Episode 6: Kate Holden

James Rowson 0:07
Hello everybody. Welcome to the latest edition of the practice digital transformation podcast. Today we’re joined by Kate Holden. Kate is a highly accomplished leader with executive board experience and a significant track record of driving profitable growth through digital transformation, strategic partnerships and large scale program delivery. This has resulted in award winning digital products with some of the most respected global brands including RELX, PLC, Pearson PLC, and the Financial Times. Today, we’ll explore what it takes to build winning teams and deliver digital transformations successfully. Welcome, Kate. So Kate, first question, What does digital mean to you?

Kate Holden 1:05
Well, firstly, hi, James. And David, thank you very much for inviting me. And what a great question to start with, I guess. So digital, for me is about technology and data as a means to an end. And when you think about how much technology and data has impacted our lives, as consumers and as professionals, it’s been coming for years, but the way that pandemic has been immense. And so at the business specifically, I think it’s by using technology and data to, to do things better, to do better things, or to change things, but always with an eye on delivering value to the business. So thinking about what’s changing in the market, whether its user needs their hair, changing a competitive landscape, and using their technology and and data to understand what you need to drive within the business to enhance the user experience to deliver better products and drive change that would deliver value. So very much a means to an end.

David Kemble 2:11
Fantastic. That’s really interesting and echoes, I think, a lot of the thoughts that we’ve had so far that you should always have an idea of why you’re trying to change the way you work and what you’re trying to achieve from Digital.

Kate Holden 2:29
Yes, yes, absolutely. And I think is really important to ask yourself the question of why what’s the business business rationale for for for driving change, because change can be quite disruptive for a business. And it can be quite uncomfortable for a number of people, frightening even and any certainly carries risk. Change carries risk. And so understanding upfront what technology can do for your business as an enabler, I think that’s really what’s at the heart of digital and digital transformation for me.

David Kemble 3:07
Absolutely. Now, you’ve been working in change and transformation for a large proportion of your career. Kate, have you seen a fundamental difference in the way that digital transformation programs around versus other types of large organizational transformations?

Kate Holden 3:25
Well, you know, what I think about traditional organizations, they’re typically organized by functions and functions can work in silos. So digital transformation is often interpreted as a technology program, an IT project, and more often than not, could be led by the head of technology or CIO or a CTO, whereas an organizational change, you know, you apply the lens or Well, it’s about people and structures. So the head of HR should lead that so often, I think the tendency is to run these with a functional lens as a fundamental change, but what what I’ve seen and sort of research suggests in sort of my experience is actually most successful transformations are those that are run cross functionally. And, and, and and the leaders who run those understand that the transformation touches prices, technology, people culture, regardless of whether its focus is on technology and digital or more on organizational change. And so understanding how to work collaboratively across multiple functions, and think through the transformation end to end. I think it’s what’s at the heart of it as opposed to think about them as distinctly functional efforts with led by individuals that work with you know, work and run them as Pure as pure it or pure HR efforts.

David Kemble 5:04
So it’s understanding the impact that it’s going to have on on everybody that’s going to be involved in that process and how it filters down and changes their, their world.

Kate Holden 5:14
Apps. Absolutely. And if you if you think about talent, well, you’re going to need capabilities across a number of different areas to drive change, whether it be organizational or digital. And so it encourages us all, I think, working on change, to think about it more in a multi dimensional cross functional approach, and seek the collaboration of our colleagues and understand the common areas that we need to work together, even if the specific focus, if you like, is to is to upgrade a system. So let’s just talk about, I don’t know, moving sat from on prem to the cloud, well, that the deliverable may sit firmly inside that technology. But actually, the impact of that change is going to be quite substantial, probably to the finance teams, to the sales teams to the marketing teams. So that project and change needs to include talent and capabilities from those functions. And so I think it’s far more important to look at these changes, and to end and not sort of restrict them inside their own functions and silos.

David Kemble 6:29
It’s interesting, you mentioned SAP, because James and I have supported the numerous CRP transformations. And you’re right, that seems to be the challenge, a lot of the time, companies will go in, and it’s led purely by technology, or LED purely by finance. And, as you mentioned, right at the beginning, change is scary if change. But change isn’t scary. If you feel you’re part of it. Change is certainly scary when it’s done to you. And it’s about including everybody on that journey, because otherwise you don’t get the adoption rates.

Kate Holden 7:00
That’s right. And and very often people think, well, it’s my job at risk. Yeah. And it is this tick, you know, can I use this new technology? Or is my role going to be eliminated as a result. And they often run to those conclusions in the absence of communication and understanding and inviting them to understand that actually, this may be a fantastic opportunity for them to learn some new skills, or it may actually help them to be more efficient and more productive and therefore more successful. And so in the absence of communication, people may just think the worse,

James Rowson 7:37
It’s so important to get that communication piece, you know, right from the start isn’t actually and, in fact, I think that that leads us on nicely to my next question. Okay. One of the things that we discussed last time we were together before we started recording was, you know, how do organizations and teams go about achieving, you know, successful digital transformations. And you you alluded to a framework or a kind of a step by step process that you typically tried to put in place? Could you could you tell us about that in more detail?

Kate Holden 8:02
Yes. So I am the sort of person who has a strong curiosity and, and passionate about technology and innovation, and I’m a lifelong learner. And so, I go back to my early career where I had the opportunity to get involved with change and transformation very early on. And the things that I’ve learned there, I think, have been foundational in helping me continue to work in this space. And I’m thinking specifically around Financial Times and relics PLC, to organizations that have great brands, very long legacy, and which, and both have been able to transition and transform very successfully. The Financial Times has over a million readership, I think, three quarters of whom are digital subscribers, paying digital subscribers, and I was recently reading an article where relics was described as Britain’s most successful digital transformation. Now, these transformations didn’t happen overnight. They both companies really embraced their work, though the web issue like 20, some 20 years ago. So they’ve been in the making for quite some time. And I was fortunate enough to work at the start of those change programs with both of these organizations. And what I’ve learned to start by asking three very specific questions before any change. The first is, why are we doing this? What’s the business rationale? Is it about growing your market share? Is it about improving your customer experience? Is it about you know, taking out lots of cost within the business modernizing To be more operationally efficient, let’s be clear around why. And the second question is, well, what should we do specifically? And I think, very quickly, it’s important to understand what might be the three or four bold initiatives that will really help drive the right activity? And then the third question is around, how are we actually going to implement which is around ways of working. And so these three questions for me are really important to encourage organizations to spend some quality time really discussing at the CEO and the senior leadership team and get that right. And from that, I’ve developed a sort of a six step process, if you like, which I use time and time again. So the first one is very much around the vision, having a real Northstar about why you’re doing it, and, and one that you can express with utter conviction. And, and the second area is, is around ownership. For large change, it’s important that the CEO and the senior team are behind it, and they are supporting it visibly, they’re able to communicate it consistently. And, and, and build that sort of confidence in the organization that this changes is the right direction, and is going to be helping us to grow and everybody is going to be part of that. The third area, I think, is around prioritization. When you when you start thinking about change, very quickly, you can come up with a very long list of really quite large pieces of work to do and that can be quite overwhelming. And I think ruthless prioritization is actually what’s what’s needed at the start of these programs. And so I use a something that I call managing for value. So I use data to things like you know, what’s happening in the market? What do users and clients want? How have their needs and wants changed, if you like, what does the competitive landscape tell us? And that helps us to distill down those initiatives and programs that will really have the biggest impact. There’ll be lots that probably are worthy doing at some point, but it is worth asking the question, should we not do those or stop or poke or pause some of them for now, and focus on probably no more than sort of three to five bold initiatives that will have the biggest impact?

David Kemble 12:44
And Kate, do you monitor then? Those the data? Do you continue to collect data as you go? Because, obviously, technically, the world moves at a very fast pace these days? Is there a potential risk that when you set out on the transformation, that by the time you get to the end of actually people’s views and ways of working on wanting the services of a particular company have changed? What I guess what I’m asking is, how often do you collect that data?

Kate Holden 13:18
I guess, nowadays, it’s it’s quite easy. There are a lot of tools that allow you to collate data on an ongoing basis, and actually stay very much in tune with your users and your clients. And so I would include that as part of what I call agile execution. So rather than, you know, working in the analog, most analogous way of building products, that would take very long time to get the fully finished product. Nowadays, we have proof of concepts we can get MVP is out the door. And that’s a fantastic way to get feedback early on, engage the users and make them feel part of that change. But also that helps you understand whether you need to adapt your priorities or the scope or the design of the solution that you’re building. or indeed, if there’s been something extraordinary like a pandemic, then you may just need to kind of pause momentarily and course correct, if that’s what’s required to do. So I think that comes down in the ways of working that you introduce as part of the change.

James Rowson 14:27
So after the data analyzed and monitored, and the prioritization has been kind of set out and clear, what’s what’s next, then your frame…

Kate Holden 14:35
Well… resources, sort of financial resources, of course, there needs to be you know, a budget and likely to be a business case, depending on how organizations make decisions. And then I think obviously, there that the human resources, what, what capabilities Do you need to deliver on this and more often than not, you may find that you need To bring in some additional expertise, you may need to retrain and develop some of the individuals within the organization. By getting that mix of capability, right is is very much core to helping you get moving, if you like with, with a change. And then the fifth area is is what I mentioned just now agile execution really and thinking how to change the mindset if, if the change is worth doing is probably worth doing at pace. And so understanding where decisions are being made, at what level how quickly how you can empower your teams to make decisions at the at the execution level, how to create a governance and reporting, and also how to measure I guess, the, you know, the this this project is, is important, it’s important. So adopting new ways of working and hangars is is really part and parcel of managing that change. And then the kind of last but not least, the sort of final step of the of the process is communication. And then there needs to be communication at the start and has to be communication in the middle there needs to be communication at the end. So pretty much consistently throughout communication up the organization. And by that I mean, at the CEO and the board level, they need to be aware of the progress or they need to have the opportunity perhaps to provide guidance direction or, or overall oversight of the budget decisions. At across the organization. These are stakeholders and influences that need to be on board to, to continue with the message to continue to evolve the organization in understanding the change, and then down communication down across all the ranks, regardless of the level of seniority. Because if this change is impacting the business, then arguably every single role every single person in that business needs to understand what their role is in that or how are they going to benefit and how they’re going to support it. As Dave was saying earlier on? How can they buy into it and see it as a positive rather than as a negative?

David Kemble 17:26
And would you bring the internal comms in then towards the beginning of any program, or towards the end?

Kate Holden 17:35
Very much at the beginning, very much at the beginning? Yes. Because I along the way, you know, you there’s gonna be challenges, there’s going to be obstacles, you know, this, this, this change programs down, run linearly, you know, all sorts of things come along way that can derail the project. But also, there are small wins along the way. And that’s where communications is really important, so that you’re encouraging the team, and they’re feeling confident, and they have that conviction that what they’re doing is, is is making a difference. And that creates excitement, it creates energy creates a buzz. And so the communication aspects needs to run through consistently. And I you know, for me, it’s like, you cannot communicate enough because, you know, communication is education and education is communication.

David Kemble 18:26
Yeah, absolutely. Very nice. we’ve, we’ve talked about earlier the various definitions of digital or interpretations of digital, and what it means to different people. Now, with the complexities of a digital transformation program, how do you go about measuring success of a program?

Kate Holden 18:49
That’s, I, I feel so passionate about this. I really do guys, and because to me, you know, a digital transformation is is about delivering business value is less about new code, you know, exciting they’ve been developing and designing architectures and writing the code. But, and typically, measurements tend to kind of focus on cost efficiencies, and risk avoidance as opposed to value. So let me tell you a little story. When I was working out, I give relics as an example again, the Transformation Program is centered around the legal division, the LexisNexis business. It was a five year program with a budget of over $100 million. So naturally had very strong oversight and interest not only from the divisional CEO, but from the group of CEO as well. And so I was often invited to present to him directly to the group CEO on the progress of what was called the Rosetta program. And in our very first meeting, he looked me straight in the eye and He said, Kate, tell me how is this product going to be demonstrably superior, demonstrably superior? I have never forgotten that. Needless to say, I didn’t have a great answer. You know, but quickly, we, you know, went back, we worked with the team, and we really sort of challenged ourselves to understand, how are we going to measure? What does success look like? How are we going to measure progress and how we gain to, you know, report back to the group CEO. Now, I think, again, you don’t need, you know, 2030 metrics, you probably need three to five key ones. And this may vary slightly from one company to another. But I broadly put them into three buckets, if you like. The first and really importantly, is around customer metrics. And that could be around the customer experience. So a net promoter score may be appropriate. But also brand equity, might be the right metric, or indeed a user lifetime value. Then the second bucket is around the financials, which might be around revenue growth, as well as cost efficiencies, but revenue and digital adoptions or subscription uptake, return on investment using specific financial metrics, driven, perhaps with, you know, in collaboration with your finance partner. And then the third bucket is around employees. And that could be around an employee net promoter score that I’ve seen done before, or it could be around technology, talent, you know, the talent has been attracted, promoted, retained, it could be the percentage of time have digital apps to market. And oh, and one other thing that I I’ve used in the past successfully is, is percentage of leaders incentives, link to digital. So yeah, because that can, again, drive the right sort of behaviors, if you like, and, and improve and increased collaboration across functions back to that sort of multi dimensional approach to a transformation. So certainly, if you know, four to six metrics across customers, and sort of hard financials, if you like, and, and some appropriate employee ones, and those would probably be relevant at the senior level, arguably, at the individual project level, you may have some very specific detailed ones, if you like, which, you know, if you’re, if you’re using agile that you know that there could be, you know, around that methodology, but at the sort of, at the senior level, you need to have a handful that are really meaningful for that organization. And they really help you monitor and inform the progress you’re making and what changes or corrections, you may need to apply to the program to sort of make sure you get back on track, because these programs tend to be over a conservative period of time, as opposed to just a few weeks and months. So I think having those metrics, understood and used throughout the the life of the of the program would would really help determine at the end, have you delivered on the original

David Kemble 23:26
use, when you start out? You obviously have the vision of why we’re doing this, which is great. Have you ever experienced residual increase in any of those metrics, which you weren’t expecting? How do you mean missing? So if you start out, for example, you say we’re doing this because we want to improve the customer metrics, the Net Promoter scores, and we want to get a better return on investment. But actually, as a result, then you find that the employee Net Promoter scores are 10 times better, the time spent is much more efficient. Do you ever find that there’s something that you didn’t consider that suddenly improves?

Kate Holden 24:12
Yes, yes, I think I think that’s a great point you’re making Dave because if you inspire the organization and you galvanize the organization behind that change, you will absolutely get supplementary benefits if you like that you didn’t articulate up front because people feel more energized, they’re more suddenly more creative. They may feel inspired to come forward with new ideas for new products and services. And and generally you you create a buzz of, you know, an A is an exciting place I want to be I want to be part of this journey, because it feels good and I’m actually making a difference. And so you can create a very, very positive environment. I think if if Yeah, on the back of driving this change And of course, it comes down to how you communicate, and having the the alignment at the top having your CEO regularly express this as part of the overall business strategy, that it isn’t seen as a separate, you know, it program, you know, tucked away inside a siloed function. But if it is visible it is. It is part of the business strategy. And so that creates tremendous energy, I think down the organization and across the organization.

Unknown Speaker 25:33
Earlier on Kate, you spoke about the, you know, if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing at pace. And obviously, with you know, again, we were linking sort of back to the pandemic, one of the questions I was going to ask you, as well was, you know, have you seen recently the need for digital transformation? You know, been accelerated? And if so, you know, do you have any kind of views or experience on how successful these, you know, accelerated transformation programs have been?

Kate Holden 26:00
The short answer is, yes, you know, the, that I think, I think, correct the pandemic and so Coronavirus, have accelerated in general, the digital strategy formulation, and whereas organizations may have thought, we have a business strategy, and then we Yes, we need to prioritize digital at some point, I think there’s an increasing awareness that digital is actually part of the business strategy is not something that sits separate and outside of your overall business strategy. There have been a lot of, there’s been a lot of research and studies done, as you can imagine, by many companies are, I’ll just share it, you know, if you if you headlines that really sort of underpin the change that we’re all experiencing. So McKinsey did a study that suggests that the digital adoption has accelerated by seven years, and actually in Asia by 10 years. So that’s, that’s stunning, right, in terms of what’s what’s happening all around us. And the World Economic Forum has also found that there’s been a 20% surge in internet usage. So you know, people that didn’t know how to use shopping online, and, you know, didn’t know how to use zoom and other video conferencing facilities, you know, Necessity is the mother of all invention. So we’ve seen a huge uptake of the web. But also, if you look at it commercially, Accenture have also found that leading companies that have scaled in, you know, technology innovation, during the pandemic, their, their revenues are growing five times more than those companies that are lagging behind, which is, you know, really quite extraordinary. And a similar study, from from BC, Jesus, more or less the same thing in slightly different ways, which is digital leaders achieve earnings of 1.8%, higher than their laggard leaders in digital laggards if you like. But at the in the same study, they also suggest that transformations are more likely to under deliver and not succeed. And, in fact, the quotes from like, 30% of this transformation succeed, which is very low. But I think the pandemic has provided everyone with a lot more confidence, about an organization’s ability to drive change quickly. And I’ve seen suddenly working from home, for example, in, you know, organizations that had, well, you know, strong presenteeism in the office, if you like, we’re able to move within a matter of weeks and get laptops out and roll, you know, office 365, or whatever, to enable their employees to work remotely. And of course, what’s the what’s the benefit that they’ve seen? Well, there’s cost efficiencies right, because there’s no travel which has an even bigger benefit on on the environment and the climate. People are more productive. You know, there’s there’s no commuting time. And I would argue that there’s also any any increase client interaction because there’s, there’s more accessibility, to to get in touch because you’re, you know, you don’t have you know, the timelines used around traveling cancellation of trains, flights and so forth. So I think overall, what we’ve learned from the pandemic is that digital is needs to be part of your overall business strategy. And actually, your culture may may be very capable of embracing change and delivering change much faster than perhaps you might have thought otherwise. So what’s more important, I think, for leaders now is to think through how do I maintain that momentum? How do I really keep that energy level of being able to drive change at pace? Because we can do it? We have done it in the last year? Yeah. Fascinating.

James Rowson 30:15
That’s a really good point, as well, around the kind of uptake of, you know, the productivity levels. I mean, I’ve seen myself I was doing some sort of, you know, base level analytics on what I’ve done so far. And that sort of, you know, the last year and I’ve had more meetings, you know, so far this year, than I pretty much had it all, you know, for the most of the previous years face to face, just because it’s easy to find 2030 minutes slots in people’s diaries, you know, if they’ve got, you know, a free slot between their their day to day standard stuff, then they can just jump on a team’s resume. So it is it is,

David Kemble 30:48
I’ve noticed that as well, actually a lot more productivity margin, but a lot more calories sprinting across London from meetings. You get to spend less time with your cats. Dave. So you know,

Kate, with with regards to the transformation programs, that how important would you say, selecting the right technology is in the success of a program? And who In your opinion, would take responsibility for the decision of that? technology? Wow, that’s a really complex question. Thank you for that.

Kate Holden 31:38
I think if you ask 100 people, you probably get 100, slightly different answers. I think you know, more often, again, typical organizations will, I’d say, we’ll rely on the head of technology as CIO or CTO to, to sort of lead perhaps the selection of the technology. I think that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But what I would like to see more of is that that head of technology is either part of the senior team, or is working side by side with the head of strategy and our cmo and the business leaders so that they understand genuinely understand the business and how technology is going to deliver competitive advantage. And that I think there’s a tremendous amount of technology out there for an organization to find the right one. I don’t think I don’t think that’s the challenge. The challenge is how to implement it. You know, and I’ve seen time and time again, organizations making the right choices, you know, buying whether it’s SAP or salesforce.com, you know, buying, well, you know, renowned, acclaimed software and services if you like, but the challenge has been in how they go about implementing them, and getting the benefits out of those multimillion pound investments. And, you know, it’s not unheard of that most of the programs, you know, tend to sort of go over budget, they overestimate on timelines, and they don’t always deliver. And so I think it technologies is easier to identify and provided is done as part of the overall business strategy, and the business understands what is going to get out of it, then I think who whoever sort of makes that ultimate call, likely to, you know, to be someone that that that is more of a technologist, I’d say, rather than a technical person. I think that’s how I make that distinction.

James Rowson 33:48
That’s a good way of phrasing. And I think actually, one of the things that we’ve, that you’ve highlighted already is that, you know, because you’ve worked for some pretty large, you know, global well known organizations, and often we’ve experienced before these digital transformations, you know, they they, they often you know, it’s not unheard of them not to get off to the smoothest start and have a lot of teething issues, you know, along the way. Have you ever, you know, experienced or been asked to deliver transformation where there has just been, you know, disproportionate risk versus reward, you know, how would you kind of approach that conversation? What would you do, I suppose, is what I’m trying to get out. Okay.

Kate Holden 34:27
Yeah, well, you know, we talked earlier on that, I changed caries risk and I think anyone leading change and the teams working on change, probably feel that risk quite intensely. Because change AK as you know, can be exciting for some people and very frightening and for others. So understanding how to create the right conditions for success. It’s is really part and parcel of of of where you start at Now an example that springs to mind is when I was working for a very large global publishing organization, and at the time, I was the MD of the EMEA region with a focus to drive digital growth in that region. We negotiated after some considerable business development activity, and were awarded a substantial deal with the Ministry of Education in the UAE. This was a seven year multi million subscription deal to provide a blended offering around K through 12 curriculum for all of math and science. Now, this deal had huge visibility because of the value its sponsor at the client end was His Excellency, the Minister of Education because he was recently appointed. And so he was pushing forward a new curriculum to be launched in the start of the new academic year in August. Very quickly, we found out that, you know, the scope, the content was a lot, all of math, all of science. But what needed to be done was to put that content into context, so adapted into Arabic. So we quickly found out that there’s lots of versions of Arabic and finding the appropriate version for Arabic was a challenge in itself. But then we also needed to adapt that content culturally. So every image every photograph of redrawing every picture that was peppered throughout all his content needed to be reviewed, and if necessary, adapted to the culture of offer up no mean task, which required multiple suppliers, because no one could really cope with that amount of content in what was a very short period of time, because it took us a long time to negotiate the contract. And then by the time we started to implement, we were down to just a few weeks as opposed to a few months. To further complicate things, we were entering into a period of the Ramadan, and so that needed to be accommodated inside the program. So you have a very visible program with a large monetary value, very complex scope, multiple suppliers working across different countries, multiple time zones. And I had, you know, I took a deep breath in deep breath and sort of dove deep to say, like, How on earth are we going to pull this off? You know, and I come back again, to what I’ve learned, you know, right through my career, which, you know, these programs are all about the capability and the team and the conditions of success that you create. And I’ll give you a definition of also this, you know, the definition of what it will call a high performing team by katzenback. That says, a high performing team is a team of small people with complementary skills, who are committed to a common purpose, and perform performance goals and approach and who hold themselves mutually accountable. And that’s at the heart of what I believe is creating the conditions for success. So selecting individuals parachuting them and dedicating them into the program, not asking them to take this as an add on to full time role already. It’s, it’s, you know, necessary, having that complementarity of skills, and then inspiring them that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work on delivering a solution for the entire nation, you don’t often get to work on something as visible as that as huge as that. So they felt inspired, they felt supported by the leadership decisions were being made at pace. But they’re also empowered as experts to make decisions. Because we were working across multiple time zones, we were not in the same room, we didn’t have a nice war room and huddled every morning. So we’re working virtually all of the time. But also recognizing that the small wins. And suddenly, when we delivered the first phase, which we did, unbeknown to the team, what I’ve been doing was capturing the narrative, the stories through photographs, and so on. And then I worked with a marketing team, and we stitch together the whole experience into a visualization of the journey, which became the symbol of a winning team, if you like with our group CEO, you know, visibly supporting it and celebrating it. And we pulled it off because the team believed it was something worth doing. They felt recognized. They felt empowered, they felt inspired, supported, and ultimately rewarded, not just through getting a bonus, but as I said symbolically through this video that says you know, we did this together as one team. So that’s certainly something that I will always remember and I feel very sort of proud and humbled to have been part of that

David Kemble 39:58
piece of work fantastic. So Kate, one of the things that practicas has been building over the last couple of years is our community model. And that is designed to try and provide practical support to individuals. And you were talking then, about inspiring your team supporting your team. Over your career, has there been any individuals or any support that you’ve received? That has helped you on your journey?