The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
00:30:40 · Vidit Agarwal
[00:30:40] S0: Yeah. It reminds me of prior to starting my business I spent a decade in FMCG and retail and we'd often from the head office or store support centre as you'd call it, go into the retail stores and it was always a very humbling experience to spend time with the staff on the shop floor and be told this isn't working and that isn't working. We'd come with our suit jackets as well and end up leaving with our sleeves rolled up and humility very much left on the shop floor. Yeah, and then we had a big floor of consultants at most of these firms I was at. I think for them it was a big eye opening experience that actually this is how the retail shop environment works. Great story. Robert, one of the things that you and I have talked about and we covered this in the Melbourne launch the other day as well is are rainmakers born or are they made? I think both you and Neil have some very well developed thoughts on this. Think again, people think of rainmakers or high flyers as people that are charismatic and extroverted and all that. What has been your experience, Robert, through the book about answering that question, are rainmakers born or developed?
00:31:47 · Robert Nason
[00:31:47] S2: Yes, and absolutely they are developed. We are convinced of that having spoke with many rainmakers in various firms. Some are extroverts, some are introverts, some are specialists, some are client relationship leaders. It's different across the world, across firms, there is a consistency in terms of the fact that they adopt similar practices that anyone can follow. So there is control and a discipline around their work habits, behaviors that they consistently apply. We just captured that. We aimed to investigate this topic in every dimension. We looked at how they do origination, what are their attributes, what are their behaviors, what are their principles they abide by, what are their routines that they follow. We explored that in-depth, and the fun thing for Neil and I, and it's something that is an issue in professional services, I think, no one really analyzes exactly why something was achieved, like why you won this project. There's various systems that exist within the firms to reward people for sales success. Generally, the lead on the project gets to allocate things called booking credits or sales component to different staff members who contributed to the result. Neil and I had the opportunity of actually working with people who had achieved success and the people around them to actually determine what actually did win this project and what was it. So we came to conclusions that sometimes the firm had not concluded. They hadn't asked the client or the client made a decision not knowing what the consultant had actually put together. That gave us an opportunity to actually pull out, okay, what are these factors that lead to success? That was very interesting for us that we put those judgments, which are basically Neil and my judgments of what it took to win. Just quickly, secondly, we looked at what's changed in consulting and there's been dramatic change in the last decade. But then we went back through our personal histories to say what's the best evidence? What's the best case study of this working? Sometimes it was something that happened long ago but it's an example of this trait or this behavior having success. We put those stories into the book. We actually have, I know, we've put 35 stories in the book. We've got about 90 of them. We had to select which ones made the book because they reinforced the right points.
00:34:50 · Robert Nason, Vidit Agarwal, Neil Plumridge
But we learned some really interesting stories from people in the industry. [00:34:57] S0: I want to come to just a couple of other stories that I picked up in the book, but just your point there, Robert, about how the industry has changed is a really interesting one that maybe we can spend a minute A question to both of you. Can you share any anecdotes on how has the industry changed? [00:35:12] S2: Yeah, Neil, do you want to go with this one? [00:35:15] S1: So a number of changes. There are some enduring things that have been around for eight years and will continue like independence and objectivity and the like, but probably the one that I'd call out is origination. From our research and conversations is the majority of work today comes from the consultant pitching a point of view or an idea or a concept or a major event, and a major event being a leadership change, a cyber event, an unexpected M and A event. So some sort of an event occurs or the consultant sees something that the client doesn't see and pictures an idea. So that's where the majority of big transformational work is. There's still lots of other work around RFPs and the client deciding what projects to issue. But the big deals, if you go through the top 100 deals in the last twelve months, the majority of those have come from the consultant initiating them or a major event has occurred.
00:35:15 · Neil Plumridge, Vidit Agarwal
[00:35:15] S1: So a number of changes. There are some enduring things that have been around for eight years and will continue like independence and objectivity and the like, but probably the one that I'd call out is origination. From our research and conversations is the majority of work today comes from the consultant pitching a point of view or an idea or a concept or a major event, and a major event being a leadership change, a cyber event, an unexpected M and A event. So some sort of an event occurs or the consultant sees something that the client doesn't see and pictures an idea. So that's where the majority of big transformational work is. There's still lots of other work around RFPs and the client deciding what projects to issue. But the big deals, if you go through the top 100 deals in the last twelve months, the majority of those have come from the consultant initiating them or a major event has occurred. [00:36:21] S0: Does that also differ by geography where all three of us are pretty well travelled and we've had extensive experiences in different countries. We've just come back from The US. I was in Europe recently. On your point, Neil, like the industry has changed in different ways if you compare, let's just say, Australia to The US? [00:36:39] S1: I'll maybe defer to Robert on this one. Robert's worked in more than 30 countries. I've worked in a few but perhaps, Robert, you want to?
00:36:46 · Robert Nason
[00:36:46] S2: I would say no to this, Vidit. The approach might be different in Japan to The US in terms of how you pitch it but the concept of relationship first, C suite people choose transformational consultants based on their trust in the firm and the individuals leading it to deliver what is a very high risk based decision for them. So relationship comes first. Point of view, we think, comes second. So consultants having a view that is aligned with their client on what's achievable and the scale of what is achievable. You don't sit on the fence saying, we're here to help. Let us know what you want us to do. You lose doing that these days. You've got to be proactively putting forward. We believe in AI transformation. We believe AI transformation can lead to productivity savings of up to x. We've got a position on that. We know how to do it. That gets you in the room, And then demonstrating where you've done it before and that you learnt the lessons of experience and having a technology vision as part of your offering. So understanding the client's technology and moving on. We see that as moving on from the old days of having a methodology and the consultant saying, You've got to come to our boot camp where we'll train your staff in our methodology, on capability where consultants try and prove they're the smartest people in the room. That no longer washes in any organisation globally. It's collaboration with the client, working with the client to get results is what it all means. And the flashy presentations, the PowerPoint decks, the long qual statements don't cut mustard as much anymore. It's not that they're not important for the contract, but you need to be able to get your message across succinctly and you need to simplify what's required, not complicated. There are big changes that have occurred and we've tried to tease out in the book good examples of that happening in the last period of time.
00:39:18 · Vidit Agarwal
[00:39:18] S0: Maybe a story that we can also cover, not a story but a perspective from the book is the, I believe Neil, you argue the five levels of trust. I think if I read correctly, you say that most consultants get to level three, but the exceptional ones get to level four and five. Can you just maybe educate us on those five levels of trust?