Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to "Visionary Voices" the podcast where we dive into the minds of business owners, founders, executives, and everyone in between.
Each episode brings you face-to-face with the leading lights of industry and innovation.
Join us as we uncover the stories behind the success and the lessons learned along the way.
Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder or just starting your business journey, these are the conversations you need to hear - packed with visionary voices and insights.
Let's begin.
So welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for taking the time today.
Could you give us a top level view about what it is that you're working on right now and
your journey so far?
Cool.
So great to be here.
So thanks for the invite and really look forward to talking with you, Akhil.
I guess as many freelancers, entrepreneurs, there are two things I'm doing.
Some of it is some work with the clients and the rest is, know, how do I develop, you
know, more, you know, more business in having in a better business pipeline as well.
So both of those at the moment.
Amazing, I mean, I'd love to obviously start with your book, right?
Because that's obviously a recent development, which is really exciting and amazing and
it's out now.
So I'd love for you to just explain what is the book about, what's it called?
And I'd love to just talk about that a little bit more.
uh
Yeah, sure.
So the book is called Master the Change Maze, a leaders guide to transformation without
chaos.
uh It comes from my experience of managing change projects for about 20 years now.
And as many people always thought I should write a book one day and then, you know, for a
number of reasons that day has come about.
And I decided to write change from
you know, the perspective I have in the audience in mind of senior executives who could be
in large companies, but also in startups where they're thinking, I have this change.
I have this problem, which is about change, which is about transformation.
What are the key things I need to know about?
So I prevent getting into a chaos situation.
This is not a manual.
This is not for a
new change manager to learn the ropes is very much from the perspective of somebody who
needs to be sure that they have the right purpose for the change.
There is no misalignment.
They understand all of those things that may go wrong.
And that's a lot of the work that I'm doing at the moment.
How do we prevent chaos?
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
mean, it's one of those things, right, which happens to everyone, Chaos creeps in in all
areas and things like that as well.
I mean, so obviously this book is based on your experience over the last few years and
from the work that you've been doing.
So I would love to go back to the start of your career, because it would be really cool to
piece all these things together.
So what, I guess, motivates you to get into the consulting world, let's say?
uh and what did that journey look like initially?
Yeah, it's kind of all happened a little bit by chance.
I wish it was one of these people that just had it all planned out.
So I got into change management by chance.
was in a graduate program and doing a job rotation and I was doing something called
business improvement, which was about fixing things.
So it sounded interesting enough.
Plus it involved a lot of European travel.
So I thought that's interesting.
And I ended up doing a project which was about also moving a team of people from a back
office to the front office.
So for them, it was a major change.
They never spoke with customers directly.
And you know, it was positioned by my manager as a kind of, that's easy.
You go there, I explain them what to do and they'll be fine.
To being faced by a large group of people that
Essentially, they didn't lie to at all.
And it was a change that they could not understand why they were doing it.
I was at the beginning of my career in my 20s, I oh my God, what do I do?
Didn't have any tools.
And I think what I did is a bit of common sense, talking with people, understanding what
the barriers were, what they were scared about.
And I got hooked.
by the situation of being um working with a group of people, feeling the resistance and
then the intellectual stimulation of how do I actually make, improve this?
And a couple of years, yeah, two years after this project, I was doing an MBA and I came
across a module called Change Management.
I didn't know such thing existed.
I my God.
Yeah.
writing books and doing this as a job where I just thought, you just talk with people,
have a few coffees and you'll be fine.
And that brought, you know, much more structure and frameworks and learning to, you know,
what I was doing, which was very much trial and error.
And I'm really glad that I started that way because it just gave me a much more empathy
with the people that I was, you know, I work with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, no, definitely.
Definitely.
So it just, just all happened by chance then, right?
And it's interesting that, you you went through the experience of doing it yourself, right
before, and then obviously you come to realize, actually there is a whole industry around
change management and then there's a lot that goes into it as well.
Um, which is amazing.
like, how did that evolve then?
So, you know, as you started to kind of get into the change management side of things.
um So were you working in like corporate, big corporation, or were you again, just in like
a small consultancy or what did that look like in the early days?
Oh corporate, the start of my career has been corporate.
So my first employer was British Telecom.
So that's why I did my first project.
So a hundred thousand people, are massive and wealthy.
Then I moved to Vodafone and then from there I did consulting roles.
Again, know, change management, working for large companies, you know, across the world.
So that was really exciting.
And that was just the second part of my career, where I used the knowledge, academic
knowledge of change, the reading, and really coming across different situations, different
industries, different types of culture.
And really, was the opportunity of working more and more in applying, but also coming up
with my
or methodology, my way of managing change.
Hmm.
Yeah, no, for sure.
So, I mean, I'd love to start diving into, guess, that theory, right?
Of, change management.
So, you know, now with the, with the companies you work with, because right now, you know,
you, you work independently, I guess you could, you could say.
So I guess what are some of the frameworks or some of the things that we could, we could
dive into and talk about.
Cause I know change management has quite a lot of different concepts, I guess, within it,
but I know over experience and you've probably put together or you have put together some.
of your own frameworks and ways of working there.
So I'd love to dive into uh some of those frameworks.
Yeah.
So what I'm doing at the moment is pretty much moving away from chaos.
So I started working with companies that right at the beginning, how do we actually
prevent things going wrong?
Which often it goes down to not being clear about purpose, misalignment between the change
program and the rest of the activities of the organization.
um Blind spots, I'm really interested in blind spots at the moment.
And then, know, resistance to change.
So my methodology is very much about how do I help companies prevent those issues?
And then I start looking at those elements that I just described through, you know,
workshops and interviews.
Because if you tackle those things early, you save time, you save money, and you actually
have more motivated workforce.
Yeah.
oh
that's where it becomes to me really relevant to small companies or startups, because at
the beginning you have the opportunity of creating the right foundations.
So in a startup, if you start thinking, okay, what's my purpose?
How does he, how this particular project or product fits with the whole direction of the
company?
or what are the things that may go wrong?
And that's why blind spots to me are really interesting.
oh using this information, as I said, to create really strong foundations.
And I think this probably applies more to medium size of startups than the larger
companies where decision-making speed is much slower.
Yeah, yeah, no, definitely.
And I love what you're saying there about getting the foundations right, because it's just
so important, right?
If you start building up and obviously the foundations aren't set right, then eventually
you're gonna have this huge problem, right, later down the line.
So I mean, what are some of those, I guess, pitfalls that you see these startups getting
into, right?
Because obviously with the startups, and when you speak to them, I'm assuming you can
identify pretty quick some of the pitfalls or issues that they're gonna start facing very
soon.
if they keep carrying on the way that they're doing things.
So what does some of those pitfalls look like and what have you seen from the startups you
worked with?
Yeah, I think one of them is the kind of the overenthusiasm.
I think it's, you you're so, and it happens to me as well, you're so caught up with the
concept, the idea, what you want to realize, that you don't spend enough time with the
structure and the governance.
And I think when you are, you know, just a handful of people, that's fine.
But when you just start, are at the...
point where you need to start growing, not having this structure actually, it can stop you
growing in the right way.
Or, you know, being in the position of, you know, raise more funds or demonstrating that
you have a governance in place because it's, you know, that's what investors want to see.
Yes, are you making money or do you have the potential of making money, but you have all
that grown up stuff on the side as well.
And I think, you know, these are the kinds of things that I find really interesting and I
can help with in that phase, especially between startup and growth.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Cause it's a difficult one, you know, from a, you know, having a business myself and Santa
see it grow and all these different things is, um, it's interesting how you need to start
adapting your, I want to say like your, way of thinking about the business.
Let's say, know, initially, you know, to your point about, know, you've got all this
enthusiasm and all this energy.
want to build this.
We're to do this, do that.
Um, but I think you start going through these, these phases, right?
As the company starts to grow and scale and everything where, you need to start thinking
about, you know,
What does that leadership team look like?
What does that, what does that structure of the company actually look like?
Because, you know, I've worked with startups where they've got a very, let's say, you
know, very flat organization.
They don't really have any kind of, you know, leadership team in place, let's say.
And they're really struggling to scale, right?
And they're struggling to retain staff because the staff can't really see any way to
progress in the company.
You know, there's a lack of structure, let's say, through the whole hierarchy, because
it's just so flat.
There's nothing there.
And so, it's interesting how you need to start changing your thinking from, you know, a
startup founder, let's say, to then one of building a company, which is gonna, gonna last
a long time.
Um, and it is quite difficult as well, because I think it takes a different type of, of
founder or character, let's say, right.
You need to really adapt, who you are to be honest.
I mean, and let go of control.
And I think that's also the other big thing is, is the control element, you know, when
you're, when you're running the business, you have full control over that direction, what
gets done.
And especially if you're, let's say, you know,
there's only a team of like five people, let's say, you you're also in the weeds of maybe
doing some of that service delivery of whatever that could look like.
So you have control over the quality, but then when you got to start giving away that
control and the quality, then it's difficult to do that.
So what have you seen as well from the people you've spoken to about letting go of control
or some of the struggles that they've had with it, let's say.
yeah, I think, mean, generally, it happens to all of us.
And I think and that's why, you know, the the work that I do on, you know, the psychology
and the behavioral science part of change, it becomes more relevant.
Because, you know, you can look at it that giving up control, I'll struggle with it as you
know, as a change.
And generally, we are fearful of things we can't control.
But also, I he said, I think that the main driver of human behavior is survival.
So we may not be chased by lions anymore, but we're just sort of fearful of, know, what
somebody takes over my company is doing something wrong and it's just the impacts, you
know.
Well, we see our baby, our little company and how, you know, we started from the
beginning.
So I think that that's probably one of the main thing that I see.
And the other one that I think is interesting is this kind of a reverse track to
competence.
So as you said, we used to do everything by ourself and sort of letting go and making sure
that other people, they maintain our standards is really difficult.
And that's why having a structure is important because you can define as a founder.
Okay, what do I want from a marketing person?
You know, what are the parameters for like the quality of the content that we produce?
So you can essentially write down all of those things so that the people that you work
with, they're very clear about, you your vision, what you want to achieve and how they can
contribute to you achieving that, you know, that vision.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's a great point is, you know, they need to essentially see, um, what they're
working towards as well.
Right.
For in terms of the wider company.
And I think when I look back at some of the, you know, the jobs that I've worked before a
lot of time, it was in, you know, big organizations.
Sorry.
uh
my eye.
I'm going to have continue on this one.
For some reason it's just frozen.
we'll get, we'll just continue on this one.
It's all good.
Um.
trying to think of what I was saying then.
yet so.
ah It was talking about control, giving away control.
Yeah, yeah, and just having that structure because it's, know, how do you make sure that
everybody understands your vision?
Yeah, yeah, exactly that.
And then when I think back to some of the previous jobs I had, the biggest, you know,
reason why I wasn't bought into the company was because I couldn't see what my day-to-day
work was actually contributing towards.
And, I think that's know, a plague of all big companies actually, but also startups as
well.
It's interesting how, you know, some startups, seem quite secretive even to their own
team.
And that's been my experience working with startups as well is
that know that the team members don't actually understand what they're, what they're
working towards.
Yes, there could be a big goal of, we're to hit this revenue number, but there's no other,
maybe wider impact on, what the, you know, what they're working towards as well.
So I think having visibility on that is definitely, definitely very important.
And it's something that I'm actually going through right now as we're starting to build
out the team and expand the team is, know, how can we give visibility to people on the
work that they're doing, right?
How can they clearly see what they're doing is going to contribute.
massively to the business and the growth of the business and getting them brought into
that vision as well.
And I think if you can do all three of those things really, then naturally as a business,
as a workforce, you're to have just such a strong team, right, to take you where you want
to get to.
Yeah, and I have a suggestion on this one.
So what is in your head as a vision and a purpose is not automatically transmitted to
everybody else.
Just because we think in different ways.
So if something is crystal clear in a leader's mind, it doesn't mean that it's understood
by everybody else.
So you have to explain it in different ways.
you have to use different means of communicating, know, visual numbers, and you have to
repeat it many times.
And I've seen this happening in so many change programs where the leaders say, okay, this
is the change.
And then everything goes quiet.
It's not repeated, it's not reinforced, it's not explained by, you know, esteem of the
leaders.
And I think that applies with smaller companies as well.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And it's interesting because this was one of the problems that I've had personally, right,
with one of the first team members that I took on about a year, a year and a half ago in
this new business that we have is, you know, the first three months we were like, cool,
this is like what we're to do.
This is the plan and everything.
But then it was said once, but not said again for many weeks or months as well.
so naturally, you know,
the question arose on his part, which is, what is the goal for the company?
What we're doing, all these different things.
And so I think it's so important and something that we've seen now, there's certain tools
and software is out, especially for like small businesses where you can clearly
essentially map out how each department contributes to the wider kind of KPIs or goals of
the company itself.
And you can really break down, it's really cool to see.
You can break down how each, you know, uh smaller department within departments, again,
contribute to this wider kind of, you know,
vision or goal or whatever it's going to be.
And so I think, yeah, having that visibility there consistently and constantly is
definitely very important.
Yeah, but you still have to have that conversation.
They see all of that, regular gets together.
Just making sure that is reinforced, because we all have short attention spans.
We receive so much information.
So you need to make sure that the critical one always is remembered and on top.
100 % 100%.
I'd love to talk about your own entrepreneurship journey, right?
Because you've gone from working in corporate to now listening, you know, an independent
consultant as well, right?
And consulting with these companies.
So what was the initial motivation of you, you know, breaking away from from corporate and
going into your own your own business?
Yeah, I think it was by chance as well.
I was made redundant from a corporate job.
And I was not sure, do I stay in corporate?
And I was applying for just all kinds of jobs.
And the one that was offered, it was actually a contracting job, which started me on the
journey towards working independently.
And what I noticed is that I had more freedom.
You know, you still have a client, you still have to give results, probably even more so
because you are on a daily rate and you have to somehow it makes me want to just give
value more quickly.
And I think from there I started developing, as I was saying before, more of my
methodology, my approach, and I had that kind of freedom.
of shaping the work I do and being more responsive to clients as well.
And I think that was the start of becoming an entrepreneur and uh working with different
clients at the moment.
um All this around change, although I did show a spell of decision making as well,
consulting.
But I think I went back into change because I just found more confidence and I could help
people more.
And I kind of enjoy, I'm still building on just sort of the strong resilience that you
need to have as an entrepreneur.
Because you go from periods where you're very busy, you have lots of clients and they
forget about business development, which has been one of my big issues.
Yeah.
And then, you know, just balancing that as well with needing to just sort of keep very
active, very visible.
I mean, the book is part of that visibility as well.
Yeah, yeah, no, definitely.
And it's a, it's a vicious cycle, right?
Where you have all these kinds that you're working with.
So you focus on service delivery and then as you know, to your point, you kind of forget
this business development piece as well.
Um, but really what we need to have is some type of always on business development
activities.
That's one of my learnings over the last, you know, kind of year and a half is, um,
consistently doing these actions because what I've also found is, know, whenever we do,
you know, a lot of these business development activities, there's always like a lagging
indicator from.
doing those activities, then obviously closing clients, getting the money in.
And so if you aren't consistent with it, you just go through these huge peaks and troughs
with the business.
So I think it's very true for all businesses, Is having some type of always on business
development is so important, but especially in our industries for sure.
And then I guess what some of the other challenges that you've had, right?
Because I think, you know,
what you said about resilience is huge, right?
Especially in entrepreneurship, but there's so many mental battles that you go through as
an entrepreneur.
And in certain days you're thinking, why am I doing this?
And other days you feel like you're flying, right?
It's such a wild ride.
So I guess what are some of the other challenges that you face, right?
As you've started to grow your business and kind of go through this journey.
Yeah, so one of them is loneliness.
If you are by yourself, you just, you you start living too much in your head in terms of,
you know, the work that you do.
And the other one, you know, that ongoing uncertainty whether you're doing the right
thing, which is, for example, when I described at the beginning, my shift to work with
clients from, you know, at the start, you know, to help them prevent chaos.
To me it's like a great idea, but at the same time I know generally people they come to
you when they have a problem to fix.
So this kind of point where you are, where do you do what you think is the right thing or
do you do what everybody else is telling you, which is, wait till they come to you with a
problem rather than try and solve it at the beginning.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think that's one of the, that's one of the difficulties of what it is that we do,
right?
Is do we trust our intuition and our gut feeling, or do we, again, just do we do, you
know, some of those other actions that you mentioned, right?
Listen to other people or do what we need to do in those realms.
And it's kind of that, you push or pivot process, right?
Do you just, I think to yourself, oh, I'm gonna quit and pit and change.
Or do I need to keep pushing, right?
And you just never know which one you need to actually do.
And you never know for certain either.
that's, that's the scary thing with it.
And I think what I found is, um, you know, a lot of times you keep working and you really
just don't know if it's going to work at all.
Um, but as soon as you see that one, I guess that one glimmer of like success, let's say
with whatever, you know, process that you're trying to do, um, then just go all in on it.
That's the, that's the biggest thing that I've.
I've learned myself I think over the last few years is as soon as you see at least
something starting to take shape or work, like you just need to go all in onto it.
Because it's very rare that things start to really fall in line.
So when it does, you need to milk it for as long as you can.
You know, definitely.
And then, you know, how do you use it to move to just to improve it, to just do more of
it?
And which brings to the other thing, which is focus.
Because sometimes, you know, I just think, oh, there are just so many things I want to do.
And, you know, how do you prioritize it?
You know, there's some things that I want to do in terms of developing tools to, you know,
make it easy.
to do impact assessments or understanding blind spots.
But I know if I just lock myself in the room and start developing those ideas, it means
I'm not doing everything as they need to do.
And again, there's another kind of conflict in that as well.
Yeah, yeah, exactly that, exactly that.
And there's never going to be a right answer, right?
Because it's one of those ones.
But I guess look into the future then.
So where do you foresee you taking your business and what's the goals that you have for as
well?
Because it'll be interesting to know what you're foreseeing in the future.
think what I want to do more in terms of goal is spreading the word.
uh And that's why I just started doing podcasts.
I did some talks.
I think I know that if I go out there, talk with companies, or medium sized companies,
really um transmit.
the message that they need, you know, there is the opportunity to save time and money if
they do more change, you know, prevention of fishes at the start, they're gonna be more
successful.
And I think it's just a change of the way that we think.
So probably that's just my mission.
That's what I want to do more of.
Yeah, no, no, for sure.
And how does you know, AI and technology maybe, you know, come into this equation as well,
because I think that again, the biggest thing everyone's talking about is how does AI and
this new technology start in the future of our businesses.
And so have you kind of given some thought of what you seeing in your industry
specifically on how this type of technology is going to cause some disruption or
opportunity with the work you do?
disruption definitely.
So, you we all know that.
I think the opportunity is around data analysis.
You know, there is so, so for example, in a lot of the change, you have all, you know, you
have all the theories, you have all the models.
It could be how, you know, how to manage an international program, we lost for different
cultures.
So there's a lot of data in there.
And then you have the specific data information about the company.
So you have to bring all of those together and nobody requires us to spreadsheets
traditionally.
So nothing, there is a lot of opportunity of using technology to do better analysis of
data, looking at all the research that there is out there that really is very helpful.
So, and that's the good side of it.
I think the, probably the danger is to rely too much on the responses from gen AI tools
and assume that is always right.
Because I think when we're talking about human beings, you know, there is that element of
irrationality or not being quite sure how people are going to react.
that I don't think there is a model that's actually able to respond to that.
Yeah, yeah, no, definitely.
And yeah, just on that note, it's quite interesting with, with AI right now is, you know,
you can essentially always get the answer you want from it, which is, which I find quite
interesting.
Um, like depending on how you prompt it or what you say, you can get it to agree with you
on pretty much anything.
Um, even if it isn't a great idea, which is, uh, which is interesting.
So it's, know to your point, I think it's gonna be, um, definitely you would be
quite careful, I think, on how you start using these tools and you can't go all in on
trusting it 100%.
um You know, on the data side, it's getting a lot more accurate, you pulling from that
data.
But even I remember, you know, initially when it came out, you could feed it a spreadsheet
and it will still do the calculations wrong or still, you know, output some incorrect
information.
And so it's going to be interesting how I think businesses need to add in some layer of
checking the work done by.
you know, these AI tools just, yeah, just on your point.
You know, absolutely.
as you said, you said, you know, it's, you know, according to AI, you know, I'm a genius
and you know, it's just way too flattering, which is great for your ego, but just say, oh,
that's a great idea.
And I think, no, no, I just want something like a challenging response.
Just tell me why this is not going to work.
And I think that's another danger in that as well, that, you know, we, you know, it boosts
our ego and sometimes we
you know, we implement, you know, change actions and they're actually not going to work
because they've not been challenging enough.
Yeah, yeah, no, no, for sure, for sure.
But on the data side, to me it's really important because there is so much data that's
required, but it needs to, the quality of the RS1 is really important.
It's one of my, the challenges that I have with many companies I work with, they don't
have the right data to both measure the impact of the change or the levels of adoption,
but also to understand how
the key parameters, the key measures that they need to run the company properly.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
again, that visibility, right, as we said before, but which is so important.
So no, completely agree.
And again, it's gonna be interesting to think of the next couple of years, because I think
these answers that we have on the future of AIs, it's gonna change again, like every
software, right?
It changes and shifts based on the latest use case that we could use it for, which would
be definitely interesting to see in both our industries.
So one of the final questions we always ask guests in the show is if you can go back to
your 18 year old self and only take three lessons with you, whether it's some
philosophical knowledge, some business knowledge, or just some general advice, what would
those three things be and why would it be those things?
Ooh, okay.
So I think the first one would be get mentors as soon as possible.
I always, you my impression was, you just need to be more senior, just know what you're
doing before getting a mentor.
And I think I left it too late.
And that's, to me, the ability of having a good sounding board is really important.
And...
I think probably it would have helped shape my thinking much quicker if I had that, you
know, those challenges, those questioning from a senior person that has done those things
before.
So I think that would be my first one.
uh Second one, focus.
That's what I would just tell my younger self.
I just tend to get over enthusiastic.
about, you know, just sort of different projects.
So even writing a book is something that I've been thinking for such a long time.
And everything that you're thinking about takes up space, mental space and capacity.
So if you're thinking about one thing, you can't think about the other one.
So I think that ability, even if it's short term, just say, and I did for the book, let's
focus on the book for, you know, the next eight months, and I get it done.
without other distractions.
So lesson number three is telling yourself what's the worst that can happen.
Because it's never as bad as we think.
No, for sure, for sure.
even if you may get a bit embarrassed and you just say the wrong thing is, you the most
important thing.
And I learned, especially as an entrepreneur, you just show up.
You just talk with people, you post things, you come up, you know, with your ideas, with
your opinions.
And most of the time is just the best thing that you can do and nothing really can go
wrong.
Amazing.
I think there's some great lessons there, some great golden nuggets throughout this whole
episode.
So I'm sure all the listeners have taken some notes around all this.
So where can people find you if they want to learn more about the book or yourself?
uh Where can people find all that information?
Yeah, so probably the first port of call is LinkedIn.
I have my profile in there.
I also have a website, which is me, georgiappresento.com.
ah I do lots of other things.
I post weekly on Substack.
So anybody that just doesn't have the attention span or time to read the whole book, I
publish articles on change weekly.
And there's different topics related to leadership.
working in companies, managing transformation.
I have a YouTube channel as well, which is like in his infancy.
But again, that was a great challenge for me to record myself, which is very difficult to
start with.
And you can notice every time it's a little bit better.
Also, somebody's interesting.
I have a very quick assessment, which is called, You Chains Ready?
And that's for leaders to measure how ready they are for change.
And it looks at three different categories, leadership style, team capability, and
organizational readiness.
It takes less than three minutes.
And it just gives you this customized little insights on what you're doing well and where
you should put your attention on.
Because going back to focus is about just being sure that you focus on the right thing.
Okay, amazing.
What we'll do, we'll link all this in the show notes below so people can go ahead and
check it out.
But thank you so much for taking the time today.
I really enjoyed the conversation and I'm sure a lot of other people have.
Thank you.
Thanks so much.