Why Your Tech-First Transformation Is a Waste of Money – With Paul Howley

This week, Jimmy and James are joined by Paul Howley—a former radio astronomer turned corporate transformation expert—to dismantle the myth that technology is the answer to all organisational change. Here’s the truth: it’s not. With 36 years of experience across airlines, utilities, and financial services, Paul explains why most tech-driven transformations fail (70% of them, according to McKinsey) and how middle managers can deliver real change without a single line of code.

The episode exposes the absurdity of chasing AI, new platforms, and digital tools as quick fixes. Instead, Paul shares a case study from financial services where a mortgage lending team went from a net promoter score of -11 to +80—not by buying software, but by fixing broken processes, ditching "ghost policies," and empowering frontline staff. The result? Happier customers, lower costs, and a 20% reduction in processing time.

Key points:

• Tech is not the answer—it’s often a distraction from the real problems.
• Focus on outcomes, not tools—most transformations fail because they lose sight of why they started.
• Middle managers can be heroes—by fixing small, broken processes, they can deliver big results without big budgets.
• Bravery beats buzzwords—it takes guts to challenge the status quo, but the rewards are worth it.
• Customer obsession is free—organise your team around what customers actually need, not what’s easiest for the organisation.

If you’re tired of watching IT projects fail and want to make a real difference, this episode is your playbook.

Transcript

Speaker 0:03

Hello, I'm James. Hi, I'm Jimmy and welcome to a Job Done Well, the podcast that helps you improve your performance enjoyment at work.

James 0:15

Good afternoon. What we're talking about today.

Jimmy 0:17

Afternoon, James. Today we have a special guest who is going to talk to us about how you can transform without using technology. Everyone is leaping towards technology as a solution for everything.

James 0:33

No. You need to be AI powered

Jimmy 0:35

Sorry. AI powered technology is the answer to everything. Well, our special guest, Paul Howley, has a different view and he's going to share with us A, why he thinks that approach is wrong, but B, how managers can do it differently. So welcome Paul.

Paul 0:53

Thank you very much.

Jimmy 0:55

Now, Paul, we know you very well. But for the benefit of the audience, do you wanna give us a quick 32nd intro as to who are you and why they should listen to you?

Paul 1:05

Yeah. Great. So I've worked in a number of different industries, actually. Airlines, utilities, financial services. It was financial services where we all met. But across different roles, operations, technology, change across all different levels of the organization. And it's through those 36 years of experience. I thought actually there, there is a problem here and there is a another way potentially. So that's what we'll talk about today.

Jimmy 1:33

But Paul, what, just tell us as well, just to put the cherry on top of that. What were you trained as originally?

Paul 1:40

Originally I was a radio astronomer, so I am an astronomer by trade, but there were no jobs in that, so I ended up

Jimmy 1:49

Working with us Just to start off most transformations start off with a tech decision, new platform, new system, AI tool. From what you've seen, why do organizations reach for that as a solution?

Paul 2:05

Well, I think you can probably get seduced by some of the technology. And particularly if you go conferences and things like that, that they're all sponsored by technology vendors who'll send say, this is the best thing since sliced bread. And there's a reason they're sponsoring those trade conferences is they get a lot of money from people who think that, well, actually, I can use this technology to be transformational. than focusing on how if you really focus on business outcomes, then that's transformational. And so it is the business outcomes rather than the technology that that we should all be thinking about.

James 2:44

I've got a slightly, I agree, but I was just a couple of vans. I think there were two things going on here. So first off so if you take ai, which case in point is the current buzzword. There's this huge fear of missing out. Everybody else is doing this. If I don't this, I'm going to get left behind. I'll have a strategic disadvantage. So on the one hand, you've got that gnawing away at people's minds thinking everybody else is gonna do it. The other thing is we do employ fairly senior people and given big and then they have to earn their corns. So you've invariably got senior people banging about in organizations saying technology's the solution.'cause their job depends on it. So when you add those two things to your pile, it is no wonder organizations go technology first.

Jimmy 3:28

Well, can I give An additional one. Yeah I think people are quite lazy about things. And I'll tell you the reason why I say that is in our last episode we talked about some of the things that we'd learned over the first a hundred conversations that we had on this podcast. And one of the things is improving the system and It's a very complex. Environment you create. And so when you try to transform it, you wanna improve it. There's a lot of complexity to deal with. A simple solution is let me buy a new system. Let me buy ai. So I think it's, at a senior level, and I've done this how do I solve this problem of trying to improve the results or change the course of this organization? It's often really easy to say, right, I'm going to put in a new piece of tech rather than actually get to the root cause of the problem and the opportunities.

Paul 4:17

Yeah. Well, I think you also need to look at what the outcomes of

Jimmy 4:21

I.

Paul 4:22

choices are as well. And, there's some really good lot of research, but there's a McKinsey one of the ones that are really good at this, which is, Of those transformations, AI or digital or, we're just, a systems implementation. What's the success rate? And the, all of the research says it's only about 30%. So 30% of transformations successfully achieved the business case outcomes. So, there's a problem there. And why? That's.

James 4:51

further, Paul again, I would argue what you're really saying to me is only 70% of IT directors are prepared to admit it didn't work as well as it should have done.'cause I reckon that failure rate is much higher than that.

Jimmy 5:03

fortunately the three of us were always responsible for delivering transformations in the 30%, obviously. But that aside, why do you think that is the case? What's your view, Paul, as to why 70th percent don't deliver the what they promise?

Paul 5:18

Well, it's because people forget the business outcomes. So you set off with this business case which tends to be financially motivated'cause. You're going to make an investment. You wanna return an investment what very quickly gets lost is the why you're actually doing it. You're doing it for customers, So, what I've observed over time is that you then get into the nuts and bolts of I'm now choosing a technology to be able to implement. And what I've actually lost sight of is why I was doing it in the first place. And again, my observation of the 30% that are successful is they never lose sight of the customer and they never lose sight of the outcomes. And every decision is always about those outcomes.

James 6:05

Another point here, Paul, which is, it's this whole debate about efficiency versus effectiveness because a lot of people putting the technology just to chase cost savings. So it's about doing the same thing more efficiently rather than being more effective doing the right thing, which is your point about. Focusing on the customer, but the minute, it's very easy to save money in an organization, but doing it successfully is a totally different thing altogether.

Paul 6:28

Yeah,. We put together this transformational change., We're in the honeymoon period where we go, actually, we really want to make a difference for for customers and for the organization. And then the first thing that people think is, well, how can I achieve this or these outcomes with technology? And I think that's the wrong way of looking at it actually, is whenever I've approached a, here's an outcome we wanna achieve. The hierarchy is Can I as level I'm in the organization, but can I actually make a change to this process myself to achieve the outcomes? And actually, quite a lot of the time you find the answer to that is yes. But if we assume that's start of the hierarchy and you go, well, actually I can't make it myself. Then the next one is, well, could I get some specialist help to re-engineer the process to achieve those outcomes? Third part of the hierarchy is, well, no, if I can't do just process, then can I achieve the outcomes with a small technology change? And so the last part of the hierarchy is, well, do I need a major technology change to achieve the outcomes? And my observation around that is that, start at hierarchy four which is, or, particularly most senior leadership teams that I've worked with would say, I need a major technology change to achieve these outcomes. When very often the answer is you don't.

James 7:52

Yeah, but there's a conceit here. Paul isn't there, which is a major technology change is a big strategic change.

Paul 7:57

I.

James 7:58

Whereas booing about going and looking at your policies and your procedures, and that's what clipboard monkeys do, isn't it? Right. That's not strategic. And so you've got that going on in people's minds. That's what their ego is telling them. So actually they don't want to pin their career on non-strategic stuff. They want be bold and they want to be strategic, and they want to make big moves. And we've got all of that going on in our head and it just blinds us to what the reality is.

Jimmy 8:23

It still comes back to me a lot of the time there's an easy answer to the. These things. I remember doing a, in one organization I worked with we did the annual sweep round of what all the projects that everyone wanted to have. And, there was a risk tool that the risk team wanted. There was a project management tool that the project management team needed. There was a finance tool that the finance team needed. Everyone wanted a tool. It's like, we've got plenty of tools here. We just, you don't need all this. Yeah.

James 8:52

Well, it depends on your definition of tool.

Jimmy 8:53

I, it's, it was either definition was true.

James 8:57

You've got loads of

Jimmy 8:58

Loads of tools, but the point being rather than try and unpick the process or do what you were talking about, Paul, which is like, can I do this with a small change or can I do this with a process change? It was actually, that's all quite hard. It's more complicated. Let's just layer a, some form of tech along the top of it, forgetting that actually when you layer the tech across complexity, it doesn't actually solve the problem. It just, it can make the problem worse sometimes.

James 9:26

So you've got four things going on. Then I think is where we come. Conclusion first is you've got just lazy management. Pick the easiest solution. The easiest solution looks like a big tech solution. You've got this whole fear of missing out thing going on. You've got. A whole load of ego. And then to your point, Paul, you've got a huge sales pressure, all these big sponsoring stuff in them, all of those things combined to drive this whole tech first approach to life.

Jimmy 9:53

Paul, a lot of our audience, our middle managers, they don't have tech budget, so, they're not going to be able to go and get a new tool or a new AI friend or whatever. What would be your advice to those people caught in the middle of an organization? You've got change filtering down from on high, but you've got your problems that you need to solve.

Paul 10:16

I think that there's an opportunity for us, if we are the middle managers, we can actually be seen as really heroic in our organizations because we can achieve a transformation in customer outcomes customer experience without the cost. Or indeed the long time scales of major technology investments. And that's what I really want to focus on is there are things we can all do, however smaller part of the process we actually own that make things tally better without all of that cost to the

James 10:51

Lemme just play devil's advocate. So what you're saying, Paul, is we ought to look at customer outcomes, but I've got my bosses on my back and they're all, it's just worried about cost. That's all he's interested in. So if he's any worried about cost, why start looking at customer outcomes.

Paul 11:06

Because if I remove waste from all of these processes, then actually the the cost goes down. So not only are you improving the experience, you're also improving the financial sustainability of the organization as well. So if you're framing it. I'm working on customer outcomes and one of the benefits is that it will be more effective then. That's a good way to have a conversation with senior management about why I should be given some license to do this.

James 11:34

Yeah, as one of my old bosses said to me, we never have time to do it properly, but we always seem to have time to do it twice.

Paul 11:40

Yes.

Jimmy 11:41

Everyone's ears pricked up. Paul, when you said, you know about being heroes How would you assess, how would you suggest that people approach becoming heroes? What, what's your, have you got a foolproof method for us?

Paul 11:54

I've got a case study if that would be helpful.'cause we can

Jimmy 11:57

Yeah.

Paul 11:57

a case study and then I'll draw out some of the

Jimmy 12:00

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect.

Paul 12:03

So, so it's a case study from financial services for mortgage lending. Many of us have obviously taken out mortgages and we know that process can be a bit fraught. It's also a very complicated process. So most of us actually when we take out a mortgage, then we go and use a broker. To arrange all of that lending. Broker goes and look at the hole in the market, tells us what the best deal is, and then we go through the process of getting an offer, et cetera, et cetera. Clearly any mortgage lender that people are lending the money, they want brokers to be happy. They're not gonna recommend a lender to their customer or if they're concerned about the experience and the service that the customer will get. and so this case of the, actually the story starts with unhappy. Brokers. And so as I said, it is a case study I've, been personally involved in, so, we'll talk through that and sort of explain why We went to an approach that said, actually we can fix this without technology.

Jimmy 13:02

So just Paul, before you get into the, that question. So you had unhappy brokers. What? Were they saying about you at that point?

Paul 13:11

So, not very nice things actually. In fact, one broker wrote to the chief exec and said, I would rather set myself on fire than give you any more business. and,

Jimmy 13:23

Okay. Pretty clear. Pretty clear.

Paul 13:25

yeah, a burning platform if you like., We were measuring net promoter score. How likely would you be to recommend this company? We were minus 11, which was, catastrophically bad when you're trying to get people to convince a broker to use you in instead. So whole host of reasons. And fortunately, we as an organization viewed that as that's really bad and it needs fixing.

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Jimmy 14:23

Paul what, tell us what did you do about that challenge then?

Paul 14:27

Oh, well, I mean, first of all, it's probably worth, back to the earlier conversations is the first view was, oh, we need a technology solution for this.

Jimmy 14:35

Yeah.

Paul 14:35

Because actually, you know

Jimmy 14:37

Yeah.

Paul 14:37

this is, we need a new technology platform that will fix everything. And there's lots of good technology platforms around it and do these digital transformations. Problem with that is one lots of money and. With all of these kind of investments, they're 18 plus months away or quite often, quite longer. So you're saying, well, I'm gonna live with this service for, and a half, two years, and that's just not possible. So, so I'd just come into the organization as an operational leader and met with the team, might, the team, the people who are actually running all of the service and the process and says, you know what do you think we should do? And, They actually said, well, we think we can fix this. We don't need the technology. And so, I represented them and said to the senior leaders that, And so I then did go into the boardroom and I, or the exec room and actually said, look, I think we can get to top quartile service position against the rest of the industry without technology. And and some people told me, oh,

James 15:38

Again. You can answer my question and some people told you. Go on. I was gonna say, what did they say that made you think that?

Paul 15:44

Well what did the team say? It's, they're the ones that were right at the coalface of the organization and could, they were the ones that were dealing with customers, and they were the ones who said, look, there's a better way and we think there's a better way. We need some support to be able to find that better way because we're so busy. That we don't have the time or or the support to be able to make the changes we think that we need. And so the people crying out for help, going, we think we can make this better, but we need some support to be able to make it better.

James 16:18

Sorry. But what you're really saying is the people on the shop floor wanted to fix this, and they knew how to do it, but usually the attitude is, well, these, the problem is then they're not working hard enough.

Paul 16:29

I have heard that said before. Yes. But and that's why I was in the, I guess the privileged position of being able to go and say, I think there's a different way. We don't need this technology solution. We can fix it a lot. Faster than if we look at a technology solution. And I was lucky that the senior leadership team bought into that ambition partly because it came from the people who were running the process who said, we can fix it. but also because it was gonna be in a lot less time and the fraction of the cost of the technology solutions.

Jimmy 16:59

So Paul you've got the frontline people saying, yeah, we can do this, we can fix it. You've influenced the senior people to give the space. What did you actually change then?

Paul 17:09

Yeah, so, so we started looking at, it was people policy and process. So, I'll start with the process first. So brought in some operational excellence, sort of lean experts to just to analyze that process. What's going on, what's going. What's going wrong? We found there were 28 different ways of processing that mortgage application. and also the handoffs between teams. So. My team said, I've got a green service level here. I'm doing everything within this. And the next team said, I've got a green service level as well. So everybody was reporting green service levels, but there were handoffs. So if I'm a broker and it's going from team to team to team, then the service level from my perspective is bright red.

Jimmy 17:52

All right.

Paul 17:53

and so, you know that those handoffs meant there were multiple days waiting. For teams to pick up their piece of the process. So, that's, process broken,

Jimmy 18:04

Yeah.

Paul 18:04

Next bit was policy.

Jimmy 18:06

Yeah.

Paul 18:06

so lots of ghost policy. I call it a not actual policy. But'cause someone had been penalized once upon a time in the past. For something, then they put an unwritten step into their processes and into their policies. It's the consequence of overzealous quality teams. And so you get a culture where you're trying to find things that are wrong for performance management rather than. A culture where you're trying to be a coach. so that's the sort of the policy area

Jimmy 18:36

I had a great example of this dealing with a different company. Paul was they wanted some forms filling in. Which they sent me electronically, so I sent them back electronically. They wrote back to me and said you haven't filled them in quite right. So we did a couple of rounds of this, and then when I finally got them right, they wrote back to me and said we can't accept the forms until you send us a hard copy of them. They like, why have we just done that dance for ages? But it's that sort of thing that you mean, isn't it?

Paul 19:02

Yeah, it's, yeah.

James 19:04

One man's waste is another man's career.

Paul 19:07

So final bit was people.

Jimmy 19:08

Yep.

Paul 19:09

The team, it was split between customer service representatives who'd speak to the brokers, and then underwriters who'd make all of the decisions. And if I'm a broker, I could not speak to the decision maker, the underwriter so what you had was customer service. People were trying to justify or interpret why an underwriter might have said no. and B, brokers hated that. And so you can combine

Jimmy 19:34

Yeah.

Paul 19:35

the process, the policy, the people and what, so was that overall experience had been designed for the benefit of the organization, not for the benefit of the broker and the customer.

James 19:47

So a question, Paul, would you, I mean, is it possible to say which of those three you think had the biggest impact?

Paul 19:53

Actually, I'd say it's probably the people. I mean they're all aligned, but it would be the people side, which was because of the way we decided to structure that would lost sight of what was needed for the customer, and then everything else fell outta that. that decision, the process was broken because you now had handoffs. It all came down from the decision of how I'm gonna structure my team.

James 20:19

presumably that decision originally was made as a cost saving'cause somebody will have had it in their minds that you've got these underwriters who are very highly skilled. So we need to keep them busy and the way to keep them busy is to keep them away from the customer and have somebody at the front end triaging.

Paul 20:33

is exactly why that had been done.

James 20:35

Yeah, so the whole chasing cost you chase cost and actually runs away with it.

Jimmy 20:40

And I think that's that in so many organizations that we work with, that access to decision makers is always a key thing. People, whether they're customers or brokers, they wanna understand and talk to the decision makers not a go-between. And so that whole thing about who's talking to the customer, who's triaging, that's where a lot of the waste accumulates really.

Paul 21:04

Yeah. And so that's exactly what we did to fix it, which was, process policy and people and not technology. So on the process side, we re-engineered those to one version of the process from the. 28 that we did have, removed all of the handoffs. So, I mean I described it before as a production line process with multiple people touching the application, but we changed that to case management.

Jimmy 21:31

Yeah.

Paul 21:32

Also, just. Very simple thing, a proactive call at the beginning of the application, at the start of that to the broker from me as the case manager going, look, I'm gonna be dealing with the case and this is what I will need from you. So then there's no ambiguity. And I set all the expectations upfront. Very simple changes, but a huge difference to, that service experience.

Jimmy 21:57

Yeah.

Paul 21:58

So that was process policy. So removed all of the ghost policy that I talked about, the erroneous policy had built up and streamlined all of the existing policy guide, retrained everybody in those new policy and procedures and. Crucially also changed the quality assurance process. There had been more about performance management and we actually changed that to focus on customer outcomes. So,

Jimmy 22:24

Yeah.

Paul 22:24

so my role in the quality team is as a guide or a coach rather than being the police.

Jimmy 22:30

Yeah.

Paul 22:30

And very much about training, about why we need the policy rather than, you just must follow this policy. It's why are we here? People. So that's the third element of this. So talked earlier about the brokers. Big complaint was, I can't speak to the decision maker, the underwriter in this case. So we made everyone an underwriter. We trained every customer service representative to have underwriting skills and every underwriter to have customer service skills. But everyone there now, they had a career progression path as well that they could sort of demonstrate their technical and customer skills and progress in a way that previously they hadn't been able to do as well. So that. Was quite transformational. It meant I could come through as a broker now and talk to the decision maker.

Jimmy 23:20

Makes sense.

James 23:22

But, So a lot of what you've said is counterintuitive. Right. So you train everybody as underwriters. So you do that well, your costs are gonna rise. So you get pushback against that. Or another one will be all of this shadow policy and totally, you agree. I've seen loads of it, but somebody has put that in there for a purpose. You'll have some QA or technical quality or whatever they call themselves saying, oh no. You've got to, leave all of that in'cause it's there for a purpose. But how did you get over all that pushback?

Paul 23:52

Well, partly because what we'd said is we think we can do this better because the people who actually were running the process were saying, we believe we can make this better. And so there's an element of being a brave to a certain extent, which is. I'm trusting myself and I'm trusting the team when we say we can make it better, that we will. So, so there is an element of pushback because it is counterintuitive perhaps but. Here's, whereas sort of middle managers, to be heroic. We also need to be brave. We need to actually trust that we know what we're talking about and therefore trust us to try this.'cause the alternative actually is you then have to go and look at a very big technology project. So trust us to do this. And if we fail. It's been a little bit of time, but not a lot of money. If we're successful, it's really beneficial.

James 24:43

But how did you overcome the organizational barriers to get this done? Paul?

Paul 24:48

This was very much the idea of the team who said, look, we think, and actually all of those colleagues there as well, who were going, are quite happy if I'm a customer service person and I'm getting a broker giving me it in the neck all of the time. And then I say, you're not gonna get it in the neck from the broker all the time'cause we're gonna train you to have all of the answers to their questions. You go, yeah, I'll buy that. but we also had to do quite a lot of hearts and minds as well, which is. What's my job if I am the organization? It's not to process a mortgage, it's to help customers buy their dream homes. And when you can inspire people like that, then you get a really big buy-in from the organization as well. So it was as much about the way we talked about the challenge, as well as then sort of inspired people to go I want to be part of this journey. And so we use that language. With every colleague, people who are talking to customers, and also we use that language at the senior levels as well.

James 25:48

yeah. Okay. But, so a lot of the change management was really about educating people on what was really going on.

Jimmy 25:52

So Paul that's a fantastic story about what you did. So, you gotta tell us two, two things What did the NPS end up at and what are the key takeaways that you would say are applicable to any manager of a, any team who's trying to improve performance?

Paul 26:11

Yeah, so the net promoter score went from minus 11, as we said, really bad. It went to plus 80, so a 91 point improvement. Which is why I quite like talking about the case study because it's know it, and it does show, if you look at people policy and process, you can make really transformational outcomes without the use of technology. What it also meant was because brokers now went, this service is great, you saw a benefit in the price, so it was price elasticity as well.

Jimmy 26:42

Yeah.

Paul 26:42

you weren't the best price, they're still choosey because you go, the service is gonna be great here. So you've got that, top line benefit and income that's coming through there as well, it was more efficient. So all of this, so about 20% cost re reduction per mortgage application there as well. So you've got, it's much more efficient.

Jimmy 27:06

Yeah.

Paul 27:07

is great, and then you've got the price elasticity there as well. So financially a really good outcome and I think important lesson I'd take from all of that

Jimmy 27:17

Yeah.

Paul 27:18

Whatever my role in the organization, I can positively impact customer outcomes without needing to wait for technology and even if I own a very small part of the process. And if you think you can do it better, then I would absolutely bet that you are right. So, I think I can do it better. We talked about being heroic and I think we can all be seen as heroic by saying, I think it can be done better I will make it happen. And that last bit in my experience is really important'cause we can all complain about a process. But it just takes some guts to actually say, I'll make that change happen. And that's where the bravery comes in. But, my experience. Then actually people who take the initiative and say, I will make that happen. Actually, it tends to be welcomed by senior leaders as well.

Jimmy 28:10

Yeah, and it sounds simple, but actually, if the danger is that you've always been downtrodden, no one listens to you, it's all about big projects. It's, you, it's quite easy to lose sight of, actually, I think I can make a difference. And then, you do have to be a little bit brave to stick your hand up and say, yeah, I can improve this part of the business, I can improve my team. And then, the follow through in terms of making it happen and the delivery of that it does take some kind of resilience, doesn't it, at the end of the day to, to do that?

Paul 28:41

It, yes, it does. That's why I use the word bravery,

Jimmy 28:44

Yeah.

Paul 28:44

it, it is brave. But then equally, the reward is great, not just for the customer, but for me personally. If I think, well, I made that change, I made that difference to customers. One of the other benefits that we found actually the engagement of colleagues and the process and engagement of my team went up hugely when we were talking to people about why we were doing things rather than what are you doing?

James 29:07

But I'm. Maybe the two most important things. And number one, work out who your bloody customer is and what they want. So you're focused on the right thing, which comes back to the point we'll always talk about, which is purpose, but what are you here to do? Yeah. And if you running a call center, your purpose is not to answer the flipping call in 20 seconds. Your purpose is to solve the customer's query. So what does the customer want?'cause if you start focusing on that, your only good things will happen. But the other thing I think again. To reiterate what you said, it's just, great to take some pride in what you do. if you feel like you are doing a good job, it's really what's the word I'm looking for contagious. Everybody wants to get part of it.

Jimmy 29:51

And I think just to pick up on one other point that you made or a lot of what you're talking about was, you senior leaders, team managers, whoever, listening to the people on the frontline who really serve. The end customer about what gets in their way, and then sometimes the solutions are actually counterintuitive to what somebody might think, but actually, those counterintuitive solutions often are where the best answers lie.

Paul 30:22

I was gonna say, that's why you need to think of it holistically though, because it,

Jimmy 30:25

Yeah.

Paul 30:26

you need to think about the policy, the process, and the way that people are organized as well.'cause if you tinker with one bit of that system, you might break something else. So you need to think about the whole system when you are looking at that. And, a system can be a big system like mortgage lending or it can be very small. It's just the bit that I

Jimmy 30:46

Yeah. Yeah.

Paul 30:47

within my part of the process.

James 30:48

All right. So Paul, in summary then, what would you say are the key things that people need to do if they're sitting in an organization that's not working too well?

Paul 30:57

Carefully document what are the desired outcomes, so desired outcomes for the customer. It could be desired outcomes for transformation, but what is it that you're trying to

Jimmy 31:08

Yeah.

Paul 31:09

be really clear on that. Then look at the hierarchy of options that we talked about earlier to achieve those outcomes. And, remembering start, can I do the process myself? I get some help to do that process? Might need a little bit of technology and only at the last resort, ask a senior leader to go and make a major technology choice. To achieve the outcomes, then look at the people, look at the policy, look at the process. But never, ever lose sight of the outcomes and assess them in every team meeting that you have. Or if you're running it as a project, assess those outcomes in every project. Steering. talk about it in your huddles. So those are the outcomes. Never lose sight of them. And then organize your team to benefit the customer. Not what is easiest for the organization. It's is this set up in the way that is best to deal with the customer and the best people to answer that question, and the people that actually speak to customers.

Jimmy 32:09

And the way you describe it, Paul, throughout, any manager can do it, but it does take bravery. Okay. That was fascinating Paul. Thank you for sharing your insights. Thanks everyone.

James 32:23

Cheers now.

Speaker 6 32:23

We cover a whole host of topics on this podcast

Speaker 7 32:26

from purpose to corporate jargon,

Speaker 6 32:28

but always focused on one thing, getting the job done well,

Speaker 7 32:32

easier said than done. So if you've got. Unhappy customers or employees, bosses or regulators breathing down your neck.

Speaker 6 32:41

If your backlogs are outta control and your costs are spiraling and that big IT transformation project that you've been promised, just keeps failing to deliver,

Speaker 7 32:50

we can help. If you need to improve your performance, your team's performance, or your organizations, get in touch at Jimmy at@jobdonewell.com orJames@jobdonewell.com.