SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome! You are listening to the CRM Success Show, where you will hear from CRM executives who have overseen some of the most interesting and complex CRM implementations. Your hosts, David Masri and Kiro Whitey, will be bringing you real stories, real insight. Follow along on social media for updates on new episode releases, exclusive content, and much more. Enjoy the show and thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Welcome to the CRM Success Show where we deep dive into CRM success and failure, delivering real stories with real impact. I am Dave Masri.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

And I'm Kiro Whitzi.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

And today we're talking with Ian Hopper, Director of Corporate Services at the Royal College of Pathologists in London, actually our first guest from overseas. So welcome Ian.

SPEAKER_04 0:48

Pleasure to be here, Jeff.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

And uh appreciate jumping on uh in your evening as well. So uh as Maz mentioned, it's our first uh guest from over the seas. So uh it's nice to have a fellow Brit on the call as well. Pleasure. All right, Ian. Uh nice and easy. Tell us a little bit about your background uh in the change transformation space.

SPEAKER_04 1:11

Yeah, sure. So it's interesting. I've been sort of in the space, I guess about 20 years. Uh started my career in civil service and department for education uh in the UK. And from that, I did all sorts of things, a bit of policy work, a bit of operational work, a bit of strategy work. Um, but what I found is I just like making things happen. So I sort of gravitated towards the project side of things, um, yeah, and worked on some really interesting projects in my time and education, such as uh launching um different types of uh school workforce role across the UK. So sort of broadening the school workforce away from teachers into a whole wider range of teaching assistants. Um, so yeah, project work suited me. Um at that time, I realized that um consulting firms have a huge amount of power and voice in government. Um, I'd been commissioning companies in the big four, I think it's the big five uh for you guys, um, but commissioning companies to help us with bits of work, whether that was delivery or strategy or some evaluation, um, and thought, yeah, actually, if I made the jump uh into consulting, I could continue to work in the public sector and you know have greater impact. And that was definitely the case. Uh so did my MBA, got a load of skills from that, uh, and then uh made the switch into uh a consultant at Pricewaterhouse Cooper's, um, which was fantastic actually to give me a really wide range of big chunky transformation work. Um, so let me just maybe pull out three examples. Um, so £50 million job um to support a leading UK university, diversify its uh product base, uh attract more students, and change its back office. Uh that was quite a meaty one. Uh, did quite a bit of work um for a government agency to deliver laptops into low-income households. So on the basis that uh this was like 10, 15 years ago now, on the basis that uh kids do better when they can access resources online at home. Not every household had a laptop. Uh so yeah, so how do we get laptops and connectivity into low-income families? That was a nice meaty, chunky uh delivery role. Um, let's think of a third. And did a whole host of work in the private sector as well. So helped uh World Bank of Scotland, uh, which is probably more known in the UK than the US, but spin off their card processing arm called WorldPay, which had been bought by Venture Capital. Uh so had to basically create a standalone business so that WorldPay could stand alone on a certain date. So yeah, did loads of uh types of chunky projects. Um and then I made the flip to doing it freelance, basically. Um, so sort of enjoy autonomy, enjoy responsibility, um, yeah, and thought I can get some interesting assignments through myself. Um yeah, and first gig I ended up doing for about five years, which was transformation director at the British Red Cross, um, doing a whole host of said new products, innovation, cost cutting, um, efficiency, orb design, orb development stuff um for the British Red Cross globally and within the UK. So, yeah, I've done a whole host of stuff. Um, and I've done the transformation director role a number of times. What I do now is I enjoy doing operational stuff, so I'm sort of that COO of WebLearn Director of Corporate Services for a fascinating member organization, Royal College of Pathologists. So, sorry, might have been a bit long there, but hopefully that gives you a flavor of the types of stuff I've done.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

That's great, all good stuff. And um we so you spent nine years uh uh PWC, um and it was around that towards the tail end, I believe, when we first met. Um so back in 2017, uh obviously known each other a long time. Um and um I remember I remember when you when you landed that first gig and you know we kind of said, well, you know, it'll be good, good, good project for nine, twelve months, and then we'll see what else happens after that. And see a point five years later, it was uh it was uh it was a real good run. You know, interim roles like that in the UK don't tend to go five years. So um so so before we dive into the content, um, there's a few things that stand out, but when when did you know it was enough you know in the consulting space? Was that was there like a you know, like an epiphany when it was like, you know what, like I've done it, I've seen it, I've seen it all, and this is my moment to go to go into him and and take that gamble because you were pretty cushy, you were there nine years and you know, getting the big projects. So when was that moment?

SPEAKER_04 6:09

Indeed, and I think this sort of goes back to what people's skills and motivations are. So, and there's just not no disrespect to consulting firms, but obviously they're there to make money. Um, they're very sales-oriented, so it's all about winning the next assignment, uh, you know, doing the business development. Whereas my interest and skill set was always client side, delivering the projects for uh for the client. And it was sort of that uh that sort of well, it wasn't a big epiphany, um, but yeah, it was definitely a career choice to rather than force myself down the sales route to advance, uh, yeah, to focus on, uh continue to focus on strong delivery, supporting clients, uh, help define and shape strategy, and then implement it, which I think I can always do a bit more directly, uh, yeah, being freelance. And also you get to uh stay longer in places as well. Um so that Red Cross example there, there for five years. Yeah, fantastic five years. Um, yeah, and you build the relationships, you understand the business, you can add real value, I think, over that time period. Um, yeah, and with consulting, you know, sort of only really somewhere for six months or so.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

I think sustainable value, I think that's the most important takeaway, right? Um because you can make an impact in six months, but sustainable long-term impact, there's no there's no better, better, better way to do that than working directly for an organization. Um very good. Um I'm gonna set the tone of the podcast real quick um by by saying one of the things that really stands out, and knowing you for so long, is is you said making it happen. I'm gonna say get shit done, right? Um I know something you're passionate about. Um and and look, you know, historically, the stigma associated to nonprofits, universities, colleges, governments, public sector in general, is that they're slow, they lack change, they're old school, you've got civil servants, you've got you know people who have been at the business, sorry, the organization for 20, 30, 40 years, the resistance to change, they're kind of there for an easy payday, good benefits. But that's not always the case. And it's keen, you know, I'm really keen to point that out because some of the coolest projects that I've seen have been in that space, right? So, what's your what's your thoughts and takeaways on that? Like in terms of getting shit done, but also coming that does happen where you book heads with people that are like, well, we've always done it this way for 30 years, right? And some of these people are lower paid compared to the commercial sector. So, how do you go about that?

SPEAKER_04 8:46

Yeah, I think it's sort of an interesting point, Cara, not to sort of over uh to over-generalize, which I know we can all be slightly guilty of, because there is, you know, there is real good innovation happening in government. Um, you know, I think the UK government um has done some fantastic stuff. Um, and it's got a good reputation, the uh the digital arm. Um so there's quite a lot of I think cool uh you know, cool ID stuff uh and shared data across government departments. Um so I think uh yeah, so I think let's let's sort of avoid overt generalization, but you know, but you're definitely onto something basically there. Um yeah, you do uh it fundamentally I think comes back to culture, although it's an object. You'll probably hear me say that quite a bit uh on this uh on this chat today. Culture really drives uh drives your organization to have whatever strategy you like, um, but there's the phrase in the culture eats strategy for breakfast, which is definitely true. So yeah, culturally, where I'm at the moment, uh yeah, some people, you know, fantastic people, people have been there for you know 20 years. Um, and so you know, naturally, people's desire to uh you know break out, try new things might be there, but maybe they just lack awareness of what else happens elsewhere. So I think that that's definitely something what is going on elsewhere. Um, the second thing I'll say, which is again it's a bit of a generalization, I do think some public bodies, particularly government, can be over-academic still. Uh so you know, people like a debate, they like getting into strategy, they like talking uh in detail about options and choices and analyze. Um, and I think there's the slight sort of academic bench you get in some organizations where you might write a paper, it's critiqued, uh, and then you have to go and write another paper to answer the points, whereas a different culture might accept uh you know the spirit or intent behind the paper, um, as opposed to requiring you know a further detailed uh analysis. Uh so I think there's sort of an academic style that you do get in public sector that slows things down.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Perfect. And I think also keen to avoid generalization, probably the some of the most passionate people uh about their careers are people that you find in that in the non-profit space, right? And that's why they're there for 20 years, because they really care about the mission of the organization. Um tell our listeners a little bit about your current role at the um the Royal College, because um some some you know, some of our listeners obviously we have a big US audience that might not be aware of uh what the Royal College of Pathologists do, and kind of what does that title, Director of Corporate Services, mean?

SPEAKER_04 11:39

Yeah, cool. Um yeah, so look, good question. Um, and I think I've been asked this a lot, you know, what is what is it? Uh the short answer is it's a member organization. So it's not funded by government, not funded by consumers, uh, it's funded by basically subscription fees. Um, and this is quite common in the UK. There's quite a large number of member organizations. Every branch of medicine, uh, whether you're a surgeon, a GP, um, a you know, physician, um psychiatrist, you will have a member organization uh that will put on the exams you take to become qualified. So Royal College of Pathologist will run exam. That's a big part of the business. And then once you are qualified, you can pay your £300 a year to become a fellow or member of the college, and from that, you get a whole host of career development opportunities, um, yeah, and a whole host of volunteering opportunities to help shape the profession. So a lot of uh pathologists spend a lot of time for us discussing the nature of uh pathology, uh, understanding how it can benefit healthcare and society, and then from that increase the voice to uh to lobby government. Um, and in the case of pathologists, they're a bit unknown as to what they do. Um, basically, it's the science behind the test. So, any test you have, a pathologist will be analysing the results for you. So, yeah, member organization funded by not exclusively but mainly by members, pretty common in the UK. There's quite a few, uh quite a few of these types of organization uh around. But yeah, interesting one for me. First time in a member organization, uh, and it is smaller than I'm used to, about 80 people, 10 million pound business. Um, and again, I think that's always a really interesting thing with transformation. Uh, the size of the organization have a real bearing on how uh how change can be delivered.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Amazing. And we are called the CRM Success Show. So if you had to describe your perfect CRM project sponsor in three words, what would they be?

SPEAKER_04 13:54

Okay, so I was thinking about this quite a lot. Um, my answer would be a good sponsor is committed to change, and that means changing themselves, changing their teams, changing the organization, changing the culture, changing the outcomes, you know, changing the benefits. It's someone who's really committed to actually doing things differently and not maintaining the status quo.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Um very strong temptation to ask you a whole bunch of questions about the uh the the uh the British healthcare systems because it's so different here, and uh and it's a very big hot topic at the moment because we just had a government shutdown shutdown, as you might have known. It was all centered around the cost of healthcare and cost should be paid and all that kind of stuff. Not to focus on the podcast, obviously. Um so let's get back to CRM and specifically success or failure, I'd say. So you mentioned a couple of things that really push um not just CRM, but I think technology success and probably even strategy success. I think you mentioned culture, good people, side of the organization. Um what else would you think are like the keys to running a successful program at a kind of large non-profit or even government agency?

SPEAKER_04 15:20

Yeah, and I think so. I think I think the sort of the basics probably apply across all sectors and all countries, I would say. Um and I've got a diagram that I will often talk through with people. So that what leads to success, I'd start with, do you have a clear strategy? You know, which every organization will say we do. But if you were to ask their people if they could just explain that strategy, I suspect most organizations or most people will fail to do that, basically. I'll give one example recently of a really clear strategy. This was for a global climate change non-government organization I was with a couple of years ago. They did some fantastic work to reduce carbon emissions globally through a lot of UK programs, a little bit of overseas work as well. The board set them the challenge, which is the planet is not in a good position, you do great work, but can you have 10 times the impact? Can you over the next five years aim to have 10 times uh more uh savings with carbon dioxide from your work? Uh and that just then became 10x, you know, 10 times. So everybody in the organization, you know, at every level could generally say, yeah, okay, our strategy is to 10x. You then got into the how, but as a strategy, it was really clear and it was a real galvanizing force for everything. So I'd always encourage any organization to think really hard about strategy and its understanding by its people. You know, is there a real strong call to action from your strategy? From that, then I think you need a number of component parts, and I'd always look whether these parts exist. Clearly, you would benefit from having, let's just pick tech, having a tech plan or roadmap that aligns to the strategy. And again, you often see a tech strategy, but it makes very little connection back to organizational strategy. Good reasons for that with the amount of technical debt that exists, you know. I think people forget how much work there is to just keep the uh keep the plumbing going. But I think unless you really plan your tech, your digital roadmap against your organization strategy, you're missing a trick, basically. So I think there's a misalignment there at times. So I'd look for that. I'd then look for what used to be called a transformation roadmap. So, how do we save money? How do we innovate? How do we do new products? I kind of starting to ban the word transformation because it's all about continuous change. So, how are we just doing things differently? How are we innovating with products, with services for our customers to help us deliver our strategy? So I think, you know, is there a clear change map that aligns a strategy is important? That change map needs to be owned by every business unit leader, not just the transformation director in chief exec. So I'd look for that ownership of a change and improvement roadmap from each business lead. You can then look at the other stuff you'd expect. So look at your resources. So have you got the right staff instructures? Can you afford that? You know, have you got the right estate, the right property, which is often forgotten? That's a big cost. Have you got the right suppliers supporting you? So yeah, strategy, but get your tech roadmap, your change roadmap, your resources all pushing in the same direction. Um, and I think, yeah, bringing that together in some form of sort of collective oversight can be really useful for organisations. So, yeah, that to me are like really clear ingredients for success, or at least stuff that gives an organization a foundation uh to work from. And I'm you know, my senses it doesn't those four things aren't always clearly described, aligned, and all pushing in the same direction.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Um, so you're saying you're starting with strategy, but I think you're really starting with vision, right? Vision and strategy. Right. So vision, then you come up with a strategy of how we're gonna accomplish that vision and then implement the technology that will meet and execute on that strategy. So let's focus a little bit on that, right? So great, so have a strategy. I have no idea how you have a strategy to what strategy there is to uh reduce carbon emissions, except I don't know, fight with businesses or yell at them or beg them. Um and then there are the technology, so maybe you can tell us what that is, right? And then how you would implement the technology to help accomplish uh accomplish that goal. I mean there is obviously a technology side of it, is right producing tech that in and of itself uses or emits less emissions, I I suppose. Yeah. So right, so how do we get from the strategy to tech, right?

SPEAKER_04 20:40

Yeah, so yeah, good question. And this is I think you know where stuff often breaks down, basically, because tech isn't properly enabling strategy. That example I gave of that uh that climate NGO who called RAP W R A P, who I should give a shout out to because they do do fantastic work. That's probably not the best example because their growth came through business development and securing funding to run their programs in different countries, basically. So tech wasn't so much of an issue there, it was more about operational, uh operational ability and funding to uh to secure that. Where I am now uh at uh Royal College of Pathologists is I think it's a bit more typical in that there's not a clear IT plan, basically. So I'm you know working with the head of IT who you know reports into me. Let's be really clear actually about the volume of technical debt remedial work there is to do. Because until we clear a lot of that, actually it's pointless to start talking about right, okay, how do we properly enhance and use AI to improve business processes, for example. You can have a bit of that, but I think at least being clear. On the volume of work there is to do to keep the lights running and working out where risk lies is a really important foundation point. So I think, you know, to me, Dave, it's just about being putting down on paper all the stuff that needs doing, all the stuff that the tech team are aspiring to do, and then working down from the vision and mission to try and do some alignment then from the top down into those plans, basically. Because it may be we can accelerate AI work, but with that comes, you know, we need to invest heavily in accelerating some of the remedial technical debt work. But these are the conversations that you need to get into at uh you know at C-suite uh and board level.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

No, I mean it makes a lot of sense. I I guess where I'm struggling with again is when you're talking about getting from strategy to tech, um, and keep in mind my background is is is heavily you know finance or hard business where they're looking, right? So you're thinking, okay, my I need to develop more sales, how am I going to manage my customer service, my customer relations, I need to track my activities, track my opportunities, right? That's what you typically think of. Um what is my go-to-market strategy, and then what's the technology needed to support that? Um when I'm thinking nonprofits, I'm often thinking in terms of fundraising, events, um, and then potentially operations, right? If I'm distributing money, um how right, how to identify people, process applications, etc. etc. etc. What did that look like at a government scale, though, right? Because it's a very different goal.

SPEAKER_04 23:42

Um it it is, um, and I think this is where I think this is where organizations struggle, it is to articulate what actually their operation is. So you did that really well there, Dave, you know, for the examples that you're drawing upon. But it does get quite complex when you get into government, you know, particularly uh you know particularly national any national government, um, you know, because there's a whole variety of product, what I would call products and services. Um, but again, that language isn't common in government. It's much more about, you know, actually we have duty of care uh to do certain things under uh under law uh or whatever. Um so yeah, I think getting really into getting people to put down on paper what is the operational thing they do for what person in what or audience in what way, to me, is a really good starting point to actually unpick what any organization is trying to do. And that's what I'm trying to do at World College of Pathologists. So, okay, with exams, who actually is interacting with us at what points in what way? Because there's different parts of the training journey, uh, workforce uh and professional development. At what point do people engage with us, you know, in what channels, through what services? You know, do we align when they pay their subscription fee to us each year with any particular outputs and deliverables to them so they instantly see, you know, uh product that they're getting as a result of their fee? So to me, it is I I do try and apply that language that you see in the private sector of audience, product, service into government, but it's not typical, uh, it's not uh it's not a typical way of thinking, but I think it can add real value.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Awesome. Um so hopping back to let's say leadership, sponsorship of a project, right? So you have uh someone who comes up with a vision. It'd be interesting how that happens in a member organization as members vote or they elect someone, a board, I guess, right? They elect the board, um, and then what someone on that board would act as a sponsor or decide on a project representing the members. Um yeah, so what what did that look like and what would make for an exceptional you know, an exceptional good sponsor um at that level?

SPEAKER_04 26:11

Yeah, so it's a really good question. And let's just sort of use the member organization example again. So you're right, there is a as well as the chief exec, uh there is an equivalent of a chair uh called the president uh who is elected. Uh so there's a essentially an elected chair equivalent who has a three-year course of office, who is there to represent pathology, you know, f to the uh to the chief exec and the management team. So that person can really shape direction. Uh and our president's pushing very hard on us to make sure we're very clear uh about how the work the college does benefits pathology and how pathology benefits society to be much more visible about that, you know, so we have a greater voice. That then takes you into how do you sponsor a change project. And I'll just get straight into the fact now we've got a uh dynamics project underway. It was uh started uh before I joined, so I joined six months ago, uh and the project's been around for a couple of years or so. And it's very, very interesting when you look at this project because everyone talks about oh, this will change how this team processes things, uh, this will help this team uh move off one database to another database, it will help this team you know uh manage communications uh you know with various stakeholder groups. The whole language is internally focused about staff and how dynamics supports them. Whereas actually, we're trying to do a mindset shift now across the project team and the org, the whole reason or the whole the benefits of putting this investment in will be to members. So, you know, Dave, Kiro, your pathologists, you're paying your fees to us. You know, you can now go online to the web portal and look at and update and amend your own uh subscription uh payment uh payment timeline. Uh you can instantly access your exam results. Uh, you know, you can interact with the college if you're a volunteer and see um all the committee papers that are relevant to you in one place. So we need to shift it into being a project that puts the members, the external beneficiary, at the heart. And that's a really sort of significant change. Um, and what I fundamentally say that that helps me in this situation is it ain't an IT project, this uh this ain't IT thing. We are your delivery partner to help put this thing in, but actually, you know, Kiro, you run the exams team. Are you really behind this system? And are you sort of lobbying, leading, and espousing change within the exams team so that we get the benefit of exams into you? You know, Dave, you know, you run the workforce team, you do all the workforce modelling. Are you really behind what we're trying to do with this CRM project? So we've got to sort of shift it away from this type of uh CRM thing being seen as something just for IT to put in, which I think happens so so often, into right the leadership of the whole organization and leadership at all levels, saying, great, this might be a bit of pain now to do business processes, to do UAT, to do whatever, but at the end of it, we're gonna get a tool that helps us serve our customers better. That's sort of the fundamental shift uh we need to we need to make. So yeah, that that's I think at the heart of many, many of these things in public sector, and probably private as well. Move away from seeing CRM as an IT thing.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

Yeah, it's a really good point. Um, although I think I think currently the trend is move it to IT, away from the business. Um and I think that's gonna continue for a while. So one more question on this. So you said uh you came two years in six months ago, elections are every three years. Did that throw like a wrench? Like I'm assuming you probably already had an election within the middle of the project, and now your leadership team changes, and I assume a change in vision, particularly if the members weren't happy with leadership and they're voting for change, um, and these projects and sometimes these multi-year projects. Um, did that play a factor in your decision making or your processes?

SPEAKER_04 30:58

Yeah, and I think it I think it must is the short answer. Uh, because ultimately, you know, the this CRM project's being funded uh in large part by member subscription fees. So, you know, it has to sort of show it has to show benefit. I think a really good way to do that is to just, I'm being very transparent about costs basically, uh, to do proper, whole life, full costing of every element of this project to enable leaders to make choice points, basically. Um, and this and that's quite interesting because you could shoot for perfection, I think, with CRM systems. You know, if you ask everyone for their requirements, everyone wants it to do all their stuff, which you can do, but you know, ultimately they that can start to get quite expensive. Um, so I think there's something about being transparent about costs to help leaders, uh, decision makers make choice points about how much time and effort to put into CRM systems.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

I find it personally really ironic uh hearing that a lot of the focus was on, as you said, the staff benefits of moving to CRM when the clue's kind of in the name, uh, customer relationship management, right? So um, but but you're right, you like a lot of it is how can we save time? How can how can we increase visibility on X, right? And and the link between that and the customer is often an oversight when in reality it should be first. Um so sometimes just call it as it is, the actual CRM full name, maybe might just remind a couple of people what the point of a CRM actually is and who it's supposed to serve, right? Um but but um cool. So so you're you're in a really unique position to offer opinions on um the differences between uh public and private UK and European and US uh projects. Uh you've had you've had exposure, visibility, you've led these different initiatives and programs of work throughout your career. Um so just wanted to kind of ask you some of your observations between different motivations and behaviors and expectations around a CRM and general project delivery, change management, etc., that you've witnessed over the years between the different worlds, different organizations. Um tell us a little bit about you know, maybe some some stories and just general opinions that you've seen firsthand.

SPEAKER_04 33:39

Yeah, cool. No, and this is this is I think an interesting point. And I have worked on global projects when I was at PwC, you know, across uh America's uh Europe, uh, Asia Pacific, um, you know, and they're they're they're quite interesting because you get a real sense of different working styles across different uh different continents. Um yeah, I've sort of also done quite a lot of work um in you know outside of public sector. So I've had worked in investment banking, banking, retail, etc. So, and I do I'm gonna try and stay away from generalizations on this podcast. I know Dave, you've already sort of been a bit of a chat before, and you'll be like, raised an eyebrow at something you know that I was observing. Um, and that was possibly that um, you know, my my sense was that in the US there's a lot of focus on reporting, basically, and people being very transparent about what's happening. Um, does that mean the culture, though, is about reporting overdoing? Possibly not, basically. So I'm going to avoid generalizations. What I will say is I do think there's some very different ways in which projects are run, no matter where, no matter for what sector. And I do think this all boils down to culture, leadership styles, and just the organization, basically. Some organizations are very comfortable with projects just rolling their sleeves up and getting stuck in, basically. And that can happen quite a lot, particularly in the early days of projects, uh, where people get quite excited by them, but then you can get, you know, put your business case in, get a couple of million quid uh approved, build up the project team, you know, and the culture that I've sort of put in is great, let's now just smash this thing through, talk to the business, you know, get cracking and get stuff delivering. However, if you just go down that route, when things go a bit wobbly, uh, you know, and maybe you go over budget or you're projecting to go over budget or over time, stakeholders say the board could get a bit funny. Why weren't we uh notified of you know these risks earlier on? However, I still think there's some real benefits in a culture of project teams just getting stuck in and working at pace to create energy and enthusiasm in a business. On the converse, though, some organizations, uh, particularly I think where there's large investments, get very uh fixated on the whole reporting side. And they like the project, they like project teams, transformation leaders to just do sort of what I call air traffic control reporting, use loads of dashboards, play back what's happening uh to then help other people decide how to steer and intervene. That can create an awful large burden for reporting, you know, to get your budget information, project information, you know, altogether intelligible, understood. And I think too much focus on just the dashboards again can sort of slow down the delivery piece. So there's two different, I think, ways of going there: free reign, fill your boots, roll your sleeves up, get stuck in versus the cautious, right? How's it all going at every stage? Let's have multiple governance groups. You know, intuitively, neither extreme is going to be a good thing, is it? Basically, I think the art is just reading where you are on that spectrum, particularly if you're a transformation leader or an IT director, and then just working out how to play it at various points in the project, basically. Um, that's definitely something I've learned.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Have you found a difference between those two sides of the coin, be it public sector versus commercial, or does it just vary on that they're kind of mutually exclusive, they're not exclusive and it depends. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:53

Yeah, again, you could sort of again potentially you know hypothesize that private sector's a bit more gung-ho sleeves rolled up, you know, stuck in uh public sectors a bit more risk-averse and doing all the reporting. I don't think that's true, actually. Um from my time in government, uh, you can get you know big money to do big things, but with that comes political pressure. So, you know, a bit like your point, Dave, earlier, you are bound by election cycles in public sector. You know, ministers uh will you know have a pet project and they want it to happen, which can create real sort of tension and challenge about smashing a project through. Um so I don't think it's quite as clear cut there as yeah, private sector is fast, public sector slow. I'd also say my experience, the private sector can be because projects, when they go wrong, those failings aren't visible. I think that can create a culture of poor practice in the private sector. Uh whereas if a public sector project goes badly, it makes the newspapers, you know, it gets reported on. Um, there's lots of analysis, it's very visible when public stuff overruns. You know, who knows how many private sector projects don't deliver what they should do on time. Um, but yeah, it's just not visible in the way that it is. Um, so yeah, I don't yeah, but it's certainly not as clear, cut as that binary, you know, one side doing one thing while one side having to learn from the other. It all comes back to culture fundamentally.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

It's the accountability piece as well, isn't it? Uh and I think you nailed it where it's the public's money versus a company's money. I mean, look, if if uh you know a big big Fortune 500 company that's privately funded, you know, or you know, wants to spend their own 50 mil on a project and it tanks, who cares? It's not our money. So um it's that accountability piece, right? Um, at the end of the day. Um so so let's think about a global project and the different cultures that you've got to navigate uh as part of that. Maybe you've got global teams, different cultures, different you know, beliefs, religions, whatever, right? Um, how does that impact when it comes to expectations and setting a standard around governance, holding holding certain I don't want to say work streams, maybe countries accountable from a sponsorship perspective, uh delivery of projects. How does the different cultures, be it just general, their beliefs in life and they're also their attitude towards working and and you know live-to-work versus work-to-live kind of mindset, right?

SPEAKER_04 40:40

Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, again, I think that's a really interesting point, and I've sort of really observed this. Um, doing global work at PWC. Uh, you know, definitely I've found something about some uh some cultures being very keen to be very transparent uh in what they're doing, uh, to you know to just make make it very clear what they're up to. And so that can lead to uh you know endless emails from maybe one team, uh, one team you know across the whole the global team, basically. Uh whereas other teams might you know be much more comfortable, you know, just logging off at the end of the day and then just not worrying about anything until you know until they lock back on uh you know the next morning. Um so yeah, it's it's definitely there are issues and tensions. The way I would look at this is building up a culture of one team is something that is hugely important and beneficial to any global projects team because I don't think that often is invested in enough. Many people on project teams, um, particularly those people who've been seconded into it from a business unit, are still low for that business unit, uh, that territory or whatever. Um, so getting into right, what are our ways of working going to be on this project, you know, can be a really good just starting exercise. Yeah, and that might get you into, well, actually, you know, across the team, we don't want to be CC'd into stuff. Uh, you know, we trust you all to get on um and just let us know if something's going badly. So let's sort of move away from a CC type culture. It can also get you into uh, you know, how do we actually build trust across a team? Um, and if you are working globally, um, different time zones not meeting face to face, that can be quite hard to do. Um, so actually, how do you build trust with your team, show vulnerability, uh, you know, show intent, show sincerity to encourage and foster that type of approach across the team, but I think can solve all sorts of problems. Um, because you don't want different parts of your project team bickering, which is again what happens quite a lot still. Um, so even like in this sort of a much more UK project at the moment, uh pathologists, yeah, I'm spending a lot of time talking about trust and ways of working uh across the team because it does encompass suppliers, college people who are being there a while, new college people, the IT team, people second in from the business. We are all ultimately one team, and let's act and operate uh as such. And I think again, if you haven't got that, if you don't feel that you're one team and you're not sensing you're one team, you're gonna have some problems.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Yeah, and I I think as well, like especially even just differences between Brits and Americans, you know, and and how how you communicate to different project teams as well, can be an interesting observation in itself, right? I think I think in the UK it's a lot more please and thanks, and you know, uh being aware of when you maybe send in a message, where in the US it's a lot more just direct to the

SPEAKER_04 44:00

point no hi how are you just like hey what's the status update and and and you know I found my I found myself I've been in you know obviously the US now for seven years um I sometimes when I talk to the UK I have to kind of be a bit more aware because we are very direct in the US uh even I'm too direct sometimes for my clients in the US but you know when when you're switching back to different cultures and different teams and how they respond you have to kind of be cognitive and and and know that right so um okay good um do you think anecdotally on that because anecdotally um I I think also the younger generation here in the US is a lot more uh susceptible and you gotta use a lot us a smaller tone um I'm not gonna give the specifics but I was once had to go sit down and talk to HR because I was too hard on my uh junior employees doesn't surprise me and it's I mean we're we're smiling at this but it's a really interesting point as well you know in delivery teams you get all sorts of different ages as well don't you different generations um and actually people's expectations are different you know in Gen Z than they are in uh in millennials uh and Gen X it's it's it's it's really yeah it's really interesting you know you've got to be very complicated of that.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

And and I think as as well you add in an aging workforce into the mix as well right you know people that might have in IT retired at 5055 and now working 6065 you've got another generation of uh you know people that are working uh as well you've got potentially people that are you know the latter to latter end of their career in their 60s and people in their 20s you know at the start of their career very different philosophies who've been who've only known working in the pandemic era where it's remote it's a lot more like of a mentality where we work to live versus live to work right I say we I'm not putting myself in that category but um but but it's a different mindset and that could be like alien to somebody towards the tail end of their career right so I never even thought about necessarily that dynamic but you throw that into the different culture dynamic as well and you've just got this whole big piece of central issues to to to to work around um so how how would you how would you work around that then chaps no no this man's a workaholic don't let him fool you call a friend on a Sunday he's like I'm busy a couple of calls scheduled today so test case in point um but um it I mean look you know it's uh I I think it comes down to people's motivations right and I think that's just leadership in general um good leaders know what motivates their workforce yeah and and for for some it's gonna be title and recognition for some it's gonna be pay for some it's gonna be more time off with their family right and I think that's the one-on-one people management I think the more you know your employee your team the better uh you're able to channel the different individuals and and those motivation factors probably see that let's just pause on that sorry Kiro um let's just pause on that yeah this is at the heart of it as well I think and this goes back to me saying you know this type of CRM thing it ain't an IT project it's a business project and I can see why you know IT get past this stuff because the business doesn't have the capacity or capability but they do still need to own it because let's you know use an example here the way in which the membership team and the finance team at pathologists will be interacting with members about payments direct debits etc is fundamentally going to change under CRM um that may lead to well what appear people's jobs are naturally going to change as a result of that and actually um you know are people worried about their jobs are people worried about a tech system falling over um and are therefore naturally very curious risk averse and looking at every and scrutinizing the project in a huge amount of detail yes but whilst my project team can reach out support listen to that team fundamentally the director who looks after that business unit has to get stuck into those conversations themselves has to get into right how do we all feel about the project do we feel our jobs are threatened you know what more can we do when we have this free time you know what would help you get this over the line you know would it be a case of if I could give you a bit of a bonus at the end of this will that help keep you motivated or are you looking for something else?

SPEAKER_04 48:56

No transformation leader, no project team can know all that stuff about the people in the business units who are impacted and involved in the project it has to be the business unit leaders having that type of conversation and that's why I always push you on this point you've got to get that ownership into the business so that they're embracing this and leaders are taking accountability for success.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Couldn't agree more perfectly said um we talked a little bit about pace of projects so I want to ask you one question before we move on from this topic um do you think the emphasis on visibility and risk management leads to better project outcomes or slower project outcomes?

SPEAKER_04 49:47

Gives you 60 seconds on that okay uh right I'm gonna say I do think it depends basically um I think that the art communicating you make it politician Ian if you're gonna say depends it depends give us a yes or no give us a yes or no I don't think I can do that um look what would I say I think comms is at the heart of this basically you've got to get your comms right basically if you're doing a CR implementation you've got to work out a way to keep the great and the good above you aware comfortable and feeling engaged and that will vary. So there may be times when it's worth going heavy on reporting governance scrutiny visibility but at the same time if you want to get it over the line you have to flex that because you can't just do reporting governance visibility endlessly you know for a year and a half two years because you're well you can but you know your PMO is going to sort of get quite uh uh quite burnt out so I it is a depends I think it is a balance um you know don't you you've got to find that sweet spot to keep people happy without overburdening anybody fundamentally question to ask is is what I'm reporting on adding any value to anybody that that's what you need to ask yourself so have you ever read the book uh Moral mazes um who was the author the author was Robert Jackal um it's one of the greatest books on management um for me at least we're gonna really really go into the th the psychology of management um not necessarily how to be a good manager um it just goes into everything that's wrong and why um the other one is the Peter principal which I'm sure you've heard of um so he Robert I think he interviewed a bunch of managers at uh chemical factories back in like the 80s um and they were managing these factories and their promotion is based on you know how well they man how well their factories ran and then they would get promoted to a division or move to a larger factory or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

And he said that the trend was the trend was don't maintain your machines your budget goes down you make a boatload of money in your thing you get promoted out and then it's the next guy's problems when they start failing. Right? And I feel like in government at least here in the US I think it's a random problem and it's just a consequence of term limits potentially right or you know you have you said two at a time and like you constantly see laws passed that take effect after they leave office. Absurd. Like yeah taxes will go up the minute I leave um back to to pay for the stuff we're doing today. Do you see this kind of stuff when you're dealing with election held positions or nonprofits where they have and it ties back to this reporting question, right? Because you're trying to make your reports look good as opposed to really running a quality organization.

SPEAKER_04 53:13

You're rigging the KPIs basically you are and this is sort of if this gets you into the machinery of governments uh and you know what's the check and balance to you know wild swings in direction um you know comes through in the UK that you know that's the point of having an independent civil service uh so they're not politically appointed uh they are professionals who can properly analyze advise and guide uh politicians to help the politician shape their thinking into a manageable policy or project um so that that that that's sort of the theory in the UK as to why the civil service is independent because it has that professionalism and the skill set to shape you know and support obviously the politician's direction to make it uh to make it happen um but I do think even you know things that are more politicized uh yeah and you can see uh you know definitely in the UK and you know you see this in the US don't you uh programs being funded or cut just at political will essentially um I did want to ask shortly about your time at the at the Red Cross um if I remember correctly I think you said you inherited some kind of a mess um and then you came up with a strategy to uh to kind of straighten things out and turn return that ship.

SPEAKER_02 54:39

You want to tell us a little bit about that? What exactly inherited and what you did to fix it.

SPEAKER_04 54:44

Yeah so um the inherited thing is a little bit more um where I'm currently at actually um particularly on this CRM project um the way it's being constructed you know is not how I would have set it up um and that's because um you know my predecessor didn't have the you know hadn't done a CRM project hadn't led a CRM project before so consequently the contract we have with the systems integrator isn't the contract that I would have written uh the relationship we have with the systems integrator isn't quite right you know the project team was underinvested in so this is what I've been going through in my time at Pathologist which is firmly looking at right actually we've got the ship that's been started what are our choice points at this point to get it uh to get it over the line and actually I've done all the thinking do we just abandon ship and start again and we've sort of gone through an informed decision to uh to not do that for various reasons uh so fundamentally I think the learning here is in any organization make sure that when you scope out something big particularly tech related particularly CRM related make sure it's all properly thought through and understood with good business engagement. There was a similar theme I saw at the Red Cross which was a great organization my job there was as much about just helping steer them uh towards sustainability through sustainable change projects and building up portfolios and then programs of change to deliver that. But there they had a difficult CRM project as well you know so even with good scrutiny from external advisors uh from the CIO uh from me as transformation director etc etc um fundamentally uh their CRM projects overran in terms of time and money and again it's sort of uh from talking to people about that it goes back to a lack of clear business ownership essentially um and that's not ownership of the requirements it's not ownership of uh the solution it's fundamentally ownership of finding solutions that will help the organization change and making it clear that people's jobs will change through technology it's the classic thing Dave don't change your processes or change your processes to fit the out the to fit an out the box system don't do the airless bespoke of the system to fit your processes and I see that time and time again uh yeah um to me that's a number one learning that still isn't properly understood um and adhered to and I've see yeah I've seen that time and time again how do you how do you like if someone's working at Red Cross I assume it's because they want to save lives not because they don't want to deal with you know software how do you get them to switch that focus particularly at that level where you need right because these are the the heads of the business um if you want to call it a business right and they're running operations or they're literally trying to save lives um how do you get them to switch to focus on some CRM system? Yeah good question this is where I think lots of organizations struggle because not every business leader is going to be well versed in operations strategy delivery and change and tech you know where is the person who can do all of that what I've seen work yeah this happened once I left the Red Cross and there was a change of chief exec yeah it really I think is up to the chief exec to look the business unit leader in the eye and explain to them what they want and what the chief exec is asking for. So for a long time at Red Cross we were working with retail and getting retail to think about okay maybe close some of your unprofitable stores maybe invest a bit more in e-commerce let's look at our online goods platform yada yada yada and we did lots of incremental bits to try and do bits and pieces of that but it was all going a bit slow. New chief exec came in got the head of retail in got the fundraising exec director in looked them in the eye and said right in six months' time I want e-commerce uh to have trebled in value and therefore the problem is becoming owned by the business leader so it was the retail and fundraising director who then had a proper commission from the chief exec to make something happen. What they can then do is augment their skill sets and that's where a change scheme can come in to then partner with that business unit to bring that change that innovation that tech way of thinking but fundamentally Dave because you won't get because you don't get leaders who can do all this stuff I do think it really is the responsibility of the chief exec to set a very clear requirement expectation on the relevant business leaders um because that has if it doesn't come from the chief exec it can't come from the transformation director because it ain't gonna lie it ain't gonna land yeah I think it's very similar in the private sector it's almost exactly the same.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:29

Yeah I think uh one last question on this more focus on nonprofits um right nonprofits generally have a charter right right across let's say save lives um any concern of like every dollar I'm spending on systems is a dollar I'm not putting towards our core charter um budgetary constraints over here in the US I'm sure it's in Britain too is if people look at the like they're they're required legally to report how much of the donations they collect are actually spent on the core mission versus operations.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:07

And if people see that that that uh percentage is skewed that ratio is skewed they just will stop donating it's like what am I donating for I'm just paying salaries not right yeah so has that play a role yeah it uh it does um I think it just goes this goes back to culture as well actually um which I think really does drive uh project success and efficiency so let's sort of go back to government um and in government you hear civil servants talk about this is taxpayers' money so fantastic we've been given 15 million pounds uh from the Treasury to deliver whatever but it's taxpayers' money so we've got to make sure we spend it properly and let's go through the right process to make sure we procure the right partner to help us with this value for money at the heart of it all big projects in the UK in government gets pretty much scrutinized by a major projects authority um so there's a real strong framework for success. There's a bit of cost to that infrastructure but actually you get a good output in that many things actually deliver pretty well in government.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:26

What disappoints me a little bit is in the charity sector and the membership sector you don't hear many people talk about well this is donors money or this is members' money it's a it just sort of comes in year on year on without that political cycle you get in government and I think people get a bit complacent and that does frustrate me Dave and absolutely so while charities do report on how much money's going to the front line um yeah the back office costs uh in uh in charities are high you know quite rightly but I do think there's an efficiency thing um that you know really would help get better value for money for donors and members and obviously tech and AI can really support that stuff so I think yeah a smart organization will leverage tech leverage AI to cut those back office costs get efficiencies uh from the back office to enable better smoother frontline delivery so many follow-up questions I want to ask but I'm just conscious of time um I I I think you know some of the best people that made the biggest impact in the nonprofit space for me have been individuals that have come outside of the sector uh they've worked for uh companies that are on the stock market you've got shareholders to answer to um which about those efficiencies you know how can we be more efficient with spend because it is donors money right um sometimes you need uh to bring people in who are a bit more uh obsessed with the dollar value on a PL right um so so a lot of questions I want to ask there but but um the one question I will I'm curious about um you know as a transformation leader part of your success will be judged on the turnaround of this dynamics project right in in the current role do you see a world because I run into this issue more right you know uh I'm trying to phrase it the the right way do you see a world where sometimes these these projects are already doomed to fail because of the statement of work that's been written and the system integrator that's been selected and do you see a world where as a as a person interviewing for that role like is it acceptable to say look I need to before I give you a decision I'm taking this job I need to see the statement of work that you've agreed to and this this implementation partners agreed to and almost like just do that extra level of due diligence rather than kind of walk into it and go ah okay I'm screwed kind of thing like is it acceptable to ask somebody that in an interview you know and would you do it next time having known kind of what you've unraveled so far I didn't know this is a pretty good quick story before you answer I'm sorry because if this actually happened to me I took uh I took a consulting job to run a fairly large firms right just publicly traded firms CRM implementation as a project manager and I asked it the question how's the project going like no we didn't even start yet we're gonna start next month um so we need you to start like right away because project is about to start I get there and they're literally literally two months in into the project and six weeks behind schedule like two months in six weeks behind schedule and over budget they didn't do anything and and and and I went to my boss and like people like what what the heck you you told me you didn't start yet and everything's fine I'm like and he and he tells me verbatim if I told you the truth you wouldn't have taken the job that's what he told me oh man okay but I'll go ahead but how did you feel about that then nothing what am I gonna do I I turned it around it took a it took a it took a few weeks okay um luckily we were early enough you know yeah so yeah yeah and that's what how much transparency I guess do you think it's okay to ask that's the question right well and this is where it gets you into the whole world of interviews doesn't it and the best interview is a conversation isn't it essentially where you know both sides are having a conversation about what matters um you know getting into this type of combo um now had I spotted that this was quite you know not doomed to failure but not set up in the right way no but they didn't know themselves at that moment in time it was only by me coming in and unpicking it but I'm quite good at you know I feel I can protect myself protect the team all we can do is just play about like where where are we at today you know what choice points do we have going forward from here and that does mean I will want to unpick some of the legacy stuff here once we get through this first release.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:18

So getting into ultimately what relationship do we want with the systems integrator once we've gone live you know and for future releases is at the heart of my thinking because things have to change basically um so yeah it it's a good question. I'm not losing sleep because I've inherited a project my job's to get it over the line and get a quality product over there it's gonna cost more it's gonna take longer um but what I can bring is a level of experience that means when I do replant and re-budget, you know, I'm pretty comfortable we're gonna hit those because I just know enough having done this before basically so yeah I think bringing professional expertise in you know as that check and balance just to do the validation you know can be really helpful. But look bringing in people who've done who've got the right experience is clearly you know what any sort of uh anybody should do when they're hiring for their team.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:23

Amazing good stuff um Ian thank you so much uh for joining us uh for this conversation today we really appreciate your time no that's been great um yeah lots of interesting stuff and we could probably have carried on for another hour couldn't we I suspect we'll do a round two I reckon in the future um to to our listeners please do not forget to follow the CRM success show for more episodes featuring our guests such as Ian uh from over the pond uh and again once again Ian for your time thank you pleasure cheers