think it's picking the principles that work for the organization based on what they're trying to achieve. Strategic goals are, um, and to overcome some of those pain points.

Speaker A: And firms often have, you know, very clear strategies and will put some time into, um, exploring different models. From your perspective though, when do you feel like a business could or should recognize it's time to reevaluate some of these principles?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's those signs you mean that you're spotting and it's, you sat in the boardroom and it's, you mean you're going down the minutes from the last meeting and it's going, that's still on there and we've still not dealt with it and it's still just going to sit there until we mysteriously grow another human on the board to make that happen. There's, there's lots of different little bits, but I think like founders becoming bottlenecks and that's, we'll need to run it past X person because he knows like there should never be a point, that it's one single human that needs to okay something because, well, that's just a massive barrier to growth. I think organizations will just see that decisions are slowing down. And I think again that goes back to if there's certain people that are required to sign off on things that then bottlenecks and ultimately should be a moment that people go, gosh, we need to we need to rethink this. And another one is, is when you get a lot of this happening, which is that nobody's uh, really accountable for stuff. And, and again that's grown over time. So as you scale your team and add more people, add uh, more people into that team, it's who actually is accountable for making these things happen. I think when your problems arise and everybody can turn around and go, wasn't me or you need to speak to somebody else, that's when you should really think, do we have clear accountability in the business? Do people really know what they are responsible for delivering? And that should be ah, another catalyst. But yeah, I think it's, and I'm repeating myself here, but you made that those processes that have got you this far, it got you to that 2 mil, 3 mil point will never sustain you as you want to expand. And I think when you're feeling those pain points and they're coming up time and time again, that's when you really need to bite the bullet and say, we're going to have to address this.

Speaker A: I've, um, observed that some leaders in professional services firms, not really because they want to remain the bottleneck, but probably like fear the risk of not being the bottleneck. I reckon that would be if you unpeeled the onion on them, that would be like the reasoning behind why actually they do remain the bottleneck. That's one. Well, let me pause there. Like what's your thoughts and observations on that?

Speaker B: I think for me that's the conversation to say with, you mean, and I would be as bold to say, sit down with the founder, uh, and say how do you feel about that and how do you feel about relinquishing some of that responsibility? And it is the pay, it's the trade off for them is going to scale to release you to do things that are more, you mean exciting in the organization there's got to be a trade off because you can't just keep working harder and harder and harder and equally to empower your people and to keep your great people and to ensure that they feel satisfied in their work. They need to feel that you are. You trust them to take those things on and you trust them to share your wisdom and your knowledge and all of those things. So it's for them to see it as a, uh, almost a success factor to them that they got to the point where they are the oracle and now comes their time to be the sharer of wisdom and encouraging them to see that they can carry on doing what they're doing, um, but they'll stay at that ceiling and equally they risk demotivating teams if they don't share that with people and give people that accountability and ownership for that stuff.

Speaker A: So let's dig into that another layer. Let's imagine the leadership team, the founder on board. What other cultural barriers do you think tend to block that transformation?

Speaker B: Yeah, so like I say, I think founder dependency is, is a massive one. Um, and I mean that just naturally happens. I think fear of accountability and true ownership. I think sometimes you will in if you have been a founder that's been very supportive and very hands on and very much the oracle, when you then go to say, okay, you take that, uh, there can sometimes be a resistance of. But you always sign off or you mean you always have the final say on that. And that can be, you mean, uh, a fear factor for an lt if they've always been supported very well by a founder. And that can block, certainly block things. I think siloed working is another one. You mean you get a lot of people that do this? This is, this is my bit. You stick to your knitting. I've got my bit over here. Which ultimately, as you're trying to scale, you mean you need that interconnectivity. And that's one of the, I mean huge value of building a proper operational framework is that you force that interconnectivity in a good way because it's going to. Well, you, you mean that has to hand off to this. And if it doesn't hand off smoothly, we're just slowing ourselves down. Resistance to change. I mean that's a massive one. That's just people just going, well, we've always done it this way. It's always. You mean we've got, we've got here, we're fine. We've always done it like this. Yes, but that uh, won't. And that's a massive cultural thing. That's just people getting comfy in what they do. That's why the change management piece is so massive. And sometimes it's. And uh, not for wrong reasons, but leaders can reward behaviors that don't actually support the goal. And that's because they want to be good to the people and they've built those relationships with the people. But as the business adapts and grows and needs to make difficult decisions, sometimes people are fearful of having those difficult conversations with teams when, when you really need to step up. So again, that's from a cultural perspective that's about empowering your leaders or coaching and training leaders in that change management piece, because it doesn't come naturally to everybody.

Speaker A: That rewarding of behaviors I find really interesting. My mind, because I'm in sales, I guess immediately jumped to things like commission and bonuses. Uh, but then you kept talking and then I realized, no, this is more about like, I guess it's more like the appreciation or the time that you spent. Right. You're nodding. So do you want to share a little bit more around that and what you've observed there?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think organizations, again, in terms of looking at happy employees and wanting, you mean, to bring people on the journey and people to enjoy the work and all of those things. I think you can sometimes get bogged down in that. You mean, you mean praise and reward? Uh, like I say, all those things are great. I mean, I've led teams of people. I absolutely understand it. But it's praise and reward in line with what the goals are and what good looks like and what the expectations are. And I think some of that comes down to do people know what good looks like in the first place? And are people really clear on. These are the key things that demonstrate that I am doing my job well. And you mean KPIs. We all hate that word, particularly as salespeople. You mean KPIs. We don't want KPIs to KPI sake. But do people know what good is in their role? And then rewarding that you mean? Yes, rewarding values and rewarding. You mean driving company culture and pleasantries is. Is one thing, but ultimately to achieve strategic goals, to achieve business growth to. You mean ultimately, you mean work towards investment, work towards exit works was all these exciting things. The business needs to grow and people need to understand the part they play in that and feel that they are rewarded for the. The part they play in it.

Speaker A: Honestly, it's just making a reflect on how difficult it is for founders and leaders of growth professional services firms to go through three or four, like fairly chunky changes in their existence and then constantly having to reinvent themselves what the firm does. And crucially, that long tail of people that you built up with you, you've also got to go through that change to, um, kind of makes me quite like relieved I'm not in a professional services firm and I'm just helping them on that. Like, uh, I guess where I'm going to with that. My thought is those longer tenured employees who've had to go through several rounds of change. And I think this is a very real one for people because you bring so many great people with you on that journey, how, how do you keep re engaging with them to say, right, we're going to pause again and we're going to, we're going to like modernize or we're going to change. Like how do you do that?

Speaker B: That's, that's, it's really difficult. It is really difficult. I think one of the key things is ensuring that your leaders are equipped to know how to handle change because again it's that depending on where you are on your journey, yes, you've managed bits of change along the way, but with what size of team and as you grow your teams, as you expand and as the changes become bigger, uh, there's more to share and there's more to manage. And I think making sure your leaders know or have the skill set is probably a better way have the skill set to be able to drive that. So you mean making sure that they can, they have good communication skills. Now that sounds daft, but how do they communicate the vision? Because again, that's a classic thing with founders. You mean a founder can tell you like, like this, this is what we're doing, this is where we're headed.

Speaker A: Like get on the bus. Because you've got that one on one relationship early days.

Speaker B: Exactly. Because they know it intuitively. Yeah. But again is that that vision has grown and again 10, the vision tends to come from the founder. Uh, are the leadership or the leaders that are, that are uh, implementing this change and driving this change able to communicate that clearly to people? Because, and they need to understand the rationale behind change. And it can't just be because Ferma said so. Um, you mean it's, it's because this is what it means for us, this is what it means for you, this is what it means for the organization. These are the opportunities that it brings and if they create that proper alignment with the vision, they'll get buy in from people. And I think the reason people resist change is because change is uncertainty. It's that simple. It's like, well, what does it mean for me? So the method of communicating needs to be absolutely nailed on. I think when you talk about those long standing employees that needs to feel like they're on the journey because they've got to. And maybe that's more coaching, more support, more involvement in the change. I mean can they be given roles in that change management piece that uh, that makes them feel they're part of it rather than it just happening to them? And then equally it's, and I use this word and it translates but I talk about green shoots, and even as you're just putting in those like initial foundations for change, it's reinforcing with people the positive impact. And look what that's done. And look what that's done. And look what it's meant for you. And look what it now means for, for what we can do. You mean in terms of department or the extra investment we can put into it. So it's, it's, it's really hard. Um, but yeah, I think going back to the, the leadership thing, I think a mistake that organizations make is just assume that because somebody is technically able or commercially successful or good at the role is that they're going to be effective in leading that change. And I think it's making sure that you equip your leaders with that knowledge, with that toolkit for managing change to make them feel supported, because ultimately that's got to cascade down the organization.

Speaker A: There's some great learnings in there. It's like human first operations rather than necessarily rolling out a playbook. And the. What's in it for me, the coaching, the green shoots, all very practical, tangible things that you should absolutely leverage.

Speaker B: The thing on that is that people don't experience change through reading a project plan. You mean your people don't go, okay, so that's an abcd and that's the output. They experience it through their leaders and through what's being shared with them. And that's why we've got to always think on a right, what is it, what we're trying to land? What do we need? You mean, what does it mean for our people? How do we translate that into human action?

Speaker A: Do you want one thing I think of in professional services? Because it's very obviously a people business. Um, I wonder whether leaders put an additional layer of unnecessary pressure on themselves to be overly perfect and fantastic in all different contexts because it's an increasingly high volume, high touch, person to person, like relationship. It's not like managing an FMCG brand or a widget that you can sell. Um, what do you think about that? Having worked with many different types of SLTs and leadership firms, is that fair? Do you feel like in our sector they do that?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's the results through people. I mean, that's what services businesses do. They have to drive results through people. And you're right, you can't. It's not. You mean I need to. I mean, how many of these pens do we need? It's how do we get this person to consistently. You mean deliver great Experiences for our customers, you mean? And that might be the person on the end of the delivery, but ultimately it's the financing support. Important is that it's that everything along that food chain. But again, if people understand the goal, you mean what, what are we trying to deliver? What are the core success factors that make a happy customer? And they understand the accountabilities within their space for what they do in that food chain and they are held accountable for that and people are clear. So you mean John sat next to Bob sat next to Harry, who are all working in the same role. All have. You mean those same objectives? They move as one in, in the same direction. It's when that's not clear or when it's not written down or when it's not governed. And you mean. I talk about governance a lot because again, organizations will go, we've got a process for that. Ah, yeah, we track that number and we look at that. But how do you look on it? How do you make sure it happens consistently? How do you accept when it's not going well? What do you do to continuously improve those things to drive it forward? Because otherwise it's just stale documents, measures, processes. It's got to be a, uh, living, breathing thing that leadership teams govern to make sure that they continuously happen. And that's, that's the people base that people feel they know what they're trying to achieve and they know it matters because someone's going to actually say, is that happening? Well done, great, it happened. Or be held to account if it's not happened. And ultimately people want to know if doing a good job. They equally want to know if they're not. Because people want certainty, as we've just said, about change. I mean, people want that stability. So I think if you can get those things right, not in a big brother, you mean onerous kind of way, but in a. I want to set you up for success. This is what success will look like. Are you bought into that? Right, let's go.

Speaker A: I love how we've spent 40 minutes and touched on things like data and KPIs, but we haven't actually surfaced AI or technology yet. It's been very. Which is amazing really, because refreshing in this climate. Yeah. However, we definitely should because. Because it is a crucial part of what professional services firms are, uh, thinking about. Focused on an operations plays a key piece in that. How do you see data and analytics changing how services firms operate?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think professional service firms, you mean, are becoming more evidence led because it needs to have tangible outcomes so the evidence is there and I don't, a lot of the time I don't think it's a lack of data that's a problem. I think it's organizations making sense of it and understanding what the data means because data's only there to uh, drive further questions. You mean a number of metric, you mean, mean isn't the end story. It should be there to say and why and what and who and how many and all those things to inform decision making. So I think trying to get organizations to see data not just as dashboards or. You mean how many fancy power BI tools can we use to create a lovely fancy dashboard? It's utilizing that data to drive improvements and drive decision making for what's next. And again, going back to my governance piece, it's how are those used? Who's looking at them with what regularity in cadence? Um, and for what? Because again, like I say, you see some really clever looking dashboards but you do wonder who is using the information on there.

Speaker A: Are there, are there any, um, classic examples of that or, or gotchas around the fact that the data is there and you might be able to surface it but it becomes white noise or it becomes table stakes in a, in a firm and maybe like if that's the case in somebody watching this or listening to this, like how can they recognize that is their reality and what should they do about it?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it goes back to stripping back what you're looking at and asking yourself why. I mean the classic thing is why, why is that a metric? What is it used for, who uses it and what does it inform? And that's, that's the bit it's like what, what's it used for? And sometimes a metric. You mean can been in existence for years and years and years and, and the business has become blind to it. Even customers might become blind to it if they always. You mean answer these three questions on um, you mean how well are we doing? Um, or using mps? You mean would you refer us to somebody. They can just get snow blind. And I think organizations should at a regular interval. And it's actually something I so suggest that you do with quality metrics is saying every year you should go up, are these metrics still fit for purpose? Who's looking at them? What resource do we need to run them? Because that's the other thing is, you mean, does Susie spend six hours on a Friday pulling this together for nobody to read? And that's the classic. I mean it gets dished out and it comes out at 4 o' clock on a Friday, nobody looks at it and it's every, you mean at least every 12 months we should be going, are they still the right metrics or, and are the goals for those metrics still right? How are we using them? What are they informing to make sure that metrics are ah, a living and breathing thing. Because another, and I uh, use this from an operational perspective as well in terms of processes but people just tend to layer things on. So you go, wouldn't it be nice to look at this? And then they just look at that as well and then look at this and ultimately you just bleed a load of different measures which, which causes confusion rather than any sort of clarity.

Speaker A: I love the point around like Susie doing the six hours pulling things from one place to the next. That is, that's gonna, if that doesn't hit deep to some people listening, I'd be really surprised. And if you don't think that's happening in your firm, uh, I'd hate to be cruel but you're probably a little bit oblivious.

Speaker B: But that's the AI power you mean? And that's, that's where I really see it working particularly for. You mean scaling organizations and smaller businesses now it's so much more accessible is you can churn data so much quicker and you can amalgamate data from so many different sources without any, you mean fancy tools that somebody will profess to sell you for a million pounds to build you a suite of things. The Microsoft products now are so powerful in terms of source information. Even using something that's simple as co pilot to do that, um, it can pull these metrics together and just, and make that analysis quite quickly. And I encourage organizations again just to think who's pulling this information, where's it coming from, what are the sources? And as uh, an initial layer of automation saying what can we get to try and digest some of this? And it might not be down to the granular detail of what gets produced to share with people, but it might just be that initial data churn to get to, to a uh, an easier place for Susie to do her piece.

Speaker A: Who would that sit with in a consultancy? Who would. Because I feel like the bottleneck on the founder can't be another thing to put on their desk. Right. So like where would, who would you typically see own that?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's a tricky one because I think the founder's the person that really needs to know it. So you mean the founder is the receiver of this data because they're the key levers that they need, I'd probably put it somewhere in a bridge between um, like delivery. So kind of where what we're get what we're getting, you mean? And how happy customers are sales and finance. I'd probably get my CFO to pull it together, um, just on the premise that it's data, it's numbers. Um, love a bit of that. You mean, you mean a bit of number crunching. But I do think the sources of information are really important to look at because again from a CFO's perspective, if they were trying to pull those numbers from delivery sales, you mean those ends, it's making sure that they get the right type of information through. But ultimately the only reason you have KPIs is to drive EBITDA. So you mean uh, a good CFO would want to know those numbers.

Speaker A: And thinking further ahead now, like how do you see the role of operations maybe being reshaped in consultancies or broader professional services firms?

Speaker B: For me it's consultancies. Uh, well, clients want support, they want outcomes, they don't want just advice. And I said this a little bit earlier, but they don't want to report, they don't want a slide deck, they don't want a list of recommendations to answer the never ending list. They want implementation, they want momentum, they want delivery. They want the leadership teams to be less overloaded internally. So I think it's giving organizations the space to work on the business and the capacity to do that. And I actually think that's where fractional work like works so brilliantly because it gives that flexible capacity when it's required so they can contract and expand as and when it's needed.

Speaker A: And how do you think about some of the commercial offerings that consultancies have and where operations plays a part? So you talked about outcomes, but there's also like project based work to more of like longer term strategic partners. Do you feel like operations actually plays a part even if it's behind the scenes?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I think, I mean I see myself less as a supplier and uh, more of an extension of a leadership team. But without sitting on your bottom line. It's that having that person that you can trust that adds value but equally is continuity, um, that you can, can call upon and, and, and use to regulate yourself because it's the wood for the tree stuff. You're in the day to day, you're in the do and it's somebody who can force you to put your head above the parapet and go, but how is it running and you mean you've just spent the last week with your fire extinguisher out? Why is that what's not been working? What is it that's caused that? Uh, and truly getting organizations to, to, to check themselves. But as I say, built on trust, built on value. And is. I think that's the, that's the bit where there's this. Yeah. Real value in it.

Speaker A: I've got two final questions that I'm thinking of bringing to every podcast now, so we'll see how these land. Um, what's one trend in consulting or specifically for you, for operations in consulting that excites you most?

Speaker B: Oh, I'm going to use the boredom. I feel like everyone will say this, but I think it's the, uh, democratization of AI and automation. I think the fact that AI is so accessible now to smaller businesses is exciting. I think it comes with its risk because I think you mean. And I'm sure other people would say exactly the same thing then everyone thinks it's the silver bullet. It's just going to fix things. You won't need any staff because AI is going to do everything. They couldn't be more wrong. Um, it's about using those tools as a smaller business to cut the fat. And what I mean by that is cut out those admin heavy. You mean Susie's six hours of reporting those bits that have always slowed smaller organizations down. Um, and, um, that's literally at people's fingertips now. And I think it's before organizations take that leap to say, right, I'm going to. You mean put in a massive automation suite and do all these wonderful things with. You mean all the, uh, power tools and all of that? In Microsoft, it's saying, pause. What are we trying to achieve? What are the. You mean, what are the outputs we're looking for? Have we got the foundations in place? But then really it's exciting that they can leverage those tools because it can. Yeah. Speed people up exponentially.

Speaker A: Right. And in consultancies, they can be put to better billable use. I think that's one of the things that I haven't heard much commentary on, but there might be an internal fear that it's going to replace jobs. But if you look at any other big technological changes in human existence, people have always found a way to upskill and leverage it and find it in new ways. That's my thought.

Speaker B: Horse and plow. You mean on a farm? You mean the invention of the tractor? Yeah, we put horses to better use. We. You mean use those People to do other things. It's, it's evolution. I think people, humans adapt is what we do. And actually it's an opportunity for people. I mean the opportunity to understand AI. I mean that's a huge thing for people to understand the power of it and how they can ultimately be the user of it and uh, what's the word? Like elevate themselves by using as a tool to make them better. I think if you see it like that as it takes out some of that grunt work and allows them to do the human bit, which I will never do. And that's, that's the power of it for people.

Speaker A: I love that you're already using it for some of that like data harvesting, reporting, and then somebody on top of that does the interrogation. That's exactly like what we love to see. Then my last question is if you could give one piece of advice for leaders who are trying to bridge strategy and execution, what would that be? I think apart from hire you?

Speaker B: Yeah, call me. No, I think spend as much time thinking about execution as you do strategy. I think again, when we do, when organizations do planning days and we sit down, there's a leadership team, there's a C suite, it's a. All these things that we want to achieve and we go, yeah, and that and that and that. It's then going, right, we need to spend an equal amount of time saying, and what do we need to make that happen? Because great strategies don't create great results. That's uh, that's straightforward. You mean you need the execution to be there to, to make it happen? I think it's going right, we want to do that, but what's the how? And I think, I mean that's where you may shameless plug. People like myself come in to say, right, so what does that look like and who is going to execute it? What the time scales for that and where do you need that external support and that resource that has the flexibility to say, right, just turn it off. You mean if now is not the time or a bigger business priority comes up, that's fine, but you mean somebody there to ah, hold the feet to the fire, to help them make sure the strategy gets done, but to not make it a, uh, you mean thing hanging around the neck going, gosh, we've just not got the time to do it. Because I know I've been in that seat and it's so hard work and it's demoralizing. Coming back and going, yeah, still not done it.

Speaker A: Equal time on execution and strategy. The problem is strategy is way more fun.

Speaker B: Exactly. Strategic blue sky thinking. Yeah. Get the whiteboard out, get the colored pens, get the post it notes. That's all great fun, but how do you make it happen?

Speaker A: Execution sounds far too much like having to get on and do things.

Speaker B: Exactly, exactly that. But yeah, there's people like me that. That's where they get the kick. So that's the benefit. And there's. There's crazy people like me that love doing it.

Speaker A: Yeah. Helen, it's been an absolute pleasure. We will on the podcast, post links to, uh, your LinkedIn.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: How else should people. Or is that the best place where. How. How should people find out about you and connect with you?

Speaker B: Yeah, LinkedIn is the best place to find me. Um, you can get on the Fluxion consulting page. If you can't spell out, just go with Helen Johnson. Um, and you will find Fluxion through there. Um, but yes, I'm always happy even just to have those conversations to get you thinking about the execution. I promise it won't be as dry as you think it might be.

Speaker A: No. 100%. And also, you're giving lots of good free advice. Well, that's. You're giving away a huge amount, but that's just strategy. You've got to figure out how to go and deliver on those great ideas that you've given. And that's where operators come in. CEMAP is an operations platform for consulting firms. The solution is used by hundreds of professional services firms to manage everything from pricing and timesheets to resourcing and billing, enabling you to optimize utilization, drive project margin, get a single source of truth across your firm.