Transcript — Ep3 — Something we'll have to talk about

Rhyd: In today’s episode, I’m talking to Emma Robinson, she’s the CEO at Transform — a technology and data consultancy based in London and Manchester. Emma, great to have you with us. Thank you.

Emma: Thanks for having me Rhyd.

Rhyd: So, Emma, what are you rethinking about at the moment?

Emma: So, it’s a really interesting time for us to meet actually, cause Transform’s just been acquired by our new owner, a company called Next 15 PLC. And it’s a really odd time because we are essentially the same company, we’ve been acquired, we are Transform doing the same things, but at the same time, everything about our world is different. We are rethinking our brand, our go to market, our ways of working, what we want to be famous for, what we want to be great at. So it’s actually sort of quite a schizophrenic moment for me and where the business is at because we are at the same time as being the same, we are also at a pivotal moment to be fundamentally different, which is exciting and terrifying in equal measure.

Rhyd: All right. So out of the pandemic, you then suddenly gone into company being acquired. Things are very different.

Emma: Yeah.

Rhyd: So, as a CEO then of this successful company, things obviously changed a lot recently. Is there a common myth about the consulting business that listeners might not be aware of?

Emma: I think consulting can often be associated with, I think, an old perception of, sort of a big ‘Megacorp’ turning out identkit consultants in identkit suits. And that is still true to an extent but actually the business I work with and the competitors that I really admire are actually doing some really smart things with really diverse teams, diversity of thought, really interesting skills, not a suit in sight, no ties allowed and some really innovative and interesting work, really working alongside clients rather than just consulting to them. So I think the myth that consulting is an industry where we sit on high and give our clients the benefit of our experience is definitely gone. And it’s now about rolling your sleeves up, getting in the trenches with them and and really working alongside.

Rhyd: So after the pandemic have you seen that things have fundamentally changed? Cause I work in the same industry and what we’ve noticed is that engagements with clients where people will be expected to work at a client’s site, that’s actually getting more difficult. People have got used to the idea of working from home or working remotely more often than not? How’re you dealing with that?

Emma: Yeah, there’s definitely some logistical changes and we are, I think in the same vein we’re having to hold our model a little bit in stasis while we work out, along with the rest of the world, where, where this is gonna land in terms of home working, remote working. I think the sorts of things we are seeing is we really value co-location. We value working alongside our clients. Everything we do is agile. And as you know, agile lends itself to stand-ups are stand-ups because people are in a room standing next to each other retrospectives done, looking at the same wall of post-it notes and ideas. And I think in, in COVID we were already adapting to some of that. We already had techniques to overcome people being in different locations, but that really, really doubled down. I think the challenge we’re now seeing is actually the hybrid state. So we know we can do it fully present. We know we can do it fully remote. The challenge of how you host some of these ceremonies, how you stay connected when you’ve got some people remote and some people wanting to connect face to face, I think is gonna be a challenge we have to yet to overcome.

Rhyd: Yeah. I think it’s a definite challenge and seeing it different people have different approaches and I’m not sure anyone yet has come up with the right way of doing it.

Emma: No, we’ve tried one remote, all remote. We’ve tried people in the office all having to sit with a laptop in front of them so that the remote experience isn’t decremented and they’ve all got some pros and cons, but it all ultimately feels a little bit less satisfactory than either having everyone in a room or everyone at home.

Rhyd: What’s the one event that you think made you, perhaps pause, take a, take a step back for a moment and rethink everything?

Emma: So as we’ve talked about picking one event’s been a real challenge. And unless you want your listeners to be here for the next two hours, I’ll hone in on one. So I think I’ll talk about personal experience because I spend a lot of time talking about work. So it’s probably more refreshing to talk about the other. So probably the most pivotal event in my life is back in 2015 when both my parents passed away. And it was an odd coalescence of my Mum had been ill for a very long time. She had a brain tumour that was diagnosed for 15 years and my Dad was ill for quite a short amount of time. He had prostate cancer for about two years, but they both ended up dying within three months of each other. So it was as horrible as it sounds. It was as devastating as it sounds, but actually through the process, you’re doing quite a lot of coping. You’re doing quite a lot of managing and you know, me, I’m a coping, managing person. If I can organize something, if I can solve something, then that’s what I would do. And their loss was not just the emotional loss of them not being there, but it was actually my husband and I had in effect, built the world around being there to support them, you know, a good 18 months before they died. And we’d got very good at that. It was a really important part of our lives was making sure that their lives were as good as they could be. And I think the vacuum that their loss left with us was this double whammy really of, you know, what do we do now? What are we here for now? What is my role as a daughter, when my parents aren’t here any more. You know, what is Murray gonna do to support me when he’s spending his time supporting them? And, obviously at the same time as the grief of losing your Mum and Dad. So I can’t really get away from anything I’ve done in work that probably doesn’t have the same impact of that in terms of a pivotal moment in my life.

Rhyd: Wow. I mean so, so you keep yourself busy organizing, trying to, trying to work your way through this. Did you ever give yourself a chance just to take a break and actually, you know, almost properly grieve?

Emma: My therapist would say no, actually. So what I did do was start seeing a therapist. And it’s one of the reasons actually, I’m quite keen to talk to you about this, cause I, through that experience have become a huge fan of talking about mental health, of actively managing your mental health. I see a therapist now every week have done for the last seven years since Mum and Dad passed away. And seeing that in the same vein, as you see going to the gym or getting a health checkup or all of those things, the idea for me of finding outlets to process and deal with the things. I think one of the problems for me was I felt my grief for Mum and Dad was so big, if I let the lid off that I’d never be able to put it back in again. I had a real - I’m even illustrating it to you now - I had a real Pandora’s box feeling about it that I can’t access this, I can’t let that grief in. Because I won’t get up again. So it’s way easier to carry on coping than it is to grieve. So I think I’ve probably been spending the last seven years, salami slicing that rather than and maybe shrinking the box a little bit.

Rhyd: Yeah. I can definitely relate to that. I think I’m definitely the similar mindset. When something bad’s happening, it’s just almost like put it in a box, put it away and just focus on other stuff. And occasionally it’ll come back and surprise you at the most inopportune moment.

Emma: Doesn’t it? Cricket bat around the head.

Rhyd: Like watching a film with your children, you know? Unexpectedly bursting out crying.

Emma: So I would find, I would actually do that deliberately. So I could, I would find that I really struggled to cry. I didn’t, I didn’t want to cry in front of people. It, it, it made them feel awkward apart from, from my husband and, and my kids. I’m afraid they weren’t spared, but I, I was sort of quite conscious of that, but if I watched a film and it didn’t have to be a very good film that had a slightly sad theme, I would be bawling my eyes out, like totally disproportionate to the thing on screen, you know, the, the Labrador has gone to the vets and I’m like inconsolable. And I found that as, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. A sort of fair outlet.

Rhyd: So seven years on, what does it mean for you today? I mean, are you obviously, you’re seeing a therapist. You’re getting a lot of help. And I like what you said there about it. It’s just the same as going to the gym. Yes. I think mental health has a stigma still in this country. We need to get over that.

Emma: Yeah, absolutely. And I think I’ve had success in my role and I stand up on quite a lot of platforms and I talk about agile ways of working or digital transformation. And I think it’s helpful for people to know that, that I don’t do that because I don’t have challenges with mental health it’s because I do. And yet with the right support and the right, and I’m, you know, privileged to be able to, to access that support, then I think it really reinforces what you can achieve, but it is about to an extent, taking that help. If it’s a, if it’s a crutch, then use it. And then after a while it becomes a walking stick. And then after a while, it’s, it’s maybe something that you feel you need less. But I mean, when I first went to see my therapist, I’d got it through our company health scheme. And so you’re allotted a couple of sessions and I remember asking her, “so here’s, you know, here’s, what’s happened to me in Mum and Dad and it’s been very difficult. So do you think this is a 12 week program? Or should I block out maybe 16 weeks in my diary until we are done?” And this sense that I’d be just cured. I’d be, it would be something that I could get through and, she had this amazing phrase of, “well, that’s something we’ll have to talk about”. And seven years later, she’ll still say, “well, that’s something we’ll have to talk about”.

Rhyd: And how has this affected your work? I don’t really like the term work life balance, but how is this affected the way that you run, you know, this very successful company?

Emma: So I think I would absolutely say, you know, the therapy side of things has helped me way beyond my grief, but I can’t imagine having processed it without that. I sort of, I sometimes think of pressure as, as literally this pressure cooker and, and I’m very responsive to, if I don’t take the pressure off of that from time to time, it will explode. And that’s no different in my work life to my home life. So those, you know, I’m much more able to recognize what’s going on for me now and to recognize when a bit, like you said that some, I might be feeling something a bit more intensely, that’s got nothing to do with the situation I’m in. It’s it’s something creeping up behind you. It’s a memory of something. It’s a bit of grief creeping in from the side that so often comes to you as anger. It’s quite difficult to understand why, but I think grief and anger are pretty good bedfellows. So I think I find it much easier now to process maybe what is the problem I’ve gotta solve? And when I’m feeling something quite intensely, actually is that emotion right for this context? Should I be really annoyed about this situation? Should I be really upset about this, this context, or actually, am I just imposing that from somewhere else? And I think I’m probably not at a level where I avoid doing it, but I think I’m a little bit more able to understand where it’s coming from.

Rhyd: A thing I’m always keen to know from the guests on this podcast is how they got started in the industry they’re in. You and I have known each other for a long time, and I know that you did a history degree originally, so I’m very keen to know how did you go from a history degree to running a technology consultancy?

Emma: I spent about a year convincing anyone I spoke to of the value of a history degree. And it didn’t really matter what job I was going for. I got quite adept at translating why a history degree had relevance in the modern world. I was really, really fortunate that I actually a little bit due to my Mum as well. I was temping in London cause I hadn’t organized myself to get a job and I couldn’t even get a temp job, actually, I wasn’t a very good receptionist and my Mum, I was feeling very sorry for myself one day. And my Mum pretty much ordered me. I was in a bed sitting Wembley, so not a particularly nice place to stay. But I still wouldn’t get out of bed and she actually ordered me out the door, “get your suit on, get out there, go sit in the temping agency’s office until they give you a job. Be the most annoying person that they’ve got on their books and they’ll get you a job just to get rid of you”. And she was absolutely right. And actually that job that they got me was to go and be a receptionist at British Telecom. And that was really the start of my journey. I was fortunate enough when I was there to be invited to apply for their graduate scheme. I made some good connections. Networking is always gonna serve you will. And so I applied for the scheme through them and I was fortunate enough to get on it. Stayed at BT for about 7 or 8 years. Brilliant brilliant company to be part of, but probably quite a bit too big at that point for me (125,000 people). But a real privilege I was in at the start of the dot com so bt.com was just starting. And so I managed to become one of the early people who understood a bit about digital when it was still quite a nascent skill. And that took me ultimately into the world of consulting - via starting my own hamper business over in Gloucestershire, which was great, but a bit too lonely. And while I was doing that, I did the occasional consulting day to, at the time pay the mortgage. But as it turned out, I was much better at that than I was running a hamper business and enjoyed it much more. I missed people, I missed the interaction, I missed solving other people’s problems. And that was me freelancing for the company that I now run.

Rhyd: Oh, wow.

Emma: So it really was the start of the journey.

Rhyd: Yeah. I mean, that resonates with me the idea that consulting you get to help other people solve problems. I get a real kick out of how I see people producing their best work and, you know, you walk away from it thinking, well, I had a hand in that.

Emma: Yeah.

Rhyd: You and I’ve both spent over 20 years in the industry. What’s the biggest upheaval in your opinion, in that time do you think?

Emma: I think… We, we both work in technology consulting and the pace of change. It’s just, it’s unstoppable. And I think one of the biggest changes, I couldn’t point to a single thing so much as if you’re not on the edge of what your clients need, you will be obsolete. So my experience of in the last 20 years is what, what a client needs of you today, they won’t need in five years time. And it’s either, because the thing you do is, is not going to be needed or it’s gonna be so needed that they bring it in house as a skill. And that’s followed me my whole career. You know, when I first started consulting, just being a project manager or business analyst with a bit of digital experience made you the most experienced digital person in the room. Now you work with clients who have teams of hundreds of digital experts. So, as a consultancy, you have to bring what’s next. It’s into user experience design, it’s into service design, it’s into systems thinking, it’s into development, DevOps, addressing the carbon challenges of running digital programs. So it’s more, I think for me, the continuous nature of the change. And if you ever think you’ve nailed it, it’s probably the point to pack up and go home.

Rhyd: Is there something you wish you’d known when you first started back in the day at BT?

Emma: I’m not a great one hindsight, cause I’d probably make different decisions and the combination of luck, judgment and bad decisions has got me where I’ve got. So I wouldn’t want to change any of them for good or for bad, but I don’t feel that there were too many, too many ‘bads’ in there. I think that the things that I value have been something that has developed through my learning and I think around the need for consultants to be empathetic, for consultancy to bring humanity. I think I probably always instinctively appreciated that, but that’s a skill set that I think if I had an up and coming consultant now, being able to tell them 20 years ago for me, look, this is what’s gonna get you through. It’s not gonna be knowing the number. It’s not gonna be having a list of the best tech. It’s not gonna be, you know, being able to recite the Gartner quadrant from memory. It’s gonna be listening. It’s gonna be empathizing. It’s gonna be bringing humanity. So I think that’s an invaluable skill for a consultant. That would be great if someone told me that. I probably spent hours trying to memorize the Gartner quadrant that I could have could have spent doing more interesting things.

Rhyd: Yes. I, I agree with that. I mean, I think it’s only recently that I’ve realized actually just listen more. And when I say recently, not in the last couple of months, but certainly in the last few years, the more you listen, I think that empathetic you can be, the better you can be.

Emma: We work with a brilliant brilliant sales training company who constantly told us “you have two ears and one mouth and you should use them in that ratio”.

Rhyd: That’s a good point - I love that.

Emma: It’s nice isn’t it?

Rhyd: If you could send yourself a message back in time 20 years ago - is there something you’d say to yourself?

Emma: Oh, just stop overthinking everything. But I could do with that message now. So I’m not sure I’ve learned it very well. Yeah, I mean, my ability to sweat the small stuff to lose all perspective, especially when things are difficult. And that bit, you get the luxury of when you look back. You can make it sound like everything went right. And that you got all the decisions right and it was really easy, but the bit ahead of you looks really difficult and it’s always the same. The bit ahead of you always looks really difficult. And it’s only when you go rear view mirror that you go, “oh, I can’t believe I was worried about that. What an idiot!” but yet here I am today, still sweating the small stuff.

Rhyd: What’s coming up next for you and for Transform?

Emma: So we are on our, our change journey. Transform it’s in the name we’re transforming. It’s a really, really exciting time for us. So it’s about growth. We’ve been growing brilliantly for the last 10 years and we’ve got no intention of stopping now. So, Next 15 gives us an opportunity to redefine what we are and what we are great at. And so that’s a really exciting, it’s a great opportunity. It’s also quite a challenge. There’s sort of, we’re, we’re being asked questions of ourselves that we haven’t asked for a while which is an exciting place to be, but pressure on getting it right.

Rhyd: And how are you seeing the news that there is obviously a sort of a global recession probably coming? Is that something that you’re starting to plan for you, you have been planning for?

Emma: Yeah, as far as you can. Absolutely. So we’ve, we had a good meeting about it last week with our scenario planning and a good old argument about what we think the scenarios might be. And, as is everyone else you’re slightly guessing. You can paint a bad picture. You can paint an okay one. You can benefit from bad and you can suffer from okay. So it is about, I think going back a little bit, going back to the knitting of us listening to our clients and being there, we should anticipate what our clients need changing. I think we’re gonna see less on the innovation edge. I think we’re probably gonna see some of the sharper end sort of tech innovations talked about less for a while. Maybe a bit less on quantum computing, a bit less on AI, maybe even a bit less on crypto, a bit more on channel shift, a bit more on cost optimization, a bit more on legacy migration. But that’s cyclical as well. So I think our focus needs to be on listening to our clients and what they need from us. Not telling them what we think they should take from us.

Rhyd: Well that’s a great way to end up. If anyone wants to get in touch with you, what’s the easiest way?

Emma: So our website transformuk.com has got contact details for the team and you can find me on LinkedIn as well - Emma Robinson - and I’m quite approachable.

Rhyd: Well, thanks for design today. That was Emma Robinson. She’s the CEO at transform and a real inspiration. I’ve known her for a very long time and always keeping a track on what she’s up to. Thanks very much, Emma.

Emma: Brilliant. Thank you.

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