7 Steps to Transforming the Strategic Business Model
Listen to the Episode below
7 Steps to Transforming the Strategic Business Model
In this episode, we are joined by Nathan Allchin, Business Design and Operational Strategy Senior Manager at the Department of Health and Social Care and Scalability Panelist for Katerva. He is also a Non-executive Director at Carbon Kapture, a Principal HiveMind Expert for The HiveMind Network, and B2E Consultingโs Target Operating Model Principal. Before his freelance engagements, he has been an Enterprise Architect for a major UK bank and an innovation leader at Deloitte with a proven track record of success across both the public and private market sectors.
As an expert in ecosystem, sustain model, and service management, Nathan is able to see organizations as a whole and provide a clear insight into the evolution of organizational processes and policies. He breaks strategic development down to the core capabilities required to lead a smooth transition and to drive the service delivery function forward with efficient and effective systems and procedures in place. His breadth of experience includes the application of a range of industry best practices and tools that he can draw upon and tailor to the specific outcome you are looking to achieve.
Tune in to follow the direction of Nathanโs career and to learn his approach to getting people and organizations on board with medical strategies and business processesโespecially during the pandemic!
โTechnology, to a lot of people, is magic.โ
Nathan Allchin Tweet
Join The Business Transformation
Download the Business Transformation Toolkit and learn the 25 essential skills you need to successfully transform your business! Learn more
Transcript
Heath: The theme that, well, for the month, actually, standard now is around digital health, Iโm gonna invite guys like you, seasoned professionals that got your particular approach and you probably see the world like I do in a certain way or a different way than others. Yeah, so weโll talk about that and then what approach you use for your vision and the six hits. So, most of the guys, their audience is really same as us, you know? The practitioners, the room delivery, big for consultancy, and also independent guys so, yeah, they have their view of the world and โ like I wrote my book because what I saw at the time, and I thought, why is everyone still doing it that way, you know?
Nathan: Thatโs a good book. Itโs a good book.
Heath: Oh, thank you very much.
Nathan: When you reached out, I laughed because I bought the book during lockdown.
Heath: Oh, thank you very much.
Nathan: So, as you can tell from my picture of my books, but Iโm slightly dyslexic so Iโm quite a slow reader.
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: And Iโm always finding lifeโs getting in the way of me reading. Apparently, I have a great library of books but Iโve only read a third of them.
Heath: Okay, you know, you wonโt be alone there. Iโve got a beautiful array of books sitting in storage right now and Iโve got one back at New Zealand that Iโve shipped from Australia to New Zealand, I think Iโm gonna send it over here, the same thing, you know, you get inspired at the time so you buy a lot going, โIโm gonna get to them,โ and you never get to.
Nathan: Yeah.
Heath: But I heard this great quote, though. Itโs not โ about books, โItโs not the most important book youโve read, itโs the book you write.โ Yeah, so I only heard that after I wrote my book. This is interesting. You know, it might have motivated me to write my book sooner.
Nathan: And what did make you to write it? Because thereโs quite a lot of work in there.
Heath: Yeah, yeah. I think it was my frustration at the time. Iโd seen a lot of โ like, for yourself, you get caught into these big projects and you wonder why theyโre doing the things they are. Is it busyness or where they end up, itโs like I use this analogy all the time, but theyโre heading this way and hoping, itโs like a bow and arrow, thereโs no way in the world that youโll end up the way you want to go. So youโve gotta start in the direction you wanna end. Stephen Covey, Dale Carnegie, seven habits that begin with the end in mind. You know, I think technology guys have taken that saying and not just begin at the end in mind or have the end in mind at the start, they start at the end in mind, at technology. And so, wait a minute, the part before the technology is understanding the problem. So letโs understand the problem first and then weโll build something to โ maybe itโs a technology solution or part of the solution is technology, makes sure it addresses the problem. So I get called into these big projects and they deepen the design or build and havenโt quite understood the problem. Well, whose problem are you trying to solve here?
Nathan: Itโs our problem, Heath. Weโre just trying to deliver.
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah.
Heath: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan: You know, if most of the people involved, they have at best a weak understanding of the actual problem, yeah
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: Because theyโre so far removed from the actual business problem. Their perspective means that they can only see through the lens of the delivery vehicle or change vehicle that they live in, right?
Heath: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nathan: And quite often, if itโs the delivery partner, the commercials probably incentivized them that way as well.
Heath: Oh, yeah. I try to teach the guys and tell the guys, you know, you deliver and you deliver well and fast, efficiently. Yeah, you can call back for more work. You donโt have to try and drag this thing out to last as long as you can and then you under-deliver, you might have produced some beautiful deliverables but it wasnโt the result they were after, that result was a transformation, not all the artifacts that got produced. If you deliver the transformation, hey, youโre gonna do a different transformation for them. You start at HR then youโre on to finance and then youโre on to operations. But trying to continue the longevity of an existing project when you could have done it faster, yeah. Whoever wrote those commercials is โ
Nathan: The game is part of the reason for that, the person who wrote the commercials was too far away from the problem too.
Heath: Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, if youโre looking into your governance board or bodies or the room where the governance boards are and you canโt see the stakeholders represented in the business in that room, then youโve got a problem. Yeah, thatโs the first problem. I remember going to a business design authority that had no business representatives in it and they actually changed the name to solution design because business was a bad word. I was like, โWhoa, really? So you guys are technology guys making decisions for the business? How does the business feel about that?โ Oh, they havenโt consulted them. Whoa. So weโve got a problem to start with. Yeah, yeah. And that project had been running for two years. And when I got called in, they said, โLook, weโre behind time, over budget. We got six months to deliver this and weโre out of money.โ Oh, I canโt help you, Iโm not a magician.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah, but technology to other people is magic, right? So, for them, their ability to associate say technology components and a technology system, how easy do you think it is for most people to associate all the components to the problem? Okay? Most of the time, I find itโs almost become like an article of faith. So you messed up the room? Yeah. Kind of like itโs been so hard, we must be doing the right thing.
Heath: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it amazes me that thereโs a lot of faith. I think the faith is unfortunately placed in the wrong place, possibly at the wrong time. A few steps need to be done and theyโre jumping ahead, like I try to explain to the client thereโs a process to this thing, right? First, youโre gonna do this, this, and this and this and this, and why weโre doing that is so that we can group this process into common things. And first off, weโre gonna do the why weโre doing it and so what youโre gonna talk about, what you wanna talk about, thatโs great. We can talk about that design but just bear in mind itโs a process. And then where you are in the process is way down there and we can have that conversation if you wanna have that conversation but bear in mind that weโve not done any of this other stuff first. So, weโre gonna it, I can capture it and record it but then weโre gonna still have to do this other stuff. And they say, โOh, okay,โ but when they start getting carried, no one tells them thereโs a process, they think itโs okay, letโs just build this thing and weโre done. Well, if it was that easy.
Nathan: Whatโs easier, though, for individuals? Is it easy for individuals to understand the process or is it easier for individuals to be around the campfire telling tribal stories about what their experiences might mean or the process is somehow something that is almost placed upon them rather than something they can have control over.
Heath: Yeah, thatโs a very good point. And for them, from a business perspective, Iโve seen consultants that join teams with established teams and they have a particular approach or standard or some method that they like to adhere to and they go around to the business and they say, we have now adopted, for example, BPMN, we must do now everything in business process modeling language and so anyone that creates a process map must use this standard. Do you mean just this division, the transformation division, or do you mean everyone in the organization? And so they go, โNo, no, everyone in the organization must apply that standard. I said, โHow does that work in practice?โ Well, we send them off on a two-day course to do. I said, okay, then how is that working for you? Oh, they donโt like it. I said, Why donโt they like it? Because they donโt understand it, and I said, โSo what do they understand?โ Quite simple. So, like a UML flowchart kind of thing for you? So who is the BPM notation for then? For you or for them? Oh, itโs for us, really. I said, โBut why do you impose it on the business?โ So the next question is, so how does it work for change projects? How do โ when they engage you. Oh, they donโt engage us now because theyโre scared of us. I said, yeah, so, basically, you guys are like speak French and you type a language and itโs pretty special, itโs different, you use it to communicate, and the business speak English and they use that language and they have used that language for some time to communicate and itโs a good language, they understand it, itโs pretty simple, but you wanna teach them how to speak French. And itโs not just any type of French, you want them to be fluent at French, but they have no problem with their English. This is the real problem. You need to get better at speaking English.
Nathan: Yeah.
Heath: So they go, โOh, we donโt want that.โ So, who are you here to help, the business all yourselves
Nathan: Yeah, weโre back to vantage points now. So if youโre operating letโs say in the operating model, business function in the operating model, okay? How good do you think most people understanding is of the actual business
Heath: Not very good.
Nathan: Not very good.
Heath: Yeah. They understand their silo
Nathan: Yeah. They try to rationalize what they experience and, for most of them, their understanding of their organization relates to two things. One, the columns that is driven at them and largely comes in a lot of companies is driven active.
Heath: Yeah, yeah, consultation, yep.
Nathan: No, no, youโre talking at me, youโre not talking to me.
Heath: Yes.
Nathan: And then, two, itโs my personal network. So, how I perceive a company is based on my personal network. So I might think because thereโs great guys, yeah, in a particular department, that departmentโs really important to the business โcause theyโre great guys. So, yeah. I find increasingly, and itโs why I made a career shift. I started off very much in I would say roles in the operating model.
Heath: Okay, yeah.
Nathan: And I got sufficiently frustrated that I decided this isnโt working for me, I need to be in the business model. Because if Iโm not in the business model, thenโ well, Iโm certainly not transforming anything. I might be changing some stuff but I might be transforming very much. And so, yeah, thatโs the career decision I made several years ago. So, on a personal level, I find my sort of day to day work much more rewarding as a consequence.
Heath: Okay, so you are more โ you originally, in the, letโs say the technical operational and you went to in the operations model to the business model more strategic?
Nathan: Yeah. It was a career choice that I decided I needed to do, because I was getting so frustrated being in or having a career of what I would describe as primarily model roles. And the classic role for me that I think, evidence is this more than any, is the infamous enterprise architect role. Yeah?
Heath: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan: Where, for most enterprise architects, I donโt know what kind of architect they might actually be but I promise you there not actually impacting the enterprise. Yeah? And so, you think being an enterprise architect, being in a strategy and architecture function, you had a quite large group of people who had faith that they were instrumental to the business. Yeah?
Heath: Oh, yeah.
Nathan: But the business, they had a different view.
Heath: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan: The business radicals, because that example youโre talking about, so in that actual organizations Iโm not gonna name, they kicked off an end-to-end process management function, bought a very big expensive enterprise tool to store all those representations.
Heath: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan: Head off for the training is why a smarter when youโre attending. And, yeah, they created function group.
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: The business was bemused by it. Wasnโt entirely sure what the business purpose for it was.
Heath: Yeah, where the value was, yeah.
Nathan: But it seemed to make the EAs very happy. And they seem grumpy most of the time then the business was kinda like, yeah, okay, fine.
Heath: Let them do what they wanna do.
Nathan: I actually started off in a very bizarre fashion, being involved in a research project in AI when I left university.
Heath: Okay.
Nathan: And that was complete. random chance. I found myself just speaking to a couple guys late one night in someoneโs house. I was acting as a chaperone for an Asian girl who wanted basically me to escort her while she, you know, she went on a date with an older guy, they were in the cinema, she wanted me to hang around, everything was okay, fine. Couple of other guys there. Okay, I might as well, you know, Iโm gonna be here for a while, I grab a beer, letโs get chatting. We got chatting and to the end, couple came back, my friend came back. So the guys Iโve been chatting to said to Tony who had taken my friend on a date, โHey, you know that guy we were looking for. We found him.โ Of course, I didnโt realize they were talking about me. So, yeah, so I did that for three years.
Heath: Okay.
Nathan: That was intense. Very different from anything, well, you know, itโs not the typical job you do when you leave uni, right?
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: Then that kind of came to an end. They were at a company, they were doing a lot of dot-com development, dot-com bubble burst.
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: At that time, no one had heard of AI and machine learning, Heath.
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: Itโs not like now. You know, now, Iโd be fine but back then, you wouldnโt go and spoke to an employment agency about any of that stuff. They looked at me like I was crazy.
Heath: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan: Exactly. What you talking about? Yeah, what can you actually do? So I ended up getting into project program management. I got a bit bored of that. I then got into more kind of commercial roles, then eventually got into technology, working my way up to become an enterprise architect, had that epiphany, that working.
Heath: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan: And then the next stakeholder, heโd been headhunted by Deloitte and he said, โLook, youโre wasted over there, come and join me over here and do something.โ
Heath: I see you did a couple of stints there at Deloitte.
Nathan: Yeah. I helped them set up an innovation function. So thatโs about setting up process governance for the partners, which was interesting because partners donโt tend to always like to share whatโs going on with their business.
Heath: Pulled up a little info.
Nathan: Yeah. And then sort of try and I guess kind of incubate products, coach directors who are very clever, capable people but they werenโt necessarily technical. They had no background in this. What they sold was professional services. So, suddenly, now, theyโre told theyโre a product owner and theyโre like, โIs that good? What is that?โ
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: Not sure. My partner seems very happy but that sometimes worries me. expectation management and say that was quite interesting. Then did some friends of mine with an M&A so I helped them get acquired.
Heath: Okay. Thatโs good work.
Nathan: And then helped a Portuguese DevOps company become a scale up.
Heath: Oh, wow. Okay.
Nathan: And that involved getting them onto a number of the kind of government, you know, UK government frameworks.
Heath: G Cloud and et cetera. Yeah, okay.
Nathan: And then I kind of got into โ I got approached by โ I get pretty much everything word of mouth, I got approached by some people wanting to do target operating model stuff, which Iโve been involved in before. And thatโs kind of been mainly my shtick, I guess, TOM stuff, for a while now, is what Iโm doing a bit of now through a UK agency.
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah, during the, you know, I think we would have made a reflection during the pandemic so I just said, โLook, I need to be controlling my career a little bit more, I need to be getting involved in more things,โ and so I became a non-exec director in a sustainability startup.
Heath: Okay. Thatโs very good, yep.
Nathan: Yes, a company called Carbon Kapture so thatโs sort of around carbon capture via seaweed farming.
Heath: Oh, interesting. In the UK?
Nathan: In the UK but we are currently in negotiation on a number of joint ventures with farms in other parts of the world, places like Singapore, for example. Yeah, seaweedโs quite interesting. So because it has a rapid growth rate, once โ
Heath: The seaweed grows fast.
Nathan: Seaweed grows fast. Well, that means is, as long as youโre careful with this carbon lifecycle, so youโre careful with how itโs gonna be used at the end of the lifecycle so what product is this gonna be used in, that gives a carbon negative footprint.
Heath: Okay.
Nathan: And then, obviously, then data monetization kicks in there and thatโs then something that is interesting to say, you know, owners of data centers in Singapore who have a big issue and find some kind of carbon offset.
Heath: I see. They can sell credits.
Nathan: Yeah, effectively, so they can offset part of their carbon debt.
Heath: Footprint. Yeah, okay.
Nathan: Via the seaweed farm.
Heath: I see. Okay.
Nathan: Itโs kind of funky, and obviously itโs an interesting, you know, itโs a good industry to be involved in.
Heath: So with your enterprise architecture background, how to structure it to get ready to scale to expand to different countries?
Nathan: Not actually in that. scene in that. B because Iโm a non-exec director so they use me based on, I guess, kind of my breadth of my experience on my commercial background. Iโve helped them in terms of putting them through an ideation and incubation process and I do most of their commercials and legal stuff for them. They actually donโt use very much of my EA background because thatโs not, right now, thatโs not what the business needs. The business needs to kind of get out there and start sort of, you know, selling the offset from the farms. So, yeah โ
Heath: Where the immediate need is.
Nathan: Yeah, exactly. So itโs quite exciting. And then Iโm involved in a consultancy called HiveMind so theyโre like a member network company so we had some of these kinds of organizations in the 70s and 80s so theyโre kind of very much member led so members get together and decide they want to โ that thereโs potentially an opportunity in the market, you know, so they go through an ideation incubation period, they pitch it.
Heath: Okay. And then the team come together and work out how to deliver it, yeah.
Nathan: Yeah, and then, basically, you know, if the kind of the collective membership think, yeah, you know, you guys are on to something here, then, you know, then letโs start shaping it and thinking about how we take it to market so โ
Heath: Oh, very good.
Nathan: And both of those things are things that I only probably got involved in because of โ
Heath: The pandemic.
Nathan: โ headspace that gave me just to take a step back from my life and go, like I think a lot of people did in one go, I need to be broadening my horizons, I need to kind of feel that Iโm involved, and just taking maybe a bit more control.
Heath: Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, more control. Proactively.
Nathan: Yeah.
Heath: As opposed to reactive, yeah, yeah.
Nathan: You know, Iโm a family man, Heath. Iโve got two young teenagers so, you know, itโs not always easy being proactive in my position, but Iโve got actually no regrets in that choice. Iโm busy but Iโm happy and busy.
Heath: Yeah, good one. So, you must have now pretty vast experience. So you have, like Iโve come into different projects and I see certain things done certain ways, that what youโve seen in, you know, maybe most recently in the department of health, health and social care is a well-established organization, theyโve probably got teams and teams of different consultants specializing in different parts of delivery and then you come along, and you go, โOkay, guys, what are we doing and why weโre doing it?โ and you got a particular approach that you follow to get them on board.
Nathan: Yes. So I would say my approach normally is to understand what the actual purpose is. So I joined the test, what was then the test and trace program.
Heath: Okay. Yep.
Nathan: And the purpose of the testing and trace program was all around delivering testing capacity to the population.
Heath: Yeah, across the country.
Nathan: Yeah, across the country. So how do we test people? And then once weโve tested them, how do we determine the best way of then, you know, tracking them and effectively encouraging them to sort of, you know, act appropriately? Yeah? That was the purpose of the program. And, obviously, that came about as a lot of governments suddenly found themselves in the middle of a global pandemic. Now, we havenโt had a global pandemic like this since Spanish influenza in 19 โ
Heath: Spanish flu.
Nathan: Yeah, Spanish flu. And one of the things I did, maybe itโs my research background, I actually did quite a lot of research on that pandemic. And there was some really interesting things I found about it. I then took into meetings that I was in. So at the time, people were only starting to use the language of variants of concern, variants of interest and variants of concern. But if you look back at the history of Spanish flu, that was โ it might not have been called that but that was absolutely, a lot of the analysis was all around the variants heard from 1918 to 1920, because things about โ pandemics donโt kill you with one punch. Theyโre much more like that skilled boxer where they use combination. And so the biggest killer as a variant wasnโt in 1918, Heath, it was in 1920.
Heath: Oh, a couple of years later.
Nathan: A couple years later, and so the minute I saw that, I went, โOkay, weโre gonna be on this for a while.โ Now, on the one hand, weโve got vaccines so that kind of puts us in the plus column. On the other hand, our interconnected lifestyles actually make us more vulnerable. Then a lot of population groups were back in 1918 and what made Spanish flu such a killer then was of course the end of World War One.
Heath: Okay. People were returning back home.
Nathan: Yeah, people were going back home, we got huge population migrations, and so what we have now is weโre at that point where itโs endemic. Itโs not like smallpox, itโs cross species, itโs not down to just us, and there is no historical record, Heath, of us ever eradicating a virus that is cross species.
Heath: So weโre gonna live with it.
Nathan: So weโre gonna live with it. And this maybe segues us nicely to the data topic is then recognizing both the virusโs behaviors and how our behaviors influence that in both positive and negative ways. So, one of the things that weโve done, and as part of that move from test and trace, which is all about this landed, itโs crisis management time, weโve just gotta create massive capability to push testing out, we donโt know how dangerous this is but itโs more dangerous than we thought it was gonna be, so itโs been quite reactive. And whatโs happened, I would say, over the last sort of six to nine months is thereโs been that switch to productivity. So, the UK Health Security Agency, their purpose is about prevention, itโs not about treatment. And so thatโs quite a big shift in terms of philosophy. And it also means that the agency needs radically different capabilities than just massive testing facilities. And, obviously, you know, a key part of that is the role of data science, behavioral science, combined with, you know, genomics. So, you put that together and then you start thinking, okay, so if weโve had enterprise level, truly enterprise level capability, where we are pushing out, weโre mass producing supply, because we canโt predict demand, now letโs create an agency thatโs gonna flip that on its head. Now our focus is whatโs the nature of the demand? Because thatโs actually the right question. Yeah?
Heath: Thatโs the main question, yeah. Okay.
Nathan: So what weโve been doing in terms of data is weโve been combining data sets, many of which are available with the Office of National Statistics, combining those with datasets that are not publicly available, things like prevalence within a geographical region, vaccination rates in a geographical region, multiple indices of deprivation. Yeah? Combining those data sets to provide insight into where demand and need might lie.
Heath: Okay, so data-driven insight.
Nathan: Data-driven insights, and thatโs been leading to interesting discussions around, okay, maybe we need to move from a B52 to more of a cruise missile approach, yeah? We actually need to look at specific pockets of our population for these indices, this combination tells us that these population groups are going to be more vulnerable, and that then allows you to be much more targeted in terms of then how you will proactively test those areas and then treat them.
Heath: Okay.
Nathan: So weโre going almost from like macro testing to micro testing now. Because what that then allows you to do is it allows you to control, it allows you a much greater emphasis and control on the ceiling. So the way I always describe it with the virus, youโve got a ceiling and youโve got a floor. The ceiling is effectively how high the R rate is, how high prevalence is, yeah? And then the floor is how much of the population youโre able to test, treat, and cover. And you want to keep both the ceiling and the floor as low as possible. Now, because if you donโt have a mechanism to understand the patterns of prevalence, then you will have a hard time influencing the height of that ceiling. The height of the floor is more driven then by those indices, yeah? So what are the types of people that are more likely to get the virus than others? And some of that, there are strong correlations, for example, we know with diabetes, with obesity, but there are also strong correlations with factors like poverty, certain geographical areas, location, certain socioeconomic groups, certain cultural groups, and each of those act as almost like their own indices. So when you combine them, it almost can give you like in crude form, it gives you like a bingo card.
Heath: I was gonna say โ
Nathan: The more you lighten up the bingo card, the more you know, right, that is an area we need to keep an eye on. Not because the virus has agency, per se, but because the virus is going to find it easier to start propagating in that geographical region than it will necessarily in the neighboring regions.
Heath: Okay, so the starting point is, we get to the starting point, starting point I think weโre on the same page here, talk about the purpose so you get in and make sure that everyoneโs clear on probably the one thing, the future, the vision, what they got in mind. I think is a key point there is history or lessons learned so you understand whatโs happened before. One of my first projects in the UK was a government organization that was implementing a legislation and insurance, theyโve just recently done a banking insurance implementation and I started and they said, โGreat, youโve done this before.โ I said, โYep. Big one.โ Okay, whatโs it called? Bezel 2. Okay great. What is this one called? Solvency 2. Okay. Sounds very similar, different market. So if we got any anyone else on the project, solvency 2, bezel 2, yeah, you know, that farewell that you went to yesterday? That was her, thatโs the last remaining person. I said you get lessons learned. No. Oh, bugger. So, yeah, I think thatโs a thing thatโs often overlooked, you know, the lessons learned. You donโt want to repeat โ do the things that worked, donโt do the things that didnโt work, almost age-old, youโre gonna keep doing, you know, whatโs working, keep doing whatโs not working, what you didnโt do, stop doing. And so your goal there was about capability, to build this capability, a capability that changed.
Nathan: Yeah, clearly. Thatโs the thing. So itโs getting organizations to almost kind of be able to separate what they need to do, which obviously should derive from their purpose, with the patterns of behavior and culture that derive from how they do them. Yeah? And, again, itโs that kind of those tribal traditions can form quite quickly, particularly under pressure. If you imagine these kinds of organizations with something like a pandemic or some other kind of event, when you have that external event that creates that intensity, you end up creating a very strong culture
Heath: Oh, yeah, so thatโs to say โ yeah, youโve now made it even stronger. Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah. And thereโs a good side to having a strong culture but if thereโs a bad side, typically, itโs strong cultures donโt like to change.
Heath: Yes, yeah.
Nathan: Because thereโs an element of what makes them a strong culture is pride in who they are and what they do and how they do it. Yeah? So if you try and engage an organization that has a strong culture and you start talking, using the T word, the much maligned T word, that, for them, is almost an existential threat to their identity because youโre questioning the basis for their pride and so trying to get people to understand that weโre not saying you did a bad job, weโre saying the jobโs changed.
Heath: Yeah. Yeah.
Nathan: The jobโs changed now. This stuff that youโre using, do you think itโs gonna help you to do that new job? Or is it designed to be really good at the old job? Itโs designed to be really good at the old job.
Heath: Yeah, you need to โ how do you go about that? I talk about transformation, thereโs the four major causes of failure, lack of business user involvement, lack of senior leadership support, changing requirements, and incomplete requirements, and all of them are nothing to do with technology but all to do with people. Itโs a psychological problem.
Nathan: So, what I used to do is I used to try and find out who was a decision maker and going strong and then be surprised when I didnโt get the reaction I was looking for.
Heath: Yeah, thatโs the old approach.
Nathan: What I do now โ yeah, yeah. So, what I do now is I work on their direct reports, I wait until their direct reports begin to feel that there is a problem.
Heath: Okay.
Nathan: And then I get invited and I sort of suggest that feeling youโve got, that little kind of โ
Heath: Inclination.
Nathan: โ inclination itch, yeah, Iโm not saying Iโve got it exactly right but this might be that itch. And if thatโs true or Iโm in the rough vicinity, there are some things that we could do to scratch that itch.
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: But Iโm gonna leave it with you now. Iโm over there. You know where to find me?
Heath: Yep. So youโll lead the horse to water?
Nathan: Yeah, and what I find typically happens is two to three months later, I get that tap on the shoulder. But notice, it still takes that time.
Heath: Yes. Yeah. Thereโs a lag.
Nathan: Thereโs a lag, because I found that in terms of a successful outcome, thatโs the best approach. Now, donโt get me wrong, Heath, Iโd love those two, three months back by the time they actually engaged me.
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: Obviously, the choices I might have outlined, some of those doors may have closed.
Heath: Oh, yeah.
Nathan: But I have learned that the biggest challenge is that cultural identity one, and none more so than the man or woman in charge.
Heath: Okay, would you call it the hippo? The highest โ
Nathan: Yeah. And they have to be given the freedom to ruminate and reflect on what youโve shared with them.
Heath: Just to play back on their own words.
Nathan: And, hopefully, what youโve shared with them, youโre opening their eyes and trying to counter the confirmation bias that we all live with. Youโre now opening their eyes to breadcrumbs that maybe previously they hadnโt been able to perceive. And then eventually, the weight of that leads to them to sort of go, โOkay, now Iโve gotta do something.โ What am I thinking?
Heath: Yeah. I think โ thereโs something similar or even the same as I talk to other clients, you know, the business architecture will make visible the invisible. The things that you didnโt quite see before, like the bread crumbs, for the same reason, lead them to make their own decision, partly so that they think it was their own decision and, hopefully, it was their own decision but they own it and then โ
Nathan: Thatโs the key thing, they own it. They have to own it. You canโt own it for them. They have to own it. And I was actually on a call today where a colleague of mine and I, weโve got a workshop weโve gotta produce and thereโs always a fine balancing act between whatโs the percentage of facilitation versus whatโs the percentage of insight. And, again, this is something Iโve learned the hard way. So what I used to do is I used to go along, I do loads of work, produce loads of material, Iโd be super excited, I was gonna show them the answers, you know?
Heath: Yeah, yeah. If you knew the answer.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah, if I knew the answer, thatโs right, and I go along and, again, didnโt quite get the outcome I was expecting. Whereas now, what I try to do is I try and think about the framing. So I focus on the framing and then, within that framing, I basically say, โOkay, this is the solution space,โ so Iโve helped them by the framing but now Iโm gonna facilitate them to come up with an answer that theyโre comfortable with because to your point, Heath, they gotta own it.
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: So where my insight, I guess, comes is not in the actual workshop itself. Yeah? Itโs in the framing of that workshop.
Heath: Okay. Yep.
Nathan: Yeah, so, you know, Iโll use simple things like an agenda. Iโll use an agenda because Iโve thought about it, kind of maybe taking the pooch for a walk or whatever, I thought about it and Iโve gone, right, hereโs where the solution will be found, I now need them to come over here to this space. Once Iโve got them in that space, weโre all good.
Heath: Just getting them there is the thing.
Nathan: Just gotta get them there. Just gotta get them there. And thatโs what I said to my colleague today. I said, โLook, we could do loads of work, showing them how clever we feel we are, but you know what, thatโs not gonna get us the outcome we want or they want, right? Letโs just frame the problem, get them in that space and, largely, theyโll do the rest and if they need a little nudge, we can give them little nudges.
Heath: Yeah. Okay. So, from previous experience, youโve learned leading the horse to water and forcing the horse to drink isnโt gonna get the outcome you want. So, for now, experience, youโve lead them to the trough, you laid the trough, maybe a couple of nice things across the top of it so they might just dip their tongue in it.
Nathan: Yeah. Yeah.
Heath: And they gotta taste it and then they go, โOh, okay, I think we can do this.โ
Nathan: Yeah. And then itโs them doing it, yeah? Itโs them doing it because one other thing about approach, it builds their confidence to change rather than you trying to instruct change on them. I mean, you were talking earlier about technology and business, yeah? So often, technology programs fail with the business because they try to instruct the business on the change. I mean, I love the โ weโve gotta change our business processes because the new system weโve installed wonโt support our existing ones.
Heath: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan: Yeah?
Heath: Doesnโt last too long, that one.
Nathan: Well, what happens always, in that case, I find, Heath, is if itโs like an enterprise grade thing that the CFO spent a little money in, heโs probably gonna hang around for a while but everyone then will just go into what I call skunk works. Theyโll do everything they can to avoid the pain โ
Heath: Oh, yeah.
Nathan: โ of going through that new workflow that the CFR has spent millions on, yeah?
Heath: Oh, yes. Yeah, I just came from โ I donโt know if you saw my CV, the last role I was on very much similar to where you are, one of your clients right now, and theyโd just done something similar, an enterprise installation of an off-the-shelf and no adoption at all and itโs the most painful and I was told, โYouโre not allowed to change this system in any way, shape, or form,โ although it is the most painful system theyโve ever experienced in their 15 years of operation. I say, โSo why is it?โ Because it was a painful implementation. I said, โWhy do you still continue using it and doing not adopting it at all?โ Because someone upstairs made a decision for someone else. Oh, boy, yeah
Nathan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then itโs then almost sort of, so quite often, Iโll be with a sponsor and sort of will say, โOkay, so how do we think the boardโs gonna buy that?โ And Iโll look at them, โOh, you know the answer.โ I look at them and I let them reflect and they go, โYeah, Iโm not sure itโs a good idea,โ No, itโs probably not. So how could we reposition it or repackage it or what additional value could we add, almost like a sugar lump with the medicine, yeah? So we need them to take the medicine that maybe that what theyโve bought isnโt quite as nice as the shiny slides they were shown, yeah? But if weโre gonna do that, weโre gonna make it palatable so we would put up, offer them something else. Yeah, give them some kind of win. Some kind of win that we can then get them focused on the win and they wonโt feel quite that bad about the minister.
Heath: Yeah. Yeah, Iโve been there. I wanna say names but โ
Nathan: No, no, no.
Heath: You know, and thatโs the problem with I think, the technology, itโs almost like they got the talking stick, because the budget seems to be spent there and because they have the talking stick and the closest person to owning the budget of their talking stick, they have the rights to say and do what they like, my favorite, unfortunately, the voice of the business.
Nathan: Yeah. I mean, Iโve also seen it from the business side as well. So in one like global brand organization, I went in and I saw huge amounts of shadow IT.
Heath: Oh, yeah.
Nathan: Massive amounts of shadow IT. And, of course, because of the way that kind of combination of new programming languages, data analytics, cloud, that kind of mix just allows technology acceleration on a level that kind of, you know, and I think back even five years ago and you used to have like the monolithic program, and you used to have kind of your giant Gantt charts that used to be printed out in A0 and theyโd go across the walls and stuff and, yeah.
Heath: The war rooms.
Nathan: Yeah. And now, the business, you know, quite often, business units will go, yeah, Iโve got no time for that and Iโve got the scars and I still wake up with nightmares at night over that program. Yeah? Now Iโve got these guys and they say that they can just spin me something up and theyโll do it as some MVP and I donโt need to go through any righties governance processes and they wanna charge me a tenth of what I thought it would cost asked and why wouldnโt I, right?
Heath: Yeah, yeah. Sounds good.
Nathan: Yeah, it sounds good, yeah. If all you want is like a prototype or a proof of concept, that is fine. The challenges only come when youโre looking to then push the button, โIโll have more of that, please.โ Iโve seen it from both sides to be fair and Iโm obviously part of the thing with whatโs happening with health care at the moment is where youโve got that explosion. Youโve got a lot of health organizations that are under huge socioeconomic pressures so a lot of our health systems are struggling to deal with a number of kind of what I call meta factors, yeah? So aging population is a meta factor. Thatโs why, you know, if youโve got some spare money and youโre not putting it into crypto, putting it in medical device companies right now is not a bad idea, Heath. Yeah, itโs a pretty safe path. Thatโs going one way.
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: So youโve got that. A lot of Western health systems are set up around the principle of treatment. Theyโre not set up around the principle of prevention. And part of the reason for that is because thereโs a lot more money in treatment, Heath, than there is in prevention.
Heath: Oh, yes.
Nathan: So youโve got that. The flip side for that is that when youโre then looking at the health economy as an ecosystem, costs are going up all throughout that supply chain. So that combined with your kind of socioeconomic factors is driving the push for health.
Heath: And digitizing health.
Nathan: Digitizing health, particularly as, if youโre in the private sector, along with that demographic factor, youโve got the fact that those people who are living longer also, their net worth is disproportionate to the net worth of the generations behind them. Yeah? So youโve got customers whose needs for your services are growing and their ability to pay is growing. And, obviously, thatโs creating a supply side trough in the market where people wanna rush and grab that market share of that client base. Because the other generations, you know, weโll give him some old stuff or we need to provide them with a wholesale service. So we need digitization, end-to-end processing of them is as frictionless as possible so we can protect our gross margins. And they need to get the wholesale service. So youโve got almost like a mapping between customer segmentation and the generations. And then with the pandemic, what youโve seen is a massive acceleration of that. Youโve seen a massive acceleration where that existential driver of need has become a great rallying cry for โWe have to share the data.โ Yeah, we have no choice, Heath. We have to share the data, yeah? And, of course, you know, we were talking earlier about technology and magic and peopleโs awareness, how many people do you know who are aware of what they sign away when they sign up to WhatsApp?
Heath: Iโd say, 0.1 percent.
Nathan: Right.
Heath: No one.
Nathan: So take that as a principle, now apply it to health care. The reality is, people are not gonna care enough. Theyโre not gonna care enough about data privacy because either youโre desperate for care and you donโt have the money or youโre aging and youโre worried about aging and youโve got money. Either way, data privacy is not top of your list. Getting treated, yeah, is top of your list. So, that doesnโt make the concerns invalid but what it does do is it does mean that the sort of trends weโre seeing are only gonna continue. Because at the end of the day, youโre asking me to compare the risks of something thatโs existential, my data, with something thatโs very real, which is โIโm ill,โ yeah? Right? Itโs not even a contest. For the vast majority of people, itโs not even gonna be a point of consideration, Heath, and so my view on that is thatโs gonna lead to an explosion in service providers, itโs gonna lead to a challenge to the business models of a lot of existing health providers, whether thatโs public sector or private sector. So, for example, in the UK, and I donโt say this based on any knowledge, just to be clear, itโs just my personal opinion, I can see the NHS going the same way as, say, Ministry of Justice or Ministry of Defense where they become kind of a policy and governance organizations and they look to increasingly outsource the orchestration of the operations, because they have an accountability to their citizens but there is an outside of existential events like a pandemic, itโs hard, particularly when you have this kind of, I would say, almost like technological epoch developing, the state organizations to compete with the private sector.
Heath: Oh, yeah, I was gonna say, they canโt compete.
Nathan: And so what that means it means that youโre โ if you look at it almost through your service catalog, your classic service catalog, youโre going to get a tearing in society on the health care offered to them. And partly that will be driven by that strataโs needs and also partly their ability to pay. And that will then have interesting repercussions in terms of areas like, say, health insurance, because if I am a private health insurance company now Iโve got so much info right now, whereas, previously, I was having to get actuaries to work out some complex mathematical formula on how I can aggregate my risk across my portfolio. Now Iโve got a much clearer picture, Heath, on how much a risk you are โ
Heath: Yeah, actual risk.
Nathan: And actual risk, and, therefore, the appropriate price range. Yeah?
Heath: Premiums will be changing.
Nathan: Premiums will be changing, Iโll take a view, do I even wanna insure Heath? Do I even wanna insure Heath? So that that will naturally then have a knock-on effect in terms of society because what itโs likely to do is itโs likely to lead to I perceive widening gaps in society in terms of a personal individualโs ability to consume services, whether that be from the state or particularly from the private sector. And I see that whatโs currently happening now in healthcare, that was already happening to a degree, itโs gonna be massively accelerated through this process.
Heath: Yeah. You know, I think the pandemic has accelerated, one, digital transformation, but as you just said there, with the data access and sharing, itโs like putting petrol on top of the fire.
Nathan: Absolutely.
Heath: Yeah, yeah, so we are in for some massive change and particularly in yourself and being around healthcare, in healthcare currently and they have a long experience and then doing it, youโre well positioned to offer clients advice on this transformation. So, Iโm conscious of the time, here, weโre gonna have a little bit, I donโt want to take too much time but I wanna recap what you said. First off, number one was the purpose, make sure everyoneโs clear on the purpose. Thereโs a major part there, I think we touched on it but I wanted to say we talked about the culture. Iโm a big fan or advocate of the culture eat strategy for breakfast. If you dismiss this culture, forget about how great your strategy is, you know, you getting out of the water before you started. But part of that purpose is very clear at the front, clear of the vision and the outcome that you want to achieve. You said the history so you did some research before. I think thereโs a lesson here for our peers and colleagues is that the example from the previous client in mind, the mess of implementation was very similar to the next one. What did you learn? I think what Iโve seen from my career is theyโll have this term, lessons learned, but when you inspect the lessons learned or trying to read those lessons learned, theyโre not very usable. The notes that someone did on a back of a fag packet and say, โThis is what we learned,โ so, well, how do we use that now? They need to be useful. So when the exercise comes, I talk about it in the book, is that the project doesnโt finish at delivery, the project should actually finish after the lessons learned are captured, that everyoneโs just โ like you talked about the business have the battle scars. Theyโve been through this before and they donโt want โ and so when you get to delivery and they have delivered, the business goes, โIโm glad those guys are finished now,โ and then so no oneโs interested in doing lessons learned. So when the lessons learned are captured, theyโre not really done well, or theyโre incomplete. But you call that up as like the second thing to do is that you did the history to understand what worked before so reuse the things that worked and drop the things that didnโt. But then the key part there for everyone, not just for us in transformation, is about the longevity of what weโre in now globally, itโs here for a while and we have to live with it so itโs not an overnight success, itโs going โ weโre gonna fix it. No. We know itโs here and weโre gonna live with it. And I say a good part that you talked about was the impacts and so what now, youโve understood the context and lessons. So what? What impact does that have? So you apply the thinking of what impactful insights does that tell you and how will you use that information, thatโs your data-driven element, so you use the element of evidence based, evidence from past and current data so I think that โ Yeah?
Nathan: Youโre gonna make the conversation, youโre gonna take it away from sentiment, yeah? So you gotta โ the real value of data-driven insights, it really helps you to tackle that culture piece. because it enables, once you get people to accept the data sets youโre using, it makes it harder for them to then reject the insights those datasets provide.
Heath: Yeah, so thatโs like the antidote to the strong culture. So, Iโm gonna quote you on that one. So, you know, maybe you make a meme out of that. So you have a strong background also in technology as well so to be saying things around culture from a guy that has a strong background in technology, itโs almost โ I donโt wanna say an oxymoron, itโs a paradigm shift for I think technology guys to think about anything other than technology. Yeah, so I take my hat off to you for that. I would like to see personally the technology guys, if they acknowledge, โHey, listen, we got a culture thing here, we just canโt go rock up and try and change this business by implementing some new system, weโre gonna understand a few things and one of them being the way that people work, the way they interact with each other. How strong is that bond? What brings them together? If weโre gonna try and break that, this is not gonna be an overnight activity. This is a long plan.โ This current client Iโm helping right now, they wanted to call the process that weโre trying to change or improve, a common process optimization, and I said, โOkay, youโre trying to optimize this process to make it more efficient, right? Okay, yep? You originally had one process but now itโs morphed into 12 and so youโve got different divisions across the organization made it fit for their own purpose and now youโre telling me you want to harmonize it and put it back together? Are you sure thatโs what you want to do? Letโs just say we do that but I think what weโve just done is weโve just speed up with the Titanic, you know? Weโve just lined the deck chairs up. No oneโs talked about turning the ship, we just made ourselves faster.โ So I said, โNow we gotta call it what it is. If you now think this is a transformation, weโre not talking about making our process faster or implementing technology, weโre talking about people here. People are changing.โ
Nathan: Yeah. And how many instances have you come across, Heath, of RPA where clients have taken their existing procedures and just pulled them into the RPA tool and itโs like, great, youโve become much, much more efficient on doing the wrong things.
Heath: Yes.
Nathan: Yeah?
Heath: Yes, thatโs exactly it. I had a guest on just before who said something very similar, it was like now youโre just โ almost the same words, โYouโre faster doing the wrong thing.โ Rubbish in, rubbish out. Youโve just been faster at getting bad results. So the lesson there would be probably step back a little bit to the start of the process. Understand the problem, as you said, when youโre framing, which I think that was the next one, you understood the frame that allowed you to get some form of control to help them scope a solution and that part there, I think for our colleagues, is youโre leading them to the water but youโre not making them drink. Youโre showing them the trough.
Nathan: Correct. Iโm not leading them to the solution, Iโm leading them to the space where I can help them find the solution. Yeah? And I think a lot of our colleagues conflate those two.
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah? I mean, even when you talk about โ again, classic example of that, Heath, is product vendors. Product vendors will come to you saying theyโre selling you the solution.
Heath: Yeah, the old solution. Yeah, thatโs a misnomer, that one. If I say what you got is a technology tool or product, the solution, this includes more than just this technology product. Most likely, there are four levels we can pull โ people, process, technology, and data, and whatโs probably overlapping that is the culture.
Nathan: Yeah.
Heath: Okay, but thereโs the sixth step, so the sixth part is you suggest and through your previous experience youโve learned and you canโt force, you know, the horse to drink so it is a suggestive so it is a points we agreed of ownership. When the feel that was their idea and they have more ownership in the solution.
Nathan: Yeah, if they donโt have ownership in the solution, then the implication is just in the UN, right?
Heath: And then I think a good part for our calling, because Iโm guilty of that too, I would like to, because you know the answers, is your facilitation versus insights, like you keep, letโs say, the ace of spades up the sleeve or in the back pocket, you know the answer, and as you just said, allowing the space for them to have that discovery, to come to their own realization but you have to follow the frame and the space for them to have their conversations.
Nathan: Yeah.
Heath: Yep.
Nathan: And itโs interesting you play that back for me because thatโs not a โ I donโt have a handbook, Heath, where Iโve written those steps. Thatโs clearly, though, you know, some kind of subconscious system that I adapted and developed over the course of my career thatโs now โ
Heath: A part of your behavior, yeah. You do it by almost habit.
Nathan: Correct. Itโs the โ whatโs the โ muscle memory, yeah?
Heath: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan: Itโs noted in the muscle, right?
Heath: So, I think then, you know, you talked about beginning about you being proactive instead of reactive, then I think thereโs probably a book in you.
Nathan: I think there probably is.
Heath: Yeah.
Nathan: I think there probably is.
Heath: And I think, you know, you could even make a book out of your seven steps there.
Nathan: Yeah. I could probably do so. Thatโs interesting. I didnโt come to all this thinking about writing a book but, no, I think youโre probably right.
Heath: I tell you what, I didnโt think about writing a book either and next thing I know, thereโs a book, yeah, so, you know, hey.
Nathan: Yeah.
Heath: If the shoe fits.
Nathan: Well, I might be able to find it on the shelves behind you.
Heath: So that actually kind of remind me โ the quote was the most important book you read is not the book you read, it is the book you write. Yeah. I think that actually was Daniel Priestley, a young Australian guy, you know that guy?
Nathan: I know the name.
Heath: He wrote the Key Person of Influence, Oversubscribed, the Entrepreneurโs Journey, and thereโs one other one I just canโt recall. I met him a couple times. Yeah, heโs got a good story, the key person of influence actually was the thing that helped me think about writing a book and so, yes, if I could offer you anything in exchange for sharing your insights today, it would be read that book and then write your book.
Nathan: Okay. Okay.
Heath: Oh, boy. You know, weโll do an exchange. Iโll send you a signed copy and you send me a signed copy.
Nathan: That sounds great, Heath.
Heath: Yeah, okay. My man, I will wrap it up here. What Iโm gonna do now is Iโll record the intro and Iโll talk you up and your background history and Iโll cut that and put it at the front. Yeah, so, Iโll let you know when weโll do the edit or get the edit done and then tag you when we post it if you wanna share it around, share it around. I think your LinkedIn profile photo, I can take a copy of that and Iโll turn it to the gray version, thatโs gonna be on the main banner of the โ
Nathan: Yeah.
Heath: Okay, cool, great. Cool. Okay, my man, thank you very much. 10:30, Iโm still here in the UK so itโs the same time for me, okay, same time for you. All right, thank you, Nate. Much appreciated for your time.
Nathan: No problems.
Heath: Look out for the episode, Iโll keep you updated.
Nathan: Great. Cheers, Heath.
Heath: Thank you, mate. Take it easy. Bye.
Book Recommendation
Show Notes
Heath Gascoigne
Hi, I’m Heath, the founder of HOBA TECH and host of The Business Transformation Podcast. I help Business Transformation Consultants, Business Designers and Business Architects transform their and their clients’ business and join the 30% club that succeed. Join me on this journey.