Entrepreneurship

Welcome to the 1st episode of The Change Troubleshooter, a brand new podcast from Nina Dar, founder of Cheeky Monkey Business Solutions Management Consultancy that created “A Human Approach to Innovation and Change” and author of Transform Your Business. 

Since setting up Cheeky Monkey in 2004, Nina has been helping companies achieve their goals in some of the most exciting places on earth to do business, such as Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Poland and the USA as well as on her  home turf here in the UK. She is also a fully qualified Executive Business Coach.

Nina’s projects are a diverse mix, focusing on people, product and technology. Her style is unashamedly disruptive as she believes that without being truly honest about where we are today, we can’t get to where we want to be tomorrow.

Digital transformation, particularly PLM has dominated her work for the last 10 years but she continues to champion people as the most important part of all technology projects.

Nina has had a few commercial ventures in her story but doesn’t see herself as an entrepreneur, as such, but she definitely has an entrepreneurial spirit.  She describes herself as out to prove that change can be managed differently, unafraid to say what everyone else is thinking. She is driven by the desire for change to be a human interaction, first and foremost.  The fact that she has built a successful consultancy and has had successful partnerships, is accidental. She believes entrepreneurship is a state of mind.

We discover how travel influenced her and would drive her to work in various companies not confined by the idea of a traditional career. Wherever she worked, her keen eye and intellect always spotted that there was room for improvement, and obvious ways to operate better and more efficiently. In this episode she shares her story so we may understand who she is and her journey to becoming The Change Troubleshooter. 

In this first episode, Entrepreneurship, Nina explains how all this started.

Transcript

Narrator: 0:04

Welcome to the first episode of The Change Troubleshooter, a brand new podcast from Nina Dar, founder of Cheeky Monkey Business Solutions management consultancy that created A Human Approach to Innovation and Change and author of Transform Your Business. Since setting up Cheeky Monkey in 2004 Nina has been helping companies achieve their goals in some of the most exciting places on earth to do business. Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, and the USA, as well as on her home turf here in the UK. She is also a fully qualified executive business coach. Nina's projects are a diverse mix focusing on people, product and technology. Her style is unashamedly disruptive as she believes that without being truly honest about where we are today, we can't get to where we want to be tomorrow. Digital transformation, particularly PLM, has dominated her work for the last 10 years, but she continues to champion people as the most important part of technology projects. Nina has had a few commercial ventures in her story but doesn't see herself as an entrepreneur. She describes herself as out to prove that change can be managed differently unafraid to say what everyone else is thinking, she is driven by the desire for change to be a human interaction first. The fact that she has built a successful consultancy and has had successful partnerships is accidental. She believes that entrepreneurship is a state of mind. So in this first episode, entrepreneurship, I interview Nina and begin by asking her how all this started.

Nina Dar: 1:53

Yeah, I always get asked that question. How have I ended up here? And there is this tendency that I have to say it's just accidentally, well, I guess it's not, I mean, it started off that way. I didn't want a career, wasn't thinking about a career. The only thing I was thinking about was travel. I just wanted to travel from a really young age. And I wasn't great at school, and I loved school. I loved learning, I just wasn't great. Doing exams and stuff was really hard work for me. So I left after my O levels to the disappointment of parents, and went and got a job and it all started there. I loved working, I loved what companies were trying to do. I mean I started off in a dairy, that production environment really excited me. I was fascinated by the fact that there were all these initiatives going on, things that the business themselves wanted to change, things that the people wanted to change. And we were making milk, butter and cream. And I was just really intrigued by all of this and got stuck into everything. And they sent me off to study at night school and then I earned enough money to go travelling and I went off to America and then came back and thought,my travelling's not done. I need to do something else. I'll just get another temporary job while I earn enough money to go off again. And growing up in Northwest was pretty special because ICI companies were everywhere, and they were breaking up and it was an enormous change. The breakup of ICI, them turning into lots of private, not private companies, but you know, not the ICI companies and a lot of change there as well. And I was in and out of Zeneca pharmaceuticals in Macclesfield and Alderley park again, just doing contract jobs. I had no interest in thinking this would lead somewhere, but all the time I was intrigued, loving it, wanted to get involved. I wasn't doing temporary work because I didn't care about work. I absolutely loved work and everything that it meant, stood for, how it made me feel and I was, I suppose, looking back I was quite ambitious really. It's just that I didn't see it that way. And then I went off traveling again and came back and then another contract job at Zeneca made me meet a fantastic set of people working on a drug that was for schizophrenia of all things, probably very apt for me and, and it was a turning point. There were some fabulous people in that team. I was exposed to people within a project environment, I guess for the very first time, you know, I was a nobody, I was in front of a green screen, but I could see all these exciting things that were going on and I wanted, I wanted a part of that. Wanted to be involved in that and this group of people were really quite special. They invited you in. You were, you could be part of it if you wanted to be and because I wanted to be that. That sort of happened for me and they encouraged me to go and do a degree at the time and did business studies at night and I was hard work. I myself was hard work. I am very accepting of that impatient, wanting to do the new stuff all the time and my lecturer then said, okay, do supply chain management, there's nothing. This is pre-internet that we all had endless days and nights at Manchester central library and he went and you won't find anything on this. You won't find anything. You're going to have to really work hard if you want to understand what was going on here. And I was hooked, eh, this, this thing, supply chain management in the early nineties was changing everything and I was hooked. I wanted to know more. I wanted to explore more. I want you to talk to companies who were trying to do things. Globalization was something that made sense to me. I could see that it was world changing. Obviously we look back on that now and say is that for good or bad reasons? But where I was at the time, I just saw the absolute excitement of that and it changed everything. The doing that, my lecturer that suggested that that becoming my focus when I went back to the project team, they knew I had itchy feet by then and they had been so amazing. I was already working, um, from in the UK and in America. So the travel side of what I wanted to achieve in life was still being satisfied. It was an amazing time, an amazing time there with that team at Zeneca. And then really it became a process of staying with companies for, you know, two years or less because I was all about change. Um, so the roles that we're taking internally were all change roles and I, I was seeing that from an intern or perspective delivering change, it's really, really hard, really hard because on one level the company is saying that's what they want you to do. But on another level when you try and challenge and push back and, and really interrogate how that change is going to be delivered, no one wants to hear that your classed as disruptive. Maybe not a team player, not looking out for your boss, even not supporting what the company is really trying to do. But for me that was what the company was really trying to do. And I picked up a reputation for being quite disruptive quite quickly and I look back on these days is really interesting for me because I think I was quite aggressive. I felt every moment,I wanted things to change and I was very frustrated that they weren't and I would let people know it and people who got in my way, I would let them know it. So I probably was too aggressive maybe. Um, definitely people felt my presence when, when I was leading projects in those days and, and at the same time did get quite spectacular results. So on one hand I think people were quite keen to say it doesn't have to be done that way. Look at her, how she's getting, how is she getting away with that? And on the other hand, the results would suggest that it was something that worked. And then time went on and, and I moved, around had worked in several situations that had broadened my experience phenomenally. I'd worked in virtually every function in lots of different industries. And then I ended up working for a parcel logistics company who had just been acquired by 3I. And that experience with venture capitalists was another game changer. They asked me to look at these two companies that they bought, um, and look at how we could, uh, get the best out of merging the two business models together. And again, within nine weeks I'd come up with some pretty spectacular, um, statements, really things that I couldn't believe, had not been seen in due diligence, things, expectations that just seemed unrealistic to me. Objectives that I didn't feel we were going to deliver. And so my report wasn't, I think what everyone expected. It was very honest, very candid and not so complimentary of, of the work that had gone before. And my first experience of the ruthlessness of venture capitalists when, um, there was a complete board change and I myself was invited to join the board. Um, and I was very naive. It was, it was a moment for me when I realized that when you hold these positions of delivering change, your words have real impact on people and you need to be very clear, uh, very hold a lot of integrity, be very sure of what you're saying and where those words might lead and the human impact of that change. I felt very significantly at that time. And again, I was, uh, you know, completely, completely overwhelmed by an offer to join the board. I was thirty, a woman, you know, it was still early days for women holding positions like that, completely male dominated as ever. And I was in a quite a head spin flattery took over and of course I wanted it. It's totally, um, wasn't really my destiny. It was again, another fantastic experience and allowed me to see the finance inside of companies. What, what you really do when you interact with a chairman. What it really means when companies are saying that they've got to change some things strategically move forward. There's the conversations that happen at that level versus how you get to hear about it in the lower levels down the organization and the part you play as a board director in those situations. So I did it happily for about 18 months before I knew this wasn't a long term position for me. I missed the cut and thrust of the real problem solving. There's situations where you're thrown into something, you have no idea really what's completely going on and you have to figure that out. While normally in a quite chaotic situation with people who are worried about so many things and more and more this human impact of change was was really in my mind that we should be doing something. That change was coming thick and fast by now and for it to be successful and sustainable as it looked like it was probably going to be now sustainable for years and years to come. Then we had to think of the human element of change more carefully than we were doing at the time. So I resigned my directorship when I've t raveling again. U m, which shocked everyone because they thought that I'd hit a point, an age and a point in my career, a career by then. Absolutely. U m, that's, you don't take those kinds of risks. And I heard from everybody, Oh, you'll have to start all over again. No one will take you seriously. N ow these kinds of things have, I've had to carry all of my working life just because I haven't been satisfied with toeing the line, doing the normal thing. And so had a fantastic couple of years actually travelling, which was amazing. And it seemed inevitable that when I came back, I would set up my own business. But that isn't as easy as you think it's going to be. Of course, you can come home and go, I'm saying I'm going to work for myself. I'm going to set up my own business. But then you've got to find a client. You've got to, you've got to earn money in some way. And that that journey is hard and so actually I flicked between, I'm going to have my own business and I'm doing stuff and I'm telling people about it and I'm networking to looking at job vacancies going, I'm never going to earn enough money to live in all reality and probably going to have to get a job and it was in applying for a job that I met a recruiter who said I know who I should introduce you to, and he introduced me to PZ Cussons. My very first client and that was my third turning point. What a magical moment that was meeting the team at PZ Cussons understanding what they were trying to do, their faith in me in what they thought I could do. They were a rock for me and we, we did some amazing stuff together and I will always be really grateful for that and it meant that that that started something, a way of thinking, a more business way of thinking for me that I had to consider. I had an opportunity then to start a consultancy, which is something I'd never considered, but at the same time I'd launched Cheeky Monkey and Cheeky Monkey was all about A Human Approach to Innovation and Change and that I've never been more proud of. We launched that in 2004 and still today I am so committed to that a human approach to innovation and change is something that is maybe even more relevant today than it was in 2004 and I still really in, in all the projects that are taken and all the clients that I've had since PZ Cussons and all the people that I've worked with. That's what I try and instill. There is a psychology, there is a meeting of minds. There are human interactions that must be considered for change to be successful. And more recently, you know, I suppose over the last 10 years all of my workers that been in tech, digital transformation area PLM, the really hard technology areas where change is rarely successful and trying to understand why and trying to pick that apart and and really again put the human at the center of this conversation that becomes increasingly about technology. So what is it that made you want to do a podcast? Mainly because I get into so many great conversations and situations that I wish lots more people could be part of that. Um, most of the time in change, so much is separated. Conversations are separated, you have conversations with senior teams and they say such a thing, you have a conversation with the middle layer and they say such a thing and you have conversations where the people actually executing the projects and they say something different. And within the way that I work, I have those conversations with everybody and there isn't much difference between how I talk to a chief exec and how I talk to the person that might be punching in a green screen like I used to do. And I, I wish we could have more transparency like that and I wish there were lessons learned moments. So the change troubleshooter interesting name, is that what you are? Am I a change troubleshooter? I'm not sure, but it's the direction of travel that I want to take now. I guess like most people in this area or I don't even know like that might most people, I started off being a project manager on projects that were all about change and when I started out project management was about that projects were a vehicle for change. Everyone was very clear about that, so we had very structured project management structures and teams. Resource planning was really good, budgets were really good. Projects. These change projects would go over three, four, five years and there was an understanding that the change and the financial benefits wouldn't be seen for some time. Things like that have changed significantly. The long term projects, although in real terms still very much exists. The way that we have to operate within those long term projects is very different. We have to prove that the project is going to deliver benefits. Whilst it's still going on, their financials are very tough and very tough for change projects to really think about what, what does need to be done to get long term gain. Those kinds of projects are financially weighted in a way that's disadvantaged in the assessment process of accountants today and there's less and less appreciation that um, that doing some more work upfront will give a better outcome. Then increasingly you have to do the project before you've done the project to prove that the project is going to deliver. And in a lot of cases you just can't give that certainty. So over time, um, I think this one when I look back, I think really feels to me like what we had in 2003 to 2008 was a very luxurious time for change projects. And then after that, much harder and although in some cases, I still led projects, more and more my job wasn't to go in as a project manager or a project director or a program manager anymore. It was to assess the situation, see what was going wrong, look at what could be changed. And then work with the internal team to get them to do the changes from within. Something that I really agree with. I mean even, um, you know, the human approach is all about do change from within get help to get your own team to a point where this is sustainable from within the organization. External help should be used in a particular way. It's, it's vital and it's essential in a lot of areas, but it shouldn't be to replace roles that should exist internally when you deliver change and then have to maintain that change post project. So the change troubleshooter becomes more of the norm. I haven't described myself as a change troubleshooter before, but I think, Hey, I've naturally grown into it and it is what I'm doing. So that's me going forward and this is what the podcast is all about. So here's me, Nina Dar, Change Troubleshooter.

Narrator: 21:51

Interesting stuff there, Nina. So can you just tell us who you'll be talking to in the next five episodes of this series? Who your guests are going to be and what you'll be talking about more or less. Just so that we uh, know what to look forward to. My guests

Nina Dar: 22:08

are people that I've worked with in the past, people from Cheeky Monkey, FanatiCo, software agencies that I've worked with before, clients that I've had before. So I'm sharing this first series as we look back on projects that I've worked with, with people and using those experiences and then using something that's in the here and now to bring that thinking to today and j ust give us a chance to have a conversation about whether we do something differently or, y ou k now, have things changed or do we feel exactly the same about that? Hopefully these conversations will mean something to you. I always wish I could take more people into a room with me when I have these conversations and hopefully that's what these podcasts will become. You're in the room with me and my guests and hopefully that will be rewarding for all of us.

Narrator: 23:12

I'm sure it will, Nina, thanks very much for that. So just to let you know, there are five more episodes in this series. The next one is called Made of What Matters then we have Is Change a Team Sport? Why do we fake it? Battle of the Supercomputers and finally Disrupt or be Disrupted. These episodes will take place every two weeks, so the next one will be two weeks from today. You can contact Nina should you wish to discuss any of the things she's talked about today by going to her website, ninadar.com where you will find full contact details. So join us again for the next episode of the change troubleshooter in two weeks time. This has been a Sunsoaked Creative production

Music outro: 24:12

[inaudible].