Heath Gascoigne  04:39

Okay, so we’ll kick it off. You know how it works? Right? We usually, I. Uh oh, then the background of who you are. Might as well cover it. Now that you’ve got, you’ve been in transformation. And as I just alluded to, the beginning, you started in in government, in the Senate, in I think it was, it like 2013 or something in Arizona. So you have really long experience of exposure to the government. And if we talk about the subject government transformation, that’s what we’re going to discuss. And then you move, you did some time in consulting Big Four, ey, and then and transformation ever since, since 2013 so you’ve got a few years on the clock there.

Speaker 1  05:38

Yes, sir, yeah, it’s been a it’s been a ride, the way you you put it that way, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long. And yeah, it’s been in various capacities. I wouldn’t say it’s all it’s been all government, but definitely having that, I would say that that expertise, that background in government, public sector, for sure, but have worked in various sectors. And yeah, it’s interesting to the types of levels of transformation in and among businesses and government and organizations these days. You know, particularly with AI has,

Heath Gascoigne  06:09

oh, yeah, we’ll get into that. It is the old it’s so funny that even the people that harp on about it so much about technology, Gartner being one of them, and they themselves have their own Gartner Hype curve. You know, it’s like, Well, if that the guys that published so much research around technology, and they themselves have a graph, some visualization to represent what happens of general trends. You know, you just have the, you know, the normal distribution, the early adopters, the laggards, you know, through the 95% saturation rate is like. So technology goes through the same kind of thing. The, I can’t remember the terms, but there was I wore. The was it the trough of despair where reality kicks in, and the hype dies down. And oh, AI is oh, well, one time we were talking data lake, and then it was, now it’s taking its data house, pool house. So at the moment, the new kid on the block is AI, Gen, AI, and then it’s going to be agentic AI. Well, that’s probably more so here, now and then the next is something else, again, yeah, and again, again, yeah. So it’s cycle, right? Okay, so we’ll get into that. So, so we usually cover 3.1 of them, the first is, and from your perspective, if we your niche, your where you cover the most will most comfortable, most liked from your perspective, what is the industry doing right or wrong right now? What are they learning? Any major like, I see it a lot. And even with the last guest, Larry Mendel was talking about mandelberg was talking about from his perspective, he sees that, you know, I will talk about, and the research will say the failure rate and transformation programs is at least 70, sometimes higher and and he’ll say, actually, 85% of most transformations fail on their core objective. All that’s been very specific, and said, yeah, the core objective, why they started in the first place, 85% of them don’t hit it. They achieve benefits and other things. But the number one reason they got the winner to do this, transformation never got achieved. So from your perspective, what are they doing? Right, the wrong, lessons learned, repeated mistakes. Second one is when you go into your clients, now, done it 2030, years then is there a particular approach you follow any So, if there is, Could you step us through it? What does it look like? And thirdly, Now, having done this for 20 odd years to couple of decades, if you could do it all again, what would you do differently, which is really the takeaways, like, ah, you know what I like to like, I would go into big projects, and my colleagues, as business architects and business transformation are banging around with the business Canvas model. And I’m going, you know, you’re doing a transformation, and that’s a useful tool, probably, where you don’t know your business model to start with, or there’s lack of consensus, or you’re a startup, has been fantastic, you know, get everyone on the same page, but yeah, the right tool for the right job. And so is there any aha moments? There you go. Oh yeah. Look, definitely use that as a go to, and I would probably avoid that. It’s, you know, it’s a red herring. Market teacher looks good, doesn’t do anything.

Speaker 1  09:34

Yeah, happy to speak to all about it. And I think definitely have some big, interesting insights I can share just in various experiences. But going back to what you were talking about in terms of like that, the trough of despair, just just to quickly tie in, because I think the term you were maybe looking for was like innovation, the innovation curve. Yes, you’re kind of like you said. It’s a normal distribution. Where are we? Right? Now, and in that sort of like a agentic AI generative, AI innovation in the broader markets, impacting various industries. So it is, it is something that, in terms of transformation, right? Like folks who are in transformation, what does that look like? How do we measure where we are in the innovation curve? And how can we use that to our advantage when we’re performing transform, transformation activities for different clients or customers? Yes, it’s something to start thinking about and kind of get a get ahead of the game here, as things really pick up with this, with the curve of innovation. So just to touch

Heath Gascoigne  10:40

upon, I think we’ll come back to, that’s a great point. It’s great point there the I’m having a client right now, and it’s, you’ll probably get this yourself, you know, you get called in because they want external consultancy. They want someone who’s not them to give them advice, to tell them, you know, point out, probably might be political internally that they now can’t make a decision. Don’t want to make a decision. They can blame a third party. So they bring you in for third party, independent, external advice, and you give that advice to them, and they don’t want to

11:15

hear it, chuck it out the window.

Heath Gascoigne  11:19

You you called in help because you needed it. Now you’ve been showing something that you that will help, but you don’t want to accept it. Did you want help in the first place? Right? So you, if you’re quite happy to keep doing your repeated mistakes. I won’t drop any names right now, but we were, I’m helping a client right now, and the target operating models, which some people just think that’s about headcount. No, it’s more than headcount is one part of it, structure, governance, reporting. That’s how you’re going to take in a data or information or customers and finance and then through your sausage factory, produce an output, sell it for value and get repeated business so they don’t have a governance body to sign off on the target operating models. So the what we’re actually signing off on is, do we get funding for the project? It’s like, no, we’ve really got funding for the project. The project funding has been given to us to do the project. If you want to prove anything about finances, what’s the ongoing cost of this operating model that you’re going to improve after the project is finished. And I tell you what to have no governance about that these the staff have worked out how they can manipulate these meetings to get whatever they want and so and so I call it out, and I say, hey, look, you got to put this governance body in place, because you’ve got people here that are getting away with literally murder, not literally, but they are asking for things that are not practical and able to be implemented. But we are supposedly signing them off. There’s going to be a crane train crash either while I’m here or after I leave, and either and you’re going to have to deal with it later, or you deal for it now. They don’t want to hear it, yeah, well,

Speaker 1  13:06

and what I’m, what I’m hearing from, from that example, is the importance of, you know, kind of selling your pitch. And I think a transformation initiatives in particular, in particular, in my experience in government, it’s, it’s a little more walking, a little more by by by the by the book, so to speak. Yeah, yeah. I think maybe in private sector ways that you go about business transformation activities when you’re consulting with different clients, whether it be small business and medium or larger enterprise, fortune, 500 oftentimes it’s, it’s, you can have a little more leeway in terms of how you go about some of those activities, and so it doesn’t necessarily take as much of that sell side. Almost you’re doing it kind of like if you’re thinking deal flow, transaction strategy, it’s a similar concept, but you’re doing it from a transformation side, and trying to pitch that to the client. Because, to your point, the resistance to change, the hesitancy to change, that’s that’s a huge barrier to entry for a lot of folk who are trying to get into these sort of spaces of transformation for clients. So that’s just to say, I think you know what I’m hearing from you, and I’ve experienced this as well, and happy to chat about some of those experiences in a second to your points across some big questions, but that, that way, you sort of equate to the customer like this. Need needs this. Need for transformation needs to be holistic. It doesn’t need to be looked at from one point of view. Need to be needs to be looked at from a holistic Target Operating Model. And it needs to be looked at passport, past, present and future. What is, what is, how do we tie this on to all together? And that goes back to what I was mentioning about the innovation curve. And you know, some of these new technologies that companies need to reconcile with, even with the smaller smaller even with smaller natures, type companies and Medium Enterprises.

Heath Gascoigne  14:57

Do you think? Do you think then, with the end of. Innovation curve. So to cut you off, there, do you think the innovation curve is there? The technology innovation curve is advanced, and the transformation innovation curve is a bit behind. And so they like for so the client I’m helping right now, they know they need to change. However, they’re reluctant to change. And then the new technology comes in. We go, oh, we better. We better adopt this new technology. We go, but their processes to adopt change is so far behind. I think what they’re going to do is rush it. They’re trying to rush things through the transformation process so now they can play catch up. And in doing that rushing, they’re gonna there’s when I say mistakes, like the mistakes I’m seeing now is the governance is gone and and they are now letting people play gunshot when they argue. We want

Speaker 1  15:50

running around. You’re like a chickens with their heads cut off.

Heath Gascoigne  15:53

Basically, yeah. What to do? Yeah, confusing busyness with being productive. Oh, that’s, that’s a

Speaker 1  16:00

like that read that doubt, no, that’s, that’s, that’s a fantastic point. And I think, yeah, the governance, the governance aspect, is huge, and I think something that’s overlooked a lot of times in transformation type activities. So I guess to to kind of go into, you know, some of your questions, and kind of tie, tie this governance point into some of those examples that I’ve seen in the past. So, you know, talking about right, wrong, right? Like, I think that was one of your What have I seen that’s gone right? What’s the thing that’s that’s gone wrong? Particularly in my experiences in government consulting and government transformation type projects and public sector type projects, whether it be with nonprofits, think tanks, where you’re producing research, or whether, again, in a consultative fashion with the various companies I’ve worked for an independent level. The biggest thing that I think, that has been a hindrance to success has been adoption, as you mentioned, adoption of new processes, new methods, new standard operating procedures, procedures, new guidelines, new playbooks, whatever you want to call it, yeah, getting it’s getting in, buy in from the broader customer base, the the broader population, if you will, that yeah is maybe is going to be impacted by whatever sorts of transformation activities you’re trying to pitch to have changed or done. And I think that’s ubiquitous, you know, I’m curious to hear your points and your your experiences with that. If you Yeah, I think you kind of mentioned it with the governance. But, you know, it can be other aspects.

Heath Gascoigne  17:36

I fully agree there, and you summed it up in one word, and it’s perfect, there’s adoption, is that the I’ve already noticed you, because you’re going to drop some goal, I know we because we had this conversation. You know, the conversations like this through LinkedIn and other might even be an email over the years. So, yeah, definitely, adoption has been a struggle, even though, and it’s really good to see, like we’ve had some change managers on change managers on here recently, and I’ve seen over the last probably 10 years now, that change manager has been almost a staple part of a core team. When the project gets set up, a change manager, or business change person is assigned to it, if you lucky, you get assigned a full person, as opposed to half person, dips in every now and then, doesn’t really understand the context and the impacts. But if you’re lucky, you got a full one, so that I see the good change there of business change. People are getting involved and involved early in the project, as opposed to after design, and now we go into implementation. So someone’s running around, oh, we’ve got to do some comms, or we could do what’s the needs analysis and training gaps and all good drugs you should have guys like architects should have been brought into the beginning, so he then, so the adoption part is, I see, even though the Change Manager person is early and coming in early in the projects, I think culturally, with the organization that that whole culture needs to understand of we live in an environment where the world changes relatively quickly, and maybe it’s a part of the onboarding induction when people start saying, this is where we’re going today, and just be prepared, though we might not be going that way in a year’s time, or maybe two, or maybe a month. So don’t get fixated, because I see a lot of people that, oh, it’s always, this is how we’ve done things around here, and that’s how, the way they want to always do things around here, as I well, you know what, how that’s going to end?

Speaker 1  19:29

Right? No, you’re absolutely right. And I can, I can’t really speak to specifics, obviously, about some of the projects have worked on, but I can give more, just like a general example of kind of what I’ve seen in the past is, you know, we spend in consulting. You’ve seen this year, you spend maybe two years on a project, on a transformation type project, whether, say, it’s an enterprise transformation type project that is migrating data, or you’re you’re integrating two different systems and unifying their data, and you’re trying to get people to act upon. Data, basically act upon information. I think that’s a way to kind of frame it as a leader and head, yes, you know you it’s a decision point for your end user, your customer base. So how do you make that decision point the most palatable to them? And I think if you can look at it as a an act of like, okay, they, my end user is going to want to see this benefit them, what, in some ways, and put yourself in their shoes, empathy, empathy, empathy. Yeah, absolutely. Which managers sometimes, let’s be honest, we sometimes, we’re, you know, you get into the day to days, the day to day throws of things. They’ve always got personal lives, that empathy sometimes so go by the wayside. And I think that that let that that really lets down a lot of projects. And if you’re a project manager, if you’re a program manager, if you’re a partner, it doesn’t matter what level of view, I think that you gotta have that empathy and in your day to day, and it can be hard to show up and have that empathy, yep, but definitely, you know, transformation type projects, like getting people on board is, that’s, that’s, that’s the biggest thing, whether, whether it’s right or wrong, is, is indifferent, like, that’s that what that is, what needs to happen and it should, it should start and again, I’m curious to hear your experience on this in my, in my opinion, it works best when it starts at the middle so you got those middle level managers that are really working change management activities, managing up and then also managing, you know, obviously managing, managing down, Managing juniors or whatnot, but managing it across and having some of those opportunities to really drive some of those change activities themselves. It can’t be just coming to change I should say, when I say it, I’m talking about effective change management and business transformation activities that want to be fully executed upon and seem to be successful, quote, unquote, over a course of time. They should not be pushed from just from the top. You gotta have holistic buying and holistic communications and transformation. And I think you kind of talked about that with that Target Operating Model, where you said your clients was a little bit of a test, and maybe to, you know, to kind of look at that whole picture. But, yeah, yeah, holistic middle, yeah, the middle management is super important.

Heath Gascoigne  22:28

Okay, so I just want to play the back to, I agree the the middle, the middle management play a role, like I talk about the three LS, right? The layers, language and levels. In every organization’s got the layers, the strategic ops and implementation, and they all speak a different language, C suite. Speak about Big Picture market share, top line revenue operations. They talk about the things that are of interest to them. If it’s HR, they’re talking about days to recruit and the number of days it takes to get an offer letter out after they’ve had all the interviews and shortlists and so and days off and all that stuff that’s, you know, very operational. And then down the level of detail, down in implementation of projects and even technology, you know, the level of detail is super detailed. And so their language is completely different. So when I talk about transformation, is that you’ve got to as an architect, and I, I steer away from calling ourselves business myself and my peers business architects, because the business architect, unfortunately, have got a bad name of turning up one day for one meeting with the whole team, or as many people they can get, and they document whatever is said, and then they disappear for 456, months, and they turn up on one day and they go, there’s your Target Operating Model, and the business is going, did you get that from that one meeting that we had? And they’re looking at the amount of work it’s taken and how long it’s taken. They go, Well, they’re looking at each other. The meeting finishes, and they walk out and they say, You know what? I don’t understand anything they said. And then go, oh, look, you know they were here for another couple months. Just, let’s just agree. And when then the bugger off. We’ll just go back to how it was before. And that’s how the projects are mostly run. It’s like the consultants come in speaking on the language. They bamboozled the business with the jargon, and they don’t understand. They don’t the business doesn’t look silly. So they say, yeah, yeah. And they walk out. They go, don’t know, wait for them to leave, and we’ll go. How it was before. So the language part is not understanding that the language they speak. I did a big, one, big project that one of the big ones on the government and the project, the consultants on the project, the consultants on the project came up for new language for the business. And the business is going, Wait, you’ve called IT service delivery, but we call it case management. So and then something else is called case management. And so going, What are you talking we don’t even know. I’ve been listening. So that was like.

Speaker 1  25:00

Yeah, and there you go, that’s, that’s something that’s wrong, right there to speak about what’s wrong, right? You know, it’s all, you know, those two dichotomies of your question, right? Talking about what’s good, you just listed off two things right there that are, perhaps, in my opinion, probably arguably, in others as well, the two most common killers of successful transformation. Type projects, especially for coming as a consultant, is one over complicating things, like you said the folk, or assuming the consultants just came in and created an entire new language. Like, Was that necessary to really achieve the end state of what you’re looking for? Yeah. And then two, you know that the high end buy is what I like to call it, where you come in, like you said, you may have initial meetings with them, get all the data you need. Come up with, you know, 3060, 90 days, sort of transformation type plan, yeah, pitch it to them, Bill your hours to them, and then go and bug your office. You guys like to say, Down Under and and then you show up later and check in and see how things are. And you realize, to your point, while they’ve gone to, you know, hell in a hand basket, because you just threw them a book and said, okay, here it’s like, it’s like trying to learn a new language without Duolingo or something. And, yeah, no, no internet, no, nothing,

Heath Gascoigne  26:31

yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1  26:33

I think it’s, it can be. It can be, you know, I think it depends, because sometimes small companies, they do like that. They just want the information so you can act a little quick, little more agile, yeah, but the bigger company, in particular, government too. Like, I’m sure you see this, there’s process with everything. And so if there’s no process, there’s no there’s no gain, there’s no movement. You know, leaderships, leadership tends to get frustrated easily. So, you know, those are two things right off the back that I’ve seen

Heath Gascoigne  27:01

in here, the over complicated and the high and the buy. I like that. I want to quote

Speaker 1  27:09

you on that one, the higher buy, again, again. I don’t think it’s bad all the time, because they’re successful consulting firms that do that, the McKinsey model for a long time. And everyone knows this. I can say it because it’s public knowledge. Like, that’s what they do, is they go in there. They and they may be a little bit different. Now, I know a lot of the top top consulting firms, they have venture studios now they have got every, every, every aspect of a business you can think of are in a lot of these top consulting firms now, in terms of, like, internal transformation type stuff to to clients. But you know, traditionally, those consulting firms were like, Buy and buy. You go in, you get the data, you produce a deck, and yeah, see, you give it to them, Bill, and so it has its place. I do think it’s beneficial, but it’s definitely, I think, in the new age of how we’re seeing generative AI and agentic AI replace a lot of those skills for companies, that new model for transformation. If you are, say, a transformation type consultant, and you want to make your career in this, or you’re already in in the career in this, like yourself, it’s like, how do you how do we and myself? It’s like, how do we adapt as professionals with this new stuff and kind of integrate it into our day to day work, yeah, I don’t know if that resonates.

Heath Gascoigne  28:23

Yeah. I see, I see, with the the big four and that genre, but the business model, that model, is changing. I think force change. I think it’s a good change. I think prior to that, would have been part of which I call market texture. You know, that interesting the business architects get accused of, you know, producing the reams and reams of decks of beautiful presentations. And then I call that market teacher. It’s interesting, but not very useful, as I you know that that there is a guy that we partnered together on something and and he said to me, he he told me that term architecture, and I said, That’s a great tune. Did you just make that up? And he goes, No, no. I said, That man, that’s amazing. That’s like, he goes, Look it up. And it’s a whole page dedicated on Wikipedia, and it is basically, yeah, it’s, it’s documentation, design and the real for in the technology space, just for the purposes of marketing, and mostly marketing to decision makers of all and then the, you know, the, I think the real use comes out for the, you know, the unfiltered uses. Actually it’s marketing to the decision makers on all the work that they’re going to do but don’t need to do. But it’s very convincing and so, and this is what I see, when I’m going into and board presentations, and our stuff has been presented to me, you know, I’m going, you know, half that stuff’s not needed, right? But it looks impressive. I’ve got to give you that they’re like, it’s a thing of art.

Speaker 1  29:56

Anyone can start, they say anyone can start a business these days with AI. I right, but you’re right. It makes it it makes it super competitive because of that, because it is so easy to start a business, and so there’s a lot more competition for you know, folks who are you know. And you see with the with the entry level workers coming out of university right now. And I don’t know if you guys are seeing this in maybe your parts of the world, but you worked, I know you said you were in London, and, yeah, is based and whatnot, but over here in the States, a lot of recent graduates are having difficulty getting jobs because AI is replacing a lot of them and and, you know, I think for for us, it’s the same situation. It’s like, even though we’re well established in our careers, a lot of these kids, I shouldn’t call them kids, these young professionals, they’re going to, they’re going to say, Okay, well, why would I go work for X, Y and Z, super fortune 500 company when I can just go in, you know, go on The perplexity. Create a cool, cool cool code, you know, whatever kind of app. Yeah, and start my company and say it’s business transformation using agentic. Ai like, Oh, yeah. That puts us down, though, yeah, it works. So it’s just a quite interesting dynamic, because we’re going to have to learn how to use this all the when I say this, I’m talking AI more more broadly, more ubiquitously, but yeah, it does create that tension of like, well, it’s replacing jobs in all sectors, all types of people like ourselves. You know, we’re white collar workers, really,

31:36

Oh, for sure, but

Speaker 1  31:37

yeah, but it’s like, you know what is I mean, I may have to go, you know, learn how to weld or something

Heath Gascoigne  31:43

as a backup plan, you know, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah. I think there is, I think what the consulting market is that the there’s always going to be an element of relationships that are needed or required with clients. And I think probably the bigger you go, there’s, you know, the higher the need for the relationship element of it, but for the more as the strategy there’s until you can fully automate the implementation of the strategy, I think there’s a there’s always going to be a role there, but the consulting role is not just going to be the advice anymore. I think there’s some form of tool, or in some capability enablement that you’re going to offer that unless the government themselves are going to be fully automated with no people, then, yeah, I think as much as vendors would like that to happen, I don’t see that happening Even like I my interest, I think peaked. I was, I was always interested in some agentic AI tools before covid, and what happened during covid Is that they got, like, pushed to the forefront. And market values, I won’t name a couple of names, but the valuations us listed through the roof, right, literally through the roof. But now the hype that got in, the hype curve, has died down, and everyone looked at and go, You know what? Yeah, was that really the value that we thought? Was it really there from the beginning, or we were just caught up in the hype? And it’s like at the moment, where everyone is caught up in the hype, and it’s like, so give me example with the client we’ve got I’m working with right now. They’ve got copilot installed, and as Microsoft has got installed everywhere. And so you can ask a question, and it will search everything, SharePoint to your emails, but when you come it comes back for answers. It’ll source the actual documents you’re working in so well, no, they exclude the ones I’m working because that is where I’m capturing the analysis, not where you’re saying that’s the source. Because I’m making it up. I’m literally making it up from what I’m finding. And so it’s like, you know what? And then it produces an output, and I share with my colleagues, and I go, this is how you know from the quality, even though you know you prompt, it really well, the quality of that output, you’ll know that the humans will never be replaced, because it’s like, you look at that and you go, that’s missing so much context. It’s like, I don’t know what you could do or say to make that super smart, unless you make a super duper system prompt or just a prompt. Go the long the time it took me to write that prompt, I could have read the answer, right,

Speaker 1  34:24

right? It is a catch 22 you’re right, and that’s that’s a very valid point, I think, one that definitely has merit in terms of, you know, it’s like that relationships that you mentioned, the relationships are the human relationships. That interaction is always going to be at the center of client type projects, you know, interaction type projects in our in our field, but also in in in every type of field. I mean, say you’re, you know in conservation, you’re working for the US Forest Service. And in 10 years, you know you’re working or not 10 years. Let’s, let’s say your agency, and this is happening more broadly, actually, in terms of government transformation, which I realize we haven’t talked a lot about. Even though government transformation, you’re seeing this, you’re seeing this a lot, which is a good example, actually, I’ll kind of pivot into this. You’re seeing this a lot, actually, more broadly US government with smaller type agencies that are implementing different sorts of emerging and new technologies to really help drive efficiency and productivity with with labor and but also cost and resources. And, you know, I said the US Forest Service just off the cuff of my head, but I don’t know specifically if they are have sort of enterprise transformation stuff, so just just saying that as a moniker, but, you know, I’m sure them and other agencies, and I know this for a fact that I’ve seen it can’t speak to some of them, but agencies are utilizing new technologies to, Again, improve productivity, and some of those are agentic in nature, agentic AI. And so it does, again, limit the extent, I think, of people like ourselves who are coming in and trying to work in that those types of government transformation. But on the other hand, there is going to always be that need for the human side, the human element, because, again, it’s that adoption in the innovation curve. Once you get to a certain point in the innovation curve, if you don’t have that adoption level, it’s almost like, what’s the point of doing this? Yeah, I mean, like you to your point. It’s, it’s you’re, you’re producing things like chat, GPT and all these different, you know, like deep seek is super popular. I haven’t used it myself, but ever. It’s very good. Yeah, rock. You know, all these different technologies, garage, great, though, I have to say, but, but it’s to the end state of what the goal is. Is it always going to be the right answer? Probably not, probably not even when we have generated, or excuse me, artificial general intelligence, not generative AI, but the, you know, the stuff you see in Terminator, those kind of things, hopefully they’re not evil. But we have, we have that level of intelligence. It’s, you know, it is going to take, I think, that human element still, and, you know, the government transformation. Here it is, I think, picking up pace, which is great to see. There’s tons of VC investment right now. There’s tons of private equity investment right now into portfolio companies who contract with the US government. But also this is happening globally, not just with the US government. Yeah, UT, with your European countries right now, after the situation with, well, the last couple years with Russia, what’s, what’s happening in there? So defense spending is really picking up there, but then also down on demand, like Australia there, I think they just purchased, you know, they just, they just got a contract with the US government for more submarine technologies for the world Navy down there. And I know New Zealand’s part, and Australian part of the five eyes. So there’s, there’s lots of engagement and government transformation, and I think that’s really needed right now to kind of keep pace with some of the adversarial threats that we see in different let’s say geopolitical actors, you know, China, if you want to name it like let’s be, let’s be honest, in terms of some of those provocative activities that we’ve seen, not only in the physical space, but in the in the non physical space. So cyberspace, yeah, the non kinetic and so, you know, the government transformation, I think because of these types of, these threat types that are a little more asymmetrical than what the US government, and I’m just speaking to us government specifically, but again, this is happening globally, to what the US government has seen in the past, which is those symmetric types of wars and those symmetric types of environments, not just wars, because government transformation, as I mentioned, is is happening with all different types of agencies, not just like DOD, but you know, my, my background is in national security, so I can speak a little bit more to that, but you know that that innovation curve, with that pace of adoption, is really important for government transformation, though, even though it has happened because there’s still that This, in my experience, we still see a lot of reticency to change. And I think government is, I think government is a bit, probably, probably worse than other sectors, and that just for various reasons. Yeah, not the name one, but it makes it, it makes it definitely more challenging, I think, to really effectively work these government transformation type projects, but they are happening.

Heath Gascoigne  39:45

And, yeah, yeah. So, so I want to talk a couple things to get deep seek and, and, and other llms, the but to your point this, the if, if the environment and market and competitors. Vendors and threats are increasing, and if governance government is part of either provide some regulation or legislation to protect consumers and others, then they also, too would need to keep up. And so back to our earlier point about the in the transformation innovation curve. It’s like, well, we’re, if we’re talking government here, like they are at the beginning, how? Well, they’re not, they’re not picking up. They’re like, you know, yeah, yeah, moments, and think there’s you alluding to is the smaller agencies, which I’ve seen, although it might be actually opposite, I’ve done smaller so we’ve got in the UK, it’s like national government and then local government effectively. And so you got those major cities, so everything in the London and then or greater London, and then other smaller cities. And so I’ve done a project recently in Manchester, and that’s local government, the way they need to go for funding and budget approvals and there versus down here central goes completely different. But yeah, so I think that governments themselves, yes, definitely. I think if we go that protocol best, what’s working, not working the I generally would think, the smaller the agency with, the more nimble, and then you should be able to react quicker, adopt quicker, try new things. What didn’t work? Okay, let’s kill that. Let’s carry on with that, although Don’t be crazy like I did a client work with an insurance company, and there, the whole strategy was fail fast. And I go, What do you mean by that? And and they said, We gotta try and see. What do you understand? And they had, like, 100, a couple 100 million, even would have been a billion dollars worth of projects and failed projects, and they learned nothing from it. They just want to fail fast. And I go, you guys say their words, fail fast. So fast off your tongue. You don’t even think about why you’re doing the project in the first place. You just want to try everything. I’ll tell you, the people who’s benefiting from that is the people who’s telling you to do that. You’re the only they’re the only ones that have been here as of the project that I had no vision but 120 OKRs, yeah, I’ll tell you

Speaker 1  42:20

the ones who aren’t benefiting is their investors, whoever is losing money on that, if it’s the company themselves, I’ll tell you what, yeah, it’s a lot of money, man. And, yeah, yeah, that’s an interesting point. Phil, it’s the effort government agencies too. That’s very bizarre. I’ve never so they’re so cautious about doing anything.

Heath Gascoigne  42:39

Yeah, the okay. So another point there about where that model was going to the consulting model. When you talk about deep seek there, the I think the add value that consultants will have is they will shortcut it’s going like, I think the comparison is deep seek versus chat GPT and deep seek came out of almost, you know, last cab off the rank, but they came out with an open source version that can be hosted locally, as i How can you do that? How can you have such a powerful as powerful as chat GPT, and arguably, then it was like equal if you could have it that powerful, but you didn’t have the processing needs of what chat GPT did because they built it smarter, right? Only to use the little amount of resources that it needed. Is that the same with I see other consultants say, I’ve got a list here of 5000 prompts for you. Yeah? Jesus, man, cut that down, you know, give me five or six, not 1000 like, you know, yes, the value that the consultants will bring is, like, you can get chat GPT or deep seek to search as many data bases and knowledge bases that you like. But let’s be smart about this, yeah, and that’s where, yep,

Speaker 1  44:01

and I think just, you know, to talk about what has worked well for me and what is, what is kind of fallen by the wayside. That’s, that’s a good way just to tag on what you’re saying. I think it’s, it’s, it goes back to what we were talking about, about over complicating things like, you know, work smarter, not harder. Yeah, my old, my old American football coach drilled that into me when I was 12 years old, when we were in 100 degree heat. You know, I’ll never forget it, or doing, doing two days back in the day, and I’ll never forget it. And it applies. It’s a lesson that applies to everything. And I think in business, sometimes we do tend to over complicate things for for various reasons. Again, I think it’s human nature. Sometimes you could be the person wanting to impress your boss, so you write a 60 page standard operating procedure. One could be 10, yep, um, think things like that. So definitely that human interaction will stay. But that has that 100% agree with you. What has been successful for me is just. Trying to simplify as much as you can and make things super easy for people to understand, and also constant communication, I think, in change management, that is, you can never over communicate when you’re doing change management activities, in particular with agencies that are bigger, but also with agencies that are siloed, which are oftentimes bigger companies, but can also, can also be smaller companies, but in bigger companies, those silos will really and personality types, but those, those silos tend to be road blockers. Yeah, you see,

Heath Gascoigne  45:35

yeah. I agree differently.

Speaker 1  45:39

I think those are huge things to consider. What goes right and wrong and so,

Heath Gascoigne  45:44

yep, yep. Okay, so have we covered then, the the the initial, what’s the industry doing right, doing wrong? Okay, so we got a they’re doing right as they well should be doing, right? Is, Don’t over complicate it. Do last few points, there was about working smarter and harder. Simplify the complexity constant communication. Then don’t invent Don’t over complicate it. And the high and by, I quite like that there. This is, that’s the old model, right? Is that the high and by? But it could be suitable. It could be suitable for that client. And that would be, as my point, I said, about the three hours, the understanding who you’re talking to, what level, what language they are, what level of detail they want. Okay, all right, also

Speaker 1  46:32

one, one thing to add. And I do, like a three hours, I love to follow up with you on that. But I would say, also empowerment, kind of what we were talking about with those middle, middle managers, if you’re empowering people to hold themselves accountable to change, that’s usually projects will be successful with that if people really, and that helps them buy in too, because they’re like, Hey, I got more leadership responsibilities at work today, honey. Woo hoo. But really, what they’re doing is help drive change, yeah? But they just, they just don’t think of it like that, yeah. So having big, yeah, I shouldn’t say ubiquitously, all people, but a lot of people wouldn’t think

Heath Gascoigne  47:08

of it that way, having some skin in the game, yep. So they get to enjoy the fruits of the success, but also they’d feel the disappointment, if that’s the word, of not achieving the intended outcomes. Alright? Now the second part, part two. See, now you’re 20 odd years, two over two decades experience doing transformation. Is there a particular method you follow approach those first steps you did say the 3090, 6090, days, when you do a transformation, you’re going, Okay, this is the steps of process that we follow. Well, go for me, you know, I wrote it in a book after being so disappointed about what I saw many years going in, the same old problems, going, Jesus guys. You know, there’s a process to this, and I don’t know why, but you seem to be starting at the end of the process, or I’ll be called in and the the sponsor, saying, Heath, I agree with your method, but I want you to start at number five, like six steps start at number five. You want me to start a design? Said, yeah. I said, Wait, you want we’re not agreed that the vision at the beginning, we’re not necessarily the current state or the governance. And you know, then step two, governance and current state. What’s wrong? What’s the structure, what’s the pain points? Trying to we haven’t discussed any of that. And he want me to go straight to design. He goes Heath. These are these 53 locations. They do this business, 53 different ways. It will take you forever to understand the current state. And I said, Look, you’re, you know, all we need to do is understand, you know, we go around to a couple of people. They’re your core leaders. And we say, Look, you know, give me some, give me the best practice. And from that, that would be our baseline. And as simple as that, for some it’s going to be aspirational. Some it’s going to be Bau and say, that’s our baseline, and that’s our starting point at the moment. And I called in, they already had a vendor, or already to start on the project, but they had a vendor in there who they already pre selected to do the design, the systems design, and they are having requirements workshops, and the business are arguing in front of the vendor about all the problems they’ve got, and they can’t agree on one of them. They go, it doesn’t work this way, where we are. It doesn’t work that way, where we are. There’s no we don’t do it this way. And they get nowhere. And I said, the reason why this and was they already did this project for a year and a half. They killed it, and a half. They killed it and they started again. And so the sponsor says to me, Heath, I just want you to do it’s number five. And I said, If you give me 20 minutes, I’m going to go get that presentation from the last guys, because that’s exactly the same one. If you do exactly, I do it the exact same way, it’s going to get exactly the same result. Because no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I said, Well, you want me to do exactly as the last guys did? What do you think is going to change? Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1  49:46

so, yeah, no, agreed. It’s, it’s, man, I don’t know who that client is. This sounds, sounds fun. No naming names, but yeah, yeah. I think the process thing is interesting, you know, because. Haven’t worked for big consulting firms. Everyone pushes, and I’m sure you saw this too, and the hope, it’s had the hope and method, you know, I bred into it, and it’s awesome, and I’ve incorporated aspects of it into my work as well. But I think the traditional methods, you know, get pushed on your way to be like, pushy.

Speaker 2  50:17

I’m not sure if I’m saying, yeah, the change management, good hip change

Speaker 1  50:21

humanity. You have the Pro far, I think, is the other one, like, there’s, there’s various frameworks, methodologies you can use for change management that are all credited, and they’re all great, no, I’m not going to say that. Yep, better than another. I think they all work for various methods and various circumstances. And so that’s why, in terms of process for myself, I like to incorporate aspects of various let’s say, let’s call them frameworks or methods dependence on the client that I’m working with. I don’t like to pigeonhole clients into a certain solution type. There’s consulting firms that do this. Doesn’t make it right or wrong. I don’t think it usually is to the benefit of the client. That’s just my own personal opinion, because it it is what it sounds like. You’re pigeon holing them into a product design that may not be beneficial for them in the longer term, and may be good for 3060, 90 days turnaround of a, of a of a situation, you know, from a like, let’s say you’re presenting a kind of a change plan for a 90 day timeline. You can produce something like that. But with with this, with this, you know, sort of pigeon, pigeon hold, let’s say framework that you’d be, you’d be pitching to them or selling to them from from a process perspective. But is that to the, you know, is that to their best benefit at the end of the day? So I try to look at it. And, you know, some consultants, they’re just there for the money. They’re just billing clients and no judgment. Look, I understand. I’ve been there. Yeah, quite honest, and it’s just, it’s part of the game. It really is. But I think when you take a little more skin in the game, as you as kind of talked about, and you’re, you’re finding that empathy with the clients, with their day to day challenges, and you really wanting to set them up for success. And a lot of it does go back to that relationship building. If you enjoy working with your client, then you’re going to want to help them out. You’re going to want to do good by them. Yeah, and I worked with great clients, and I’m like, Man, I would, I would die on a hill for you, and you like to help you as much as I can with the resources that I have and to the extent I can. And then I’ve worked with clients where it’s like, Okay, I just got to get this project done, and I’ll never talk to you again. You know, I think, I think it’s, it’s, it’s two sides of the coin, but I think I don’t typically like pigeonholing, yeah,

Heath Gascoigne  52:54

yeah. I think when you said for getting the two parts here, you said frameworks. And I people don’t quite have probably not worked it out. And I actually put it in the book, and I said that Hobart is a framework of frameworks. It’s covers the process. There’s, you know, the steps one to six. It’s conceptual, where it talks about the 5w, 1h, and in the context, framework is that now the building books and blueprints has it. So it’s not a there’s like you’re saying is, and I get called in as you, as you I do, and other consultants as I will say, you know, they’ll ask me so Heath, I’m going to do this. I said, well, they got all the tools and techniques, or someone’s found I’ve written a book, and they go, are you going to come in here? Use your book? I said, yeah, yes. He said, Well, I do is I’ll get this book, I’m going to bang you over the heat with it until you blue in the face. And they go, Oh, really. And like, like, excitingly. And I go, No, I said, If anyone does that, you got to run for the hills. You know, you know that what that means is they haven’t understood the context. They’re going to to your point about different frameworks is, apply it two ways, appropriately and proportionately for the context. And it might be that that book is not even appropriate or for this project, so we wouldn’t use it, as you were saying, is like, you know, and that’s that, what I think is that is the real skill of the business transformation professional is that they can come in and go like the two salesmen. I use this one with my good friend went to paint an example. You know, there’s two salesmen from America, go to Africa as an example. They could go to anywhere, Finland, and they get off the plane. And the first salesman gets off the plane, and he looks at everyone running around, they’ve got no shoes on. He goes, Oh, great, massive opportunity. Goes back to America, starts making the shoes. And then the second one goes over, gets off the plane, and there’s no, no business here. And they go, why not? He says, Well, no one wears any shoes. And so he’s like, you know, you said they saw the same situation, but they interpreted it differently.

Speaker 1  54:54

You’re gonna create, you’re gonna create the market. Yeah, it’s, yeah, that’s. Good. I like that. I’m gonna have to remember that maybe might use different, might not use shoes, might use something else. I’ll have to change it up.

Heath Gascoigne  55:08

Yeah, you’re welcome to it. Yeah, please. Yeah. I borrowed it from put it

55:13

in a deck somewhere. Yeah, yeah.

Heath Gascoigne  55:15

But it is. That’s the skill of the of the transformation professional, is to understand the context. Pull out from the tool set, you know, the range that they’ve got, and they go, Yeah, okay, we’re going to use this one to the full degree, or this one, no, this one’s not appropriate, okay. As opposed to, here we go, like, I the thing that annoys me when I go into, like, you mentioned some names there, like the ones that get banged around when I’m in there is either TOGAF, which, you know, I’m certified, and a few other ones. And there’s like, you know, the my colleagues are banging around about Tokyo from going, you know, toe gear. First of all, although that’s called a Enterprise Architecture Framework, enterprise is made up of two things, even by TOGAF definition, business architecture and technology architecture. But what you seem to be talking about is only technology, but you’re saying you’re dealing in enterprise architecture. So where’s the business part? Then no one’s talking about the business part. I said, Who do you think is going to use the technology that you’re implementing? Yeah, ghosts like the business that you seem to be not even talking about or to

Speaker 1  56:17

Yeah, yeah. And it goes back again, the adoption, and it comes down to leadership. It comes down to people wanting to change. And, you know, sometimes it’s just that is the killer of transformation projects. That is the killer of any and my experience, and probably your experience, of any transformation type projects, but it, I think, just, a One quick last point. I made a note about what you were saying about that, that method. What did you call it?

Heath Gascoigne  56:47

TOGAF, yeah, it stands for The Open Group Architecture

Speaker 2  56:52

Framework. TOGAF, okay, yeah, I’m gonna look into that. The Open Group

Heath Gascoigne  56:57

is a consortium, and it’s strange. It’s No, I said, Well, I actually wrote it in the book, is, is it they’re on their website themselves. They say they a systems and technology standards company. So just that on its own, is it systems and standards, not business or business transformation, but actual technology and so they, they quoted many, many places. You know, there’s a, it’s like the leading enterprise architecture framework, but only focuses on they have a token process, and there’s a token place there for business architecture in the beginning. And I’ll tell you how much attention they pay to it. It’s like this, like, I know it’s there, it needs to be there, but we’re just, let’s just go play with the new shiny objects. What’s the new mind. Basically, exactly, yeah, they gave a token mention, and that’s about it, as I So, when I get called in as a business architecture and someone is banging around that, and I go, okay, they don’t really understand business architecture, if that’s their source of truth. Because I Right. Well, you know, I don’t want to poo poo. It was like, Come on, guys, you know, what do you currently do today? How are you set up? How you structured? What’s the Who’s your customers? What’s that journey? Like touch points, none of that stuff like

Speaker 1  58:08

well, and the systems and standards, that’s so important too, and the governance aspects of things, I think in transformation projects, it’s so important to have those governance aspects ground down early on you can, you can’t wait till the last, end, the last portion of a project to do that. And I’ve definitely seen, you know, actually, myself in my early days, made this mistake. So it’s, it’s something you look back on, and you learn from you realize at the time to your point, governance is key and crucial. Yep, does go along with that adoption and helping that adoption along. But I think the governance, too, is kind of a wonky word. People tend to to hear it and think, Oh, well, what does that mean? Exactly like? Is it governance of a process? Is it governance of a system, like you said, a standard, and it’s all the above. So in terms of talking about those frameworks and not trying to pigeonhole people and people, companies and organizations and cities, different methods of how to actually effectuate change. I mean, the the the way you know you need to go about it with particular clients is going to really depend on the level of their complexity. You know, there may be, like we were talking the the approaching method or the toe gap method. That’s why I was asking them, that may be beneficial for, like, a certain aspect of the company, but maybe not the whole company. Yes, yeah. I think is, is a, is a useful way to look at these different frameworks, and not that they’re going to be used in their entirety, necessarily for a whole company, but yeah, maybe various levels of company.

Heath Gascoigne  59:50

Yeah, part of it, yeah, I like, I’ll bring you back a little bit to where you said about early in your career. And I think everyone, and I think when we talk about. Up. What does, you know, the is the market changing for consultants, and what is that changing to? And I think that we’re saying quickly, you know, it’s the value that it is, is maybe that personal part you talk empathy, leadership, understanding the context. And I think there’s what we’re probably not saying, but, you know, this is the theme, is education. You’re educating the client. And I think when you say the early part of your career, like, everyone is in the same boat, right? Starts about the same place. And so I’ve borrowed from the construction industry there they talk about, in their hence business architecture is, you know, they go through their journey from there was a novice to apprentice to a journeyman to a master builder. And I say the same thing. You know, as a consultant, you come, you know, at a university, you learn rote learning straight from the book. You want to apply it like, literally straight from the book, and don’t understand the context. And the juniors, they pull out the book and they want to do things exactly by the book, because they will, because they don’t know yet they they’re not learning that they can. Yeah, they’ve got a whole suite of tools that they can apply, but they’re applying them to the full degree, not understanding the context. So over time, they learn some more, and they learn, oh, they can apply this one little bit more and that one less, and and then they get to, then they’re moving up the the knowledge spectrum, and so. So I think what as a as consultants, we offer to clients, it’s it’s understanding that there’s a process you’re going to go through and be weary. If you are told to use the book, then it’s like you need to maybe assess or push back on, don’t always take the first advice or the one that’s yelling at the loudest. You know, consider other things. What do you think?

Speaker 1  1:01:50

Absolutely? Absolutely. And I think for any young professional or people who are interested in getting involved in business transformation and change management, that’s super important. It’s like, you have to consider context is key, yeah, and I don’t think that’s just for all you know what we do. I think that’s everything. Like, if you you can’t, you know, run into a bar wearing a chicken outfit, like context, right? Yeah. I mean, you can if you want. There’s context.

Heath Gascoigne  1:02:19

They were really good at that stag do. But, yeah, okay, so I think yeah, the So, I think the key part for the consultancies there, for them, their takeaway is the consultants, is their understanding that the people elements of the transformation, and a big part there is education, is educating your client. Now, so you, so you’re in summary for your approach here, you follow as a, as a, as a framework of frameworks, maybe my words, putting words in your mouth here, that you probably even do exactly that you’re applying appropriately and proportionally for the context. Not be, yep, not be weeded to one particular method.

Speaker 1  1:03:00

Agreed. Yeah, we’re just going to agree with you. Yeah. I Yeah, exactly. I think the the framework of frameworks will be kind of, as you put it, I like that. I’m gonna steal that as well,

Heath Gascoigne  1:03:07

because, yeah, knock yourself out.

Speaker 1  1:03:10

Yeah, that’s exactly how I try to, how I try to, how to try to go about these projects.

Heath Gascoigne  1:03:14

So Okay, now, good one now, okay, now, point number three, the Now, having done this transformations. And we haven’t talked about, you know, I, having now been in the UK and also Australia for about the same amount of time, 15 years, is used to get a lot of, see a lot of American visitors in in Australia and and you talk to them, our tourists, you know, they’d ask you a direction, and they’ll say, the first time in the country, and don’t travel outside the country and all. They just got their passport and, and, well, they say, of all, New Zealand, where is that? What is it? Is that, like, you know, can we go now? They’re like, walking distance and, and as I don’t know, is it? Is it? Why is it that maybe a lot of Americans then, and this a few years ago now, didn’t, hadn’t traveled that much, but the country is so big, it is huge here, 350 40 million people. This country here is big, but you talk about Australia, America, America. Yeah, America. Okay, yeah. Should, right, like, so you for, for for American to have a holiday. Having a holiday within their own country is quite, let’s say, I want to say acceptable, but it’s like, valid, as I the country’s so big, so vast, that different parts of the country, as you were saying before, Arizona, it’s desert, and other side, North East, you know, massive patrols. City, huge city in the middle Colorado, like the best skiing in the world. Like, man, the whole the country’s got everything, like Europe’s got in one whole country. But then Europe’s like, how many 50 odd countries it’s. Service country on Earth, man, here we go. Well, I might be there soon. So, yeah, we stay in touch. Awesome. Let me know. Okay, so now, having done this across the states, and at the heart of where everything hit, where you are now in Washington, and having started in government, if that’s what you call then you then, and built a good, solid, strong career in consulting and government transformations, 20 odd years, two decades in the business. If you could do it all again, what would you do differently?

Speaker 1  1:05:39

Man, I would say that’s a good question. I gotta think about that, dude. I think that in hindsight, I would say, just be more flexible to change and opportunity when it comes your way, and really get to really get involved with your really, like, get get in depth with your projects. And not to say that I didn’t, but I think in some aspects of my career so far, there are times when I look back where I wish I had maybe learned a little bit more about the client, but I was pressed in another area, right? Yeah, whether it would be, whether it be I’m stretched too thin, or, you know, personal life, things that got in the way, or whatever it is, where maybe if I had done that little bit extra thing, it could have, it could have potentially helped the client that bit, that bit much more, and that ultimately Yeah, and that ultimately reflects, you, know, in your career as well and helps you. So I think it’s just sometimes trying to be locked in and keep all the distractions outside is to the extent that you can Yeah. And again, I think I’ve been good about that for the most part. But I do think as a young professional, and I assume that this is kind of what I would be speaking to the audience, yeah, but also older, senior, you know, senior, more mid level or mid level to senior level, professional living is something to keep in mind. Is to, you know, if you can really empathize, to use that word again, with your client as much as you can. I think it’s going to not only drive their success, but it’s going to drive your success like and so when I create an example, when I just finished my MBA last year from Duke, right? And not to

Heath Gascoigne  1:07:37

try to kind of pick up with anyone,

Speaker 1  1:07:40

one thing, one thing they really push. And I loved it about the program, and I love it about the school and the professors, and like, my cohort was this thing called decent, decency quotient. So you know, you’ve heard of emotional intelligence right in the workplace, the eq iq, of course, is super important in employees, adaptability, the ability to learn and grow. And not just, you know, come in smart, but can you acquire new skills? Um, those are all super important, but decency quotient is really, how do you do right by others? That’s what it’s talking about. And I think, as a business professional, if you keep that in mind when you’re working with clients, or whether or in our in our field, you know, transformation, we say clients. But in any kind of field that you’re in, if you try to apply that, that aspect of giving, doing decent by others and being decent to others, you’re going to be successful. And I think you’re going to enjoy your working small Yep. Make it something to keep in mind.

Heath Gascoigne  1:08:40

Okay, so the four points I agree there, the I would have been guilty of that at various stages, with the learn more about the client, is that, yeah, you come in, you’ve been given an objective to achieve, and so you focus on that. And if there was some other, if you stood back and took in some more of the business and context, you might get a bigger, better picture. Add more value. I understand that the Okay, that’s isolation, focus. There’s a pro and con. And the I think we talk about empathy, and empathize is about Win. Win is that you the more you help them. It’s win win win for you. You know, you add value, they see the value, and then they reciprocate. And then the I like that, one of I’ve not heard of before, that the decency quota. Quota, quota, yeah,

Speaker 1  1:09:32

quote, yeah. Quota quotient. I think it’s decency quotient, is what they call it. Happy to send you more information, okay,

Heath Gascoigne  1:09:38

champion, yeah, do that. I’ll quote you on it is to do good by others. To do good by others. I like that. Yeah, I think that we could do in this world is definitely doing good by others. It doesn’t there’s, there’s no harm in being polite and as I see people, but like, if I I’d spend some time in Moscow, and they’re actually. I met the guy who wrote the book. English guy wrote the book, and the book is called, why Russians don’t smile? Yeah, they, and the reason why is, they see it as a weakness. Culturally, yeah, they see it as a weakness. And it’s like being friendly, like that would be front frowned upon.

Speaker 1  1:10:18

Because, yeah, and that’s an interesting point. So going to the GCC question, like, how decent Are you going to be? Right? Because some some cultures to your point, it’s you gotta, you gotta understand that. Like, if, if you’re in that culture, like, you can be as helpful as you want. You know you in the Western culture, you may try to be you, sorry, I’m losing my my words here. You may think you’re being helpful, but in that culture, you may be offensive the exact opposite,

Heath Gascoigne  1:10:45

yeah, yeah. So this is again, coming to understanding the context, right? Yep, yeah. All right, okay, so we’ll wrap it up there, my man. So Jared, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Actually, I want to stay on. After we wrap this one up. I want to have a quick chat with you. It’s been a while. We haven’t connected for some time, but I want to lose opportunity. So, ladies and gentlemen, that was Jared all the way through to all from Washington, DC. So this year will go up on different channels, I think one or two weeks hopefully. So you’ll see when I post it on LinkedIn, I’ll tag you, and you’re welcome to share it around. Anyone get in touch with you. I’ll put your contact details your LinkedIn on in the show notes. If there’s any white papers or any ebook or something that want to put a link to the others can download and see how this is what you’re about. Then I’ll put that there too, so they can get hold of you, and that gets published all on the different podcast channels, Spotify, Apple, Google, etc, so those links will be active there, I think, in differently. So there you go.

Speaker 1  1:11:51

Awesome. Man, no great. Great chatting with you, Heath and, man, I’m glad we finally got this done. It was good conversation. Man, there’s a lot going on in this space. And, you know, I think it’s exciting to be a transformation consultant, because all the change happening, it’s like, you know, you don’t know what your day is going to look like sometimes, and especially in your your line of business, working with some of the, you know, more like C suite type of stuff. So no, really appreciate it being on. It’s great conversation.

Heath Gascoigne  1:12:18

And absolutely my pleasure. Okay, thank you very much, my man. Okay, standby, okay, Cheers, bye, see ya.